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Aug. 1-15, 2010, News Archive
8/15/10 Wake's new attendance zones will affect school athletics
"The attendance area is a huge factor in athletics," said Bobby Guthrie, the Wake County Public Schools athletic director. "The pool of students that teams draw from is one of the most important things."
8/15/10 Exclusive charters
"Some of our charter schools, such as Raleigh Charter, are excellent. But until they have to play on a level playing field with public schools, with innovations that can translate to a high-poverty location, I think calling them "public" is laughable."
8/15/10 One left standing
"The members of the school board majority hereby make clear that their priority is not student achievement or running a school district; their priority is reassigning students to carry out their ideological agenda. Once again, actions speak louder than words."
8/15/10 Design work can begin on new schools
"The 6-2 vote split the board majority, which has held together on most issues since taking office in December. Members of the board's usual four-member minority faction provided most of the votes to approve spending the money for the design work."
8/14/10 Who's teaching L.A.'s kids?
"Yet year after year, one fifth-grade class learns far more than the other down the hall. The difference has almost nothing to do with the size of the class, the students or their parents."
8/14/10 Meeting Legalities
"Given that Chairman Ron Margiotta has again decreed less open meetings, both in number and transparency, I hope the public will demand adherence to the State's Open Meetings Law - not only to the letter, but also the spirit. Margiotta is not doing so, and he must be challenged."
8/14/10 Not so simple
"It is clear the issues surrounding school assignment are much more complex than the politically motivated minds that are so confident they have new answers."
8/14/10 What Margiotta said
"Hear this: Margiotta and his cronies are not committed to avoiding high-poverty or low-performing schools."
8/13/10 Raleigh Police Chief Harry Dolan not apologizing to Keith Sutton?
"Sutton said "there were some things we agreed to disagree on," including not getting an apology from Dolan or from the officer. But Sutton said "it's not a deal-breaker" for him, He said he considers the issue closed."
8/13/10 Schools feud on the air follows familiar themes
"When John Tedesco and the Rev. William Barber started an exchange of positions on education, achievement, race and growth Thursday in a WRAL television studio, the talk didn't stop even when the cameras stopped rolling."
8/13/10 Misplayed good news
"Section B, Page 2, below the fold? After all of the space and editorials that you have devoted to the issues surrounding the Wake County Public School System, I was surprised to see an article stating that Raleigh/Cary (Wake) schools had made a national No. 1 list on Page 2B below the fold. Regardless of one's side on the issues, this warranted better position than our being No. 1 in copperhead bites."
8/13/10 Barber and Tedesco go mano-a-mano on NC SPIN
"It looks like the discussion was lively Thursday night when John Tedesco and the Rev. William Barber taped their debate for NC SPIN."
8/12/10 State of Things to discuss Wake school diversity fight today
"The Wake County school diversity fight will be the focus of today's State of Things show on WUNC."
8/12/10 Raleigh, Cary make schools list
"But the future of this stellar district is in doubt," said GreatSchools. "An election last fall changed the makeup of the school board, and the new board recently voted to end the diversity policy."
8/12/10 Majority: silent
"Perhaps last year's district school board elections left the victors under the impression that they had a mandate to change everything about the schools, and unified support in the community to move ahead. If so, these members are under a mistaken impression."
8/12/10 An admirable son
"Because he feels so passionately about this issue, he also participated in an act of civil disobedience."
8/11/10 Wake Co. School Board Approves Budget, Protestors Arrested
"While the school board worked to make cuts in its final budget for the 2010-11 school year, multiple protesters were escorted away during the public comments portion of Tuesday's meeting."
8/11/10 Assignment apathy
"Most were African Americans concerned that the emphasis on schools close to home will leave schools serving black and impoverished kids stripped of support, clout and good teachers."
8/11/10 Wake schools to ease 'zero tolerance'
"Zero tolerance rules that mandate strict punishments are about to be eased in the Wake County school system as part of an effort to keep more students in school and off the streets."
8/11/10 Ages are diverse in school arrests
"This time, the backdrop was the arrest of a multigenerational group of protesters - teenagers joined by older people - as the new Wake County school board majority on Tuesday continued on its path of remaking the state's largest school system."
8/11/10 Blaming Charles Meeker for high security costs at school board meetings
"The conservative Wake Community Network is laying much of the the blame for the $16,197 security bill at the July 20 Wake County school board meeting on Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker."
8/11/10 Heated words exchanged at school board meeting
"The antipathy between the Wake County school board majority and their critics was extremely evident on Tuesday."
8/10/10 Accusing school board majority of stalling projects to help Bob Luddy?
"Bader questioned why the board had moved so slowly to approve startup design funds for Scotts Ridge Elementary in Apex and E20 and M8, both in North Raleigh. She asked if it was because they're near Luddy's private schools."
8/10/10 Wake board member, police chief 'agree to disagree'
"The pair "agreed to disagree," Sutton said, but they better understand each other's perspective as a result of the meeting."
8/10/10 Police remove six from Wake school board meeting
"Two teenagers were among six people arrested after they were removed from the Wake County Board of Education meeting during the public comments portion Tuesday."
8/10/10 Wake board gives final blessing to changes in superintendent qualifications
"The Wake County school board met Tuesday in what seemingly will be its last regularly scheduled semi-monthly meeting."
8/10/10 Wake school board to vote on budget, job cuts
"The economy continues to have a negative impact on the Wake County Public School System. School board members are meeting Tuesday to vote on the 2010-11 budget, which could include denying raises and cutting jobs."
8/10/10 Perdue pitches N.C. strengths for federal grants
"North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue is returning to Washington with what she believes is an improved application to land a federal education grant of up to $400 million."
8/10/10 Learning from N.C. school districts
"The experience of these schools provides strong evidence that schools overwhelmed by poverty as a result of neighborhood assignment practices cannot easily retain a highly skilled faculty. These schools often provide a breeding ground for gangs and other social ills highly correlated with poverty. In one high school located in a largely poor and minority community, highly qualified teachers, some of whom had been recruited by efforts to bring top talent into the public schools, left after just one semester when student behavior seemed beyond control."
8/10/10 Reducing public comment to once a month?
"Is the move to only have one public comment section a month at Wake County school board meetings an effort to streamline operations or to silence the public?"
8/10/10 Revising what will be shared with superintendent candidates
"The report will also be shared with candidates. But some of the wording will be eliminated or modified after board members raised concerns."
8/10/10 School board to vote on changing definition of long-term suspensions
"School administrators will ask the school board today to change the definition of a long-term suspension to mean anything longer than 10 days to the rest of the school year. Currently, a long-term suspension means you're out for the rest of the school year with no exceptions."
8/9/10 Disparities in graduation rates among white and minority students
"A pair of reports released on Monday by the Education Trust seek to reveal how disparate graduation rates are among white, black and Hispanic students at hundreds of public and private universities, and call attention to individual institutions where the gaps are particularly large or small."
8/9/10 Raucous school board meeting cost RPD $14K
"Dolan added, "The July 20 additional costs will be funded through the department's limited special events management budget. It is important to note that if significant additional public safety costs continue to be required for school board meetings, additional funding sources will need to be identified."
8/8/10 Wake schools won't simply copy Charlotte's answers
"If Charlotte's long journey toward creating a workable school assignment plan is any example, its rival school system in Wake County could still be fighting about a plan when today's rising fifth-graders graduate from high school. And beyond."
8/8/10 Wake test gains get mixed reaction
"Tina Hoots, principal of Wake Forest-Rolesville High School, said students still need to know the material to pass a retest. She said there are a number of students who know the material but who may not pass the first time because of test anxiety."
8/8/10 Arguing that Charlotte has a better school system than Wake
"David Holdzkom, Wake's assistant superintendent for evaluation and research, noted that about 65 percent of the Wake's district's schools had passing rates of more than 75 percent on the past school year's state tests. Charlotte's equivalent figure was about 46 percent."
8/8/10 School systems struggle with diversity
"Some see Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools' experience as a beacon of hope for neighborhood schools, others as a cautionary tale."
8/7/10 Busting busing myths
"Claude Pope wrote in his July 24 Point of View article "A school mandate, indeed" that "it was forced busing that caused the voters of the county to demand change." Neither Pope nor the voters did their homework. There is abundant data on the WCPSS and NCDPI websites to show that:"
8/6/10 State test scores rise sharply
"Public school students made striking gains on state tests this year, resulting in nearly 88 percent of schools meeting academic improvement standards."
8/6/10 The semantic attack on integration
"Am I the only one tired of the term "forced busing" spewed by the public school dismantlers on the Right almost every day? What does that mean? No one is actually forced to ride a bus, ever."
8/6/10 Charlotte-Mecklenburg comparing itself to Wake County
"Critics of CMS have attributed higher spending with the reason why it's doing better than Wake among some subgroups."
8/5/10 Wake changing speak signup rules for school board meetings
"Wake County school officials announced today three changes for public comment signup that will go into effect for Tuesday's school board meeting."
8/5/10 Hunt blasts neighborhood schools policies
"Here's one thing that won't work -- packing certain schools full of low-income, poor, low-achieving students," Hunt said."
8/5/10 Routes to better schooling
"Because, it's not how much you spend but how you spend it that matters."
8/5/10 Wake benefits from balanced schools
"The school board has a responsibility to provide not only the best education for all of Wake County's children but also to protect the school system as our most important economic development tool. We can all agree that we need a rational plan beyond politics that protects magnets, addresses costs and stability concerns, acknowledges the value of diversity, gets our focus back on student achievement and puts an end to this separate but equal circus."
8/4/10 Diversity a must for plan to work
"If our schools do not have a balanced mix of kids from different socio-economic backgrounds, this new "controlled choice" plan will not work."
8/4/10 Great Schools in Wake holding back-to-school forums
"In a press release Tuesday, GSIW said the first forum will be held Aug. 16 at 7 p.m. at the YWCA of the Greater Triangle, 554 East Hargett Street, Raleigh. The focus of that forum will be student assignment, educational rights and legal rights."
8/4/10 Wake schools get magnet money that renewed diversity debate
"The Wake County schools have no easy road ahead in paying for educating 140,000 students, but it does at least have $1.3 million more in its coffers with the approval of a federal magnet school grant extension that figured in the strident debate about student assignment policy."
8/4/10 Here's to 'controlled choice'
"Neither "diversity" nor "neighborhood school" proponents will get all they want under this proposed assignment plan, but with a little compromise, each side can have its basic goals met."
8/4/10 Useless blobs
"I strongly recommend that the only feedback that Wake County school board members get on the blobs that they are holding out as maps/assignment zones is that these "maps" don't give enough information for anyone to provide any useful feedback."
8/4/10 Is this the best way to promote diversity in Wake County
"Should critics of the Wake County school board majority be focusing more on changing municipal zone laws than on trying to mandate diversity in the school system?"
8/3/10 CMS: Keep students close to home
"The people who have always been at the bottom are still going to be at the bottom," said McElrath. The vote signals that "the standard for CMS is segregation, and if you value diversity you can go to a magnet...if you're lucky."
8/3/10 Wake school board looks at more central office job cuts
"Whatever Hargens and her staff report, however, finance director David Neter told the board that the system will have to lay off some employees in the district's Transportation Department because of state-mandated funding cuts of about $1.2 million."
8/3/10 Air it out
"The hiring of a new school superintendent for Wake County is not akin to the Ford Motor Co. trying to lure some executive away from GM, dealing in clandestine meetings, secure phone calls, go-betweens and mysterious meetings on tropical islands. This process is about signing on someone who will be an employee of the public, and whose qualifications members of the public deserve to review and contemplate in comparison to others who seek the job."
8/3/10 Why not real change in education
"There is, it turns out, something more galling than teachers unions fighting against proposals that would improve education for students in the worst-performing schools. At least the teachers unions are, presumably, acting in the economic self-interest of their members."
8/3/10 Reviewing the school budget for changes
"Agenda topics include whether to restore positions cut from Project Enlightenment, how magnet schools are funded, a review of cell phone usage and a review of the security budget."
8/2/10 SACS reviewing NAACP complaint against school system
"The Wake County school system still has hanging over its head the complaint that the state NAACP filed with an accrediting agency."
8/2/10 Fighting school assignment policies and zoning laws
"Should critics of the Wake County school board majority be focusing more on changing municipal zone laws than on trying to mandate diversity in the school system?"
8/2/10 School Support
"Certainly the state's track record in recent years of focusing on improving its public schools - improvements that surely were called for - ought to help. All states are in need. North Carolina has a good plan and a good case."
8/2/10 Creating contiguous high school assignment boundaries
"One of the mandates for the new zones from the student assignment committee is that they have contiguous boundaries. This means no more spot nodes and no more satellite diversity nodes."
8/1/10 School board's travesty
"It is reasonable, not radical, to expect a board responsible for the education of 140,000 students in a very tight budget period to carefully consider data, not ideology, when making decisions."
8/1/10 Student examples
"I am proud of the students who have chosen to stand up for what is right."
8/1/10 Disarm with diversity
"Long bus rides and constant reassignments are recurring complaints of many diversity opponents. These serious complaints must be addressed. They do not, however, lead to the conclusion that diversity in schools is worthless. It's not an either/or situation, but that's how the school board presents it to us."
8/1/10 In the schools
"We are lucky to be Americans with the right to free speech, assembly, protest, bear arms and the greatest right of all: the right to vote."
8/1/10 A teacher's worth
"Are these kids already in the school to prison pipeline? Is this the fate that will be forced on some of Wake County's children? The children the BOE represents?"
