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Dec. 1-15, 2010, News Archive
12/15/10 Rick Scott's School Plan for Scoundrels
"Conservatives have been plotting for years to blow up the public school system. Now, Florida's incoming governor Rick Scott is poised to light the fuse."
12/15/10 SE Raleigh students to stay put next year
"The 5-3 vote means that any attempt to implement a large-scale reassignment of Southeast Raleigh children to neighborhood schools likely won't happen until the 2012-13 school year at the earliest. Their reassignment might not happen at all, depending on the October 2011 election to fill five of the nine school board seats."
12/15/10 U.S. to investigate Mecklenburg schools
"The U.S. Department of Education will investigate civil rights complaints alleging that the closing of eight Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools discriminates against minority students, according to a notice sent to Superintendent Peter Gorman this week."
12/15/10 Leading, learning
"She was referring to the absurd notion that a business person can run a school system better than an education professional. Wasn't it business people who got us into this worldwide economic mess? Why would we want to trust them with the education and future career success of our most precious resource, our children?"
12/15/10 Inside information
"Please don't make it harder for these problem schools. Don't turn problem schools into really bad schools. Stay with the diversity plan."
12/15/10 Newsmaker of the year
"Ten years ago, Wake's socioeconomic diversity goals replaced a long-standing racial diversity policy. It became a national model for maintaining diversity, which studies show is linked to higher student achievement. But a conservative Supreme Court ruling began a trend towards limiting the use of race in student assignment."
12/14/10 Wake rejects reconsideration of Southeast Raleigh student moves
"Are those recommendations being made in regard to their own children or in regard to other people's children," Goldman said. "That's a defining point for me."
12/14/10 The teacher dot
"The results of a recent program for International Student Assessment Study should alarm America. While 15-year-old Shanghai students placed first in math and science, U.S. students ranked 17th overall in science and 14th in reading. But all is not lost. Our students were competitive in one important area: texting."
12/14/10 Arguing whether the Southeast Raleigh moves conflict with the Oct. 5 directive
"Do the proposed Southeast Raleigh moves from the last Wake County school board student assignment committee meeting conflict with the Oct. 5 directive?"
12/13/10 Wake reassignment debate looms
"The next round of fighting over Wake County student assignment takes place Tuesday when school board members discuss whom to move for next fall."
12/13/10 This is gravy?
"I suggest that Rick Martinez (column, Dec. 9) spend a few years as a teacher in a classroom of 30 students before he writes another column making statements about class size and level of achievement."
12/11/10 Adults blame parents for education problems
"Moms were more likely than dads - 72 percent versus 61 percent - to say parents are at fault. Conservatives were more likely than moderates or liberals to blame parents."
12/11/10 Resegregation
"We are now learning that many community school proponents are parents who want minority students moved out of their schools."
12/10/10 America's Most Vulnerable
"Parents play a large role in this inequality, but so do policies. As the report wisely asks, "Is there a point beyond which falling behind is not inevitable but policy susceptible, not unavoidable but unacceptable, not inequality but inequity?"
12/10/10 My ride home
"I used to go to a private school in Raleigh named St. Raphael's. But I switched schools to go to Heritage Elementary because it was less than a mile from my house. But when I ride the bus home from school, why does it take me over an hour?"
12/10/10 Schools invite budget suggestions
"An online suggestion box is now available for the public to provide Wake County school leaders with ideas on how to help with next year's budget problems."
12/9/10 Wake schools seeks public's budget advice
"The Wake County Public School System is seeking public input online about the 2011-12 fiscal year budget, district administrators said Thursday."
12/8/10 Wake talks about charging fees to deal with school budget cuts
"In the face of potential steep budget cuts, Wake County school board members said today they may need to consider ideas such as charging fees for students to play sports, ride the school bus and go off campus for lunch."
12/8/10 Wake will consider school transfers, but likely fewer than proposed
"The Wake County school board Tuesday tackled its most divisive issue - student assignment - and its own operations and came away with patchwork actions in both cases."
12/8/10 Wake school board considering sports, bus, parking fees
"In an effort to ease tight budgets, Wake County school board members said Wednesday that they will consider charging fees for playing sports, riding the bus, leaving campus to get lunch and increasing parking fees for students."
12/8/10 Tedesco challenging Goldman to "put her money where her mouth is" on neighborhood schools
"Wake County school board member John Tedesco is challenging vice chairwoman Debra Goldman to show her support for neighborhood schools by supporting aggressive node changes to the 2011-12 student reassignment plan."
12/8/10 Democrats block shuffle of Southeast Raleigh students
"With federal Department of Education investigators converging on Raleigh to probe accusations of racial discrimination, Democrats on the Wake County school board succeeded Tuesday in stalling Republican-backed plans to reassign thousands of minority students next year closer to their homes in Southeast Raleigh."
12/8/10 Drawing cheers and laughter during Tuesday's public comment session
"Two speakers stood out during Tuesday's public comment section at the Wake County school board meeting."
12/8/10 Potentially reconsidering the Southeast Raleigh moves for 2011-12
"School board member Chris Malone said they can bring it up at a future meeting, possibly on Tuesday, and reverse the 4-3 vote."
12/7/10 Most speakers criticize Wake board over assignment policy
"The Wake County Board of Education opened a work session before its monthly voting meeting on Tuesday, but Vice Chair Debra Goldman, presiding over the informal meeting, said most discussion about controversial student reassignments for the 2011-12 year would be at another work session next week. That didn't prove completely true, however."
12/7/10 Feds meet with Wake schools officials over segregation claims
"Officials with the U.S. Department of Education were in Raleigh Tuesday to meet with Wake County Public School System administrators about allegations of racial bias in area schools."
12/7/10 Feds, school leaders discuss Wake schools' civil rights probe
"The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights is investigating a complaint from the state and national NAACP accusing the school system of racial bias in student assignment and in student discipline. Federal officials discussed the scope of the review with interim Superintendent Donna Hargens, school board attorney Ann Majestic and school board members."
12/7/10 Wake reassignment plan would move 3,200 students
"Taking advantage of the absence of board chairman Ron Margiotta due to an illness in his family, the Democratic members of the board passed by a 4-3 vote a motion to exclude from consideration more than 60 moves proposed by parents. Among those moves not being considered now were those that call for sending thousands of Southeast Raleigh students to schools in their communities."
12/7/10 Bypassing the public comment restrictions on student assignment
"It looks like people are citing the discussion of the facilities utilization report, which is item 14 on the agenda, to get around the ban about talking about student assignment."
12/7/10 GSIW accuses Margiotta of silencing public on student assignment
"But whenever parents are shut out of the process, the school system suffers. There are thousands of committed, intelligent parents who want to be part of their children's education, and a part of this planning process. Inviting them to a public hearing after the plan is largely in place is at a minimum poor leadership and a poor example of public engagement."
12/7/10 Margiotta accusing AdvancED of taking away public's control of the school system
"I meant to blog about this earlier, but Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta is taking a defiant tone about the impending visit by the special accreditation review team from AdvancED."
12/7/10 Accusing student assignment committee of targeting minority and low-income students
"In a post Monday on his Wake Reassignment blog, Riemann crunched the demographics on the nodes listed and found that 76 percent of the students are black or Hispanic and 61 percent are receiving subsidized lunches. He also notes that the three community members who proposed the moves are white."
12/7/10 Great Schools in Wake's letter to Margiotta
"Finally, even putting aside the First Amendment violations, it seems a stretch to try to apply Policy 1300.G.4 to public hearings that have not even happened yet."
12/7/10 School advocates respond to board's gag rule
"The good folks at Great Schools in Wake have issued a media release in response to chair Ron Margiotta's latest heavy-handed action to silence testimony at today's Wake County school board meeting."
12/6/10 Wake school board must pick its pace
"Wake County school board members will soon decide whether next fall is when they'll begin the mass reversal of more than two decades of student assignments used to diversify suburban schools."
12/6/10 Commissioners rescind school resegregation resolution
"As expected, the new Republican majority on the Wake County Board of Commissioners voted 4-3 this evening to rescind the resolution expressing concern about resegregation of the school system."
12/6/10 GOP Wake Commissioners in control: Will pay for school resegregation, but not employees' elective abortions
"The Wake Board of Commissioners just wrapped up a 5 1/2-hour public session and went into closed session. The new 4-3 Republican majority elected Paul Coble as their chair for a year, and soon voted 4-3 to rescind resolutions adopted last year (when Democrats were in the majority) opposing school resegregation and affirming that the county's employee health insurance should cover elective abortions."
12/5/10 Wake schools dispute gets national attention
"We're here because Wake County is of national significance," Jealous said. "We have no intention of losing the battle here in Wake County."
12/5/10 School stumble
"The bottom line on this move by Republicans is that to rescind the resolution will be, in the minds of many citizens, an endorsement of segregated schools. Not what they intend? Then they'd better be careful. They could instead take the high road, move to the many better things they have to do, and not appear both petty and petulant. One would think they would want to advance their own ideas rather than just continue bashing their opponents."
12/5/10 A ghetto-izing proposal
"John Tedesco's latest proposal seems a reaction to opponents: mean, because it ghetto-izes those already sequestered in marginalized areas; cynical, because it is proposed in the name of these very communities, as if conceived primarily to benefit them (as opposed to his political agenda)."
12/5/10 Politics to the back
"Does Malone think a campaign promise carries more weight than using sound, integrated logic?"
12/5/10 Wake busing fight is national issue, NAACP says
?"RALEIGH NAACP officials capped their organization's education conference in Raleigh on Saturday by recasting the local fight over school busing in Wake County as a national referendum on integration and social progress."
12/4/10 NAACP, Wake County schools become national fight
"NAACP officials capped their organization's education conference in Raleigh on Saturday by recasting the local fight over school busing in Wake County as a national referendum on integration and social progress."
12/3/10 NAACP: Wake County is example of national problem
"Using Wake County's ongoing debate over school diversity as a backdrop, the NAACP is holding a national conference on education in Raleigh to argue that schools around the country are, in essence, returning to Jim Crow-era patterns of segregation."
12/3/10 Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools mull crowded classes
"Board member Mia Burroughs began the discussion by saying, "With some trepidation, I think we need to look at balancing our schools against our numbers of free and reduced lunches."
12/2/10 School jeopardy
"Call it just plain mean. Who's likely to be hurt if the Wake County school board follows through with the latest recommendations of its student assignment committee? Students, that's who."
12/2/10 Discussing equity, equality and school funding at the ED task force meeting
"The new middle school math placement guidelines will take a back seat at today's meeting of the Wake County school board economically disadvantaged student performance task force."
12/1/10 GSIW accuses school board of "bullying" with proposed Southeast Raleigh moves
"The Great Schools in Wake Coalition is accusing the Wake County school board's student assignment committee of engaging in "bullying" by floating the proposed reassignment of thousands of Southeast Raleigh students."
12/1/10 NAACP holds education conference in Raleigh
"The conference will include representatives from 2,200 NAACP branches and units from around the country. NAACP national president Benjamin Jealous will deliver an address Friday."
12/1/10 The bullying Wake County school board majority
"The good folks at the Great Schools in Wake Coalition just issued this press release:"
12/1/10 Accreditation review team will visit Wake schools in January
"An accreditation agency looking into the Wake County School System after turmoil over how students are assigned to schools will visit on Jan. 12-14, the agency said Wednesday."
12/1/10 Accreditation team to review Wake schools next month
"The organization that accredits Wake County's high schools will send a team to Raleigh next month to conduct a special review of the school district's elimination of the socioeconomic diversity policy."
12/1/10 Big shift in Wake students on table
"Amid heated accusations of possible resegregation, community members of Wake County schools' student assignment committee on Tuesday proposed reassigning thousands of Southeast Raleigh students to schools closer to where they live."
12/1/10 Shouting over the academic benefits of proximity in assignment
"The most friction came during an exchange between school board member John Tedesco and one of the community members of his student assignment committee, Anne Sherron. She accused him of misrepresenting her words during a debate about whether there's academic benefits of going to a school closer to where you live."
12/1/10 Blaming the end of the zone plan for the Southeast Raleigh moves
"As noted in today's article, Malone and Tedesco say the Southeast Raleigh moves proposed Tuesday are only logical given the Oct. 5 vote killing the zone plan. What's left they say now is implementing moves for next year based on proximity from the new assignment policy."
12/1/10 Move "those kids" out of "our" neighborhoods
"In the public education context, the prettified/sanitized phrases are "neighborhood schools" and "school choice." These terms serve in most cases as a proxy for the uglier words "segregated" and "re-segregated."
12/1/10 Moving toward Charlotte
"Charlotte hasn't been mentioned in a while by the resegregationists on the Wake County School Board like John Tedesco and Board Chair Ron Margiotta. There's a reason for that."
