Open Letter to Superintendent Anthony Tata Wake County Superintendent of Schools

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE    February 23, 2012   For more information:           Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, President, 919-394-8137                                             Atty. Jennifer W. Marsh, Acting Director, 919-682-4700   OPEN LETTER TO SUPERINTENDENT ANTHONY TATA   Dear Superintendent Tata:   You recently charged that two Wake School Board members had done something "unethical" through their involvement with the all-volunteer Great Schools In Wake grassroots organization.  In doing so, you also attacked the teachers, parents, and children to whom this organization devotes itself.   Great Schools in Wake is a community group that advocates diverse, well-funded, excellent schools managed by policies that are based in scholarly research.  Their approach is to offer programs to encourage public examination of educational issues and spend countless hours monitoring the conduct of the Wake County School Board and its staff, which includes the position of superintendent.  Putting in thousands of volunteer hours, GSIW was a critical partner in the black-white-brown coalition that came together to stop efforts by the extreme right wing movement that used Wake County students as pawns in an ideological crusade.   When Great Schools and our coalition kept the Wake County Public School System from stepping off a cliff into re-segregation and high-poverty schools, we felt a new breeze of hope blowing through the administration building.     The NAACP encouraged parents and children of color to get involved again and assured them that a new spirit of respect had replaced the hostility emanating from what had become an armed, bristling palace of disregard.  We put out the word through all our networks that children and parents of color were once again welcome to bring their hopes and difficulties to the administration building. Many of our members believed that a Fox News commentator would never have a sense of fairness.   Though there were many skeptics, we assured them that they would not be turned away.  The people running the show, we told them, no longer regarded them as "animals." as citizens were once referred to on camera by former chairman Ron Margiotta.     Ms. Evans and Ms. Kushner, along with several other members of the board, have been patient and generous with you. They went a long way–too far, we thought–to compromise by supporting your school assignment plan, even though it ignores the commitment to diversity and the promise not to go backwards to segregated schools that got them elected to the school board. They took considerable criticism, from us and even Great Schools in Wake, for their willingness to trust in your leadership, good faith and a plan that has already indicated will result in resegregation.   We remember well your slashing attacks on the patriotism and intelligence of our Commander in Chief President Obama, a man of color, as you left the Army.  Many NAACP members argued then that we should resist what they sensed to be your underdeveloped sense of social justice that would bode ill for children of color.  When we met with you, you assured us that your family tradition included a respect for diversity and spoke with pride about your father receiving an award from the NAACP. Despite concerns regarding your past association, many in our community because of their love for education and their desire to see progress in our educational system, chose to give you a chance.   We knew that that you had provided far-right Fox News commentaries and peddled Sarah Palin–no friend to public education–as "precisely the kind of leader America needs." Yet despite that baggage we and many others have withheld judgment and encouraged hope that your commitment to the success of the school system would outweigh ideological commitments. In the first year, however, your administration opened a new school, Walnut Creek Elementary, which is a high-poverty school with more than 90% minority, more than 50% underperforming and overcrowded from day one.  We were inundated with cries of "We told you so." And though critical of these actions, members of our community still tried to work with you.  Why now have you become so inflexible when others have been so willing to try to work with you sometimes against their best instincts and knowledge?    Your decision to assail Ms. Evans and Ms. Kushner in a personal tone with ridiculous charges of "unethical" behavior marks a low point in education leadership in Wake County.   Not only is that charge entirely groundless.  It also reveals a broad lack of self-awareness that heads toward hypocrisy. Beyond your misrepresentations that they are somehow controlled by a certain advocacy group, we have a deep concern regarding how you feel about their constitutional right of association and how you have a double standard for Tea-Party backed ideologues.   You clearly have not taken time to develop a consistent policy with respect to advocacy groups.  When you first came to Wake County as superintendent, you immediately met with the far-right Wake County Taxpayers Association, which continues to claim that President Obama is not an American, to denounce our "gangster government," and to claim that "sustainable development" is a concept derived from the "1977 Soviet Constitution."  Was that "unethical?"   John Tedesco, who calls himself "Tea Party Tedesco" and shares your Republican politics, is executive director of a right-wing educational advocacy group.  Why have you not demanded that he resign this position?   Three Republican members of the board are running for other offices and seeking campaign contributions from groups that oppose the very idea of public schools and from persons who own private schools and are seeking the privatization of our public schools, which would bring them rivers of money.  Why are you not calling attention to the "stranglehold" these advocacy groups have on these members?       It is clear that your concerns about advocacy groups are confined to groups whose political orientation is different from your own.    We believe in vigorous debate and even disagreement on ideas.  We neither require nor expect agreement on every issue from you or anyone else; in fact, we disagree occasionally with the people whose integrity you are assailing. However, your public attack and accusations against the school board members who employ you, along with your attempt to say who they can and cannot associate with based on your personal feelings, is not only an attempt to tread on their constitutional rights but also in many circles would be seen as a form of insubordination and grounds for immediate dismissal.   We sincerely hope in this season of Lent, you will reach out in a redemptive way to the board members that you personally attacked and to Great Schools In Wake and its partners.  We sincerely hope your explanation will be thorough and prompt. While you consider your next steps, we will consult with all our partners to determine their positions on what our next steps are. We intend to gather the community around these matters, inform Advanced Ed of this incident, as well as those handling our Title VI complaint at the Justice Department because we believe your conduct reveals a deep and unprofessional bias and a lack of fairness and willingness to hear all voices.   With every good wish,   Rev. Dr. William Barber, II President North Carolina State Conference of NAACP Branches   Dr. Timothy B. Tyson Education Chair North Carolina Conference of NAACP Branches Duke Divinity School Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University University of North Carolina  ###   Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.

Forward email NC NAACP | PO Box 335 | Durham | NC | 27702

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Wake County Public Schools

NAACP Follow-Up to Meeting with Superintendent Anthony Tata

Follow-Up Statement from Meeting with Superintendent Anthony Tata

For More Information: Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, President, 919-394-8137

Mrs. Amina Turner, Executive Director, 919-682-4700

Atty. Jennifer Marsh, Legal Redress Coordinator, 919-682-4700

The NAACP Meets with Superintendent Tata to Continue Discussion on the Important Connections Between Socio-Economic Diversity, Resources and Student Achievement

The NC NAACP is pleased to continue our discussions with Wake County Schools Superintendent Tata. The framework for this discussion was the fact that socio-economic diversity and resources are key factors in fostering student achievement and that racially identifiable, high poverty schools are the antithesis of that goal. There is hardly any argument among scholars as to whether or not diversity and resources are two critical elements for student achievement in public schools and that resegregated schools undermine any efforts to lift student achievement for all children.

A recent study by the Brookings Institute establishes that the number one cause of urban economic decline is a failure to deal with segregation of public schools. The twenty most depressed urban areas in the U.S. are also the ones with the most segregated school systems. The recent Civil Rights audit from the US Department of Justice said that Black students are two times more likely to be placed in racially-identifiable, high-poverty and under-resourced schools.

We believe Wake County had a great school system with national respect before a band of regressive school board ideologues began to dismantle it. However, we still believe thoughtful people who put all our children first and who want high-quality, constitutional, well-funded, diverse education for every child — as opposed to those driven by narrow partisan politics — can always find common ground.

In the course of our meeting yesterday morning regarding Wake County assignment plans, after an extensive review presented by Superintendent Tata and his staff, it was clear that there are still many unanswered questions and unresolved issues and contradictions. These include:

1. The percentage goals of minority, poor and low-performing students in each school have not been clarified.
2. The seat availability for parents who choose to send their students to magnet and so-called "achievement choice" schools is not clear.
3. We do not know how the school systems plans to address the issue of access for parents who may not have access to the necessary resources to wade through the online process to make choices for their children’s school assignment.
4. There is still no urban school district operating a so-called "choice" plan that has maintained greater success than the socio-economic diversity and Healthy Schools assignment plan that irrefutably made Wake County a national model for student achievement.
5. There is still no data or grid to show how the current recommended plan will decrease or increase the number of racially-identifiable, high-poverty schools in Wake County.
6. There is still no analysis that truly shows that the partial plans presented thus far are empirically better than the socio-economic diversity/Healthy Schools assignment plan.
7. It is still not clear whether the Wake County School System administration recognizes and understands that the high-poverty schools that came to be under the old plan were not a result of the plan but rather a result of unprecedented growth in numbers of students in Wake County.
8. Considering the fact that Chairman Ron Margiotta has already stated his commitment to a pure neighborhood school plan, there is no assurance that the majority of the board will adopt all of the final recommendations of the plans that Superintendent Tata and his team are proposing. This will severely undermine his stated goals for student achievement.

The truth is the success of this plan will only be seen through a backend review, which means by the time we know whether it works or not, Wake County could have allowed ultra-conservative ideologues to totally dismantle a plan that had marked and noted success and replaced it with a plan that takes Wake County schools backwards. Regardless of his intention, we are led to believe to believe that Superintendent Tata’s hands are tied by the fact that the Wake County School Board disallowed socio-economic diversity to even be considered, even though the research says it is a necessary component of building a student achievement model and is required by law.

We in the NAACP will continue to critique the process going forward. We reserve the right to challenge any policy it if we believe it does not meet the standards of the law and sound research. Furthermore we believe that the citizens of Wake County need to fully engage in the upcoming election because ultimately it is elected members of the school board that will implement student assignment policy and determine the future of educational opportunity in Wake County.

Additional Agenda Items Provided by Superintendent Tata

We are pleased the Superintendent has taken the initiative to recruit high-quality, well-trained African American teachers for Wake County. This is a long-standing position and public policy goal of the NAACP. While every empirical study has found that excellent, well-trained and experienced teachers-no matter their color-are key factors in student learning, developing a teaching staff and school leadership team that provides a strong African-American and Latino presence in each of our schools is obviously desirable. It should also be noted that recruiting African-American and minority teachers is not the panacea for dealing with the challenges created by racially identifiable, high-poverty and re-segregated schools. In fact, the lack of diversity in the classrooms tends to undermine recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers. The goal of teacher diversity and integrated schools are inextricably tied together.

Those familiar with North Carolina’s discriminatory actions against Black educators when the 145 School Districts finally were forced to obey the law, more than 17 years after segregated schools were found illegal, know we have a long way to go to repair the wholesale betrayal of Black educators here. Instead of reconciling Black and White teaching and administrative staffs on equal terms, the White School Boards across the State, (with a couple of exceptions) chose to punish Black educators for their years of sacrifice and love to their students. African American families were forced to sacrifice them. The "merging" of the dual school systems eliminated an entire generation of school principals and a majority of Black teachers. North Carolina had 209 African American secondary school principals in 1963; only three in 1973. By 1972, more than 3,000 Black teachers had been fired, or 21% of the expected Black teachers for that year. Although 30% of North Carolina’s public school students were Black in 1970, there was not a single Black superintendent over any of the 145 school districts and 60% of these districts had no Black administrators. (See, David Cecelski, Along Freedom Road: the Hyde County, North Carolina School Boycott and the Fate of Black Schools in the South, UNC Press, 1995, page 7-8.) Black educators, who were the backbone of the NAACP for most of its life, were often fired if it was discovered they were NAACP members during these decades of disrespect. This history still haunts our Black educators and the families that had come to depend on them. We will not soon forget it.

So today, we must both acknowledge these injuries our parents suffered and, at the same time, look clear-eyed toward the challenges that now face our students and teachers. Today we must be sure we take the right path, the path based on sound research and the constitution. Today we must work together to create the best learning conditions for our students. Of course, it would be a good thing to staff every school with a diverse team of educators. Excellence and diversity are two sides of the same coin. You can’t have one without the other. The NAACP has always had the same demand: diverse, high-quality, well-paid, unionized teacher corps with smaller classes.

The Superintendent’s insight about the importance of recruiting high-quality African American teachers, which is a long-standing public policy and legal initiative of the NAACP, is welcomed and we have offered our assistance in this matter.

Rev. Dr. William J Barber, II, President, NC NAACP

Mrs. Amina Turner, Executive Director, NC NAACP

Rev. Dr. Nancy Petty, Pastor, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church

Professor Irving Joyner, NCCU School of Law

Attorney Al McSurely, Communications Chair, NC NAACP

Attorney Jennifer Marsh, Legal Redress Coordinator, NC NAACP

Rev. Dr. Earl Johnson, Pastor, Martin Street Baptist Church

Charles Upchurch, President, Wendell-Wake NAACP

Mary Perry, District 10 Director, NC NAACP

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Wake County Public Schools

NC NAACP Releases Open Letter to Superintendent Anthony Tata

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Wake County Public Schools