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G2 Edge, sensory by design. It's 5.05 and welcome in to a Wednesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FM. WBT, I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you.
Well, continued national attention continues here in North Carolina as North Carolina's 11th congressional district has had a major shakeup over the last couple of weeks. We have been following that in great detail here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. And this morning, the National Republican Congressional Committee, that is the NRCC, has announced that it has added a representative Jennifer Balcombe, who is currently a member of the North Carolina General Assembly, the Republican out of Henderson County, to what it's calling its MAGA majority program. Balcombe told the Carolina Journal, quote, I think conservative voters across western North Carolina want something to be excited about again. They want to know that the person asking for their vote isn't just telling Them what they want to hear during an election.
They want to see a record, and I have that record. We go all the way back to August the 10th. That is when the Republican Executive Committee for North Carolina's 11th congressional district selected Bulkham to serve as Edwards' replacement in the 2026 general election. That followed an announcement from Representative Edwards, who announced days earlier that he would not be seeking re-election following a report from the House Ethics Committee finding him to be guilty of violating the House Code of Official Conduct regarding the prohibition of sexual harassment. As that report from the House Ethics Committee drew a lot of criticism on Edwards and would go to force him out of the race about 36 hours later.
For Bulkham, she said, I've been fighting for Western North Carolina in Raleigh, and voters can look at the bills that I've sponsored, the votes that I've taken, and the work that I've done for the people that I represent.
Now, my job is to take that record across the entire 11th district, introduce myself to voters who may not know me yet, listen to them, and earn their trust. Whether it's been in Raleigh, on our family farm, in business, or now on the campaign trail, I've never been afraid of hard work. We may have a shorter timeline, but that just means we have to work harder and nobody is going to outwork my team and me. This report followed an ethics investigation into Edwards, which was initially announced in May, so it's been brewing for quite some time. On September the 1st, the U.S.
House of Representatives voted 413 to 2 to censure Edwards, as Bulcombe was endorsed by President Donald Trump in a Truth Social post on August the 17th to represent North Carolina's 11th congressional district in the upcoming midterm elections. Dr. Andy Jackson, the director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity at the John Locke Foundation, said that Bulcom's addition to the program is a sign that Republicans have not written off the 11th district and they are confident in her as a candidate. While the influx of money the designation will bring helps bulkum, the designation also opens up support from NRCC staff. That will be especially helpful for her since she has not had months to build a congressional campaign team.
The NRCC announced its MAGA majority program, an initiative to expand the Republican majority in the United States House of Representatives during the 2026 midterm elections. Lori Buckout, who is running to unseat Representative Don Davis, who is the current Democrat holding North Carolina's first congressional district, that is in the northeastern half of North Carolina, was part of the initial list of candidates when the program was launched with the MAGA majority rebranding. Of the NRCC's Young Guns program that they had previously run. Bulkham said in response, I'm blessed that my campaign has the backing of President Donald Trump and Republican leadership. I know that their goals are the same as mine, build a strong economy, support our farmers, and deliver critical Hurricane Helene relief for all Western North Carolinians.
I look forward to working together with them and our board and our broad coalition of supporters to present our vision to voters across the districts. Candidates on the MAGA majority list receive support from the NRCC, including strategic resources and visibility, selected candidates running in battleground districts across the nation who support the pillars of President Donald Trump's agenda, including lower costs, securing the border, restoring energy dominance, and prioritizing American workers, according to a recent press release from NRCC. Andy Jackson told the Carolina Journal, MAGA majority is for Republican challengers and those in open seats that the NRCC believes can win. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has also included the district in its red-to-blue program, so there will be a lot of national money spent in Western North Carolina. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's red-to-blue program added Jamie Ager, who is the Democrat running against Bulcum in NC-11 earlier this year.
According to Riley Richardson, an NRCC spokesman in a press release, as an eighth-generation Henderson County farmer and state representative, Jennifer Bulcom is the perfect choice to represent Western North Carolina. In Congress, Jennifer will help President Trump and House Republicans deliver a strong economy, support North Carolina's agricultural industry. And continue to deliver critical Hurricane Helene relief. This obviously has been a race that we have been keeping an eye on with, I guess, more of a magnifying glass over the last month or so. Things are really started to unravel in early August as we track some of the details on that report.
From the House Ethics Committee, that as I noted, that was initially announced back in the month of May, just about 36 hours or so after that report from the House Ethics Committee was released to the public and started gaining some popularity on social media and in traditional media outlets here across the state of North Carolina. It was a 3:30 a.m.
social media post that Edwards put out announcing that he would not be seeking re-election, but he would, however, serve out the remainder of his term in Washington, D.C., which ends at the end of this year. And from that point, it was on with a scramble meeting held by the 11th Congressional District's GOP Executive Committee, that is whose state law prescribes, is responsible for filling that seat when there is a last-minute candidate vacancy. Edwards had won the March primary already, so as the incumbent member of Congress and winning the March primary, Full Steam was ahead for. him until about middle March as we or middle August excuse me as we watched that process play out. All eyes will remain on the two very close races here in North Carolina.
The first congressional district that pits Republican Lori Buckout against current member of Congress, Representative Don Davis. That's North Carolina's first congressional district. And now what is an open seat in NC 11? It will be Jennifer Bulcum, a current member of the North Carolina General Assembly, battling against Democrat Jamie Eger, who we have also followed, has had some very strong fund net raising numbers in a district that has proven itself to be a solid GOP district in years past. We are in the stretch of things now, less than 60 days until Election Day.
We'll be keeping you up to date with around-the-clock election coverage over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. And as always, right here on the Carolina Journal NewsHour. Writing should enhance your flow and mental alignment. Elevate your daily notes and planning with the G2 Boost Collection from Pilot, featuring the legendary Smooth G2 gel ink, comfort grip, and powered by the science of color, with blue for productivity, purple for creativity, and pink for optimism. They're designed to power your accomplishments and intentions.
Get G2 Boost on Amazon today. G2 Boost used to power you. It's 518. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBET. As we approach the midterm elections coming up here in November, North Carolina remains the tip of the political spear.
A major event taking place in North Carolina over the Labor Day weekend. It walks through some of those details this morning. Andrew Pomerant's CarolinaJournal.com joins us on the news hour. Andrew, it's not every day that a major name in the Democratic Party, a major governor here across the United States, and what many seem as a 2028 presidential hopeful is making a visit to the state of North Carolina, but it was Gavin Newsom in the Tar Hills State over the Labor Day weekend out in and around the Charlotte area. Walk us through some of that event, would you?
Yeah, hey Nick, good morning. Happy Wednesday here.
So Gavin Newsom was in the state over Labor Day weekend. He's doing a bit of a southern swing currently. Started out in Georgia, moved up into South Carolina, ending his southern swing here in North Carolina over Labor Day weekend. On Saturday, the 5th, there started it with a knock and talk and doing some voter contacts there in the Mecklenburg County area before moving to a rally that afternoon in the Monroe area, where he met with about 200 voters or North Carolinians, I should say, about a lot of these issues that were here on the national level. Came to preach, I think, getting involved here at North Carolina elections, talked a lot about state and local elections upcoming in November, obviously, with everybody on the ballot.
But left more so talking about himself and I think in his future prospects. And not that he gave any indication of what's so, but talked a lot about his relationship with President Trump, his ongoing conflicts with him, and then a lot about the redistricting efforts that have happened across the country.
So a really interesting event here as we talk about more and more North Carolina becoming part of that tip of the spear in terms of presidential elections and moving forward, where do we rank in terms of when does our primary day happen? For Democratic candidates going forward, we continue to get shoved forward and become more and more prominent spot. And so I think a state will continue to see national hopefuls start to pay more and more attention to. But here was Gavin Newsom over Labor Day weekend. You know, Andrew, I found that very interesting.
We do see a lot of national figures, whether it is President Donald Trump when he was a candidate. We've seen Biden, Harris, many other folks traveling through the Tar Hills State over the last decade or so, big-time national political figures. And most of the time, yes, they'll talk about some of the national issues, but there's always an emphasis on what's going on in North Carolina. Obviously, we have a major United States Senate race taking place later on this year, pitting former Democrat Governor Roy Cooper against the former head of the Republican National Committee and Michael Watley. But I'm really glad that you honed in on this point.
There was very little talk about what exactly is going on in North Carolina. More talk about what's going on nationally. I would describe that as very abnormal when we see these very high-ranking political officials making their way to what many would still describe as a swing state like North Carolina. Yes, an event that our listeners can find over on C SPAN. I sat down expecting to listen to a lot of his speech and hear about some of the things that Roy Cooper is going through right now, the anti Michael Watley rhetoric that we've heard again and again as our Senate race gets so much national attention and money pouring in from different packs.
But did not mention Roy Cooper, I think, once in his entire speech, did not mention Michael Watley once in his entire speech. I think important to note as well, only a handful of Democratic candidates were in attendance. Only some of the Court of Appeals candidates spoke. Roy Cooper was not at this event, along with a lot of those other statewide Democrats. And so an event that was, you know, really interestingly, you know, he talked a lot about getting involved and staying involved in local politics and that these statewide races matter and that our congressional races right now matter this year, right?
None of those congressional candidates in attendance or having the opportunity to speak at least on stage. And so I think a really stark contrast here, right, between You know, the message that he is trying to get out of, you know, get involved in 2026. This is the year this election matters. You know, he said, you know, this is the last chance to stop President Donald Trump's agenda from going forward and, you know, really making voting going forward even harder. He talked about voter rights and these restrictions and these court challenges that we're seeing at the federal level in terms of mail-in ballots and different efforts like that.
But none of those in attendance and speaking before he arrived on stage, right?
So a really interesting event. I think it really points to how torn North Carolina voters are on this progressive Democratic national message. Here in North Carolina, we still have a lot of those moderate Democrats who will flip and flop between different electoral bases. And Gavin Newsom really is becoming the poster boy for progressive Democratic campaigning across the state, Governor of California, right? Not a state that I think North Carolina often likes to align themselves with or would like to going forward.
And so I think an important message, both he being here in the state and placing some value on North Carolina, but also then not. Not a great acceptance of his presence by North Carolina politicos. You know, and that's that's very interesting because we saw some of this even during the 2024 presidential election before then, at the time President Joe Biden announced in mid-July of 2024 that he was going to be dropping out of the race and not running for reelection. He had visited the state a couple of times right around our primary, which of course took place in March of that year. And at that point, I remember some Democrats not showing up to this in the 100 days that Kamala Harris ran her campaign.
I believe she visited the state maybe a time or two. Same thing there, Andrew. Very prominent national, or I should say, statewide Democrats not attending these events. This has become an interesting, growing trend in a state that, frankly, if we look at a presidential election or Senate elections over the last couple of years or the power of the North Carolina General Assembly races that Republicans have done very well in. It's an interesting dynamic in a state like North Carolina.
And I think we see this with our Carolina Journal polling often, right? This contrast between what North Carolina value out of their statewide representatives and what they feel at the federal level. Governor Josh Stein has continually polled above the Democratic Party and maybe the federal level sample ballots in terms of favorability since he was elected back just a couple of years ago now. And so we continue to see North Carolinians really value kind of that moderate Democratic stance. I think it's why former Governor Roy Cooper is running so far ahead of Republican Michael Watley right now, right, in the Senate race.
I think he is continually to frame himself as this moderate centrist voice in the Watley campaign, trying to do the opposite. But I think we'll continue to see this push and pull as so much of our elections become increasingly nationalized, right? In a year where all members of the General Assembly are on the ballot, we're not seeing General Assembly ads at the same rate because they're being bought out by the congressional races, right? In the Senate race. And I think we'll continue to see this trend as we nationalize statewide elections.
And, you know, it just becomes whether you just vote RD up and down the ballot, no matter what level you're looking at.
So I think North Carolina will have to begin to look towards those national candidates when they come to town and what that means for the state. But for now, I think there is a value that North Carolinians place on the fact that these are our statewide elected officials and those are national officials, right? No question about that. We're talking about California Governor Gavin Newsom being in the state over the Labor Day weekend. I'm going to break from what he wants us to talk about, Andrew, which is the 2026 midterm elections.
Obviously, we're going to continue to talk about that in a variety of different manners, but this could become a major problem for the Democrat Party as we move towards 2028. This has seemed to be a growing trend, not only in North Carolina, but in other places, predominantly across the South, where maybe the Democratic Party is in a different spot than you'd see in a state like New York or California or up in Washington state, up on the west coast of the United States. It does create an interesting problem, particularly with Democrats at this point that we frankly are not seeing with the GOP. If the president is coming to practically any state across the nation, you'll have congress members, members of the legislature, county commission, city council members, if they are Republicans beating down those doors to get in that arena, to get up on the stage either before or after the president. That is not currently happening.
happening right now in the Democrat Party, it's fascinating to watch. Yeah, I saw this event kind of compared to two other events we've had across the state recently. One being when J.D. Vance has traveled to the state a number of times over the past year, particularly out to NC1 in that Eastern North Carolina district. And, you know, I was there in Rocky Mount when he was here back in the state in May, and that was a loaded lineup.
You know, the room was full. All the candidates got up, spoke in front of him. Statewide elected officials did as well. State Author Dave Bullock notably opened for him. And so when J.D.
Vance came, I think there was a lot of excitement in the room. And you saw this long lineup of elected officials. Kamala Harris came to Greensboro just earlier this year as well on her book tour. That was the event that Democrats did not get up necessarily and speak before her.
Now, not the same environment, obviously, there, but not something that was well attended by statewide elected Democrats. Governor Stein not in attendance at that event. And so I think you're seeing this growing trend. I think you're right, right? Here in North Carolina, I think Republicans have a lot of unification, especially from their base, where Democrats are still trying to wrestle with this.
And I think this will be a theme into 2028. You know, in these southern swingy districts like South Carolina, like Georgia. The reason why we're seeing Gavin Newsome here, I think there's a lot to be won here before anyone has this kind of throne handed to them for twenty twenty eight on the Democratic side. And I think there'll be a lot of back and forth before we arrive on a nom nominee for them. No question about that.
We will, of course, keep our eye on the midterms this year and then pretty quickly after that, translate to what is going to go on here in 2028. We've got a lot of quotes directly from the California governor in Gavin Newsome. Andrews got that story this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the update. Andrew Pomerance joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
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G2 Smiley World, write happier. It's 5.36. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM. WBT, I'm Nick Craig. Good Wednesday morning to you.
Over the last couple of weeks here on the Carolina Journal News Hour, we've been keeping a very close eye on a series of rulings out of the Fourth Circuit here in North Carolina and the rest of the Fourth Circuit as it relates to political advertising. If you've turned on your television, maybe you watched some college football this past weekend. You probably saw some political ads. You'll see more of those as we continue this stretch towards early November. There's been some questions as to whether outside groups that are not fully affiliated with candidates themselves should be offered the same ad rate time that political candidates themselves are offered.
We've watched this process play out over the last couple of weeks to walk us through a major decision from the Supreme Court on Friday, right ahead of the Labor Day holiday. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Mitch, the million-dollar question was, would the court step in? This is a very tight timeframe. We're already within the 60-day window ahead of the November the 3rd midterm election.
What's the latest from the nation's high court?
Well, the short answer to the question is the Supreme Court did decide to step in on the actual day that the new ad rate guidelines and rules take effect and basically blocked the ruling from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
So the ultimate outcome at this point is that political parties and joint fundraising committees that are not affiliated specifically with one particular candidate, they do qualify for now for the same guaranteed low ad rates that the candidates do.
Now, to back up a little bit, what happened was back in March, the Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau put forward a public notice that offered guidance to broadcasting stations saying, look, you know that you have expected in the past that candidates would get these guaranteed low rates. These political parties and the joint fundraising committees with non-party members should get the same rate. Yeah. Four congressional candidates, all on the Democratic side, including North Carolina's Roy Cooper, filed an objection with the FCC saying, look, this is not the rule that should be in place. The Federal Communications Commission had not acted on that ruling in a timely manner, according to the Democrats.
So they went to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and they said, Look, the FCC is wrong on this, but it hasn't decided yet. We want the Fourth Circuit to step in and block this decision from taking effect. The Fourth Circuit did step in, and in a 2-1 ruling with two Democratic appointees in the majority, one Republican appointee in the minority, the two Democrats decided that, yes, the FCC should have decided, but did not decide.
So we're going to decide this, and we're going to decide that only the political candidates themselves are going to get this guarantee. Guaranteed low rate.
So the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee appealed to the Supreme Court and said: look, the Fourth Circuit shouldn't have even stepped into this case because there was no FCC decision for them to consider. And they asked the Supreme Court to stay. the fourth circuit's ruling which basically would block the fourth circuit's ruling and on friday the supreme court stepped in and in fact did stay that ruling it was an 8-1 decision so it wasn't completely along party lines all of the justices except katanji brown jackson agreed to this stay and basically what happens now is that the two republican congressional committees now get to appeal to the supreme court to issue a full decision in this case and in the meantime this stay will remain in effect and so political parties and these joint fundraising committees do qualify for the lower rates while the this legal action continues to play out Mitch, before we get into some additional detail in the true real implications and impacts of this, this 8-to-1 ruling, I was the first thing that popped off the page when I was reading through this story over at CarolinaJournal.com. For the most part, whether we like to say it or not, a lot of decisions that we see come down, not only from the United States Supreme Court, but from the vast majority, I would argue, where there's more than one judge and you've got a three or five judge panel, we do tend to see a lot of breaks along party lines. 8-1 is anything but that at the United States Supreme Court.
You follow a lot of these court cases up at the federal court system and throughout North Carolina, right off the top, what do you make of that? That's rather interesting.
Well, I do think it shows that it's not completely a partisan decision about whether the Fourth Circuit had any authority to take on this case.
Now, that doesn't mean that justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, who agreed with this stay, that they will ultimately rule alongside the Republican-appointed justices on the final outcome of this case. But The way that this case played out certainly was convincing enough to those two Democratic-appointed justices to allow them to agree to have a stay.
Now, Katanji Brown Jackson was the one dissenter who said, no, the Fourth Circuit did have authority, and so we should allow what the Fourth Circuit said to stand. But the fact that you had all of the other eight justices online to support this idea of a stay suggests that there is at least a good question about whether the Fourth Circuit had any authority in this case. And remember, that's what the case is about right now. It's not about whether the law that sets up this guaranteed low advertising rate, whether it applies only to candidates or whether it would apply to political parties in these joint fundraising committees. That's really a separate issue on what they call the merits of the case.
But right now, you're in the procedural posture of. Did the Fourth Circuit have any authority to step into this given the fact that this is what's being disputed is a decision from the Federal Communications Commission, and the FCC has not issued any kind of final order yet? Basically, what the argument was from the Republican groups that appealed to the Supreme Court is that Roy Cooper, John Ossoff, Shara Brown, and one other Democratic candidate had sort of jumped. Through the wrong hoop, that basically they needed to wait to get some sort of ruling from the FCC before they could go to the Fourth Circuit. And instead of waiting for that ruling from the FCC, they jumped ahead, went to the Fourth Circuit, and said, Fourth Circuit rule something now, so none of these other groups will be able to get these same rates.
And that was something that was pointed out in the dissent at the Fourth Circuit: you're basically having this ruling that's going to cut off political speech from one set of candidates just because these Democrats were complaining about the process when what they should have done was wait for the FCC to rule. And if they didn't like what the FCC's final ruling was, then they could go to the Fourth Circuit. I think that procedural posture was enough to bring a couple of the U.S. Supreme Court's Democratic appointees on board with the Republicans. Yeah, potentially jumping the gun a little bit there as it relates to.
the final rulemaking process there from the Federal Communications Commission. All right, Mitch, so we've got this 8-1 decision from the nation's high court on Friday. Again, with this story, we are talking about it in its relevance because we are right up here against the deadline. We are within that 60-day period of time now. Absentee by mail voting has already started here in North Carolina.
Early voting begins the middle part of next month, and it won't be very long before we are seeing November the 3rd in the rearview mirror. What do we expect to happen over the next two months or so? Are we going to see a final decision from the nation? What do we expect to happen over the next two months or so? Are we going to see a final decision from the nation's high court?
How do you suspect that that process plays out in this very compressed time period?
Okay. It really depends on the timeline of getting some sort of petition to the Supreme Court from the Republican committees, talking about the National Congressional Committee and their National Senatorial Committee. And they're going to be in no hurry. To put anything forward because right now, the status quo is that the party committees and the joint fundraising committees get the same low ad rates as the candidates, which is what the Republicans wanted.
So they're going to take as much time as the court rules allow to file a petition, and then you'll get a response to that petition. And then the Supreme Court will have whatever amount of time it wants to take to decide whether to grant that petition or not, because the stay remains in effect. Until either they say that the Supreme Court says, no, we're not going to take a petition, then they get rid of the stay, or if they do take the petition, the stay remains in effect until there's a final resolution.
So, what's going to happen is that I'm sure that the Republican groups will take up to the very last hour or even last minute to file the petition that they need to file with the Supreme Court. The Democrats will probably respond as quickly as they can, and then the Supreme Court will take all of the time that it wants. To decide whether to take the petition or not, and my guess is none of that gets resolved before the November election. Maybe. Potentially, if the rules call for a fairly quick turnaround on the petition, we could see something.
But my guess is the final resolution of this does not take place until after the election, and the stay will remain in effect between now and election day, unless court rules specify a tighter timeline. And I don't think they do.
Well, and Mitch, that could be interesting from a practical standpoint. Obviously, with this stay being issued on Friday, you would imagine that many of these non-affiliated groups over the last couple of days have been calling their local television and radio stations, getting these ad flights purchased. You would imagine or could imagine a situation where in late October, middle October, maybe something changes and those rates are then no longer honored. I mean, that could create a real mess in what is already going to be a very high-profile election cycle, like we're seeing here with the 2026 midterms. That's very true.
And one of the things that we saw in the court filings leading up to this decision was that the Republicans were saying they had contracts with the lower rates that were being thrown out because of the ruling from the Fourth Circuit. That was happening just in a matter of days from the Fourth Circuit's ruling to this timeframe of the lower guaranteed ad rates that took effect on Friday, September 4th. And so that's the window between that September 4th and the November election. Candidates, we know for certain are guaranteed the lowest possible ad rates on TV and radio. And now, given the status quo, party committees and also the joint fundraising committees get those same rates.
So those committees. Be going to the broadcaster saying we want to buy ad time and you have to give us the lowest advertised rates. If for some reason a court ruling comes out again and says no, it's only for the candidates, you can suspect that these broadcasting outlets will be tearing up those contracts and the party committees and joint fundraising committees would have to pay a higher rate to get the same ads.
So everyone's going to be watching this very closely. The broadcaster, because it affects their bottom line, and the party committees because it determines how much they'll be able to buy. But right now, as things stand, any new contract that has an ad between now and November 3rd, the party committees and joint fundraising committees would get the same low rates as the candidates. Yeah, well, maybe for folks that are going to be sick of seeing those ads over the next two months, you can thank at least in part our nation's high court for this decision on Friday. We'll be keeping a very close eye on this to see if there is any movement between now and November the 3rd.
We do have a couple of stories detailing this over the last couple of weeks. All of those stories are over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the update. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal. Writing should enhance your flow and mental alignment.
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Good morning again. It's 554. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FM. WBT, we've got some good education news to pass along to you this morning as North Carolina students improved on 17 of 18 state exams last year and graduated at the highest rate in state history. This is according to preliminary accountability data presented to the state board of education last week.
Statewide, 59.2% of students passed their end-of-grade and end-of-the-course exams. That is up from 55% the year before, with the four-year graduation rate climbing a full point to 88.8%, which is the highest, in fact, in state history. School-level data results also improved in the report. The share of schools earning a D or F performance grade fell from 31% to 20%. 23% and the number of low-performing districts dropped from 23 to just 10, the fewest since the 2018-2019 school year.
The superintendent of public instruction in Mo Green said these academic achievement results are a testament to the incredible work happening across North Carolina's public schools. While I'm pleased to see these results trending positively, including our highest graduation rate ever, I look forward to continuing progress as we aim to achieve educational excellence for all North Carolina public school students. and become the best public education system in the nation. At the same time, most of the good news reported by the state's Department of Public Instruction is in comparison to student performance from three years ago when test scores were still at pandemic lows. And even today, four in ten students statewide do not perform at grade level.
Green said, my chief accountability officer has drilled into me that we ought to be careful about trying to make these comparisons. You're talking about a different set of students. You're talking about curriculums that are different, practically coming right out of the pandemic. Bob Lubke, the director of the Center for Effective Education at the John Locke Foundation, said that the gains are real, but incomplete, telling the Carolina Journal, I am happy North Carolina has made progress in important areas measuring academic outcomes. The number of students proficient in reading and mathematics is the highest it's been in three years, and the four-year graduation rate is at a new high.
That's all good. But let's not obsess about the numbers and not understand the full context. Four in ten students are still not performing at grade level. He went on to say, yes, our scores are better, but we're comparing ourselves against low COVID-era scores. Celebrate the improvements, but let's raise the bar and not lose sight of the bigger picture.
It is not only North Carolina that saw a major drop-off as it relates to test scores and academic performance in and around COVID-19 as schools all across the United States were shuttered due to COVID lockdowns dealing a serious blow for learning and grade retention for students across the entirety of the United States. North Carolina, many other states continuing those gains, but many arguing, yes, while the numbers are good, we need to strive and set a higher bar in academic performance moving forward. More details on this story over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. Yeah. That's going to do it for a Wednesday edition.
WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5 to 6, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT.
