NC SCHOOLS FALL TO 67TH, NATIONALLY

North Carolina - Despite Governor Pat McCrory's pre-election attempt to raise teacher salaries, the state's schools are still having severe difficulties. Both virtual charter school districts received poor ratings based on academic growth, and the state continues to hemorrhage experienced teachers. McCrory's supporters are quick to point out that North Carolina no longer ranks 42nd in teacher pay.
"We have made great strides," says Jessie Overthorpe, a spokeswoman for the campaign, "We are now in 41st position. Though our critics claimed that our plan was overly ambitious and said that it couldn't be done, we have successfully captured this much vaunted ranking. Suck it, Florida."
However, this gain has not been able to stymie the state's overall tragic performance on standardized testing, nor has it been able to lure more college graduates to the profession. A new report released by The Diver Group has shown that the state's ability to educate its younger citizens has fallen drastically.
Formerly in 50th out of the 50 states, North Carolina's school system has dropped to levels beneath even that.
"We had to come up with new metrics to measure this kind of failure," said Paul Cambrio, of the Diver Group. "After all, how does one quantify a regression from last place? Well, it wasn't easy, but we did it."

Cambrio points to the Diver Group's comparative analysis figures, showing that North Carolina schools have done a worse job at educating than Puerto Rico, Guam, or American Samoa. But it doesn't stop there. Among the sixteen non-state comparisons that currently outrank North Carolina scholastically, there are private corporations like Kindercare. This would seem to add to the argument for privatizing the school system. However, North Carolina is also being out ranked, educationally, by, "prison," "a cup of coffee," "a brick," and "being hit on the head with a brick."
When asked to comment on the state of education within North Carolina, the Department of Public Instruction's representative sobbed into a glass of whiskey and commented, "What do you want us to do? We've reached a critical mass of doing more with less. This state once did very well with education, but then the cutbacks started. Now, we've got a governor who doesn't even know how to tabulate an average [for teacher pay]. Look, it's the lunatics running the asylum. If you want us to dig ourselves out of the hole, you've got to stop vilifying the education system and actually fund it. If you think that teachers are doing an easy job, driving around in Corvettes, and relaxing all day, you are part of the problem."