June Atkinson, North Carolina’s Democratic state schools chief and the nation’s longest-serving superintendent, will leave office next month after losing a re-election bid.
Atkinson was first elected in 2005. During her tenure, she fought to raise teacher pay and helped the state gain a waiver from the No Child Left Behind Act.
She was beaten at the polls by Republican Mark Johnson, a member of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Board of Education, and a critic of standardized testing and the Common Core State Standards.
