Final Act of Small-Minded Bitterness by Wake's Gang of Five

After Wake County voters re-established sanity last month by voting out the resegregationist school board majority, the Gang of 5 met one last time behind closed doors to rescind a previous offer to mediate trespassing cases against citizens who publicly resisted the end to the socioeconomic diversity program earlier this year.

If there could conceived be a more appropriate goodbye by these hateful bigots, I can't think of one:

The Wake County school board lineup that left office Tuesday decided behind closed doors last week to seek trials for 30 people charged with trespassing at board meetings, rejecting a prosecution offer to have the cases mediated. Former board chairman Ron Margiotta said the board wanted to take a stand against "anarchy."

But Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby said Wednesday that his office will make the ultimate decision and that he still hopes the cases can be settled rather than tie up court dockets.

"We had anticipated that the school board would be involved in the discussions to try to mediate it out," Willoughby said. "It will be hard to have mediation when one side refuses to be involved in the process."

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/12/08/1696987/trials-sought-for-protesters.html#ixzz1fzfRhPXu

Save Diversity in Wake County Schools: Vote on Tuesday

From NPR:

Not long ago, I posted on the challenge North Carolina represents for President Obama who won the state in 2008 and badly needs it in his column again.

I mentioned a New Yorker piece by Jane Mayer on Art Pope, the conservative North Carolina businessman who has reshaped his state's politics more towards his GOP leanings by bankrolling a number of campaigns and think tanks.

A campaign he's put some emphasis on is a race for a seat on the Wake County school board. The county is home to the city of Raleigh.

The school board's bare GOP majority in 2009 discarded a policy that used family income to try and create greater diversity in its schools.

As Dave Dewitt of NPR-member station WUNC reported for Morning Edition, Democrats hope to turn things around by winning a seat next Tuesday and gaining a board majority.
 As Dave reported, some of the Democratic campaign against the Tea Party-affiliated candidate, Heather Losurdo, has been fairly negative:

During the campaign, a group called Progress NC Action has publicized her 20-year old personal bankruptcy, a job she held at a strip club in 1993, and her positive reaction to a racist joke her husband posted about President Obama on Facebook. None of those are likely to play well with voters in her district - suburban north Raleigh.

(Losurdo defended herself against those attacks on a local radio show as reported by the newsobserver.com.)

A political scientist Dave quotes, David McLennan at William Peace University in Raleigh, explains that the race, hyperlocal as it is, may become something of a tell-tale to indicate the direction of the political winds in North Carolina for next year's state-wide and presidential races. President Obama has sent numerous signals that he wants to win North Carolina in 2012 badly, just as he won it in 2008.

And here's an indicator of the race's importance, as Dave reports it:

Before 2009, a candidate for Wake County School Board spent roughly $10,000 during a campaign. This year, the combined spending has already surpassed a half-million dollars. It's a dramatic increase and a precursor to how much money is expected to roll into the 2012 elections from the president on down.

Again, a useful snapshot of how even the smallest of government offices are seen as big prizes in our highly partisan politics.

Wake County Lame Duck Segregationists Hustle to Approve Anti-Diversity Plan

Despite an election that has changed the face of the Tea Party controlled school board, and despite public questions and appeals to go slow, the defeated school board chair, Ron Margiotta, has put the new anti-diversity plan on next Tuesday's school board agenda. 

Mobilize the stop the premature vote that defies the wishes of Wake County voters.  From News Observer Oct. 13:

RALEIGH The three newly elected Democratic school board members, echoing many who spoke at a public hearing today, said Tuesday is too early for a final vote on Wake County schools’ sweeping new student assignment plan -- even if the delay puts off the plan for a school year.

District 8 representative-elect Susan Evans, who defeated chairman Ron Margiotta in Tuesday’s election, said additional study time might mean the plan would not be implemented until 2013, but might well be worth it.

“Do we have to have this in place for 2012-2013, when 94-95 percent of parents are happy where they are?” Evans asked. “I think we could take the time to vet it out and get it right. We definitely need to continue to work on a long-term plan.”

About two dozen speakers, most of them asking for changes in the choice-based plan, spoke before a crowd of about 80 people in the auditorium of historic Broughton High School. Every member of the nine-member board except Cary representative Debra Goldman showed up, while newly chosen members Evans, Christine Kushner and Jim Martin sat in the front row.

The members elected Tuesday won’t take office until Dec. 6, but Holly Springs resident Laura Broadbelt made an emotional plea to include Evans, Kushner and Martin in decision-making right away.

“What I’d like to suggest is something extraordinary -- that these three people here come up right now and start working with you,” Broadbelt said emotionally. “It looks like there’s enough room for you to scooch over.”

Control of the board beginning in December remains unknown pending a Nov. 8 runoff election between District 3 incumbent Kevin Hill and Republican challenger Heather Losurdo. Hill won 49.7 percent of the district vote, but needed a clear majority to win outright.


Board members, as is customary, did not respond to public comment, but Margiotta has indicated that the plan will appear on the agenda of Tuesday’s school board meeting.

Federal Civil Rights Investigators Come to Wake County and Hear Plenty

The Tea Party Five and their Broadie superintendent, Gen. Tata, are on the hot these days with Civil Rights investigations and damning reports that could lead the loss of accreditation of Wake County high schools. 

From WRAL:

Raleigh, N.C. — Nearly a year after filing a federal complaint against Wake County Schools, the state NAACP and others got the chance voice their concerns directly to those investigating it.

A five member panel from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights traveled from Washington D.C. to Raleigh on Wednesday for a public hearing.

Last summer, the NAACP filed a complaint with the office alleging a plan to change how students are assigned to schools across the county would concentrate poor students into schools in poor communities.

As part of its investigation, the OCR wanted to hear directly from citizens about the Wake County school board's student assignment policy.

Thirty-two people spoke at the forum held at the Martin Street Baptist Church in Raleigh.

Many told the panel the change in policy would kill diversity in the schools.

“Neighborhood schools mean re-segregated schools," retired educator John Eberhard said. 

Amy Lee, the parent of a Wake County student, said the board is "our schools into have and have nots.”

You may watch the entire proceedings below, thanks to WRAL.

NC Tea Party Working to Insure Wake County Resegregation Holds

Recently the Koch-Heads in the North Carolina legislature introduced a bill that would have the State create its own school accreditation body, just in case AdvanceEd votes to withdraw accreditation for Wake County high schools for the County's irresesponsible and mis-educative resegregation practices.

Now some of the same geniuses that sponsored that bill have brought another, this time a special re-writing of an existing law that would give the incompetent leader of the Gang of Five a vote, just in case Wake County citizens wake up and turn out one or more of these puppets of the John Birchers in the next school board election. From WRAL:

By Matthew Burns

Posted: 2:24 p.m. Tuesday

The state House is considering legislation that would expand the voting power of Wake County Board of Education Chairman Ron Margiotta.

Rep. Nelson Dollar introduced House Bill 498 on Monday, and fellow Republican Reps. Marilyn Avila, Tom Murry and Paul Stam are co-sponsoring the legislation.

The bill aims to eliminate a sentence from the 1975 state law that created the school board that states "the presiding officer shall have no authority to vote except to break a tie."

The nine-member school board is supposed to be nonpartisan, but a Republican-backed group joined with Margiotta after elections in 2009 to form a new majority. They have since changed numerous policies, including how students are assigned, and have drawn criticism from many sides, including former President Bill Clinton and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

Vice Chairwoman Debra Goldman has broken ranks with the GOP bloc on several occasions, and giving Margiotta more voting power could give the Republicans more muscle in some debates. . . .

Wake County School Board's Koch Heads Called Out in Scathing Accreditation Report

Advance Ed issued its long-awaited report yesterday that focused on wholesale policy changes aimed at re-segregating Wake County Schools.  The Tea Party's Gang of Five school board majority did not fare well in a report.  From WRAL, Rev. Barber:

"All voters, parents, teachers, students and anyone interested in improving Wake County schools should study this thorough, thoughtful and professional report," NAACP President Rev. William Barber said.

"It is a sad confirmation of our position, but what is sadder is the majority of the board continuing to fight against policies designed to provide every child a high-quality, constitutional, well-funded, diverse public education," he continued.

And from the News-Observer, these details:

Planning without data
The review team criticized the board majority for changing Wake's school assignment plan, which used socioeconomic diversity to balance school populations, without support from what reviewers called relevant information on student achievement, graduation rates, length of bus routes and a positive parent satisfaction survey.

"There is no compelling data to support the rationale and reasoning stated by members of the Board for the change in policy," according to the report. "In fact, throughout the interview process, it became very evident that board members were shaping policy based on personal experiences rather than relying on objective data and evidence reflecting the system as a whole."

The report said that of the high school principals interviewed by the AdvancED, most said they believe "in the benefits of the prior Student Assignment Policy."

Amy Womble, a Wake parent and activist who has opposed the board majority's changes, said the findings about board members lacking a sound basis for ending the diversity policy were "huge."

"They have said they have their own data, and they have refused to acknowledge Wake County data showing the improvement in the achievement gap," Womble said.

The auditors pulled few punches in criticizing the board majority that took control on Dec. 1, 2009, following fall elections that swept four new Republican members into office.

"At the beginning of this meeting four new Board members (John Tedesco, Chris Malone, Debra Goldman and Deborah Prickett) were installed," the report said. "Once installed the four new Board members joined forces with current Board member, Ron Margiotta, to launch a premeditated act that resulted in destabilizing the school system and community."

Harsh action
Mark Elgart, president of AdvancED, gave Wake the second-harshest possible action. It's one step short of putting the district on probation.

"Accreditation warned" status means AdvancED, located in Georgia, found at least one serious issue that needs to be corrected within the next year to keep the accreditation.

Elgart said 10 percent of their 6,000 member school districts across the country share that status.

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/03/17/1059056/schools-lost-wakes-trust-report.html#ixzz1GuJDiMnK

Will Wake County Citizens Allow the Koch Brothers and the John Birch Society Run Their Schools?

From Think Progress:

Today in the Washington Post, reporter Stephanie McCrummen detailed how a right-wing campaign in the Wake County area of North Carolina has taken over the school board with a pledge to end a very successful socio-economic integration plan. The integration plan, which created thriving schools in poor African-American parts of the school district along with achieving diversity in schools located in wealthy white enclaves, was a model for the nation.

However, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the Tea Party group founded and funded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, worked with local right-wing financier (and AFP board member) Art Pope to fundamentally change Wake County’s school board:

“I don’t want us to go back to racially isolated schools,” said Shila Nordone, who is biracial and has two children in county schools. “But right now, it’s as if the best we can do is dilute these kids out so they don’t cause problems. It sickens me.”
In their quest to end the diversity policy, the frustrated parents have found some influential partners, among them retail magnate and Republican operative Art Pope. Following his guidance, the GOP fielded the victorious bloc of school board candidates who railed against “forced busing.” The nation’s largest tea party organizers, Americans for Prosperity – on whose national board Pope sits – cast the old school board members as arrogant “leftists.” Two libertarian think tanks, which Pope funds almost exclusively, have deployed experts on TV and radio.

In a way, the Koch brothers are simply fulfilling their father’s legacy. In 1958, Fred Koch — the founder of Koch Industries — joined a group of manufacturing executives and Robert Welch to found the John Birch Society, a virulent far-right group that dominated the civil rights debate. The John Birch Society organized an impeachment campaign against then-Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren for the Brown v. Board decision outlawing racial segregation, and mobilized its supporters to oppose integration of schools on the grounds that mixing black and white would lead to the “mongrelization” of the races. Fred supported the John Birch Society’s anti-civil rights campaign, and wrote a screed denouncing the civil rights movement as communist-inspired.

Charles and David did not only inherit an oil company, they inherited a political philosophy. The Tea Party movement, orchestrated by AFP and other Koch fronts, reflects the paranoid style of the movement started by their father, Fred. As Thom Hartmann has explained, corporate interests have long funded far-right, paranoid movements to continually shift the balance of politics in America. The radical right creates political space for corporate candidates like Richard Nixon or Mitt Romney to appear “moderate” in contrast. David Koch, it should be noted, actually supports Romney for president in 2012 even though David’s fronts have spent the last two years boosting reactionaries like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC).

Sue Sturgis of Facing South has reported that the AFP campaign in Wake County was also aided by the private school industry, including a company called the Thales Academy. AFP has called for more charter and private schools, and now with its slate of Tea Party candidates controlling the system, they will have the power to continue their racially-segregated privatization scheme.

Hope Rising to Challenge Despair in Wake County

Wake County School Board's Gang of 5 has been working overtime since last year's local election to undo one of the most successful socioeconomic integration plans in the nation.  John Tedesco has been the diminuitive driver of the anti-diversity Koch-funded forces who, until last week, seemed about to succeed in putting in place a policy assuring the return to segregated schooling.  Now it seems as if the coalition of resegregationists has cracked, and the entire house is cards is about to come tumbling down. 

Meanwhile, there are new levels of interest nationwide in socioeconomic integration (except in the U. S. Department of Education) as a way to boost achievement without turning schools into the brainwashing penal pedagogy camps of the KIPPs and their knock-offs. A new study by the Century Foundation, "Housing Policy is School Policy," reminds us once again that education reform is something that does not happen JUST INSIDE the schoolhouse.  Until we begin to take seriously this fact, we will continue to treat educational symptoms without addressing the underlying disease, thus allowing the advocates of America, Inc. to continue to savage the public schools.

Valerie Strauss has a discussion going at WaPo, and here is Richard Kahlenberg's piece that addresses some of the concerns that have been expressed regarding socioeconomic integration.

Wake County's Teabagger 5 Policies Under Review by Southern Association of Colleges and Schools

Well, well. Killing the most successful diversity program in the nation may have its costs when it comes to accreditation for Wake County high schools. From the News & Observer:

RALEIGH The agency that accredits Wake County's high schools is reviewing all of the major policy changes adopted by the new school board majority, including abandoning the socioeconomic diversity policy.

A special review team from AdvancED, the parent organization of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, will be in Raleigh soon to meet with school officials. They've asked Wake for a range of documents including:

* All policies adopted by the school board since the new majority took office Dec. 1.

* Who developed the new community-based assignment initiative and any studies and information used to support the change

* A description of the seat voucher policy now being used at school board meetings

* Copies of all records on proposed changes to the power and authority of the superintendent.

* Copies of any all contracts between the school system and the Civitas Institute, a conservative group appointed by the new board majority to be one of the groups that can provide board member training

* Copies of all all contracts between the school system and Thomas Farr, the Republican attorney hired by the board majority to be a special legal counsel and to audit the district's legal contracts

* Copies of information used to determine the financial impact of ending Wake's use of mandatory year-round schools

* Copies of all information on why the board majority abandoned construction of the Forest Ridge High site in northeast Raleigh.

The review was triggered by a complaint filed in March by the state NAACP, which alleges that the move to community schools will lead to resegregation.

Wake County Republicans Try to Make Resegregation Plan All About Busing

Until national attention was finally drawn to the racist Tea Party's Gang of Five on the Wake County School Board, the Republican Party had been content to let the haters of Wake's school diversity plan frame their argument as being opposed to liberal "social engineering."  This thinly disguised racist meme was uttered by all of the Tea Partiers who were working overtime to overturn the successful Wake County diversity plan, whether it was Little John Tedesco at a big Tea Party rally or anti-diversity pioneer, Susan Matson, who could not wait to see an end to the "social engineering" that had brought Wake County to the point where there were, indeed, no bad school in Raleigh.

With the sudden attention by ABC and CNN, however, the opposition by the teabaggers is now to busing, rather than to the "social engineering" that assured all children, regardless of color or class, a quality education. Here is the latest attempt by the intellectually-inept Republican Chairman to make the racist anti-diversity plan all about ending forced busing:

If there ever were a failed policy of the past, it is forced busing. For about 35 years, zealous reformers tried it hither and yon, and it never worked anywhere. Finally, in 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed forced busing for racial purposes. The Wake County busing plan was designed to exploit a supposed loophole in the decision, and used the code word economic as a surrogate for racial. Whether this trick would survive a court challenge is questionable, which may be one reason the protesters have done much talking about suing the board but have yet to follow through.

A couple of points are in order here.  First, the 2007 SCOTUS decision to which Chairman Pope refers had nothing at all to do with busing but, rather, the constitutionality of using race as a factor in school desegregation plans in Seattle and Louisville.  The racists on the U. S. Supreme Court prevailed, thus further eviscerating Brown v Board of Education.  Busing was not even mentioned in the decision.  Secondly, the socioeconomic diversity plan, which the Chairman now calls a "busing plan," was not devised to exploit a loophole in a 2007 Supreme Court decision, particularly since the Wake County socioeconomic diversity plan was put into effect seven years earlier in 2000.  But when did facts ever matter to these fear and hate specialists!


With such deliberately ignorant social antiquarians in charge of the Research Triangle, how long can it be before the Triangle reverts back to the piney woods, just like the Claude Popes of the world would like for it to be.

Wake County's Gang of Five: 19th Century Pols in a 21st Century Community

Not only have these teabaggers on the school board destroyed the most successful school integration program in the nation, but now they are going after the books.  All the books.  Read this great feature from IndyWeek:

About Deborah Westmoreland. She called me a couple of weeks ago to ask if I knew that the Wake school board was laying off 40 librarians — media specialists these days — as of the end of the 2009-10 school year. I did not know that. I remembered Deborah from her involvement in the first Sparkcon a few years ago. Since then, she'd taken a job with the Wake schools as media specialist at Moore Square Magnet Middle School. Now, she was one of those being laid off.

Her call prompted me to write a column in the Indy this week about two related subjects. One is the fact that, with all the attention being given to the new school board majority's anti-diversity policy, and its plan to carve the county into "assignment zones" that will inevitably, I think, result in high-poverty schools in Raleigh and East Wake, too little attention has been paid to the new majority's very inadequate budget.

The Republican Five — the members in the 5-4 board majority — are "starving the beast" with a budget which, on the surface, seems reasonable given parlous times, but which is in fact far short of what's needed to keep a good system going. State aid is tanking, and the Wake system continues to grow with four new schools opening this fall and a projected enrollment increase of 3,800 students. Yet the school board asked the county commissioners for the same amount of money for next year as it received this year. Obviously, something will have to give. . . .

Do read on.

Pope, Luddy, and Wake County's Gang of Five Embrace Privatization--Publicly

(Photo: SHAWN ROCCO for the News & Observer)

When 95 percent of the voters stayed home in Wake County's school board election last fall, they could not have imagined what a civics lesson they were about to receive--the hard way. The newly elected Gang of Five, led by the morbidly stupid Ron Margiotta, is hellbent on unraveling an elaborate and diverse social quilt that took 35 years to piece together among Wake County schools.

If Margiotta knows more about private schools than he does about public ones, it is because he was serving on the Board of his patron's private school long before he was elected to his current office. As for Margiotta's full-time mouthpiece, John Tedesco, his views represent those of an unrepentant and fatuous fool schooled by too many years of talk radio. From the NewsObserver.com:

RALEIGH Ron Margiotta, who heads the board of the 140,000-student Wake County public schools system, also serves on the board of an Apex private school, whose owner says the traditional primacy of public schools will dwindle under a challenge from private schools.

And board member John Tedesco, a chief architect of the community schools approach that won voters over last year, says he would support a tax break to help families afford private schools if their needs are better served that way.

"I'm not afraid of open-market competition," Tedesco said.

Triangle businessman Bob Luddy, the largest donor to the ruling majority on the Wake County school board, is the owner of three private schools. Margiotta serves on the board of one of them,Thales Academy in Apex, and says there's no conflict between the roles.

Luddy said in an interview Friday that the importance of traditional public schools will likely diminish over time when faced with competition from options including private and charter schools.

"As the county and city and state are more and more in debt, in public education there's very little except for [offerings] for the best and brightest," Luddy said.

A majority of board members voted last week to ask legislators to raise the cap on the number of charter schools in North Carolina. Charter schools are taxpayer-funded public schools that are free of some of the regulations that traditional public schools must follow.

"Honestly, I would like to see the public schools get involved with the charter schools and develop a better working relationship because of the way that they tend to be theme schools," Margiotta said.

What this means is that diversity and reassignments aren't the only topic separating members of the Wake County school board - there's also a philosophical divide on how central a role traditional public schools should play. For the school board's Republican-backed majority, approaches such as increasing the number of charter schools and granting tax credits to parents who send their children to private schools don't have the stigma they held under the mostly Democratic coalition that held sway for decades.

The faction that's skeptical of those approaches is now in the board minority. Former chairman Kevin Hill and others say the shift would take away resources from financially strapped public schools, could support exclusionary schools and raise church-and-state issues if parochial schools are included.

Split over tax credits

Board member Dr. Anne McLaurin, who opposes tax breaks for private school tuition and thinks charter schools need more study, said Margiotta's role with Luddy's school goes directly against the proper role of board chairman: "the system's biggest cheerleader and largest standard-bearer."

"What you should believe is our public education is as good as any out there, and if it's not, you are going to make it that way," she said.

In the background of the differences among board members is the role that Republican power brokers Luddy and Art Pope played in electing the new coalition. The two businessmen were the majority's largest donors when individual, party and PAC contributions are totaled. Luddy has backed taxpayer support for private schools, including tax credits, for more than a decade. And, he has opened a Wake Forest charter school, Franklin Academy, and three private schools, including Thales academies in Apex and Wake Forest.

In an interview Friday, Luddy said the survival of traditional public schools should be up to parents.

"It should be parental choice, and that could come in a number of forms," he said. "Charter schools have overall worked very well. I favor the tax credit - a credit whether the person pays taxes or not."

There should also be a mechanism for helping low-income families, Luddy said.

But both Pope and Luddy said they have had no conversation with any of the new board members about charter schools, vouchers, tax credits or related subjects. . . .

Will Resegregationist Republicans Kill Diversity in Wake County Tomorrow?

In September 2007, thousands marched in Jena, Louisiana against nooses hung in trees and the racist treatment of students who had the audacity to react to such threats. Now a much bigger noose looms in Wake County, NC as five Republican members of the nine-member Board of Education cast a final vote on whether they will strangle the integrated school lives of Wake County's children, thus returning the consolidated school system to an era of separate and unequal.

Where will the marchers be tomorrow? How strong will the public voices be heard at this ridiculous indignity sponsored by the racist fringe Party of hate-filled thugs? Will Wake County citizens allow this vote to go forward? Will they vote to recall the Board President and have new elections? Where does the majority of Wake County citizens stand on this issue that threatens the moral and economic future of Raleigh and Wake County?

From the News Observer:

Wake urged to save 'a jewel'

RALEIGH A panel of national and local education researchers and retired Wake County school administrators urged the community Saturday to fight to maintain the school system's socioeconomic diversity policy.

Panelists praised Wake's diversity efforts as a national model and told a crowd of more than 400 people that research shows that high-poverty schools will lead to a drop in academic quality and a negative impact on the economy of the county. The forum took place as the Wake school board is poised to give final approval Tuesday to a resolution that scraps busing for diversity in favor of neighborhood schools.

"My fear ... as I witness from the sidelines is that we'll fall into the abyss with 'have' schools and 'have-not' schools," said retired Wake Schools Superintendent Bill McNeal. "That breaks my heart that could happen and would happen in Wake County schools."

Wake has received national recognition for a decade-long policy that aims to limit the percentage of students receiving subsidized lunches at any school to no more than 40 percent. Complaints about the policy helped fuel the election of new board members last fall who intend to send students to schools closer to their home communities.

To help mobilize supporters of the diversity policy, the Great Schools in Wake Coalition organized the forum at N.C. State University's McKimmon Center.

Panelists presented research based on national and state data on the benefits of diverse schools and the challenges of high-poverty schools.

Richard Kahlenberg, a researcher at the "progressive" Century Foundation who has extensively cited Wake's diversity policy, said studies have shown that high-poverty schools are more likely to struggle academically, have higher teacher turnover and less involved parents.

"This is a highly successful system," Kahlenberg said. "It is a jewel. I'm very pleased we have a huge crowd fighting back to preserve it."

Charlotte cited

Amy Hawn Nelson, a doctoral candidate at UNC-Charlotte, pointed to research in North Carolina schools showing that the highest achievement was in schools that were racially and socioeconomically balanced.

She also said the number of extremely high-poverty schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system has increased since the district abandoned busing for diversity in favor of neighborhood schools in 2002.

"You don't have to guess what Wake County will look like in four years," said Nelson, who is also a principal intern at Lincoln Heights Elementary, a high-poverty school in Charlotte. "You have a case study three hours down the road. It's not pretty."

Emotion shows

The frustration that forum participants feel toward the new school board majority was evident. Yevonne Brannon, chairwoman of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, called for the formation of "truth squads," while former school board member Beverley Clark drew applause when she borrowed a quote from former President Lyndon B. Johnson.

"Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one," Clark said. . . .

NAACP Calls for Segregationist Board Chair of Wake County to Step Down

From WRAL:

Raleigh, N.C. — Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, joined the state chapter on Tuesday in calling for the resignation of Wake County School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta after comments he made during a heated public hearing on March 2.

Margiotta could be heard saying, “Here come the animals out of their cages," during the meeting on the school system’s long-standing policy of assigning students to ensure schools had no more than 40 percent of students receiving free or reduced-price lunches.. . .

And for a well-written and emotional account of that Board Meeting, go to IndyWeek.com. Here's the opening:

5 MAR 2010 • by Chase Foster and Louisa Warren

Katja Mulligan walked briskly to the podium. She had been waiting for seven hours and it was finally her turn to speak. She began, but then her face flashed with anger as she observed the nine individuals in front of her. "You aren't looking at me?" she exclaimed. "Please give me respect, and listen!" Her desperation encapsulated the feelings of so many others there that night who also felt unheard.

Matt Duvall approached the microphone next. He was disheveled, tired, and he spoke directly and confidently, looking his interlocutors straight in the eyes. His children's elementary school was now set to double its poverty rate from 42 percent to 85 percent and he was furious. "You just changed my neighborhood school, A LOT," he bellowed sarcastically. "Thank you very much!" His anger and disgust indicative of the tenor of the evening. . . .

Wake County Board Chair Demands Respect for Racist Policy While Calling Critics Animals

Photo from TAKAAKI IWABU - tiwabu@newsobserver.com

The Wake County School Board's lead buffoon, Ron Margiotta, offered an non-apology for his "caged animal" remarks yesterday. Meanwhile the media has focused on complaints by parents of children having to be bused long distances to school as a result of the school diversity plan, which has been in place the the 1970s. The fact is that 95% of all school children in Wake County go to schools within five miles of their homes. This Republican-led plan is about resegregation, not busing.

The Margiotta story from the News Observer:

RALEIGH Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta is being criticized by supporters of the diversity policy for having complained at Tuesday’s school board meeting that some people were acting like “animals.”

Margiotta said “here come the animals out of the cages” in response to the booing that Bill Randall, a black conservative congressional candidate, received Tuesday from supporters of the diversity policy. Randall was among the speakers who had supported the resolution that received initial approval for abandoning busing for diversity in favor of neighborhood schools.

The Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, has scheduled a press conference for Friday to address Margiotta’s comments. Barber supports the diversity policy and has threatened to sue Wake if the school board adopts policies that lead to segregated schools.

“Any public official referring to those with opposing viewpoints, engaged in the democratic process as animals is unacceptable," said state NAACP Executive Director Amina Turner in a press release.

Margiotta acknowledged today that his comments were “out of line.” But he said he was only responding to the lack of courtesy he felt was being shown to critics of the diversity policy. Speakers on both sides of the resolution creating community schools were booed on Tuesday but the turnout was larger by opponents of the plan to end busing for diversity.

“If I offended anyone, it was not intended,” Margiotta said. “It was said in the heat of the moment.”

Watch John Tedesco Demonstrate How Racism Can Destroy Brain Cells

And you will love the mom who argues that integrating poor and rich children in school is discriminatory. From My NC.com:

Wake County Now Looking for Cash to Fund New Resegregation Plan of Board Majority

In a real life case of Ready-Fire-Aim in action, the resegregationists on the Wake County Board have shown once again how racist ideology can trump common sense, this time by voting 5-4 to blow up the current Wake County economic integration plan, a plan worked out and fine tuned over years of painstaking deliberation, in return for segregated schools plan with no price tag attached and no inkling of how it will work. No doubt their Tea Party overlords are mulling over the details, and who knows, maybe even Sister Sarah will even weigh in on this one.

March 23 is the date of the final vote. Who will step forward in Raleigh to invite 50,000 interested attendees to the Board Meeting? The ACLU? The NAACP? How about the local colleges and universities? Any organizers out there?

The story from the News-Observer, and priceless photo from TAKAAKI IWABU - tiwabu@newsobserver.com:

RALEIGH To pass their resolution implementing community-based schools, members of the Wake County school board majority had to endure fellow members' complaints about their methods and hours of criticism from members of the public.

But the hardest part almost certainly lies ahead - figuring out the details and costs of keeping students close to home, satisfying parents and boosting poor students' academic achievement.

The board voted 5-4 on Tuesday to give initial approval to scrapping Wake's diversity policy, an important component of student assignments for decades. A final vote is expected March 23.

The resolution calls for Wake to be divided into community zones, each with magnet, year-round and traditional calendar schools but doesn't detail how many will be created and is scant on other details. Members of the board majority say the nine to 15 months set aside to hone their ideas will be enough time to resolve questions.

"I don't think it will be as challenging as people think," said board member John Tedesco, who heads the committee that would develop the plan. "There will be some challenging components."

Critics say the proposal contains inherent contradictions that can't be resolved without redesigning the 140,000-student system virtually from top to bottom. Among the areas of uncertainty:

No one knows whether the changes will cost more, or where the money would come from if they do.

The plan calls for maintaining some form of the popular magnet school program but excludes the use of economic diversity as a factor in student admission. It remains uncertain how admissions would be determined.

The plan would almost certainly increase poverty at some schools but offers no details on improving their performance.

The proposal calls for community-based assignment zones but doesn't say how their boundaries would be drawn.

During the contentious school board meeting where the resolution was adopted, Superintendent Del Burns said that staff members haven't started considering how the elements in the plan will work or how much they will cost.

"I think the public really deserves to see a cost analysis, to give the community some assurance if this is a folly, or is this feasible," said Yevonne Brannon, a former Wake county commissioner and chairwoman of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, a community group that backs the diversity policy.

"I'm kind of tired of talking about a vision; I want a price tag to go with that vision."

Tedesco, who co-wrote the resolution, said the board majority would have been accused of being reckless if it had presented a completed plan with dollar figures. He said involving the community in developing the plan and coming up with cost figures is more responsible.

'Stability and balance'

"Nobody is saying we have the ultimate plan today," Tedesco said. "We know we're going to work out a plan that has stability and balance."

Kristen Stocking, a leader of the Wake Schools Community Alliance, a parents' group that backed the board majority, said she's not worried.

"The opposition keeps asking for details, but we have details showing that the system they're fighting for isn't working," Stocking said. Wake's 54.2 percent graduation rate for low-income students is "appalling," she said.

In a community-based assignment program, some schools could see sharp increases in the number of poor and minority students. And it's likely to cost more to educate them, said Ann Denlinger, president of the Wake Education Partnership, a nonprofit advocacy group.

"It requires additional financial resources, a consistent flow of additional dollars," Denlinger said. "We have not found any place that has done that successfully."

Tedesco said a community-based system should allow Wake to better target resources for low-income students. . . .

Target, contain, segregate. Thank you for the clarification, Mr. Jim Crow Tedesco.

Wake County's Anti-Diversity Board Majority Ponder Superintendent's Resignation

Photo: TAKAAKI IWABU - tiwabu@newsobserver
What do you get when institutionalized racism at the national level intervenes to buy a school board in order to destroy the nation's most successful school integration and diversity program? Keep an eye on Wake County, NC, and you will see the perfect case study unfolding before our eyes.

One thing you can obviously get is a righteously indignant superintendent who is not afraid to challenge the anti-diversity racist majority on the Wake County School Board. From the News Observer:

RALEIGH Wake County Schools Superintendent Del Burns could be out of a job as soon as Tuesday following his public criticism this week of the new school board majority's agenda.

The board hastily scheduled a special closed-session meeting for Tuesday to discuss whether to remove Burns, who has accused the new majority of engaging in "partisan political gamesmanship." For about $100,000, school board members could approve a payout that would allow them to immediately remove Burns ahead of his announced June 30 resignation date.

"Historically, when have you heard the CEO of a company publicly undermining the authority of his board?" said Debra Goldman, vice chairwoman of the school board. "At this point, you need to look at cutting your losses."

But school board member Kevin Hill, of the board minority, said it would be a mistake to remove Burns so soon. A former teacher and principal, Hill worries what would happen without Burns at the helm of the administration.

"I would hate to lose his direction and guidance with the system before we have the opportunity to bring a new superintendent on board," Hill said Friday. "Even if we were not able to hire a new superintendent by June 30, that would give us time to bring in a well-qualified interim."

There's no deputy superintendent because Burns eliminated the position after he was named superintendent in 2006. Three of his most senior administrators who might be asked to fill in are Chief Area Superintendent Danny Barnes, Chief Academic Officer Donna Hargens and Chief Business Officer David Neter.

Relations fray quickly

The relationship between Burns and the new board majority has rapidly deteriorated since Tuesday, when Burns issued a stinging surprise resignation announcement. He said he could no longer work "in all good conscience" for the school district he has served for nearly 30 years. Soon after the announcement, board chairman Ron Margiotta said he would try to talk Burns out of resigning.

Things worsened Thursday as Burns explained his reasons for resigning in a series of media interviews. He said he disagreed with the direction of the board's new Republican-backed majority, which wants to end the school system's diversity policy in favor of neighborhood schools. Burns said that would lead to a system of rich and poor schools. . . .

The Luddy and Pope Show: How to Buy a School Board, Wake Co. Style

Wake County, NC is ground zero for the war against school diversity in America. If Raleigh's most widely-heralded and successful economic integration plans can be stopped by right-wing racists in Wake County, it will constitute a huge step forward for the Team Apartheid. From the News-Observer:

RALEIGH Conservative businessmen Bob Luddy and Art Pope were the largest contributors in fall's Wake County school board elections, which ushered in a majority pledged to eliminate the district's diversity policy.

Final campaign finance reports show more than $340,000 in hard and soft money was spent during a contentious contest for control of North Carolina's largest school district. The majority - about $190,000 - boosted the fortunes of the four Republican-backed candidates who won.

Combined, Luddy and Pope provided $38,000 either to individual candidates or to the Wake County Republican Party's efforts in one of the most expensive campaigns in school district history. But Pope downplayed the influence he and Luddy had in the newcomers' victories.

"They were not elected by Bob Luddy or by myself," said Pope, a former Republican state legislator and head of a family-owned chain of retail stores. "They were elected by the overwhelming majority of the voters in their districts."

Wake County Republican Party Chairman Claude Pope Jr., a distant cousin of Art Pope, said campaign cash alone didn't guarantee political success in the school board race.

"As much money as you can spend, it won't help unless you have good candidates and a good issue," said Claude Pope, who has vowed to revive Republican fortunes by concentrating on local elections.

Opponents of the new school board majority said the reports show that Luddy and Art Pope, two influential critics of public education policy, are behind the new direction for Wake schools.

"It seems to confirm that Mr. Pope and Mr. Luddy played a really active role in electing the school board, and you'd think that their views would carry a lot of influence," said Chris Fitzsimon, executive director of N.C. Policy Watch, a liberal think tank.

The dividing lines

The nominally nonpartisan school board election broke largely along party lines, with most Republicans backing the four candidates who advocated neighborhood schools while many Democrats backed candidates who supported maintaining the district's diversity policy.

The winners in the four suburban districts on the ballot tapped into parental discontent about a broad range of issues: mandatory year-round schools, busing for diversity and the weekly early dismissals that detractors called "Wacky Wednesdays."

Supporters of the diversity policy didn't have any donors who provided as much money as Luddy and Art Pope.

Luddy, president of a company that manufactures kitchen ventilation systems and the founder of a charter school and private schools, donated $23,000 last year, campaign records show. Of that amount, $18,000 went to school board candidates and the Wake Schools Community Alliance, a parents' group critical of the diversity policy, while $5,000 went to the Wake Republican Party.

Luddy said he gave money to candidates he thought would improve Wake's graduation rate. He called it "laughable" to think he's influencing school board members because of his campaign contributions.

"I don't think a contributor in any way can dictate what a politician will do," Luddy said. "The reason we contribute is to get the best candidates and hope they're successful."

Art Pope, who founded the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank, pointed out that he didn't give any money directly to school board candidates.

Pope provided $15,015 to the Wake GOP, which spent nearly all of the money it collected last year on campaign mailers that supported the four school board newcomers and other Republican candidates.

Pope said he's annually one of the largest donors to the state and county GOP.

A claim of influence

School board candidate Rita Rakestraw, who lost her election bid last year to Chris Malone, said Luddy's and Pope's money helped swing the election for the four Republican-backed newcomers.

"It is alarming that Mr. Luddy and Mr. Pope can influence the outcome of the election," Rakestraw said. "These two men gave an extraordinary amount of money to candidates who are willing to resegregate our schools and focus solely on parents' convenience, not student achievement." . . . .