Wednesday, March 30, 2011

more Cash 3-30-11 stuff


WAKE BOARD COMES UP WITH “MYSTERIOUS” NUMBERS
By Cash Michaels
Editor

           
            The headline of the March 9, 2011 story in The News & Observer was clear:
            “WAKE CAN’T TELL FEDS HOW MANY STUDENTS BUSED FOR DIVERSITY.”
            “Wake County school officials… can’t provide detailed information on the number of students who were assigned to schools for socioeconomic diversity,” the story reported. “…Ann Majestic, the school board’s attorney, said Wake didn’t track which neighborhoods…were reassigned for diversity reasons.”
            On WRAL-TV that same March 9, 2011 evening, the same story, this one titled,
“WAKE SCHOOLS DIDN’T KEEP BUSING RECORDS.”
            “…some requested data was missing.”
            “…school leaders admitted they never kept records of their busing program.”
            “School board member John Tedesco said the lack of data on why students were bused may make it difficult to determine how well the diversity policy worked,” reported WRAL-TV that evening.
            And yet, in its March 22, 2011 official response to the federal racial bias complaint the NC NAACP filed against the Wake School Board with the US Education Dept.’s Office of Civil Rights, there it was, detailed percentages of students who are bused starting on page 30 of the 46-page report.
            A section examining how socioeconomic diversity (SES), the Wake School System’s previous student assignment policy that is still in effect until the board’s neighborhood schools policy takes hold once a new assignment plan is adopted, allegedly “…has led to disproportionately long bus rides for poor and minority students.”
            In short, according to the board’s official response to OCR, since its inception in 2000, SES in Wake County has never helped economically disadvantaged students academically achieve, and helped even less when those students were bused far from home.
            The section then displays a spreadsheet that “…shows the numbers and percentages of all WCPSS students who have bus routes within the ranges of 0-5 miles, 5.1 to 10 miles, 10.1 miles to 15 miles, and overt 15 miles to their assigned schools.”
            “As shown in the excerpts… Black and Hispanic students have much longer bus rides than White students in Wake County,” the OCR response report adds.
            Several charts measuring academic proficiency rates for black students based on the length of their bus commute to base schools give percentages, “proving”, according to the report, that the longer “poor and minority students” travel to and from school by bus, the worst they perform academically.
            “Members of the Board majority have long believed, based on their own experiences and what their constituents have told them, that poor and minority students carried a disproportionate share of the burden in the District’s “busing for diversity” approach,” the report opined.
            “The data,” it continued, “strongly support this belief.”
            The only data reference per this issue, however, is exhibit 72, in reference information provided by Wake Schools System staff to the non-defunct Student Assignment Committee, which was chaired, ironically, by John Tedesco.
            “…the spreadsheets staff provided to the Committee show that students who are transported “out of zone” to attend base schools farther away tend to have a lower proficiency across several measures when compared to their “in-zone” peers,” the report cited.
But what is this data based on if just three weeks ago, Wake School System officials couldn’t even give OCR the total number of students bused for diversity for the past three years in the first place?
            And if Tedesco told WRAL-TV that, “…the lack of data on why students were bused may make it difficult to determine how well the diversity policy worked,” then how is the school board’s report able to factually prove, beyond the Republican board members own feelings, that longer bus rides under SES do hurt students of color academically?
            In short, either the school system actually has those busing for diversity numbers - widely believed to be between 3-4 percent of the total student from 2007 to 2009, or they don’t.
            The Carolinian reached out to the Wake County School System for an explanation, but no comment was forthcoming by press time Wednesday.
            This newspaper also asked several board members for an explanation.
            No one could answer. In fact, one board member, Kevin Hill, replied, “Good question,” admitting that he was never made aware how this analysis came about with the numbers OCR was looking for.
Irv Joyner, one of the NCNAACP attorneys who helped craft the federal complaint, wasn’t buying the report’s findings.
            “I agree that there are some mysterious numbers being used or the
Board has been providing contradictory information to the public and OCR,” he told The Carolinian after reviewing the report. “It seems to me that you need hard and accurate numbers in order to create percentages.”
             “The issue before OCR is whether the schools are being segregated on the basis of race. That decision is measured, in large part, by the absolute numbers,” attorney Joyner continued. “Are African-American students being assigned to predominately one-race schools and are Whites being assigned to predominately White schools? The Board's response seems to center on its motivation, which is questionable. The issue is the "effects" of the assignments.”
             The issue of the student achievement -which is another separate issue- cannot be measured by mere numbers. You have to look at who is being assigned where and for what reasons are they there. You also have to look at their prior educational skills and development. Thus, this issue is more complicated than the Board would lead the public/OCR to believe. At best, the answer to this side of the review deals only with motivation and not with the issue of re-segregation.”
                                                            -30-


CASH STUFF 3-30-11


MRS. BLACK NC HAS A MISSION
By Cash Michaels
Editor


            She calls herself  “the first bald beauty queen of North Carolina,” and for good reason.
But it’s not by choice.
            When Sandra Dubose-Gibson of Raleigh was being crowned Mrs. Black North Carolina last weekend at St. Augustine’s College, it was indeed with a beautiful, yet hairless head. A bold, daring fashion statement of personal choice and style perhaps?
            A bold and daring personal statement, for sure, but about courage in the face of physical challenge. Gibson, a happily married woman of 15 years and proud mother of two girls, has suffered from the autoimmune disease alopecia areata - a condition of patchy hair loss that can be brought on by iron deficiency - since the age of 25.
            The resulting loss of hair 12 years ago, at such a young and vital age, forced Gibson to deal with deep issues of low self-esteem and purpose in the face of an irreversible disease that threatened many of her hopes and dreams in life.
            But only if she let it.
            “I entered [Mrs. Black NC] because I know that it would be bigger than me,” Gibson told The Carolinian Monday. “If I could stand and represent women like myself who have been challenged with low self-esteem, whether it be because of hair loss or whatever the issues were, that it was going to make such a powerful statement to so many women.”
            “I did it for myself, I did to prove that it can be done, and to help other women be inspired, and motivated to liberate themselves.”
            Leading by example for her two daughters, ages 13 and 9, was also part of Gibson’s mission, not just in entering the competition, but also in her roles as motivational speaker, actress, singer and documentary filmmaker.
            The Bronx, NY native has appeared in theatre productions across the nation, including in the popular gospel musical, “ Mama, I Want to Sing.” Gibson has performed with gospel great Walter Hawkins and R&B veteran El Debarge.
            And in 2008 Gibson produced the documentary, “Project Liberation: My Alopecia Experience,” from which her song, “I’m Beautiful” comes from.
            Why did this disease strike Sandra Gibson?
            She doesn’t know. Though there is a history of autoimmune deficiency in her immediate family (Gibson’s father died of lupus), she is the only one with alopecia areata.
            Born healthy with a full head of hair, Gibson began noticing a bald patch in her hair in her mid-twenties. Soon more little circles of patches began to appear over time.
            “That’s not a style that any women would chose,” Gibson quipped, noting how alarmed she became as the condition progressed. It was more than a “bad hair day.” She didn’t want to leave her house, and indeed couldn’t without a hat.
            Gibson felt helpless; she couldn’t even look in the mirror. One of a woman’s most personal cherished and coveted attributes was disintegrating every day, right in front of her.
            “There was nothing I could do about it, other than cover it up,” she recalls. Gibson admittedly went through a period of “shame and hiding,” fearing that others would find out, and be judgmental.
A dermatologist told Gibson what it was, and that there was no cure. It wasn’t long before her eyebrows and eyelashes were gone as well.
            “It took me through a period of depression,” Gibson recalls, “and I had to redefine and rediscover who I was outside of those physical attributes, and really tap into the woman that I am inside, which is really the essence of beauty for everyone.”
            That is the lesson that Gibson says she is “passionate’ to share with the world.
            Today Gibson feels empowered enough to wear stylish wigs when she wants to. She is not hiding shame anymore, and her triumph in the Mrs. Black North Carolina Pageant is self-confirmation of that, given that she was crowned bald, photographed bald, and has done TV interviews sans a full head of hair.
Turning “lemons into lemonade” is Gibson’s mission in life now. As the new Mrs. Black North Carolina, she will travel the state making appearances, and speaking to women and at gatherings about her condition, and the strength it has taken her to overcome it.
            “If you don’t love yourself,” Gibson says, “How are you going to expect anyone to do it? It’s not a choice. It’s something that you have to do to have a happy life.”

            For more information visit: www.SandraDubose.com


                                                            -30-
NC Justice Center, Great Schools in Wake Weigh in On Student Assignment Proposal 

RALEIGH (March 29, 2011) A new report issued by Great Schools in Wake and the NC Justice Center says the Wake School Choice plan, authored by consultant Michael Alves, does not prioritize student achievement highly enough and lacks clear policies to ensure all schools are high-performing.

According to Alves and Wake Education Partnership Vice President Tim Simmons , the Wake School Choice plan is a series of general guidelines and assumptions that illustrate how a controlled choice model could work in our school district.  Recognizing the incomplete nature of the Wake School Choice plan, the new report emphasizes that without fact-driven policies that are clearly defined, easy to understand, and consistently implemented, this plan could easily degrade the academic quality of our schools.  It could also cause greater instability in assignment, limit school choice and substantially increase costs—all of the things that it was precisely not intended to accomplish.

"If the Wake School Choice plan or similar controlled choice plan is ultimately accepted as the only politically palatable compromise for our current situation, then strict guidelines that allow instruction to be successful must be in place for such a plan to succeed," said John Gilbert, former 16 year veteran of the Wake County School Board. 

Outreach will be a key part of successful controlled choice, the report says, in order to inform the public of how the plan works and what choices are available. A controlled choice system must aim to avoid racial and economic segregation, as well as guarantee transparency so that all students, regardless of their socioeconomic background or race, will receive a fair shot at attending high quality schools. It will be imperative that the Board of Education make a commitment to balanced schools, and this commitment should be reflected in Board of Education policies.   Further, these policies cannot be waived, relaxed or ignored, or the “control” part of a controlled choice plan will become meaningless.

“We strongly encourage the school system to ensure that the student assignment plan adopted in Wake County gives top priority to student achievement while addressing concerns about proximity and stability,” said Matt Ellinwood, a policy advocate with the NC Justice Center.  Ellinwood continued, “As Superintendent Tata himself noted, ‘a student assignment plan has to address avoiding high concentrations of low-performing students.’ Low performing schools drain countywide resources and all students receive a diminished education.”

The report argues that revising, but not abandoning, Wake County ’s current node-based assignment policy also warrants serious consideration. The overwhelming majority of parents surveyed last year indicated satisfaction with assignments and school calendars.  In addition, strained financial resources will make it difficult to implement an entirely new controlled choice system effectively.

The report concludes: “We believe that the Wake County Public Schools’ Student Assignment staff has the knowledge, talent and good judgment needed to fine tune our current node-based system and create greater stability in assignment. And by augmenting our magnet program, we can extend choice to more students.  In sum, we already have a modified choice plan with great potential to be enhanced for the benefit of all.”
 FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: Yevonne Brannon, Chair, WakeUP Wake County, ybrannon@gmail.com, 919-244-6243; Matt Ellinwood, Education & Law Policy Advocate, NC Justice Center, matt@ncjustice.org, (919) 861-1465 

                                     -30-

state news briefs

MECHANICS & FARMERS BANK MAINTAINS PROFITABILITY STREAK
            [DURHAM] In what financial analysts say is an amazing streak, M&F Bancorp, the corporate home of Durham-based black-owned Mechanics and Farmers Bank, continues over 100-year streak of annual profitability. In its latest report M&F posted $339,000 net profit for 2010. It ended the year with $312.3 million in assets, with $201.8 million in loans. A spokesperson said they were proud of M&F’s “unbroken record of profitability” since it opened its first branch in 1908, despite the current bad economy. M&F Bank has branches in Durham, Raleigh, Charlotte, Winston-Salem and Greensboro.

STATE HOUSE PANEL PASSES HIGH SCHOOL ACCREDITATION BILL
            [RALEIGH] In reaction to accreditation controversies in both Wake and Burke counties, the state House Education Committee this week passed a bill that will prohibit state universities from using high school accreditation for admission, scholarship or loan considerations unless that accreditation comes from a state agency. The measure also mandates that the state Board of Education begin accrediting school districts at the school districts expense. The bill does not address how it affects out-of-state attending college in North Carolina, or whether an out-of-state college will honor a North Carolina accreditation, compared to one from a recognized independent organization.

NC JOBLESS RATE DROPS SLIGHTLY TO 9.7 PERCENT
            [GREENSBORO] A tenth of a point drop is what separates February’s statewide 9.7 unemployment rate from January’s 9.8, the NC Employment Security Commission says. While the improvement in the North Carolina unemployment rate may be, at best, modest, observers agree it is a far cry better than the 11.4 percent from a year ago February 2010. The state figure is higher than the national average of 8.9 percent.

                                    -30-

triangle news briefs

CARY POLICE URGE SAFETY AGAINST ROBBERY
            With more than 200 Cary homes having been robbed just in the past 15 months, police there are urging residents, particularly in the Waldo Rood Blvd and Cary Parkway areas to lock their doors and garage doors at night. Thieves have burglarized residences through open pathways, taking purses or whatever value they can find. The robberies have been nonviolent thus far. Cary police urge neighborhood vigilance. If you see something, call Cary police at 469-4012 or Cary Crime Stoppers at 919-226-CRIME.

PROGRESS ENERGY REPORTS LOW LEVELS OF JAPANESE RADIATION
            Low levels of radiation from the nuclear plant breach in Japan is being detected in North Carolina, say officials at Progress Energy. Sensitive equipment at Progress Energy nuclear reactors in both South Carolina and Florida are detecting very low levels of Iodine 131 radiation from the nuclear leaks at the Fukushima plant in Japan. Fukushima was damaged after the monster tsunami several weeks ago. Official maintain that there is no threat to US citizens thus far.

WAKE COMMISSIONER STAN NORWALK STEPPING DOWN
            Veteran Wake County Commissioner Stan Norwalk has announced that he is stepping down from office by the end of the year for health reasons. Norwalk, 79, says he and his wife will move to Oberlin Park, Kansas to be closer to his children. Norwalk, a Democrat,  has been a staunch defender of the Wake school system’s socioeconomic diversity policy. His departure depends on his ability to sell his home in a timely manner.

                                -30-

Shaw Champions Honored By Governor


(Raleigh, NC) -  North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue               Tuesday welcomed Shaw University's football, men's basketball and women's basketball teams to the Executive Mansion in a celebration of their Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) titles.

"There are little boys and little girls all over North Carolina who are going to see your pictures in the papers tomorrow, they're going to see you on YouTube, on the internet and they're going to dream about being you," said Governor Perdue at the reception.  "They're going to be inspired because of the way you live your life.  I have to tell you, as the Governor of North Carolina, I'm inspired by you.

"I thank you for your commitment to excellence both on the field and the court, and in the classroom," she continued.  "You're what makes all of us who are older, like me, understand that America and North Carolina's future is mighty strong."

The event honored the 2010 Shaw football team, and the 2010-2011 men's and women's basketball teams, all of whom won CIAA championships this academic year and advanced to NCAA tournament play. 

After Shaw President Dr. Irma McClaurin thanked Governor Perdue for the reception, she spoke to the student-athletes in attendance.  "You have gone on to prove that with very little you can do a lot.  We don't have the greatest stadium, we don't have the greatest set of resources, but what we have is heart, and what we have is endurance, and what we have is perseverance."

The football team won the CIAA championship, and advanced to the NCAA Tournament, finishing the year with a school-best 9-3 record. 

The men's basketball team won the CIAA Tournament, and made it to the regional semi-finals in the NCAA Tournament.  They finished the season with a 23-9 record.

The women's basketball team qualified for the NCAA Tournament with their win of the CIAA Tournament, and advanced as far as the Final Four for the first time in Shaw women's basketball history.  With a 25-12 record, they finished the season ranked 12th in the nation.

After the event, President McClaurin stated that from this point forward, Shaw University will be known as the home of Champions.

                           -30-

cutlines 

HONORING THE SHAW BEAR CHAMPIONS - Tuesday afternoon at the Governor’s Mansion, there was a plethora of “bears,” but Gov. Bev Perdue didn’t mind. In fact, she gladly welcomed the CIAA champion Shaw University men’s and women’s basketball teams, and the football team, along with Shaw University Pres. Irma McLaurin. The Lady Bears competed in the NCAA Division II Elite Eight last week. [ Sherri Fillingham, Steve Worthy photos]

[1204] SANDRA DUBOSE-GIBSON