One in five Americans attends or works at a K-12 school.[1]  Given North Carolin's population of 10.7 million people(2), this requires 640,000 administrators, staff and...

ONE IN FIVE AMERICANS WORK AT OR ATTEND K-12 SCHOOLS “According to estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, half of these adults and children spend...

One of my strongest happy childhood memories was made when my dad took us kids fishing.  As you see in the photo below, My brother and...

Our world is changing.  As the pace of change gets faster, the personal and national stress level rises.  Covid + egg prices + climate change + school...

One in six dollars owed to the IRS are not being paid.[1] An astonishing number of wealthy Americans do not pay the taxes they owe.  What...

I am the oldest of six kids.  When I was growing up in Lakewood, Ohio, our (large) extended family would gather to share Thanksgiving or Christmas...

On one of the most significant public policy issues of our time, the major split in our society is not between political parties – it is between the...

Several badly designed teacher’s pay proposals now before the N.C. Legislature claim they will pay teachers more if they do their jobs well. They will...

Sometimes I will be in some large gathering of thousands of people, and the speaker will ask all veterans to rise and be recognized for their patriotic service.  And then they say, “Let's applaud our Patriots.” The audience always applauds. When I stand, people will come up later and say, “I appreciate your service.” Since our nation’s founding 245 years ago, 646,500 members of our military have died defending America.^[1]  It sounds terrible, but so does the fact that over the past year 667,000 Americans have died from Covid.^[2] The disease has killed one in 500 Americans^[3] - more than all those who died defending American independence over 245 years - including both sides of the Civil War!

Schools are often the heart of communities.  My own memories of primary school included time spent playing dodgeball on the playground,  my excitement when I was asked to bring my favorite book to school and tell my classmates why I liked it, and too many times having to carry a note home to my parents about some action I did or did not do.  (That never ended well.) Like some members of our community, some school buildings are getting old. Like some of us, their plumbing does not work as well as it once did, and friends and loved ones notice peeling paint, deteriorating roofs, and breathing issues (in the schools). North Carolina’s schools rank 37^th of all 50 states in student learning.^[1]   Our disappointing ranking is driven in part by old and loved school buildings which do not breathe well.