Why Wake County Board Should Continue Accreditation with AdvancedED

All in all, it hasn't been a good week for the Wake County Board of Education.

After the first three days of the week being either early release, cancelled, or opened late due to ice, school were having a rocky week.  Then Wednesday night, the Board had another public meeting filled with angry and concerned parents.  This time the contention was over statements by some of the Board that they might just choose to drop their accredited status, rather than answer the questions being posed by AdvancED, the accrediting agency for the Wake system.  The Board majority's compromise decision was to write a letter to AdvancED regarding the restrictions under which they would agree to cooperate with the agency's attempts to investigate charges of racial discrimination and improper board procedures lodged by the state's NAACP chapter.  Less than 24 hours later, the Board received AdvancED's response, which was basically "Sorry, Charlie."  I'm sure it was stated in more appropriate legalese, but AdvancED could have reduced it to the immortal words of the Jeffrey Rush character in my favorite movie of the moment, The King's Speech, when he said, "My game, my turf, my rules."  That is, the whole point of accreditation is to have an experienced, unbiased, outside team of educational experts look at the operation of a school to assure the public of its quality (or alert them to lack thereof).  They can't really do that if the schools they are examining tell them what parts of the system they can and can not look into.

Then, on Friday, the head educator in the entire country, the U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, chose to single out Wake Country among all the public school systems in the country to question its commitment to racial equity.  And this was not an off-hand comment captured on someone's iPhone; it was stated in a Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post expressing his concerns about the WCPSS as depicted in a Washington Post article that I mentioned earlier this week.  (Click here to see the letter in the Washington Post.)

Although it may not seem like it, I really try hard to understand the point of view of the Republican majority on the School Board, and I do my best to see them in their best light.  Nonetheless, I have to say that I think it would be foolish for the Board to continue down this destructive path towards non-accreditation.  There are three major arguments against pursuing this course of action:

1.  Lack of Accreditation Will Hurt Graduating Students

Accreditation is the accepted procedure for colleges to know you are coming from a respectable school system.  Losing your accreditation--or voluntarily withdrawing from accreditation when under an investigation--makes the system look fishy.  Board Chair Margiotta, in his ignorance?arrogance? I don't know, I'm having a hard time finding a more neutral term here, states that since Wake County is so big, he is sure that colleges won't stop excepting Wake County graduates.  He's probably right--for schools in North Carolina.  I'm sure there's no way that NC State or UNC is going to ban all Wake County schools from their campuses, nor will ECU or probably Duke or other colleges in the state.  But that understanding of this special situation will fade the further from North Carolina the high school students are looking to roam.  Some colleges, especially the highly competitive ones, have an automatic "kick-out" of candidates from non-accredited schools...one way to keep the numbers manageable.  Will they go back and make an exception for Wake County students?  I don't know, but if I had a child graduating in the next year or so, I wouldn't want to count on it.

Furthermore, there are some programs, loans, internships, and scholarships that have legal requirements that students graduate from accredited schools (sometimes with exceptions for homeschoolers).  They don't have any choice about it--Wake County students will not be eligible for those.  So, sure, if you have a child who graduates from Wake County, is only interested in going to a North Carolina college, and doesn't need these restricted loans or scholarships, whether the schools are accredited or not probably doesn't make that much difference.  But I think there are a lot of North Carolina high schoolers who don't fit into that category.

2.  AdvancED is NOT Your Enemy; They Could Even Turn Out to Be Your Best Friend

AdvancED is not reviewing the operation to come in and tell the Board what to do or to tell them how to assign students to schools.  AdvancED is supposed to be like a mediator or arbitrator; someone from the outside who can look at the issues with an impartial eye and give a ruling on which side is right.  For months now, the NAACP, leading the charge for many other critics, has charged that the Board acted against its own established procedures and agreed to a policy that will lead to racially discriminatory education.  The Board responded that they followed the correct procedures and have their arguments about how the new school assignments will benefit all students in the county.  The NAACP has one set of statistics backing up their side; the Board has another set backing up their contentions.  Whose figures are right?  Were procedures followed or not?  The latter question, at least, seems like there should be a simple yes or no answer to it.  But we have been given no answer, nor even a suggestion of how we are going to achieve such an answer; instead, we have month after month of each side arguing over the same points and making no headway in proving their points.

Enter AdvancED.   THAT is their job--to answer that question (among others).  If the Board REALLY believes they have followed the appropriate procedures, and they REALLY believe their statistics are more valid than the ones of their critics, they should welcome AdvancED to come and tell the public, The Board is right, they did things properly, and their figures are appropriate.   If AdvancED backed up their decision, that would take a lot of the wind out of the sails of the critics.  Maybe we could even move on and get something accomplished.  However, as I stated in an earlier post, this is not the first time that the Board majority acts like people outside their own ranks are out to get them.

3. Guess What?  You're Going to Have to Answer those Questions Even If You Drop Your Accreditation

Let us not forget that this fight with AdvancED is not the only regulatory problem the Board has on their plate.  The U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights has not just one, but TWO, investigations of Wake County pending--one for racial discrimination, another for sexual discrimination (in interscholastic sports).   And while you can chose to drop your accreditation rather than answer those pesky questions from AdvancED, you can't just opt out of a Civil Right discrimination suit brought by the US government....a suit that will be bound to ask all those same questions and MORE.

This is where Secretary Duncan's letter is so significant.  As I've said before, I grew up in the Washington DC area, so I am fluent in DC-ese.  Therefore, allow me to translate this letter.  This letter is a warning to Wake County not to try to blow off and bluster through these discrimination complaints.  There is NO WAY Secretary Duncan would mention Wake County in that context without someone in his office having checked into the case and decided that there were legitimate reasons for concern that the system was racially discriminating.

So the Board can stick their heads in the sand if they want and force AdvancED to leave--at the expense of Wake County graduates.  But you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be at least an investigation, if not a lawsuit, coming from the federal Office of Civil Rights.  And refusing to cooperate with AdvancED will make the suits in DC even more suspicious that there is something rotten in the county of Wake.

The best thing the Board could do for the schools, the public, and particularly for ITSELF is to get out of its own way and cooperate with AdvancED.  But will it?  As my Magic 8 Ball says, "Cannot predict now."

PS--

On a happier and less complicated note--today is my son's 12th birthday!  Happy Birthday to Him!  But it makes me kind of sad to think that this is the last year before he turns into a teenager...

Curriculum Resource: They Called Themselves the K.K.K.

If you are looking for a terrific resource on a difficult subject--racism, Reconstruction, and the history of American hate groups--I wholeheartedly recommend Susan Campbell Bartoletti's new book, They Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group.  Bartoletti is no stranger to substantive non-fiction books for adolescents; she won a Newbery Honor for her 2005 publication of Hitler Youth:  Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow.  But she has done such a great job on this book,  it is no wonder that it is also on many people's short list for another potential Newbery Award.

According to the author, the inspiration for the book came when she saw a statue of the renowned Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was also supposedly the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and wondered to herself, "Where are the memorials for the victims of KKK violence?"  After finding out from the Southern Poverty Law Center that there were no such memorials, Bertoletti knew that she had to write this book.

However, what is great about this book is that Bertoletti tries to understand the complex history of  this paramilitary white suprematist group from both sides.  Her book explores how common, ordinary, usually decent people could get involved in such a violent group, and even believe that they were doing God's work.  It also demonstrates the strength and courage of common, ordinary people, both black and white, who stood up against the Klan.  Her work contains much more information about the politics behind Reconstruction than is usually available for middle school or high school history.  And the work is all the more effective by the even-handed way she approaches the topic, allowing young people to draw their own conclusions rather than preaching to them.

One way Bertoletti achieves this is by relying heavily on first-hand accounts and primary source materials.  She uses quotes from both proponents and victims of the Klan in a masterful way.  And while she doesn't gloss over the violence and death of this terrible time in our history, she also doesn't focus on it so much that it becomes too intense for a middle school audience.

Bertoletti's book is a much-needed addition to the middle school or high school history curriculum about the aftermath of the Civil War.  But it is also a valuable resource for talking about current events.  I love that she identifies the KKK as "an American terrorist group"--a great wake-up call for our post 9/11 youth who think all terrorists come from outside our borders.  The book also contains a Civil Rights Timeline and a comprehensive Bibliography and Notes section that is also useful in extending the dialogue.

So this may not seem like the kind of book you want to be reading during our holly, jolly holidays.  But the author, who besides writing about the Klan and Hitler's youth has also tackled such difficult topics as famine, youth labor rights, and working in a coal mine, says that the only way she knows to deal with the dark is to try to shine a light on it.  As we approach the winter solstice, it's great to know that we have this outstanding reference to help shine some light on some of our nation's darkest hours.