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Troy's Perspective: Celebrate Bill Hefner Elementary School

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Tuesday, 02 June 2026

Written by Troy Williams

Bill Hefner Elementary School (PK-5) in Cumberland County is conveniently situated off Cliffdale Road in the welcoming Montibello housing subdivision, a community with a proud history. Named after Congressman Bill Hefner, the school has been serving families since 1995, supported by federal initiatives near military bases. Its longstanding presence as one of two public schools within the vibrant Fort Bragg community reflects its deep roots and commitment to local education.
In the past, Bill Hefner struggled with a "low-performing trap." When test scores decline, teacher morale often drops, which in turn affects overall progress. However, a couple of years ago, Cumberland County School administrators reassigned Dr. Zakiyyah Backman, previously at Westarea Elementary, to lead Bill Hefner. Dr. Backman's success at Westarea, once a low-performing school, and her proactive approach have begun to turn things around. Her attention to detail and positive energy are helping to address previous challenges. Preliminary test results are very positive, although we won't know for sure until the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction releases the official results.
Cumberland County at-large school board member Greg West said, "Dr. Backman and her team have worked extremely hard to improve Bill Hefner Elementary, and I truly believe the school is moving in the right direction. We should have a clearer picture when the latest test results are released around Labor Day."
I wholeheartedly support Mr. West's perspective. This school year, I had the wonderful opportunity to volunteer at Bill Hefner. Witnessing the incredible interactions between teachers, staff, students, and parents was inspiring and truly uplifting. It was an unforgettable experience that deepened my appreciation for our school community.
I want to acknowledge the achievements happening at other schools in Cumberland County; there are many successes beyond what I've seen. However, I can't help but celebrate Dr. Backman and the dedicated staff at Bill Hefner for their outstanding work during the 2025-2026 school year.
Bill Hefner Elementary collaborates with local institutions and the community, creating a mutually beneficial network that transforms education into a hands-on, career-oriented experience. The Leadership Class of 2026 from the Greater Fayetteville Chamber unveiled new "Buddy Benches" at the school last month. The ceremony included students, school staff, district leaders, School Board members, community members, and Leadership Fayetteville alums.
The benches are designed to support children who may feel lonely, isolated, or unsure of their place on the playground. If a student is seeking someone to talk to or play with, they can sit on the bench to signal to their classmates that they are looking for a social connection.
Summer break is a crucial 8- to 12-week academic recess for both students and teachers. For students, this time off is vital for mental health and relaxation. Meanwhile, teachers also need this break to recover from burnout and prepare for the upcoming school year. However, for Dr. Backman and other school administrators, there is little time for rest. They are busy preparing for the next school year and don't enjoy the same long break. Both groups truly deserve our applause and encouragement.
Extend a little kindness whenever you encounter them. It’s what makes a difference.

Expand Options for Behavioral Health

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Tuesday, 02 June 2026

Written by John Hood

Do you or someone you know suffer from mental illness? I suspect most readers will say yes. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, behavioral-health disorders affect a fifth of adults and a sixth of school-aged children in North Carolina. One in 18 of us lives with a “severe mental illness,” defined as “a mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder that results in serious impairment and interferes with or limits one or more major life activities.”
My own family history is full of such cases, ranging from alcoholism and depression to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Several of my ancestors and relatives died as a result of their afflictions. Others were incarcerated or institutionalized.
Again, none of this sets me apart. Mental illness isn’t rare. It directly or indirectly touches millions of North Carolinians, and tens of millions of Americans.
One way our state is distinct from others, however, is that it is particularly challenging to seek treatment for such conditions here. A North Carolina Institute of Medicine study published in 2025 ranked us last in the nation for access to behavioral health. All but six of our 100 counties are considered “professional mental health shortage areas,” with nearly a quarter of counties lacking a single practicing psychiatrist and more than a quarter lacking a single practicing psychologist.
Although funding is always an issue, we don’t appear to be significantly out of alignment with our peers. According to an analysis published last year, per-capita public expenditures on mental health in North Carolina were higher than those of any of our neighbors, or of such large states as Ohio, Florida, Texas, and Illinois.
It’s a complicated picture, one so daunting to interpret that some policymakers may be tempted to throw up their hands in confusion. That would be unwise. In addition to the obvious human suffering, untreated mental illness has larger social consequences. It imperils public safety and lowers student achievement. It reduces labor-force participation and makes it hard for employers to fill key jobs. And despite North Carolina’s many attractive assets and amenities, it harms our ability to compete for households, businesses, investment, and talent.
Here’s a set of reforms state lawmakers and regulators can tackle right now: strike a better balance between provider access and training.
A massive, costly effort to train and deploy psychiatrists with M.D.s all across North Carolina would likely yield modest results and fail a cost-benefit test. Behavioral health encompasses a far broader spectrum of providers, including advanced-practice nurses, psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, and peer and pastoral counselors. We should remove any barriers that unnecessarily limit their capacity to meet the behavioral-health needs of North Carolinians.
Seven states allow specially trained psychologists to prescribe medications to treat mental illness. This practice “is not only safe and evidence-based,” wrote researcher and licensed psychologist Jacqueline Marie Gallios in Regulation magazine, “but also a vital solution to America’s escalating mental health crisis.”
Other states allow nurse practitioners to operate independently, social workers and counselors to deliver a broader array of services, and peer counselors to obtain certification with less time and expense. Telehealth is another promising tool. North Carolina has taken some steps in these directions but should go further. Jarrett Dieterle, a Manhattan Institute fellow, noted that studies conducted before and after the COVID-19 pandemic found comparable results for behavioral-health treatment in the office vs. treatment by telehealth — but the latter is, naturally, less expensive and more accessible.
“Americans’ mental-health challenges are complex, nuanced, and multi-variated,” Dieterle wrote in National Affairs. No single reform, or even set of reforms, “cannot be expected to magically ‘fix’ the problem overnight. But policymakers are not powerless to respond, and neither are the rest of us.”
I agree. My argument isn’t merely that, given the stakes, we can’t afford to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. There is no such thing as perfection here. There are only differences in priorities. Let’s elevate access to the top.

Editor’s Note: John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy with American history (FolkloreCycle.com).

Hair on Fire! America's educational report card

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Tuesday, 02 June 2026

Written by Margaret Dickson

Frightened and revolted by the current state of American politics and the extreme rudeness and cruelty that has overtaken our culture?
Terrified by increasingly problematic international situations and growing speculation that the United States is a powerful nation in decline?
Add to your worry list the dismal report card of American education.
Let’s look at what is going on—or isn’t going on—in classrooms all across our country. It is not a pretty picture.
There has been a great deal of research and even more speculation into how the COVID pandemic and subsequent school closures affected students at all levels. The general consensus is that, not surprisingly, the pandemic has negatively impacted student performance by isolating students, exacerbating existing economic and social differences, and accelerating the transition to digital learning, which was not available to many students. Use of digital devices and social media are more at play than ever.
While COVID accelerated the decline in American student performance, the backslide was already underway. What is being called the “learning recession” began years before anyone had heard of COVID. According to the latest Education Scorecard, a data-driven joint project of Stanford and Harvard Universities, American students were making steady if not stellar progress in math and reading scores between 1990 and 2013. It has been a steady and brutal slide downward since.
The nation’s report card, NAEP, released earlier this month, reported the ongoing and alarming decline in both math and science for 8th graders, while barely 1/3 of high school seniors are ready for college level math, and 2/3s lack reading proficiency. International comparisons find American students nowhere in the top 10, with wide disparities among demographic groups and our 50 states.
Closer to home, in North Carolina, educational performance appears to be a mixed bag. High school graduation rates are rising and hit nearly 88-percent on the latest report card, but reading and math scores remain below those in 2019 before the pandemic. Just over half of our students, 55-percent, hit grade-level proficiency, but that leaves millions who did not with considerable demographic and regional disparities.
And, here at home in Cumberland County, our own students come in below the state averages in both graduation rates and grade level proficiency, at 86-percent and almost 51 percent, respectively. The number of low-performing schools increased from 15 to 27 out of a total of 88 schools, including 2 public charter schools.
It is easy and tempting to complain that our schools at all levels must do better and to blame the educators who teach our children and “the school system” for what we might label as failure. But education is a complex and deeply human process that requires both professionals and families and which must be supported by both encouragement and cold hard cash.
North Carolina public schools are generally ranked in the low 20s out of 51 ranked systems, although the ranking rises if our state’s higher education institutions are included in the measurements. State spending on public schools in a state with booming tech and pharmaceutical sectors and with new residents from other states flowing in, is generally ranked somewhere between 48th and 50th.
What is happening in North Carolina’s schools is shameful, not because educators and students are not trying, but because the General Assembly has held public education to a starvation diet for a decade and a half and has added insult to injury by siphoning off billions—yes, with a B— that should go to public education and gifting them to private, largely unregulated schools.
Money is not everything, of course, but it is also true that we get what we pay for.

Pitt Dickey: Gnomenclature for fun and profit

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Tuesday, 26 May 2026

Written by Pitt Dickey

How do you feel about Gnomes? Take a trip into Once Upon a Time land, courtesy of the Brothers Grimm to learn some Gnome lore. Gnomes are the first cousins of the Trolls who bothered Billy Goats Gruff. Trolls also write mean comments on Social Media.
Trolls live under bridges or in their parents’ basements. Gnomes live underground, usually working as miners. You may recall Snow White became involved with Seven Dwarves, who are the double first cousins of Gnomes.
But that is a story for another day. Let us return to Gnome lore.
Most fairy tales start with a King who has at least one beautiful daughter. Today’s King had 3 beautiful unmarried daughters. He also had a palace garden with his famous apple tree that only he could pick. Anyone else who picked an apple would be transported 100 fathoms underground.
Does this sound familiar—a woman plucks a forbidden apple and all heck breaks loose? Sure enough, the youngest princess believes Dad won’t send her underground.
She grabs an apple, takes a bite, and convinces her sisters to chow down. Each sister then sinks deep underground.
The King can’t find his daughters. He offers to marry one to whomever can find the girls. Lots of men look without success. Finally, three brothers take up the challenge.
They discover a large empty castle in the deep forest with a banquet table full of hot food. The oldest brother is chosen to remain in the castle while the two other brothers go on Princess Quest.
After they leave, a Gnome enters the castle and asks the brother for a piece of bread. When the brother hands the bread to the Gnome, the Gnome intentionally drops it. The brother goes to pick it up, but the Gnome beats him with a stick.
The next day, the second brother stays at the castle and gets beaten by the Gnome. The next day, Hans, the youngest brother, remains at the castle.
The Gnome tries the same stunt. When the Gnome asks him to pick up the bread, Hans whups the tar out of the Gnome.
The Gnome begs Hans to stop beating him, promising to tell him how to find the Princesses. The Gnome shows Hans a deep well which has no water. Hans lowers himself into the well in a large basket.
He finds three caves, each with a Princess and a dragon. The Princesses are combing the heads of the dragons. This seems odd, but this is a fairy tale. Odd happens.
When Hans tells his brothers what happened, they get so angry they turn green and yellow because Hans found the Princesses. Hans agrees to show them the well. They let the eldest brother down first, but he chickens out halfway and rings a bell to return to the surface. The second brother does the same. Finally, they lower Hans into the well.
Hans finds the dragons are still sleeping in the Princesses’ laps having their hair combed. Hans chops off their heads, saving the Princesses.
He sends each Princess back to the surface in the basket. He is suspicious of his brothers. He pretends to get in the basket but puts in a large stone. The wicked brothers pull the basket up halfway, then cut the rope, hoping the fall will kill Hans. Hans is stuck below and wanders lonely as a cloud.
He finally finds a flute hanging on the wall and plays it. A gaggle of grateful Gnomes appears and jives to the music. Flushed with flute-induced fellowship, they grant Hans his wish to return to the surface.
Hans goes to the King’s palace, where the first Princess is about to marry his brother.
The King asked what had happened below. The Princesses tell him they can’t say because they promised not to reveal the truth. The King orders them to tell their story to the stove while he listens outside the kitchen door. This allows them to keep their promise not to tell him.
Technicalities matter.
On hearing the truth, the King sends the two brothers to the gallows, where they are hanged by the neck until they expire.
Hans marries the most beautiful sister, and they live happily ever after.
What have we learned today? Don’t eat forbidden apples. Beware of hungry Gnomes. Some dragons are more concerned with their hair looking fly than remaining awake for possible danger. You can tell a stove things you can’t tell a King.
If you are stuck in a cave and find a flute, play it. Siblings do not always play fair. No Gnomes were harmed during the production of this column.
That is all.

(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)