Watch the opening remarks to the Committee on Education & the Workforce, which focused on the unique approaches my administration made to base decisions on individual student’s needs coming out of prolonged school closures from the pandemic, which focused on the unique approaches my administration made to base decisions on individual student’s needs coming out of prolonged school closures from the pandemic.

(The Center Square) – North Carolina is taking a “unique and intentional” approach to pandemic education recovery that incorporates student data collection to guide districts on best practices, Superintendent Catherine Truitt told Congress on Wednesday. In testimony before the U.S. House Education Committee’s Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education, Truitt elaborated on efforts to recover from learning loss during the pandemic through an Office of Learning Recovery and Acceleration launched in 2021. “When the massive influx of federal funding did come flowing into North Carolina, we were ready,” she said. “My agency was able to provide local education leaders with an office dedicated to recovery and rooted in research and data. “This was vital, because many of our 115 school districts and more than 200 charter schools did not have the central office bandwidth or support to take on the massive exercise in planning and compliance that would…

(Carolina Journal) — Children in grades K-3 in North Carolina have surpassed the rest of the nation when it comes to their early-literacy skills. That’s according to N.C. Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt, who shared the news at Tuesday’s Council of State meeting.  The results were based on a reading diagnostic test given in all 50 states.  “This is due to the incredibly hard work of our K-3 teachers who have been undergoing a very intense 18-month professional development, referred to as Letters Training, that is essentially a return to a phonics-based approach to early literacy instruction,” she said. “This is a topic that is being discussed nationally, as 20 states right now have passed legislation, on the heels of Mississippi and North Carolina, to require some kind of curriculum mandate. In the case of North Carolina, a professional development mandate to ensure that our students are learning how…

(The Center Square) – North Carolina Superintendent Catherine Truitt is formally opposing proposed federal Title IX regulations for transgender athletes, arguing they undermine the intent of the law. The U.S. Department of Education is collecting public comment through May 15 on a proposed revision to Title IX that would ban schools policies that prohibit transgender students from participating on sports teams aligned with their gender identity. The proposed rule comes as lawmakers in North Carolina and elsewhere are pursuing legislation to protect the integrity of women’s sports by requiring participation based on biological sex at birth. Violations of Title IX law can result in withholding of federal funds, which accounted for 15.7%, or more than $1 billion of the North Carolina public school budget in 2022-23, not including COVID-19 and child nutrition funds. In a letter to U.S. Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Truitt said the proposed rule “would undermine the intent of…