In a column based on a speech given as the outgoing N.C. Teacher of the Year, educator Kimberly Jones reflects on the importance of public schools.
By Kimberly Jones / Beacon Media
This opinion column is syndicated by Beacon Media and is available to republish for free anywhere under our guidelines.
I’ve spent my life in North Carolina’s public schools, as a student, a teacher, and most recently an advisor to the N.C. State Board of Education. These experiences created a core belief: education expands our worlds, develops our voices, and empowers us to make positive change in the world.
These beliefs guide my work every day. As a high school English and Humanities teacher, I teach my students the skills to analyze literature and history and to interrogate their impacts on the world around us. Because I believe education, done right, equips our students to build productive and principled futures for themselves and a more just society for all. This education gives students the skills to attain knowledge and instills the responsibility to do something with it.
I believe deeply in the power, purpose, and longevity of public education in North Carolina. I believe because I’ve seen students thrive when challenged and supported. I believe because I’ve worked alongside educators who lead with brilliance and courage, even in the face of underinvestment and political hostility.
And I believe because I know North Carolina history. We’ve been educational trailblazers before, and if we are truly “to be rather than to seem,” as our state motto says, we must do it again.
As long as academic outcomes can be predicted by zip code or income, our work remains. Whether a student boards the bus in front of a trailer court in Eastern N.C., down a dirt road in the mountains, or from a cul-de-sac in a gated Triangle subdivision, they all deserve our unwavering commitment.
Our students are the message we send to a future we will never see. They reflect the values and priorities of this moment. So we must constantly ask ourselves: What message are we sending? To our students today, and the world tomorrow? How do we want to be remembered and, ultimately, judged?
Achieving this vision will take all of us. Here’s what I ask of each group entrusted with this work.
To the State Board of Education:
Let your decisions be guided by purpose, not pressure. Stay grounded in the constitutional mandate to provide every child, regardless of race, income, or geography, with a sound basic education. This mandate is daily supported or destroyed by access to fully resourced classrooms, well-trained and equitably compensated educators, and environments where students are affirmed, not erased.
Be wary of oversimplified solutions. Invest not only in outcomes but in the conditions that produce them. The future of our state and our democracy depends on how you steward this responsibility.
To Legislators:
You cannot ask schools to solve every societal ill while refusing to fund the systems that make solutions possible. Public education cannot be reimagined if it is underfunded, undermined, and politicized. At the very least, you should place a moratorium on the expansion of private school vouchers, which siphon vital resources away from the public schools that serve the vast majority of our children. I have said it before and will say it again: public dollars belong in public schools. We cannot keep pretending to champion success for all students while funding systems that are not held to the same standards of transparency, access, or accountability.
If we are to recruit and retain a highly-qualified, diverse, and effective workforce, we must offer more than praise. We must offer respect, autonomy, and trust.
We need competitive pay that honors expertise and experience — not be at the bottom compared to surrounding states and 43rd in the nation, according to recent rankings.
We need sustainable investments in student mental health, because no curriculum is effective in a crisis. We need clean, modern school buildings in every community.
To Stakeholders, Parents, Advocates, and all North Carolinians:
Public schools are a public trust. That trust must be earned and protected through honest partnership and shared accountability. If you care about North Carolina’s future, you must care about its public schools, not just in theory but in practice. Visit a classroom. Mentor a student. Vote in local elections.
In public schools, there are no applications or admission interviews; we don’t select who enters our classrooms, but every day we get the unparalleled opportunity to shape and influence what kind of person leaves our classrooms. At its most essential, education is not about what we put into students, but what we pull out of them.
I remain hopeful, not out of naivety, but because hope is a discipline. And I’ve seen what’s possible when we treat public education as a sacred obligation.
I’ve seen teachers inspire academic and personal growth in learners. I’ve seen families and communities step up for schools when others walked away. I’ve seen maintenance staff tackle problems that stretch beyond their resources and cafeteria workers serve multiple schoolwide meals—providing some students with their only reliable nutrition. I’ve seen bus drivers navigate our highways with care, tech teams work tirelessly to bridge the digital divide, and front office staff work with grace and professionalism.
All across North Carolina’s public schools, I’ve witnessed the essential, often unseen labor that keeps public education alive. To those who do this hard work and heart work every single day, thank you.
That is where my hope lives.
I will continue to teach, to advocate, and to believe in North Carolina’s public schools because I have seen what’s possible when we do right by our children. Let us all meet this world-changing work with urgency, clarity, and integrity.
