The End of Consensus by Toby L. Parcel Andrew J. Taylor

Author:Toby L. Parcel, Andrew J. Taylor [Toby L. Parcel, Andrew J. Taylor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General, Education, Educational Policy & Reform
ISBN: 9781469622552
Google: HOvDBwAAQBAJ
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Published: 2015-04-20T04:06:57+00:00

The “Republican” Board, 2009–2011

The new board majority moved quickly to change existing policies. After electing Ron Margiotta chair as their first order of business, the Republican-affiliated members effectively ended the regulation mandating year-round schools in January 2010. However, even this proposal, one on which most observers believed the majority was unified, did not pass without controversy. Debra Goldman moved to revise the measure to terminate the policy by replacing rather stark language about its abolition with some that essentially called on the school system to make every effort to bring it about. Her stated rationale was that the existing proposal did not explain the mechanism by which the county might bring an end to mandatory year-round schooling. Goldman’s alternative passed 5–4, with all her Republican colleagues in opposition. A disappointed Margiotta noted that Goldman had effectively broken a promise made by all those in the majority to vote together (Hui and Goldsmith 2010). Thus began a term in which Goldman emerged as the vacillating member of the otherwise cohesive majority and, therefore, the crucial swing vote on several issues.12

The policy that had drawn the most attention in the 2009 campaign was, as noted, the general assignment plan. Just after they were seated, the members of the new majority set to work dismantling and replacing the socioeconomic diversity mandate. John Tedesco was selected to chair a committee charged with constructing a new policy using principles grounded firmly in the neighborhood schools model that Republican candidates had campaigned on during the previous fall. His effort was met immediately with stiff resistance from liberals. As early as January 2010, the state NAACP promised a legal fight to maintain the diversity policy. Led by its chair, Reverend William Barber, it also worked to mobilize political pressure. Vowing “not to sit back and watch our schools, without any challenge, go back to segregation” (Collins 2010), Barber, activists, and academics from a disparate array of groups like Great Schools in Wake and the student-led N.C.HEAT (Heroes Emerging Amongst Teens) organized a series of high-profile demonstrations at school board meetings that led to arrests and garnered a great deal of local and national media attention. The board’s efforts to transform the assignment policy and the resistance to them were the subject of articles in publications like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Economist and of a story on the show of liberal television satirist Stephen Colbert. In February the Wake County Public School System superintendent, Del Burns, announced his resignation, citing opposition to the board’s work on the general assignment policy as the primary reason. Waiving existing rules that the superintendent should have a doctorate and be an educator by profession, the board selected Tony Tata, a retired brigadier general and former chief operating officer of the District of Columbia schools, as his replacement.

By this time the new board was facing a barrage of criticism about its operations. Many of its opponents accused it of being driven by politics. One liberal activist developed this

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