Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata won the biggest gamble of his
ninth-month tenure Tuesday, but he could still face fallout in the
months ahead.
Tata accomplished his mission
of getting the school board to agree on a new student assignment plan
after two years of fighting about the best way to determine where
students will go to school.
When opposition rose in the
past month, Tata stuck his neck out by telling board members and the
community that they couldn't afford any delay in adopting the plan.
With the plan now so closely identified with Tata, he'll get the credit if it works out or take the heat if he doesn't.
The
first test will come next month, after a Nov. 8 runoff election -
between Democratic school board member Kevin Hill and Republican
challenger Heather Losurdo - decides who will hold the majority on the
officially nonpartisan nine-member board.
For the past two years, the board has been controlled by Republicans - a group that brought in Tata and pushed for the new plan.
Last
week's election ensured seats to four Republicans and four Democrats,
leaving the runoff in North Raleigh's District 3 to determine the
direction of the school system.
Partisan dynamics
Losurdo,
who initially said she couldn't vote for the plan, announced this week
that she was joining her fellow Republicans in supporting the plan.
A
Losurdo victory would preserve the Republican majority. A GOP board
majority would likely defer to Tata on making the changes he and his
staff feel are needed.
Hill voted against the plan Tuesday. If he
wins the runoff next month, Tata's plan will be in the hands of a new
Democratic board majority. Most of the Democratic members, including
those who were elected last week, have raised concerns that the new
assignment plan doesn't do enough to avoid creation of low-performing
schools.
Some of the new Democratic board
members had urged the board to delay adoption of the plan, leading Tata
to remark that it would be "insulting" to the outgoing members to take
the decision out of their hands. Tata warned Tuesday that a delay would
only hurt parents and students.
A new Democratic majority
is more likely to make changes to the plan to beef up the student
achievement component, a change that Republican board vice chairman John
Tedesco has derisively said would lead to a quota system for diversity.
The
extent of the changes a Democratic majority would request could delay
the implementation of the new plan for the 2012-13 school year.
A target for critics
During his honeymoon period, Tata met with groups all over the county to listen to their concerns.
His
willingness to sit down and talk with groups that had previously been
skeptical about him because he was hired in a party-line vote by the
Republican board majority won him grudging respect.
Tata's
presence also seemed to ratchet down the public bickering on the school
board as he became the public face for the school system.
But
the new student assignment plan, along with Tata's support for
implementing two new single-gender leadership academies, has eaten away
at some of the retired Army general's support.
Public criticism
from community members about Tata, which largely disappeared after he
started work on Jan. 31 and began winning people over, has reemerged.
As
work on the student assignment plan progressed - and as Tata stood fast
on the need to adopt the plan Tuesday - more people began to publicly
question his actions.
Patty Williams, a member of the Great
Schools in Wake Coalition, challenged Tata's statements that the process
has been nonpolitical as she charged that holding the vote now "makes
the whole process smack of politics."
But Tata knows he'll be
working with at least one new board member, Jim Martin, whom he took the
unusual step of criticizing days before the election.
Tata
had accused Martin of misleading the public in a press release about
how the school system has responded to complaints about candidates
politicking at schools.
Aiming for 85 percent
If
there isn't much change in the plan, Tata will take heat from the
public if there's any dissatisfaction, particularly from families who
don't get their top choice.
Tata has estimated that they can
provide 85 percent of families their top choice. But in a district with
146,000 students, that's potentially a lot of unhappy families.
Tata
has won some breathing space by guaranteeing that current students
don't have to change their school next year. But if more than just a
small number of incoming kindergartners don't get their top choice next
year, then there could be some backlash.
But if the plan works as
well as Tata has touted, it will be the signature piece of his tenure
leading one of the nation's largest school systems.
