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Sept. 1-15, 2010, News Archive
9/15/10 Wake schools outperform others
"In fact, Wake outperforms Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Guilford and the Winston Salem/Forsyth public schools in many areas."
9/15/10 Wake business leaders to discuss student assignment plan
"The Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Education Partnership will hold a press conference Thursday to comment on the Wake County school board's plan to assign students to neighborhood schools."
9/15/10 Wake schools might restore Project Enlightenment services
"A majority of Wake school board members voiced support today for at least temporarily restoring parent counseling services to Project Enlightenment rather than giving the work to the county."
9/15/10 Reverse the flight
"The controversy over diversity and neighborhood schools only adds to the perception of dysfunctional schools and is merely the latest in the battle for funding of public or private education and who will control the school system. The consequence is that the average test scores and graduation rates drop as the more motivated parents and their children flee to private schools."
9/15/10 James West warns about dismantling school system
"We have a world-class school system compared to other school systems throughout the country," West said in his acceptance speech. "We certainly don't want to see the school system dismantled."
9/15/10 NC Education Board Chairman Becomes Perdue Adviser
"State Board of Education Chairman Bill Harrison is getting a paid job advising Gov. Beverly Perdue on education initiatives and overseeing how North Carolina's share of the "Race to the Top" federal education grant is used, Perdue announced Wednesday."
9/15/10 WCPSS scales back zero tolerance policy
"If you long-term suspended someone for the 180 days, and you were in the month of May with only 30 days left in the school year, then that student was conceivably suspended for the rest of the year and into the next school year under the old policy," he said. "Now, the remainder of school year can not bleed over to another school year."
9/15/10 Charlotte parents slam magnet-school shuttle system
"It's crazy," she said of the shuttle stop program. "As a parent, I'm doing everything I can to get my kids where they need to be. ... The shuttle stop program is not conducive to working families with more than one child in school."
9/14/10 Raleigh FIST organizing another "Day of Action"
"In a Sunday blog post, Raleigh FIST (Fight Imperialism Stand Together) urged people to help them plan for the Oct. 7 protest in Raleigh, which is part of a series of protests that will be taking place nationally."
?9/14/10 Committee to discuss ways to improve communication with public?
"The Wake County school board's community relations committee will discuss today online signup to speak at board meetings and other ways to improve communications with the public."
9/13/10 Testing, testing
"The latest foray is a proposal to require most 11th graders in North Carolina to take the ACT, a college entrance test."
9/13/10 NC SAT TAKERS MOST DIVERSE GROUP IN STATE HISTORY;? SCORES SHOW GREATEST 10-YEAR GAIN AMONG "SAT STATES"
"North Carolina students have shown the largest 10 year gain on the SAT among the states where the test is the most commonly used college entrance exam, according to The College Board's annual SAT report released today."
9/13/10 Wake County parents voice concerns over student-assignment zones
"The concern over the assignment zones is the latest rumblings of discontent toward the school board, which has dealt with protests from the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP and a number of community groups over its move away from the diversity policy."
9/13/10 NC: Wake teachers fear budget crunch could cost them jobs
"While parents and school board members debate Wake County's move toward neighborhood schools, the county's public school teachers are worrying about whether the turmoil will cost some of them their jobs."
9/12/10 Despite grant money, charter school limit remains
"North Carolina's big victory in President Barack Obama's "Race to the Top" grant competition has charter school boosters playing from behind again in the state's latest round of education reform."
9/12/10 Let's get kids what they need
"By the time many of our most disadvantaged students get to high school, it is a fight to help them graduate let alone pursue college or a rewarding career. As the cycles of poverty keep spinning, the costs are tremendous."
9/12/10 Teensy district
"At the very least, every time you write that Margiotta was on the Ridgefield Park school board, please follow with the phrase, "a 2-square mile district with four schools."
9/12/10 Not tuned in
"However, of all the possible social groups in which one can be placed, I can state based upon 67 years of experience that members of the white, male Christian social group are the least likely to spot or understand segregation or any other racial, religious or ethnic prejudice."
9/12/10 Our intertwined lives
"Our way of living together in America is a strong but delicate fabric. It is made up of many threads. It has been woven over many centuries by the patience and sacrifices of countless liberty-loving men and women. It serves as a cloak for the protection of poor and rich, of black and white, of Jew and Gentile, of foreign and native born. Let us not tear it asunder. For no man knows, once it is destroyed, where or when man will find its protective warmth again."
9/12/10 Tentacles of opinion
"Thanks to Ford for taking on Pope's multimillion-dollar opinion manufacturing machine. It is a monstrosity, with tentacles reaching deep into North Carolina media and institutions. And it is a subject well worth your best team of investigative reporters."
9/12/10 The road we're on
"Wake County has spent 50 years attempting to equalize opportunity through education. Those of us who pursue this lofty goal realize we have not succeeded. However, progress has been made, and we hope to continue forward instead of go backward. Where would Wake County be if our schools had remained "separate but equal"?"
9/12/10 Predictable Pope
"Pope and his array of ideologues are far from nonpartisan independent public policy organizations. What they are is predictable!"
9/12/10 Accreditation matters
"If we lose our accreditation, it will have a major and immediate effect on each and every public school student's probability of being admitted to college. It would also affect a high school graduate's job prospects. This cannot be the change the voters were hoping for!"
9/11/10 Luddy laughs at notion he'll run Wake schools
"Triangle Politics had raised the question making the rounds: Will the Wake County school board majority appoint Luddy as its new superintendent? The conservative businessman's first response was a hearty chuckle."
9/11/10 Anxiety, uncertainty
"I've heard rumblings I've never heard before about "my school" and "their school" and "maybe we need to consider private school." The board majority purportedly sought to create stability and community, but what we've experienced so far is divisiveness and uncertainty, more questions than answers and a lot of insecurity and anxiety about what's coming next and how those decisions are being made."
9/11/10 Classroom dedication
"At my school, I would like school board member John Tedesco to know, we do not focus on students' income levels instead of their academic ability. Many comments in this article were so insulting to the dedicated math teachers who work with the students of Wake County."
9/11/10 Margiotta not objecting to schools showing Obama speech to students
"But Margiotta said that, based on how innocuous last year's speech was, he's not objecting this time."
9/10/10 Webb resigns from Wake board
"With a deep grasp of history and a long record of achievement, Webb became the voice of District 5, which includes the largely black and strongly Democratic neighborhoods of Southeast Raleigh."
9/10/10 Linking school diversity and "justice immigration" issues
"The Great Schools in Wake Coalition, NC HEAT, NC Equals and the Youth Organizing Institute are holding a voter registration training session on Saturday at 10 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh. Organizers are closely linking the issues of school diversity and immigration."
9/9/10 "Horrible" budget year awaits schools
"It took more than six months of intermittent wrangling before Wake County school leaders could agree on how to close a $22.5 million budget gap this year."
9/9/10 Shutting down the school-to-prison pipeline
"For North Carolina to be competitive in the increasingly global economy of the 21st century, the state will need all the human capital it can foster. Talking about the drop-out rate is a good idea. Taking measurable steps to reduce it is an even better one."
9/9/10 Private schools set for growth
"Luddy, the largest donor to the majority on the Wake County school board and to groups that support it, also founded St. Thomas More Academy, a private Catholic school in Raleigh, and the Franklin Academy, a charter school in Wake Forest."
9/9/10 Tailored discipline
"School board members have been butting heads over diversity, but they came together to approve a change in the definition of long-term suspension."
9/9/10 Anniversary for the "first"
"And today's debate over school assignments, playing out in the rhetoric of a Wake County school board majority that is either unfamiliar with or uninterested in history, oblivious to the damning consequences of segregation and most astoundingly, determined to fly in the faces of most parents of school children who have said they're happy with the way the schools are, ought to scare everybody with a memory of what it was like 50 years ago, or 50 years ago and then some."
9/9/10 Wake County Commissioner Harold Webb resigns
"Wake County Commissioner Harold Webb has resigned and he's doing so in a way designed to limit the potential fallout for Democrats at the polls this year."
9/9/10 Dan Coleman calls magnet schools "separate and unequal"
"Dan Coleman, president of the Raleigh-Wake Citizens Association, is stepping up his pointed criticism of Wake County's magnet school program and the old diversity policy."
9/9/10 Allowing online registration to speak at school board meetings
"Previously, people who wanted to speak at a board meeting had to go in person to the school district's headquarters to physically sign up on a sheet. Now you'll be able to register electronically anywhere you have an Internet connection."
9/9/10 Bob Luddy's views on public schools and school competitional
"Conservative businessman Bob Luddy, who is building two more private high schools in Wake County, is explaining his views on school competition and the role of public schools."
9/9/10 Ah..."choice" and "neighborhood schools"...
"Families at overcrowded suburban schools could find themselves fighting to keep their children on popular campuses, and those at under-filled inner-city schools could find their students facing reassignment to schools outside their neighborhood."
9/9/10 School changes likely to be felt countywide
"Families at overcrowded suburban schools could find themselves fighting to keep their children on popular campuses, and those at under-filled inner-city schools could find their students facing reassignment to schools outside their neighborhood."
9/8/10 No arrests but heated words fired at school board majority
"For instance, Adrienne Lumpkin, past PTSA president of Enloe High School, blasted school board member John Tedesco for citing the 46 percent passing rate for elementary school kids living in the Southeast Raleigh/Enloe zone to blame busing for low student achievement. She said he was using one figure "to drawn an unfounded conclusion."
9/8/10 Diversity policy supporters holding parent advocacy retreat
"Low-income children and children of color in Wake County face tremendous challenges, including increasingly segregated schools, achievement gaps, and high suspension rates," according to the website for the retreat. "Their parents can and should be their greatest advocates."
9/8/10 Wake schools likely to lose $100 million
"Wake County school leaders face the potential loss of more than $100 million in state and federal funding next year, including all the money for custodians and a majority of the money for clerical staff."
9/8/10 School discipline changing in Wake
"We're moving in the right direction," Sutton said. "It's going to help principals manage discipline issues and will reduce the number of suspensions."
9/8/10 Aggravating and mitigating factors in the new student suspension policy
"As noted in today's article, principals will consider aggravating factors when making some suspensions longer and mitigating factors when making some suspensions shorter."
9/8/10 The future of school zones: Uh, oh.
"Wait, wasn't the whole idea of junking the diversity policy that it would put an end to "massive reshuffling" in the Wake school system?"
9/8/10 CMS may reshuffle 32 schools - expand, downsize or close
"If you choose to close it, where do you put those kids?" Gorman said. "If you're closing a school because it's low performing, do you move them to another low-performing school? That's not the intent."
9/7/10 Fitzsimon accusing school board majority of trying to keep "lessers" out
"Chris Fitzsimon's latest attack on the Wake County school board majority focuses on complaints about the new community assignment zones being drawn up."
9/7/10 Meeting schedule, student discipline on Wake school board agenda
"The board last month dropped its two-meeting-a-month practice, and at the same time abolished its standing committees."
9/7/10 Two men shape fight over diversity
"Whether Barber and Margiotta, men of different generations and widely dissimilar backgrounds, can close that gulf is questionable."
9/7/10 Saunders: Diversity isn't all we need
"Barber spoke of the need for parental involvement, smaller class sizes and better teachers. "We've never argued that diversity is a cure-all," he said, "but there is no debating that anti-diversity is the same as anti-excellence in education."
9/7/10 Twilight zones
"Choice is a good thing for those who want it, just as proximity can be good. But acknowledging that this is all at a very preliminary stage, it's hard to see how the logistics of such an approach will work."
9/7/10 Nine months of crusading
"That's where the planning ended. The members of the Gang of Five have been flailing to come up with a new assignment plan ever since, bringing in outside experts and then ignoring them, promising to provide extra funding to newly created high poverty schools, then denying that any high poverty schools would be created."
9/7/10 Wake schools demolition continues
"There are some good takes out there this morning on the Wake school board and two in particular are worth a quick read."
9/7/10 "Neighborhood schools" could cost NHC state funding, one member says
"For me, my personal goal is that we don't have schools that have segregation based on race or socio-economic status," Elizabeth Redenbaugh said. "It would be tragic if we lost our Disadvantaged Students Supplemental Funding. That is something I don't want. The fact is...we have past decisions that may cause us to lose that funding."
9/7/10 Goldman's attempt to rescind design money fails
"School board members Debra Goldman and John Tedesco had voted no because none of the sites were in Southeast Raleigh and the decisions were being made before the new community assignment zones were finalized."
9/7/10 Wake schools looking 'Stage 5' fiscal hurricane 'right in the eye'
"All significant slack" in the district has been cut already, Neter said, "and we're still facing a Stage 5 hurricane - and right in the eye."
9/6/10 School integration enters its 50th year
"I am disappointed that - with so many seemingly having endured so much for so long to get to what was a terrific school system in Raleigh - it would be dismantled without any consideration of the long-term detrimental effects," he said last week from his home in Florida."
9/5/10 What you pay for
"Instead of crying crocodile tears over the minority graduation rate in Wake County, the school board majority and its supporters should be honest about their true intent: if you can't afford to live in a rich area, then too bad for you - and your children."
9/5/10 Margiotta's mess
Regarding the Aug. 27 article "Margiotta firm on diversity policy": Ron Margiotta is willing to come onto the school board and potentially mess up my seventh-grader's chance of getting a scholarship or funding because his high school may not be accredited because the board doesn't think schools need to be accredited, and he's 95 percent sure he's not going to run for re-election in November?"
9/5/10 Let's vote on it
"A referendum on the proposed student assignment district changes would ensure that the decision represents the community at large."
9/5/10 Let school pros lead
"My answer is let the Wake school system's professional employees, teachers, principals and other academic leaders, with some community input, make decisions for the schools about what is needed for improvement. I continue to be immensely impressed by the high-level competency of the Wake schools' central office, as well as school principals and teachers."
9/5/10 Zone realities
"More than $80 million in federal stimulus funds will be lost in the Wake County schools budget for next year, and the school board has not started planning for these cuts. How are we going to pay for program equity across zones, extra busing, additional administrative costs, parent education and the programming of the algorithm for the new zone allocation needed for the new zone plan without a tax increase?"
9/4/10 Way-wrong direction
"If the preliminary maps are any indication (news story, Sept. 1) then clearly we are headed in the wrong direction."
9/4/10 Diversity, opportunity
"My peers and I are strong witnesses to the academic possibility begun by constitutional access, for students of every income level, to excellent classrooms and teachers, which were markedly strengthened by the diversity policy that has been"
9/4/10 Citizens group president joins diversity ruckus
"Dan Coleman, president of the Raleigh-Wake Citizens Association, is getting fallout for his public criticism of the old Wake County socioeconomic diversity policy."
9/3/10 Wake schools group taps new leader
"Gordon Brown, chairman of the partnership's board of directors, said Parrott was hired because he is a good communicator who can bring people together around consensus and understanding."
9/3/10 Year-round inequities
"Have John Tedesco and members of his Student Assignment Committee actually looked at the plan they proposed? In less than 10 minutes, I noted several areas of concern."
9/3/10 Magnet disconnect
"At best, these contradictory statements reveal Margiotta's fundamental misunderstanding of what a magnet school is and what it does. At worst, they reveal a more sinister motive of appeasing magnet fans by claiming to support magnets while simultaneously turning them into the high poverty schools the magnet program was designed to eliminate. Given the current board majority's disdain for diverse schools, the latter explanation seems more likely."
9/3/10 Premature pick
"The timing of this decision creates serious doubt in my mind that the BOE and the Student Assignment Committee value or consider public comment, ideas and input as a vital part of the decision-making process."
9/3/10 Reporting on Wake diversity fight for school administrators
"A magazine read by school administrators across the country is reporting on the Wake County school diversity fight."
9/3/10 Potentially improving relations between the WEP and the school board majority
"As noted in today's article, members of the board majority are saying that the hiring of Steve Parrott to be the WEP's new president is a good sign. The traditionally good relationship between the board and the WEP has been strained over the elimination of the diversity policy."
9/3/10 NC: Wake student assignment plan leaves some districts short of school choices
"Kevin Hill, a member of the Democratic minority on the board, is already receiving a lot of feedback on the map via e-mails and phone calls. Hill said the total overhaul is a concern."
9/2/10 Wake Education Partnership names former Embarq exec new leader
"Steve Parrott, a former telecommunications executive who now runs an investment company, will be the next president of the Wake Education Partnership."
9/2/10 Formula for success
"Teachers still will have a role, but when a qualified child is not admitted to higher level math such as Algebra I in middle school, a principal will have to explain the decision in writing. SAS developed the program that now will be used in the decision-making process."
9/2/10 RWCA leader criticizes diversity policy
"I have met with leaders in Southeast Raleigh; I talk with constituents on a daily basis," Sutton said. "They feel like I am doing a pretty good job, that I am doing what's in the best interest of kids and of Southeast Raleigh."
9/2/10 Keeping the comment period open for the new assignment maps
"The public comment period on the Wake County community-baaed student assignment zone maps has been indefinitely extended."
9/2/10 No, they are not "social engineers"
"The moment the board majority began dismantling the longstanding, nationally renowned diversity policy of the school system, they did not engage in social engineering. Rather, they were acting as political engineers."
9/2/10 Top of the morning
"Jim Horn at Schools Matter is justifiably fired up about the latest move by the Gang of Five on the Wake County Board of Education to dismantle the system's diversity policy. And he doesn't mince any words."
9/2/10 NC: Wake County Democrats propose resolutions regarding school board
"Both the removal and recall resolutions were voted down by Wake County Democratic Party, but the resolution that would, "Mandate economic and racial diversity in public schools," did pass."
9/1/10 NC: Wake County School Board engages in spending spree after claims of fiscal responsibility
"The Wake County School Board led by a Republican majority has engaged in a number of decisions that have cost tax payers a sizable sum of money."
9/?/10 Arrests and Federal Reviews Bring Attention to Wake County
"Due to heightened vigilance regarding minority achievement, districts across the country are under scrutiny. One of these is the Wake County (N.C.) Public School System. Recently the Wake County school board decided to change the way it handles student assignments and busing between schools."
