 |  |  |
July 15-31, 2010, News Archive
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?"
7/31/10 On the Record: 'Controlled choice' for Wake schools
"Michael Alves, an educational consultant who believes Wake County parents can have more choices in their children's schooling without creating high-poverty schools, appeared on Saturday's On the Record with WRAL's David Crabtree."
7/31/10 How will school choice plan work?
"Now, the real questions have begun. County residents want to know where the board, having discarded its long-standing diversity-based policy, is heading with its plan for assigning the more than 140,000 students in the school system."
7/31/10 Faces that inspire
"At first I saw black, white and brown, joining together in a common purpose. As I looked more closely, I saw mothers, fathers, grandparents, grandchildren, cousins, teachers, students and leaders, all with unmistakable passion and commitment."
7/31/10 Drowning majority
"I and others have concluded that Tedesco's weak and vague answers clearly provided more evidence that the majority members are deeply in over their heads."
7/31/10 Outsiders welcome
"I applaud the concerned citizens who traveled long distances to attend the recent Wake County school board meeting to oppose the end to the diversity policy."
7/31/10 Motives all around
"Because most of us regularly operate from mixed motives at best, it is particularly ironic to hear Margiotta accuse others of less than upfront motives."
7/30/10 Wake busing debate isn't new
"The controversy about what's best for Wake County students and communities goes back nearly a decade, when the school system's socio-economic diversity policy was in its infancy."
7/30/10 Wake schools seeks feedback on student assignment
"The Wake County Public School System is seeking feedback on how schools could be grouped under the district's new student assignment policy."
7/30/10 Wake schools hear ideas on discipline
"A Wake County school board committee charged with improving the performance of low-income students gave a warm response Thursday to an advocacy group's recommendations for easing the district's strict discipline policies."
7/30/10 Finding common ground on reducing student suspensions
"At a time when school diversity seems to be dividing the community and Wake County school board, it looks like reducing student suspensions is one thing that people can agree upon."
7/30/10 Wake seeks comment on school maps
"Wake County school leaders began seeking public comments Thursday on four maps that have been developed to help carry out the mandate of sending children to schools in their community."
7/30/10 The 3 percent
"Only 3 percent of Wake County students are bused for diversity; most students are shifted to new schools because of enrollment growth and overcrowding. Busing will continue in Wake County, even if the current school board majority rams through its plans for neighborhood schools, another code for segregated schools whether consciously intended or not. We do not have enough schools in safe walking distance from most neighborhoods."
7/30/10 Obama defends education policies
"A report released earlier this week by eight civil rights groups, including the Urban League, says federal data shows that just 3 percent of the nation's black students and less than 1 percent of Latino students are affected by the first round of the administration's "Race to the Top" competition."
7/29/10 NC: Bush, Dole strategists and PAC money paved way for school board takeover
?"Community sit-ins and protests have rocked the Wake County School Board in reaction to its March 23rd vote to cut the county's diversity policy and end the student busing system."
7/29/10 A well-intentioned solution in search of a problem
"But Margiotta and Tedesco must know that the poor schools they don't want to create are virtually inevitable even under the Controlled Choice plan unless there's a conscious effort to avoid them, which would run afoul of the rigid ideological stance of the Gang of Five."
7/29/10 Wake seeking comment on zone maps
"School board member John Tedesco, chairman of the student assignment committee, had asked that the info be put online for public comment."
7/29/10 Locke Foundation says Wake's test gains lagging behind other urban districts
"Using the latest test data, the conservative John Locke Foundation is challenging the argument that the diversity policy is giving an extra boost to Wake County's academic performance."
7/29/10 Diversity differences may hobble 'controlled choice'
"In the end, what's important is to look at the children who reside in that zone to make sure that they are not one race or one economic level," Alves told elected officials at the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. "There's no cookie-cutter approach."
7/29/10 School board wants to be mum
"The people are the employers," Bussian said. "They are entitled to know who is applying."
7/29/10 Eyeing the models
"As the school board gropes for another approach to student assignment and considers the model known as controlled choice, there must be a resolve to avoid lapsing into a pattern that includes any of those high-poverty schools. Not only a resolve, but a practical, realistic way of actually doing it."
7/29/10 Seeming and being
"Please, let us not forget that this discussion is not about Debra Goldman's intentions but is about the very real consequences of ignoring concentrated poverty on student achievement as well as our society as a whole."
7/29/10 Estimating the security costs for the July 20 school board meeting
"You can expect more talk about how much security at Wake County school board meetings is costing taxpayers."
7/29/10 Disagreeing on what controlled choice would mean for Wake
"In the end, what's important is to look at the children who reside in that zone to make sure that they are not one race or one economic level," Alves said."
7/28/10 'Controlled choice' sets script for school zones
"The elimination of Wake's policy of trying to balance the percentages of low-income students at schools has split the school board and the community. But both sides in the fight are interested in how controlled choice could be adopted."
7/28/10 Call for dialogue?
"What a lesson it would be for the schoolchildren (and parents) of Wake County if they could witness a successful process of Chairman Ron Margiotta and the Rev. William Barber's meeting with a focus on doing whatever it takes to move forward."
7/28/10 Going from neighborhood schools to neighorhood zones
"Are Wake County parents ready to do away with the idea of having a specific school assigned to their address?"
7/28/10 CMS board starts over on way to create equity
"The revised equity policy has drawn opposition from advocates for impoverished schools and neighborhoods, who say the elimination of "baseline standards" and possible end of a citizen watchdog panel is a move in the wrong direction. Joyce Waddell and Richard McElrath, the board's only black members, opposed the revisions."
7/28/10 Looking at the four zone map samples
"To make it easier for everyone to find, here's the handout from Tuesday's Wake County student assignment committee meeting showing the various sample zones."
7/28/10 Wake school diversity fight hurting area's reputation?
"According to a new Triangle Business Journal online poll, the area's reputation is taking a negative hit from all the controversy surrounding the Wake County school diversity fight."
?7/28/10 John Tedesco and the Rev. William Barber to appear on NC SPIN
"NC SPIN announced today that Barber and Tedesco will appear on a special edition of the show that will be broadcast Aug. 15. In addition to Barber and Tedesco, regular panelists John Hood and Chris Fitzsimon will also be on the show that will be moderated by Tom Campbell."
7/28/10 What does the Wake school board majority "intend"? As Michael Alves says, we'll know very soon
"You don't want any family disenfranchised or disadvantaged because of where they live," he told the committee and its chair, John Tedesco. "If you do that, your plan will fail."
7/28/10 NAACP hears 'controlled choice' for Wake schools
"Those on both sides of the debate who've heard from Alves this week believe what he's proposing could be a potential solution."
7/27/10 The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers
Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more."
7/27/10 More Wake schools added to Newsweek top high schools list
"We have great schools in Wake County, and we want to make sure they get the credit they deserve," said David Holdzkom, Wake's assistant superintendent for evaluation and research, in a district press release today. Our teachers, administrators and principals have worked hard for these results."
7/27/10 Wake County School Leaders Learn ‘Controlled Choice'
"The plan divides the school system into zones, each one designed to represent the system as a whole. Parents would choose schools in rank-order preference."
7/27/10 Consultant to present 'controlled choice' concept to Wake schools
"The meeting is open to the public and is scheduled from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Wake County Public School System Administration Building, at 3600 Wake Forest Road. The meeting will be streamed LIVE on WRAL.com."
7/27/10 Doors, open and shut
"My second-grade teacher told me that my reading and writing skills would never be good enough for standard classes. Today, I am taking all advanced classes at Enloe High School."
7/27/10 Hargens can't escape diversity fight
"That's a complex issue," Hargens said of the potential lack of diversity in neighborhood schools. "That's a governance issue. That's a public values issue that our board of education and your board of education is dealing with. A superintendent implements."
7/27/10 NAACP's relevance
"I gave Wake County school board Chairman Ron Margiotta the benefit of the doubt and hoped that he was not foreseeing the consequences of his push to resegregate our schools."
7/27/10 Working together
"I can assure him that I welcome working closely with my colleagues should they take his advice that, "All factions should unite in an effort to make the new policy (community school policy) work as a diversity policy."
7/26/10 Wake's graduation rate for ED students: It's not 54 percent any more, it's ...
"... It's almost 60 percent - 59.7, to be exact - for the graduating class of 2010. That's the rate for graduations in four years from time of entering high school. The five-year rate is 62.2 percent."
7/26/10 Policy changes could impede equity goal
"These changes raise concerns that board may be retreating from its pledge of providing "equal access to excellent educational opportunities for all its students" for financial and ideological reasons. We hope that's not the case."
7/26/10 Wake school official is finalist in New Hanover County
"Wake County could lose its second superintendent in a month Wednesday when the New Hanover County school board meets to decide whom to name as its next schools chief.
7/26/10 School board arrests draw more national media coverage
"On Thursday, CNN interviewed both school board member John Tedesco and the Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP. Both men were also interviewed for a story that ran Saturday on ABC News."
7/25/10 School ruckus: solution wanted
"Somewhere, a company chief thinking about relocating to this area, or a husband and wife looking to make a move and remembering all the good things they'd heard, took note and said, "Hmm ... better let the dust settle."
7/25/10 Talk and understanding
"While the existing process of participation has not been productive, there are experts who could facilitate a dialogue where the goal is understanding rather than a power struggle to prove who is right. I hope that someone will step in and ensure this happens, or this threatens to irreparably damage our community."
7/24/10 On the Record: Student assignment and neighborhood schools
7/24/10 Battle Over N.C. Busing Heats Up
"In a scene reminiscent of the 1960s, thousands took to the streets in Raleigh this week, accusing the Wake County school board of "resegregating" the schools."
7/24/10 Best of intentions
"Months ago in a board meeting, board member John Tedesco acknowledged high-poverty schools would likely result from neighborhood zone assignments. Intent? Or just collateral damage?"
7/24/10 Proximity not all that
"In other words, it's the quality of the school, and not the proximity to the students' home, that determines the quality of the education."
7/24/10 The cost of saving
"Those 19 minutes the children from downtown are saved will likely cost them the opportunity to benefit from thousands of PTA dollars, from the diverse classroom that research has shown for 20 years will help them reach higher levels of academic success and from a stable work force of highly qualified, satisfied and often more experienced teachers and principals as the research on high-poverty schools clearly shows."
7/24/10 It's called a magnet
"This is an especially brilliant idea because it opens up overcrowded suburban neighborhood school seats at the same time that it fills downtown schools and balances income levels. Unfortunately, the new school board majority is poised to send magnet students back to their already overcrowded neighborhood schools, thereby exacerbating the problems of overcrowded schools in growing parts of the county and simultaneously impoverishing downtown schools."
7/24/10 Illuminating answers
"I want to thank you for running the item "Quick answers to school questions" on July 21 as it was quite enlightening. What I discovered as I read descriptions of the two sides of the debate is that one side is clearly concerned with how our school system's policies affect all students and the other side is concerned with how school policies affect themselves."
7/24/10 Hmm on hows
"Exactly how's that going to happen? How will the board majority provide greater stability for families while WCPSS continues to experience growth requiring new schools? The reassignments that affect stability are due to growth, not the diversity policy."
7/23/10 The Worst of Times: Children in Extreme Poverty in the South and Nation
"The Southern Education Foundation (SEF) has released a new report which finds that a large, growing number of children in the South and the nation live in extreme poverty-surviving on less than seven or eight dollars per day."
7/23/10 Making it up as they go along
"Whether the Board majority is pursuing some kind of manipulative, Machiavellian scheme or simply casting about wildly for an illusory solution that would match its own contradictory propaganda, one thing is clear: Wake County residents don't know the whole story."
7/23/10 Committed to fight
"The latest school board meeting was interrupted by citizens who believe the board is going down a road that has been trod before. These citizens feel so strongly that they were arrested for civil disobedience."
7/23/10 A marching bishop
"I marched July 20 to support the need for a diversity policy that ensures equal opportunity and access to education for all children within the Wake County school system. I do so as an individual, as a person of faith and as a bishop, but I do not speak on behalf of other Episcopalians. It is important that this debate and discussion be respectful, civil and in the best traditions of American democracy."
7/23/10 Margiotta's claim
"His unprofessionalism sets a poor example for those he works with and the people he claims to serve. It's no wonder that the board majority members have little or no respect for those who try to speak in opposition to their grand plans. They can't even respect their fellow board members. Very, very shameful."
7/23/10 Wake school leaders to examine a new choice
"Controlled choice plans create zones and allow families to choose within their zone, provided that admitting students to the school of their choice does not upset the racial and ethnic balance at that school."
7/22/10 Wake Co. Graduation Rates Hold Steady Year-To-Year
"In addition, seven student subgroups showed improvement, while three subgroups had a lower graduation rate."
7/22/10 Coleman talks about protest in Raleigh
"At that meeting a student spoke up and she said she was from a low-income housing neighborhood," Coleman said. "This diversity program gave her the chance to attend a school where she was challenged, where she saw other cultures, where there was culture sharing. And that prepares students for life, for a job, for the rest of the real world. They won't always just have to deal with people from their neighborhood."
7/22/10 Schools debate points spotlight on Wake
"The debate over the Wake County Board of Education's decision to no longer consider socio-economic diversity when assigning students to schools has attracted national attention that some say could affect future growth locally."
7/22/10 Consultant will lay out plan for 'controlled choice' in Wake schools
"State NAACP President Rev. William Barber, who has led a high-profile campaign against the community schools policy, says he's skeptical of the "controlled choice" plan, not having seen the details or been able to talk to Alves."
7/22/10 Bills come in after tumultuous school board meeting
"The school system won't have to pay for services provided by the Raleigh Police Department. Evans said he's expecting to receive cost estimates on what it would have cost, if the school system did have to pay."
7/22/10 Idea intrigues Wake school board factions
"Key members of the Wake County school board majority say they're giving strong consideration to an assignment approach called "controlled choice" that could replace its former diversity-based plan without creating high-poverty schools."
7/22/10 Protest, promise
"First among them is the fact that most students in Wake County already go to schools in their neighborhoods or within a reasonable distance from their neighborhoods. The idea, therefore, that busing for economic diversity in Wake County is a logistical movement akin to the Normandy invasion is a woeful exaggeration."
7/22/10 ...meetings of the mind
"Does he think that more time spent in review and debate is simply time wasted, since his Republican-aligned bloc has the votes to do whatever it wants?"
7/22/10 Proof, please
"When looking at the policy, it is also impossible to ignore that the word "diversity" is frequently crossed out. It seems these changes alone allow for high-poverty, low-performing schools, so I'm with school board member Keith Sutton. Can we get that promise in writing, Margiotta?"
7/22/10 Sutton's treatment
"As the debates rage on concerning the Wake County school board, there are some who assert that race does not matter. However, I find myself outraged at the treatment of school board member Keith Sutton by officers of the Raleigh Police Department."
7/22/10 To forge a better NAACP
Local chapters of the NAACP are still involved in meaningful struggles throughout the country. For example, the North Carolina NAACP has been involved in contesting the erosion of integration in Wake County Schools."
7/22/10 Turmoil tops board agenda again
"It's hard to tell amid the din if the promises and threats are sincere. It's equally difficult to know if anyone is listening to each other. But a couple of recent developments will almost certainly shape the debate of the next few months."
7/21/10 Quick answers to school questions
"A long, hot day of protest marked by a downtown march and rally and arrests at a Wake school board meeting overshadowed the central issues and political stakes roiling North Carolina's largest school district."
7/21/10 Wake busing decision protested; 19 arrested
"On a day that promised political drama about the dismantling of the Wake County schools diversity policy, a thousand people took to the streets in sweltering heat for a march that culminated in arrests reminiscent of the civil rights era."
7/21/10 Protests, arrests mark Wake schools meeting
"Before the afternoon meeting descended into a tangle of chanting protesters collared by determined police, Margiotta also promised in an opening statement that the board would not be distracted by its critics from a return to neighborhood schools."?
7/21/10 Searching, openly
"So far, the board seems inclined to keep their names confidential throughout, meaning the identity of the board's eventual choice would not be disclosed in advance. That would needlessly forfeit a chance to consider public comment regarding finalists and risk undercutting the community's confidence in the new superintendent."
7/21/10 Vaporous labels
"Please, Northern Wake Republican Club, what is a solid conservative?"
7/21/10 Mandate is missing
"They were elected to carry out a mandate, and they're doing so." I keep reading this, but I'd like to remind Pope and his like-minded followers that less than 4 percent of the electorate is hardly a mandate."
7/21/10 Move the meetings
"I wonder whether Superior Court Judge Bill Pittman thinks this was an open meeting. Is requiring the public to spend hours in 97 degrees reasonable? Is this a good faith effort to have the overflow in dangerous heat? Are they making reasonable accommodations for the disabled while they wait/spend the whole meeting in the parking lot?"
7/21/10 Rising test scores stir diversity flap
"Wright credited the work of the curriculum management audit implemented under former Superintendent Del Burns with helping focus attention on the achievement gap.
7/21/10 Wake commissioner races heat up
"November's Wake County commissioner races may be a blip on most people's political radar, but insiders have already started throwing cash at candidates in what will be a group of hotraces with the school board controversy at its center."
7/21/10 Wake school board newcomers get narrow but consistent 5-4 victories
"The 5-4 divide over controversial issues has become familiar to board observers. Sometimes there are several 5-4 votes on a given issue as the four minority members try to amend language and are voted down time and again before the original action passes."
7/21/10 19 arrested at Wake County School Board meeting
"Residents spoke out about the board's recent decision to re-assign students based on neighborhood rather than the older policy that bused students across the county to achieve socioeconomic diversity."
7/21/10 A Day Later: Thoughts on the Wake school situation
"Board Chairman Ron Margiotta, Papa Ron in GOP circles, doesn't say much at meetings, but he does guffaw from time to time when someone like McLaurin makes a point that she thinks he ought to consider ... but which he not only will refuse to consider, he relishes the fact that he's in the majority and doesn't have to consider it."
7/21/10 The evidence-based protests continue
"It's an example of what understandably infuriates the board's opponents, the willingness of the Gang of Five to mislead, misrepresent, and misstate their plans in service of what is clearly an ideological agenda to remake the schools."
7/21/10 Board Member Maintains He Did Not Intentionally Try To Get Arrested
"The crowd was pushing back and there was pushing and shoving," Sutton said. "Then I got in between them to try and protect her and the child."
7/21/10 Board member Sutton wants Raleigh police apology
"I think an apology would be appropriate," Sutton said Wednesday afternoon. "If that happens or doesn't happen, that's certainly not a dealbreaker for me, but I do think an apology would be appropriate."
7/21/10 Wake schools chair: NAACP protests 'sad'
"The head of the Wake County Board of Education on Wednesday called a disturbance and nearly 20 arrests at Tuesday's school board meeting "sad" and called the state NAACP "irrelevant."
7/21/10 Rights leaders, clergy rally for diversity
"On a day that promised political drama about the dismantling of the Wake County schools diversity policy, about a thousand people took to the streets in the sweltering heat for a march and rally that culminated in arrests reminiscent of the civil rights era."
7/21/10 Frames and facts in Wake schools
"Not only that, it was a question of national importance: Schools outside of Wake County (but not in Wake yet) are more segregated today than they were 40 years ago, according to an important study done at UCLA."
7/20/10 North Carolina School Board Debate Over Potential Resegregation Sparks Fiery Protests
"Sutton, the only black member of the board, said he went into the crowd to try and calm things down and encourage officers not to use such strong force. He said he felt insulted that he almost got arrested and believes the officer who tried to detain him owes him an apology."
7/20/10 Trading Places: A North/South Reversal on Civil Rights
"What the northern transplants on the Wake County school board don't realize is that they will be doing their own children a disservice by narrowing the range of their experience and leaving them awkward and fearful in the presence of those who are different."
7/20/10 Revs. Petty, Barber arrested for trying to enter the Wake school board meeting; others taken into custody at the meeting for chanting
"Following the pro-diversity rally, State NAACP President the Rev. William Barber and the Rev. Nancy Petty, pastor at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, were arrested by Raleigh police for trying to enter the Wake school system's building at 3600 Wake Forest Rd. to attend today's Wake school board meeting. Barber and Petty were barred from attending the meeting by School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta because of their arrest for trespassing at a board meeting last month. Barber, Petty, Duke historian Tim Tyson and Mary D. Williams, a gospel singer and Raleigh parent, went to the front of the meeting last month and refused to sit down, leading to their arrests."
7/20/10 Security costs for Wake school board meetings increasing
"Spending on security for Wake County Board of Education meetings has skyrocketed in the past eight months, according school system data obtained by the Wake Community Network."
7/20/10 Wake schools diversity-policy supporters rally in Raleigh
"About 1,000 people took to downtown Raleigh's streets Tuesday morning to protest the way students will be assigned to Wake County schools under a controversial policy opponents fear will resegregate schools."
7/20/10 Blog: Calm rules as Wake school board turns for third time to public speakers
"Andy Ewans of Cary told the board, "I can no longer reason with the school board" and that the community-assignment policy will cost taxpayers money. Failing non-diverse schools "will fail," and property values will drop as the system's reputation sinks, Ewans predicted. "Wake up!" he shouted to voters in general."
7/20/10 Tensions rise at Wake County school board meeting; 19 arrested
"The protesters held hands, locked arms and chanted against resegregation, refusing to leave the podium. More than a dozen officers intervened and took the protesters to a Division of Prisons inmate transfer bus."
7/20/10 Wake's interim school leader might leave
"Donna Hargens, interim superintendent of Wake County Public Schools through a period of intense public attention, has made a bid to leave the system as one of three candidates for superintendent of New Hanover County Schools, officials announced in Wilmington."
7/20/10 Demonstration planned against Wake school board
"Opponents of the school board contend the changes will resegregate schools."
7/20/10 Growth v. diversity
"I fear that those people living in the expanding suburbs will find no change with a new policy as growth is the key determinant."
7/20/10 Protesters rally against Wake schools plan
"Shortly after 10 a.m. today, marchers started the walk from the Raleigh Convention Center to the State Capitol, some on foot, others in wheelchairs or scooters, some pushing baby carriages. Many carried posters distributed by NAACP organizers. Others toted homemade signs: "No To Segregation!" "Segregation Equals Hate" and "Diversity Has Made Me One Heck Of A Jazz Musician" Others waved American flags or wore buttons that said, "Every Child, Our Child."
7/19/10 Hargens eyed for another superintendent job
"Valita Quattlebaum, a spokeswoman for New Hanover County Schools, said Monday that Donna Hargens is one of three final candidates being considered for the superintendent position there."
7/19/10 Wake schools diversity debate takes center stage again
"The line is drawn over the student assignment debate in the Wake County Public School System, and both sides are expected to meet Tuesday in what's been advertised as a move to stop segregation and promote diversity."
7/19/10 Wake schools fight to get loud
"Your slight majority today is the aftermath of the church's silence," said Bishop Richard K. Thompson, leader of the Eastern N.C. district of the AME Zion Church. "We will no longer sit in our churches silent."
7/19/10 Preparing for protests at Tuesday's school board meeting
"Diversity policy supporters who hope to put the pressure on Wake County school board members on Tuesday may be hamstrung by the extra security measures that day."
7/19/10 New and old Monday numbers for the Gang of Five
"0-number of times members of the Gang of Five have mentioned the survey since last spring"
7/18/10 Groups to rally at Wake schools meeting
"It's important for the community, for the public, if they do not support the school board policies, to continue to voice their opinions," Yevonne Brannon, chair of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, said Sunday."
7/18/10 164 'solid' conservatives sought for school board meeeting
"In a Friday post to its e-mail list, the Northern Wake Republican Club called for 164 "solid conservative people" to sign up for tickets to the meeting and encouraged them to speak in "support of our school board's decision to stop forced busing."
7/18/10 N.C. legislature to study school diversity's effect
"Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, we need to look at what Wake is doing," said state Rep. Rick Glazier, a Cumberland County Democrat who proposed the commission. "This is an issue that is truly important. This is one of the most successful and largest districts in the country making a major change, and the question is why?"
7/18/10 Hands across the neighborhood
"But any path that leads to isolation of traditionally disadvantaged minorities, with admonitions that they just ought to shape up, must be suspect. It lets the rest of us shirk our duty to attend to those in our community who have the greatest needs."
7/18/10 Our racial progress
"Personally, I am extremely proud of the actions of North Carolina's Gov. Terry Sanford in 1963 as opposed to Alabama's Gov. George Wallace."
7/18/10 School overhaul
"Regarding Wake County's school system, how about a fresh approach to education in the less-affluent neighborhoods?"
7/18/10 The system works
"I think the "majority" Wake County school board members have not lived here long enough to see the big picture. You cannot move to a new state and mold it into your old one."
7/18/10 Magnet parents get creative with CMS bus options
"Charlotte-Mecklenburg magnet parents are organizing to create carpools and alternative bus stops to cope with the loss of neighborhood busing in August."
7/17/10 Schools that lure jobs
"Equity and excellence are hard work, but one begets the other. There are two indisputable facts that must guide this conversation: Great teachers and principals are the key to student performance. Sadly, however, the research is irrefutable: Few great teachers stay in high poverty schools."
7/17/10 Minds of their own
"It is a shame that Tedesco does not recognize the caliber of students in Wake County and that they are civic-minded, bright, intelligent and astute individuals who can and do think for themselves."
7/17/10 Barring heroes
"Regarding your July 15 article "NAACP head barred from schools": Is there any difference when the school district chooses to ban those who protest from its grounds even when no one has been found guilty than when a government chooses to silence its citizens when they disagree?"
7/17/10 Proof in scores
"The steady closing of the gap in the early part of the decade and enormous amounts of scientific data supported Burns' beliefs. Diversity as a means of improving educational quality was the focal point of his administration."
7/16/10 Diversity's supporters have the high ground going into Tuesday's rally at the Capitol
"But the school board majority has made little (some might argue no) progress toward adopting a new student assignment policy and no progress on the issue of ED (economically disadvantaged) students and their lagging academic performance."
7/16/10 Report: School Districts' Perspectives on the Economic Stimulus Package
"While nearly two-thirds of all school districts have used the federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to save or create teaching jobs in the 2009-10 school year, as many as three-quarters of the nation's school districts expect to cut teaching jobs in 2010-11 due to budget decreases, according to a new survey of districts released this week by the Center on Education Policy (CEP)."
7/16/10 TGIF lunch links - Part I
"Next Tuesday the 20th there will be a march in downtown Raleigh to defend high-quality, diverse schools in Wake County. Supporters of the diversity policy will gather July 20 at 10 a.m. They will march from the Raleigh Convention Center to the State Capitol. Marchers will represent more than two dozen concerned groups of local parents, state religious organizations and nonprofits including the NC NAACP."
7/16/10 Teens assail school board 'puppets'
"A group of Wake County teenagers opposed to neighborhood schools hurled allegations Thursday that conservative groups are out to resegregate the school system and destroy public education."
7/16/10 First lady tells NAACP to keep fighting
"When so many of our children still attend crumbling schools, and a black child is still far more likely to go to prison than a white child, I think the founders of this organization would agree that our work is not yet done,"...
