Candidate Biography (submitted by campaign):

Eddie Davis taught English at Weldon High School for 9 years and at Hillside High School in Durham for 21 years.  He currently serves as the President of the North Carolina Association of Educators.  
 
In 1993, Governor Jim Hunt appointed Davis to an eight-year term on the State Board of Education.  Davis was the first practicing classroom teacher to hold a full-voting position on the SBE.  During his 1993-2001 tenure, Davis chaired several SBE committees and he initiated the annual Closing the Achievement Gap conference.  In 1996, Davis represented the SBE in Poland at the annual March for the Living, which honors the lives lost during the Holocaust.  
 
Davis served on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards from 1996-2002.   

Also, he served on the National Test Panel, which formulated the original specific specifications for President Bill Clinton’s proposed national tests for fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math.   
 
In 1985, Davis was a part of a humanitarian team of citizens who visited drought-stricken Tanzania under the sponsorship of Raleigh's WRAL Television. During the 1987 Christmas holiday break, he led a group of high school students on a "12-Day Walk Across North Carolina" to raise awareness for the Kidney Foundation.

In 1989, Davis helped a group of Hillside High School students to make a slight change in the United States Constitution. The students convinced the North Carolina General Assembly to retroactively ratify the 24th Amendment, which outlawed the poll tax.  All official copies of the Constitution now offer a footnote indicating the date of North Carolina's ratification of this amendment.    
Eddie Davis is a native of Pasquotank County and he is 1971 graduate of Elizabeth City State University, where he served as the student body president.  He is married to Harriette Vanhook Davis and they are the parents of two children.

On May 6, we have the unique opportunity to elect a State Superintendent who can lead an authentic dialogue and establish a set of innovative programs to reach all students … particularly those in underserved neighborhoods.  
 
Davis would demand safe, orderly, and nurturing learning environments in each school.  No individual student can be allowed to disrupt the “sanctuary for teaching and learning.”  
 
He will attack the state’s 20,000-student annual dropout rate by being a strong advocate for more vocational, technical, and entrepreneurial course offerings in middle and high schools.
 
Davis wants to “recapture” dropouts by creating programs such as The Sons and Daughters of the Phoenix. These programs would give second chances to dropouts who have matured and gained more vision.
 
He would create a statewide network of Parents Operating with Educational Responsibility for Understanding and Learning (P.O.W.E.R.F.U.L). These clusters of parents, community leaders, and clergy would provide support for parents who can be more supportive of higher student achievement, career goal planning, and positive school behavior.
 
Davis pledges to hold five days of office hours and public outreach each month either west of Interstate Highway 77 or east of Interstate Highway 95 so that citizens in the distant areas of the state can have regular access to the State Superintendent.
 
In addition to leadership for the public schools, Davis wants to utilize the Superintendent’s inclusion among the Council of State members to tackle challenges that face all of the citizens of our great state.    
 
Only once in Tarheel history has there been an African-American on the Council of State.  Currently, there are no minorities on the Council.  Eddie Davis believes that, in 21st Century North Carolina, the perspective of the ten statewide executive leaders should be viewed through blue eyes, through green eyes, … but also through brown eyes.