Tim Morgan, vice chair of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board, is leading a new group that hopes to give school districts a stronger voice with state lawmakers. Local boards and "public education as we know it" face "a battle for survival," according to a memo sent to school boards in August.
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The N.C. School Boards Association, a nonprofit with limited ability to spend money on lobbying, created the N.C. School Boards Action Center to hire lobbyists and do public awareness campaigns to promote the association's legislative agenda. Morgan, who serves on the association's board of directors, was chosen as president of the new action center board.
"What we face today is a battle for survival, both of public education as we know it and of the model of locally elected board governance of public school system operations," says an August memo from Morgan and NCSBA President Evelyn Bulluck. "Our ability to endure in the face of these extraordinary challenges requires that we recognize and accept the changed environment in which we operate and embrace new ideas and concepts in thinking about how we advocate."
The plan calls for a $431,000 budget, with districts making contributions ranging from $2,000 to $10,000, depending on size. Morgan said CMS is paying its $10,000 share from the superintendent's budget for lobbying.
Stoops is quoted as saying the NCSBA is trying to replace current legislators: "They decided to be bridge burners, rather than bridge builders, in their approach to the legislature."
Morgan (a Republican, like the majority in the House and Senate) says the action center's bylaws prohibit the group from endorsing candidates. "Our only function is to support and advocate for the NCSBA legislative agenda," he said.
Morgan said the action center will set up a web site soon. Specific plans, including how many lobbyists to hire and how heavily to mobilize for the limited 2014 short session, remain to be drafted. The nine-member action center board has met only once and will convene for a second time in November, he said.
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31 comments:
Morgan, if you or any other CMS BOE member is pushing this agenda, you all need to be voted out.
You and other BOE members can't even bring yourselves to close schools where and when needed and the one time we did due to fiscal issues, many of them have been re-opened.
Now you want bond monies to build MORE schools?
Your association wants universal pre-K to be paid for by tax payers?
Your association wants fiscal authority?
Absolutely not!
I'll play "My Heart Bleeds For You" on the smallest violin in the world for this statement: "Local boards and "public education as we know it" face "a battle for survival,"
You're facing a battle for survival made of your own doing over the past four decades.
It's only a matter of time - in the not too distant future - that CMS will continue it's decline due to demographic shifts and bad political/board policies that other large LEAs have already faced.
WC...
The fight for survival by NC school boards is the same being fought by school boards everywhere. Corporations are influencing school board elections and policies by using their vast wealth. They back candidates who favor their reforms. Gates and Bloomberg funnel money into school board races in cities in which they do not reside. Broad has done the same here. Those school closures came under Gorman's watch who is a graduate of Eli's unaccredited academy. Broadies are notorious for creating an imaginary "deficit" by overestimating revenues and underestiming expenses. It happened here but didn't happen in Wake County. People who are unaware of this corporate takeover don 't know what's happening in education today. That is the status quo you're referring to.
The school closings were one of the worst decisions made by CMS in recent years, largely because they were driven by corporate reform ideology, not by logic or common sense. Oakhurst was closed despite being a successful school in a neighborhood where the school age population is growing (the reason it's now being reopened). Many of the new K-8s were overcrowded from the start, and the refusal to create a gradual transition made the first year tremendously difficult at many of them. Closing all the pre-K centers flooded already crowded schools with pre-K classes, which required new sets of processes and procedures and made already challenging schools more difficult to run.
Similarly, many of the recent decisions made in Raleigh have been driven by ALEC ideology, not by an understanding of what's actually happening in schools. Anything that can be done to help provide legislators with a few more clues about the realities of schools today would be helpful.
#pandering
Common Core is the federal government takeover of education. There will soon be a national school board of education and no longer a local board. Why is the CMS school board ignoring this issue? I would like to know if they are even aware of the dangers of Common Core. I am also surprised the Observer has not done an unbiased piece on Common Core. I guess I should not be surprised. :(
Common Core is really an example of the corporate takeover of public education and the federal government is being used to facilitate this takeover. CC is being sold as state-led, but it is not; it was born inside the Beltway with corporate money. Gates has given millions to all of the major players involved in the implementation CC including the National Governors Association. The three major education publishers (Pearson, ETS and McGraw-Hill) are the big winners; they only have to produce one set of materials instead of 51. Furthermore, it eliminates competition from smaller publishers.
I see Common Core as much more about corporate profits through the sale of tests and materials than about a federal takeover of education. Sadly, corporate reformers now wield influence over both parties, at state, federal and often local levels, making their policies that much harder to fight. The CMS school closings were a clear example of that.
How about your support our Local and State PTA's - there mandate is to advocate for children and education. Why start something else, why not strengthen what is already there? If you strengthen the PTA you are doing a better service and lining the pockets of yet ANOTHER BOARD! Support our local PTA's and help them to advocate more effectively. Your best advocate for children is a PARENT not a board! I also wonder how effective Mr Morgan is if he is busy starting up another group.
We don't need no stinking school boards! Education is too important to be left to the educators. Let the Board of Commissioners run the school system hiring the school Superintendent making the schools directly responsible to the public!
Common Core, Gates and Bloomberg had nothing to do with school closings. Those are just the latest wrappers to stick an already failed education system into.
We've built schools that never should have been built and schools in the wrong places. CMS wants a continuation of this.
Wanting fiscal autonomy, expanding pre-K using the same diversity driven mindset, failure to find out which kids you need to target with extra funds and kick the ones off the dole gaming the system costing billions in dollars nationwide, have nothing to do with Bloomberg and Gates.
You need to do a little more research, Mr. Coyote.
@2:55-I wouldn't trust most PTO/PTA to hold a bake sale. There is a serious lack of accounting within most CMS PTAs. Don't believe me? Ask your PTA mid-year the profits made from various fundraiser(like chick fil a night). You will be shocked when they refer you to the budget posted in August. Idiots
Donate direct to your child's teacher!
Keep reaching Wiley. That coyote never does catch the Road Runner...
Mr. Morgan has demonstrated his loyalty to the Republican Party. Here is the problem. Conservatism is about local control until it isn't. Except for the ditto-heads who troll the Observer comments pages, many NC Republicans are scratching their heads wondering why the GOP supermajority this year chose to do everything they could to usurp local control of school boards, airports, sewer systems, billboard rules, etc., any of which would have sent Gov. McPope over the edge with resentment when he was mayor of Charlotte. They centralized power in Raleigh in ways the Democrats never could. Local GOP'ers are as dumbfounded as anyone. Mr. Morgan is not the only one trying to adjust.
WC...
Gates and Bloomberg (along with Broad) are major players in the privatization movement. They have all pushed for excessive testing and accountability which creates bloated accountability departments for urban school systems. They helped create RttT and Common Core; they have close relationships with the publishing companies as well as "consultants" selling silver bullets that don't work. They, along with Wall Street hedge funders, also believe in privatization through for-profit charters.
All of these "philanthropists" are taking our tax money for their own gain. They create markets by paying for policies that enhance testing (CC and RttT) and close schools which create a "demand" for their charter schools which only benefit their shareholders. These are the ones who are "gaming the system" and politicians and the media have turned a blind eye to it.
Tim Morgan was one of Gorman's puppets who voted for everything the corporate reform minded Gorman wanted. He, Eric Davis and Rhonda Lennon all need to be voted out and move on to other things. They are all ALEC minded politicians. He is one of them. Don't be fooled by this folks. Morgan could give a crap about public education and public school teachers.
Mrs. Grundy, perhaps you can enlighten me as to what Common Core, Bloomberg and Gates have to do with school lunch fraud, diversity driven education, fiscal authority for CMS and increasing tax payer funded pre-K.
Those are and have been several of the major reasons why public education is and has been failing for decades.
Commom Core, Bloomberg and Gates are relatively new factors embedding themselves in a system that was failing long before they got involved. All they will do is accelerate and exacerbate the problem(s).
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I CAN LIVE WITH MR. MORGAN'S EFFORTS.
When all the small school districts want to unite on an issue that is being targeted by the General Assembly, they turn to either Wake or CMS for leadership. The reason is both have huge legal departments that can do research and send lobbyists to the capitol. What Mr. Morgan seems to be doing is formalizing this.
I don't think he is creating his monster to fight Raleigh's. However, the tenacity of Mr. Morgan is not to be underestimated. I look for this to be good for all North Carolina students and teachers.
But if he's looking for a few legislators to "educate" he doesn't need to waste much gas driving up I-85. We have a few homegrown enemies of public education right here in Mecklenburg.
Bolyn McClung
Pineville
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America has been passed by developing countries in the arena of government education. They understood early on that not all children are for college. So they have focused their scarce resources on those who work really hard and show the desire. Whereas, we, as evidenced with our per pupil spending believe you can buy an educated student. The other countries understand they need manual labor. They have not "politicized" that there are jobs
below" any citizen. All work is noble. And all types of jobs are needed.
Do not support CMS bonds until the per pupil spending is brought into line.
Mr Coyote,
Actually, corporate reformers are quite keen on expanding pre-K. The ALEC folks, not so much. I think the reformers have this one partly right, although the problem is that they're pressing for a pre-k model that includes far too much testing and doesn't mesh with the realities of child development.
The point of this article is that we need more voice in Raleigh concerning education dollars. We receive a significant portion of our budget money from Raleigh and they have been reducing that amount and taking a good deal from teachers. One of the benefits of this type of action is to more widely publicize the political thinking from Raleigh prior to enacted legislation. This gives us more opportunity to understand the legislation and allows more time for everyone to contact legislators with our opinions. This is proactive and not reactive. And I disagree with Mr. Stoops, this is a bridge builder.
It is clear that continuing to erode what pay the teachers currently have will be a battle for survival. It is also clear to me that those decisions drove the creation of this group - out of necessity. This is our political history and our political system. We stand up and fix problems when we've had enough. I applaud those giving their time and taking action.
This is all about Mr. Morgan's career plan, not CMS, the teachers or students. He'll be running for state legislature soon enough.
Decades of failure by public education has lead people to seek other options for their children.
You can spin it anyway you want but the bottom line is, forced diversity and the tentacles attached to it killed public education and continues to do so.
ALEC, Gates, Bloomberg and Broad can't do much worse.
Let me make this simple in response to your article. I have said this for the last 3 years and CMS still is spinning its wheels getting zero accomplished in Raleigh. HIRE A LOBBYIST ! Very simple HIRE A LOBBYIST! Not sure if I can say it differently HIRE A LOBBYIST ! Just to remind Raleigh who their biggest client is in Mecklenburg County. What we dont need is another Board that gets ZERO accomplished. Keith W. Hurley
It does seem that we have our priorities upside down compared to most developed (and many developing) countries.
Anon 9:15 pm (Sep 29)
We certainly wouldn't run our football or basketball teams the way we run our classrooms, with most of the "resources" going to those on the bench (or not even on the team).
No, we're too smart for that kind of foolishness in athletics.
BOE, PROMOTE TECHNICAL TRAINING! (said in a loud voice)
Anon 9:44- CMS is doing that already just look at Heath Morrisons approach. He does nothing and just talks to the community at large. Never taking actions which I assume is a CMS PR technical skill being taught? I agree with you that the technical skill set is a great approach for many.
I generally agree with Pamela.
However, like NCLB, Common Core has good intentions that make sense. The problem is theory vs. practical application. NCLB was designed to close an achievement gap between groups of students based on a collective belief and value system that is supposed to give everyone a fair shot at the American Dream. This is who we are despite vast and deep differences. Unfortunately, NCLB merely exacerbated the very problem it was trying to solve by punishing schools deemed as failing thereby encouraging further voluntary socio-economic segregation. Who with the means and where-with-all is going to send their child to a failing school? Also, by punishing schools, states began setting their own standards of achievement creating a perfect laboratory for manipulative fraud fueled by a desire for corporate profit. "Every school is failing! Here, look what I've got to sell you..."
If implemented well, Common Core has the potential to create a stronger national curriculum. For example, people often assume the arts are a willy-nilly "creative" endeavor. On the contrary. Learning ballet (or a musical instrument) is a highly structured universal process. In other words, a person can walk into a ballet class anywhere in the world and the basic structure and format of the class is going to be similar. Even the vocabulary is the same. "How" to teach fundamental ballet is a time honored and universally understood and accepted tradition that hasn't changed much in centuries whereas how to teach basic math seems to change with the wind and the seasons - New Math, Singapore Math, Blue Moon Math, you name it. Therefore, I can see the value in creating common core standards that are expected and applied across the board. Mecklenburg Area Catholic Schools MACS)is also in the process of adopting Common Core Standards minus the level of heavy handed bureaucratic oversight I expect CMS is going to have to contend with.
Alicia
On the subject of math vocabulary...
If a 5-year-old can fully grasp what a "plie" and a "tendu" is then why can't a 5-year-old grasp the English word "subtract" instead of using the term "take away"? I'm hoping Common Core adopts common language.
Alicia
I'm hoping Common Core adopts common language.
Alicia
CMS: Limited English Proficient 14,830
So do we say subtract to 10.5% of CMS students or restar?
Wiley,
E Pluribus Unum.
Alicia
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