Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Wake, Raleigh election results a stunning repudiation of Republicans' tea-party politics
The voters in Raleigh and Wake County soundly rejected "neighborhood schools" and Tea Party Republicanism Tuesday in favor of centrist Democratic candidates. Click here for a rundown of the vote totals:
* The Republican majority on the Wake County school board is no more, pending only the result of a likely runoff election in District 3. But Board Chair Ron Margiotta, the Republican leader, was ousted by challenger Susan Evans, a registered Democrat, in District 8 (Southwest Wake), which is generally viewed as THE most Republican of the nine school board districts. Evans won by a solid 52-48 percent margin in what can only be viewed as a stunning repudiation of Margiotta's and the Republican school board's extremism.
* Democratic candidates won or led by wide margins in the other four school board district races. Keith Sutton buried Republican Venita Peyton in District 4 (Southeast Raleigh). Jim Martin was an easy winner over Republican Cynthia Matson in District 5 (West Raleigh and Southwest Wake). Ditto Christine Kushner over Republican Donna Williams and two other candidates in District 6 (Central Raleigh).
* In District 3, incumbent Kevin Hill, a former school principal and a registered Democrat, led Republican activist Heather Losurdo by about 10 percent, but with two other candidates in the race, Hill apparently fell about 40 votes shy of an outright majority. Losurdo reportedly plans to call for a runoff in November.
In the school board races overall, turnout was about 21 percent of registered voters, which doesn't sound like a lot but is twice the turnout of the 2009 elections, in which the Republicans seized their 5-4 board majority.
In '09, Republican candidates won all four seats on the ballot, with John Tedesco winning his District 2 (Southeast Wake) seat in a runoff. Tedesco, Chris Malone, Debra Goldman and Deborah Prickett remain on the board for two more years, but without Margiotta, first elected to the District 8 board seat in 2003, they'll find themselves in a 5-4 minority unless Losurdo somehow is able to unseat Hill in a runoff.
Given Losurdo's nosedive late in the campaign when voters learned more about her, Hill seems in a commanding position going into a runoff. A Public Policy Polling survey of District 3 voters a week ago gave Hill a 16-point edge over Losurdo in a head-to-head contest.
Similarly, in the Raleigh city elections the Republicans lost across the board to Democrats and progressive-minded independents.
The latter term describes City Councilor Nancy McFarlane, who won the mayor's race by trouncing Republicans Billie Redmond and Dr. Randall Williams. McFarlane won 61 percent of the vote in the three-way contest.
In the at-large City Council race, Democratic incumbents held their seats against a lone Republican challenger. Mary-Ann Baldwin and Russ Stephenson were re-elected with twice as many votes as Republican Paul Fitts.
Independent candidate Randy Stagner will replace McFarlane as the District A (North Raleigh) representative on Council. Stager was an easy winner over Republican Gail Wilkins.
And in District C (Southeast Raleigh), incumbent Eugene Weeks, who was appointed to his seat a year ago when it was vacated by now-County Commissioner James West, won a convincing first-round knockout over four opponents, getting 56 percent of the votes.
For a Republican Party bent on holding its school board majority and taking the Raleigh mayor's post after 10 years of Democrat Charles Meeker in charge, Tuesday's results were nothing short of a colossal collapse. Democratic voters, who were asleep at the switch two years ago when the GOP won the school board elections, rose up in big numbers this time to push them out.
After the GOP wins in Wake County in '09 and statewide in North Carolina (and nationally) in '10, do the '11 results in North Carolina's Capital City and County mark the beginning of a Democratic resurgence?
Downtown in Raleigh tonight, it was hard to find anyone who didn't think the answer to that question is yes.
Comments (15)
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The posts here illustrate to a fine point why I will NEVER allow ANY public school system to have access to my children. I will work double the overtime, take another job, whatever I have to do to make sure I can pay for a private education in order to avoid the monstrous power a public school board wields over the children that are "assigned" to it. I grew up in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Congratulations Wake, you have brought that awful system to North Carolina! Good Luck to you!
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How is 52 to 48 percent a "stunning repudiation"? Just more scare tactics using words of shock and awe. You must remember that 48 percent of the people who voted disagree with the outcome. There is no manifest here for the school board to throw out the past two years work and progress. In any case, Tata will stand as the voice of reason between the two opposing views. Unless of course the "diversity = achievement" crowd does get the majority with Losurdo losing to Hill in District 3 and they choose to vilify him as they have everything that displeases Rev. Barber and the NAACP.
@Nick - I'm not asking for premium treatment. And I don't think you realize that schools in the suburbs do not have extra honors programs or extracurriculars. In fact, the magnet policy in WCPSS forbids non-magnet schools from offering too much; otherwise they will compete with the magnet schools for enrollment. For example, there are no languages offered at the local elementary school or middle school. NONE! Meanwhile Wiley Elementary in downtown Raleigh offers Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and others to kindergarteners. Is it too much to ask that we get an introductory Spanish class before high school?
Sure I'm concerned with underperforming schools. But there is no evidence to suggest that balanced schools help struggling students. Enloe has one of the worst graduation rates for economically disadvantaged students in the entire county, despite being named one of the top schools in the country. Farmington Woods Elementary was recently named the top magnet school in the country - yet their economically disadvantage students perform far worse than schools with significantly higher poverty in Wake.
I agree that the focus should be on achievement. But the sooner we unlink achievement with assignment, the better.
@Raidan - Don't know if you are a parent, but if you are faulting me for being more concerned about the health and well-being of my children over other children, then I am proud to say "guilty as charged."
With regard to the distance analysis that you posted, you should note that those distances are measured in radial miles, i.e. as the crow flies. It is disingenuous to use radial miles because of course, we don't fly to school. WCPSS likes to brag that 90% of children live within 5 radial miles of their school. Guess what? There are more than 20 elementary schools within 5 radial miles of my home, and some of them will take me 30 minutes to get to by car. Imagine how long a school bus with all its stops will take. In fact, I did a distance analysis and determined that the majority of kids in Wake County live within 1.8 miles of an elementary school.
@Nick - Sure, black students went from 40% at grade level to 80% of grade level, but do you want to know the rest of the story. The exact same results occurred all over the state of North Carolina, despite the fact that no other county buses for diversity. You can read all about it at http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh092605.shtml.
And I also noted that you stopped at the year 2005. Want to know why? Because until the ABC tests were renormed in 2006, they were notoriously easy to pass. The NAEP graded the NC end of grade tests as some of the easiest in the nation compared to other states. Their analysis showed that a passing student in NC was likely to be a failing student in many other states. Here's an example: On the 8th grade end-of-grade math test, you needed to answer 28 out of 80 questions correctly in order to receive a passing grade. The test was multiple choice with 4 possible answers per question. If a student could answer just 11 questions correctly, he/she could make random guesses on the remaining 69 questions, and still expect to pass. The tests were renormed in 2006, and the achievement gap magically reappeared.
Finally @Bob - Thanks for your thoughtful response. I agree with your assessment that schools were not built in Apex. However, we need to go back and realize why that happened. Previous administrations made poor choices in the locations of schools. Rather than build in Western Wake, WCPSS chose to build schools on the rim of the beltline. The theory was that schools on the rim would be equally accessible via busing for poor Southeast Raleigh families, as well as middle class Cary/Apex families. The schools were located for diversity purposes. That is why we have Swift Creek ES, Yates Mill ES, and Dillard Drive ES all within 1 mile of each other on the southern rim of the beltline. When Cary/Apex was booming, all 3 of those schools were well under capacity. Hopefully, this new board locates schools where the population growth occurs, not where it is reachable by bus.
I also agree with your assessment of the poverty status in Wake County. While the F&R rate exceeds 30%, it includes many working class families. The true poverty rate in Wake County is likely on the order of 10%. It is a mistake to classify all students as either poor (receives F&R lunch) or middle class. Studies show that there can be as much as 50% fraud in F&R applications, yet school districts are discouraged from conducting audits. Wake should come up with a way to identify those that truly live in poverty, and direct additional resources towards them.
I also lived in New Jersey, but did not grow up there, and did not have children until I moved to NC. I think it's disingenuous to compare Wake County to cities like Newark, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, or any of the other major urban areas where significant real poverty occurs. Because of RTP, and the well educated populations that come here for jobs, Wake is a very unique place. In fact, I think that our school system does reasonably well because of the families that choose to move here. We all know that a involved parent is the most significant factor in a child's education, and I wish there was a way to reach out to the economically disadvantaged families to encourage them to be part of their children's education, however difficult it may be.
Finally, whatever assignment plan our board eventually comes up with, I think they will find it extremely difficult to achieve balanced schools while maintaining stability. Evidence suggests that we will continue to grow at a rapid rate, and previous administrations were unable to maintain balance, despite frequent reassignments.
My story is not unique. Evidence suggests that 2 or more non promotional school changes during K-12 education is enough to have an affect on graduation rates. Thousands of Wake families have experienced 2 or more non-promotional school changes. Hopefully, we can stop this injustice.
There were 5 races that Democrats had to win in order to take back the majority on the BofEd. Lose any single race and all that money spent on the coordinated campaign was thrown away.
Well-informed folks felt that two of the 5 races were in the bag - Keith Sutton and Jim Martin. Sutton won with 81% and Martin with 67%. Kushner's race was not that much of a sure thing - she also being a newbie candidate with 3 other people in the race - but she still got a respectable 59%.
The District 3 and District 8 races were the ones that were most interesting. Hill is an incumbent that was being targeted by the GOP/Tea Partiers. And Margiotta was a GOP/Tea Bagger and the BofEd chair. Back in 2009, if you wanted the support of the Neighborhood school folks, you had to kiss Margiotta's ring and support him for Chair. So the folks who funded the outside groups and the Coordinated Campaign were targeting him for sure.
What's most amazing is the very small margins in both those races. With Margiotta's race, he still lost by 29.25 votes per precinct - and I don't think ANY GOTV effort could have scared those votes out.
Hill's margin over Losurdo was even bigger. With those other two candidates in the race, all Hill needed to do was scare out 2 more voters per precinct to get a win. At my precinct, we had 24 undervotes for that race. And we had poll greeter coverage all day long. Given that my precinct is overwhelmingly Republican, I felt we did very well by tying with Losurdo. But had those two other candidates not been in the race, Losurdo might have won it hands down. Mansfield had someone at my polling place all day long - most of the time it was the candidate herself. She pulled in a respectable 75 votes. Even Squires who didn't even have a sign or a poll greeter pulled in 10 votes.
I'd recommend that the Wake Dems not put so many of their eggs in the phone banking basket. I realize that there was lots of money at stake, and that it meant a lot to the donors not to build the Democratic Party with any of that money - which explains why some volunteers ran into heavy-handedness, arrogance and even some "Big Brother" tactics among the staffers. But the big money donors aren't supposed to run the Wake County Democratic Party - there is nothing in the NCDP Plan of Organization that allows them to do this. The delegates and officers are supposed to run the Party!
"Eraisuithon" - Wake County went from having 40% of black students scoring at grade level in 2000 to 80% in 2005. A lot of research has gone into this. Other school systems have adopted economic integration policies. There is a type of culture that emerges that prevents students from achieving academically when too many of them come from unprivileged backgrounds in one school. By putting a certain number of middle-class and upper-class students in each school, it does bring up the performance of students from poorer households.
The economic integration policy worked. It made Wake County a national example that other school systems emulated.
It is unfortunate that some democrats are so willing to believe conservative talking points about a "failed program" when all the evidence suggests it succeeded. This kind of conciliatory mindset is what turns progressive independents like myself away from the party.
@john: It certainly wasn't 100% apathy. There was twice the turnout for this election than there was in the 2009 election when the Republican party marketed the election and came in to take the school board in the first place. I'll give you that the turnout numbers as a whole were terrible (welcome to American voting apathy in general), but they were far from apathetic for an off-cycle election with no national involvement to drive voters to the polls in this area.
@flipper: A 52/48 win for a Democrat in a district with a significantly higher Republican voter registration is certainly a repudiation.
@Bob: Your being from NJ explains a lot. I don't think people that grew up around here realize how good public schooling _can_ be (Sterling Regional High School, class of '92). One thing all of the "neighborhood schools" proponents should take from NJ's school system is what a nightmare having so many educational district fiefdoms causes with regards to disparities between what is technically a town border, but often ends up being one side of the street and the other (the development that sat immediately behind my high school was in another town, and went to school 4 miles away instead of hopping the fence to go to the one in their backyard).
Jeff -- Thanks for writing and relating your experiences. First thing I want to say is that they are no simple answers to questions like yours. 146,000 students have their individual needs, and they must be addressed by policies that govern a system that's fair to each of them individually, to all of them collectively, and to 165 different schools. Perfect outcomes in every case are theoretically possible, I suppose, but only with unlimited resources -- money -- and unlimited good will. We have neither.
That said, I think the underlying problem for many people in Wake County, and especially for folks in fast-growing western Wake County, is the sheer lack of enough schools. With the recession, the pace of growth in the county has slowed, and meanwhile we've been building schools at a fast pace since the 2006 bond issue was approved at the polls. So we've caught up a bit. But we're still in a space crunch, which is the main reason for the perpetual reassignments -- once a new school opens, it must be filled and filled instantly to make maximum use of our scarce resource of classroom space.
Without presuming to judge how your children were treated or should've been treated, I judge that the main reason why so many in Apex were unhappy with the school board prior to 2009 was the space crunch and the fact that is was felt so directly in Apex and the rest of western Wake.
In answer to the question you posed to me, my answer is no, I do not think Wake should be moving young children around like pawns to achieve diversity in schools, nor do I think that's the reason most chlidren were reassigned in years past. (Some children were reassigned for that reason, however, and I'm sure you're correct that yours were among them.)
I do believe that the school system should strive to retain balanced student bodies in every school and avoid the creation of high-poverty schools.
To reconcile these two seemingly disparate goals, the Wake Education Partnership initiated discussion a year ago about a controlled-choice assignment model that would end the reassignments while also putting safeguards in place to prevent low-performing schools. I support that approach. I know that Tony Tata supports that approach. The Democrats on the school board also support it. The major impediment to it on the board was Ron Margiotta, who supported the first part -- no reassignments -- but not the second, equally important part.
Now that Mr. Margiotta is off the board, I think the Tata controlled-choice plan can move forward to a successful launch and will be a big improvement over the old system, at least for awhile.
The one thing that may bring it up short, however, is continued population growth without enough new schools to accommodate it. If that occurs, and the no-reassignments policy holds, newcomers to Wake County won't have a choice about where their kids go to school -- they'll be shoehorned in to whatever schools are out of favor and thus not filled to overflowing.
One other point. Poverty (as measured by kids qualifying for the federal lunch program) has grown in Wake County from 20 percent of the population to more than 30 percent in the past decade. A big part of the growth is in eastern Wake County, especially in Hispanic communities.
Thus, it's hardly surprising that, where formerly we had few schools with more than 40 percent of students from low-income families, we now have quite a few. Still, only a handful of our schools are above 50 percent in terms of low-income students, and we should strive to keep it that way.
It should also be noted that the federal lunch program is not a great differentiator between working-class families of limited incomes and the most impoverished families who have little or nothing. A drive around Southeast Raleigh will demonstrate the difference. Some neighborhoods there reek of poverty. Some will strike you as utterly middle-class -- but still be sufficiently low-income (i.e., lower middle-class) to have a majority of kids able to qualify for the lunch program.
It's the kids who are growing up in severe poverty that I think we must protect first. And on that score, there is quite a bit of evidence -- from around the country -- that they do much better in diverse schools vs. consigning them to attend a high-poverty school in their own neighborhood.
There's a reason Raleigh is prosperous overall where so many American cities are not. Or, to be more precise, there are many reasons, but a big one is that we have a balanced school system with magnet schools in our poorest neighborhoods. Good schools have helped Raleigh prosper, and a prosperous Raleigh helps Wake County prosper.
Like Mr. Margiotta, I grew up in New Jersey. And like him, I understand that with diversity, you get a Newark school system, which is dreadful, surrounded by suburban school systems that are fine. You also get a Newark with abject poverty surrounded by prosperous suburbs.
Mr. Margiotta was cool with that outcome, obviously. I never was.
That's why I'm a strong supporter of the magnet schools as they exist. I'm a supporter of diversity in the schools, as measured in the future by student achievement rather than race or socioeconomic status. I'm for no reassignments if possible, at least in the elementary grades, or if that's not possible, for limiting reassignments and keeping younger kids in schools close to home.
But a fair reading of what the "old" school boards did, prior to 2009, was exactly that -- they were for limited reassignments and proximate schools within the bounds of a situation where there just weren't enough schools to go around.
Thanks again for corresponding.
Bob
I am sure there are exceptional stories like the post from Jeff. His kids were moved from their neighborhood school to a high-poverty school and they suffered emotionally and educationally. Instead of only being concerned about his two kids, what about the few hundreds of kids that were already at the school? Shouldn't we be more concerned about trying find out how we can improve the overall quality of the school so that ALL the kids can receive a good education.
For all of you who think we have a big busing problem and are concerned about so-called long bus rides, please check out the link below. This WCPSS analysis of student assignment patterns for 2007-08 & 2008-09 will confirm that all this "long bus rides" and "busing all over town" talk is blown out of portion. Under the diversity policy, 99 percent of kids attended a school within 10 miles of their home and 86 percent (91% for elementary kids)attended a school within 5 miles of their home. What is it that the new neighborhood schools policy is looking to accomplish? 100 percent?
http://www.wcpss.net/demographics/distance/pdf/2008/Distance_Analysis08_WCPSS-DistrictSummaryByLevel.pdf
Nick, I don't think that Jeff believes his children should get better treatment than any others, but that all children should have an equal opportunity to a quality education. The issue of neighborhood schools has not gone away simply because of the election. The newly elected school board needs to take seriously the concerns of these parents whose children are sent miles away when there are schools much closer to their homes.
Busing contributes to our consumption of limited fossil fuels and pollution. However, there is no evidence to show that it contributes to sufficiently increased test scores for those affected directly by busing. At some point, we have to come to the realization that the costs outweigh the benefits of continuing the status quo.
It's issues like these that pull progressives and independents like myself away from the Democratic party when the party is too blinded by a perceived political correctness without being open minded enough to see the big picture. I will not stand to have my child suffer up to two hours on a school bus daily to satisfy a failed policy. There has to be a middle ground on which we can all agree that provides a quality education for all regardless of where a school is located.
Not really sure how much of a "stunning repudiation" any of these races are.
In Cary there was no change at all. They guy who took on Don Frantz wsn't even trying!
In Raleigh Dems only held onto what they had - not even trying to recover the seat lost to moderate John Odom in 2009. There was no doubt that a Dem would win in District C. Eugene Weeks ran an old-school campaign in what was essentially a Democratic primary without a GOP challenger.
The School Board races were interesting. Except for Sutton's race (which was a blow-out win by an incumbent), what did we really have? The newbie Dem candidates won in every race against a newbie Republican. A newbie Dem took out an incumbent Republican. But there was a trade off - incumbent Kevin Hill was about 50 votes short (2 in each of his 26 precincts) from a win against all noobs. If Hill doesn't win, what have we gained? If Losurdo wins, all that was done was replace one Tea Party Italian with another?
So in reality, if Hill does win, that would be the only net gain of the whole race - and I have to question whether it was worth all the money spent and the grassroots control lost to the folks behind the coordinated campaign.
I wouldn't exactly call Susan Evans' 52%/48% win over Ron Margiotta a "stunning repudiation" of neighborhood schools, but rather a stunning exaggeration by your news organization of a marginal win in a rather unremarkable, low-turnout election.
Having neighborhood schools has nothing to do with racial equality beyond extremist circles (including Bob Geary's sensationalist reporting for the Independent Weekly above). Talk to most residents in the county, whether they be from rich, middle-class, or economically challenged neighborhoods, and their kids and parents will tell you that they want to go to school with their friends in their own neighborhood. The solution is to beef up the quality of the schools in challenged neighborhoods, not to waste taxpayer funds on busing kids all over the place and alienating everyone.
Jeff: why should your kids get premium treatment compared to someone else's? Why do your kids get to go to a top tier school on the edge of wake county, while someone else is forced to stick with the inner city school that lacks honors programs and extracurriculars?
Your concern should be that there are underperforming schools in the first place; not that your kids got put in the 'bad one'. By keeping the schools economically stratified, middle-class voters such as yourself can see the actual problems. Otherwise many people would be content to place their kids into the good schools and let the inner city schools languish. The problems in the education system would be invisible to them.
NC has some of the lowest state-level funding for education of any state per capita. Rather than instituting an educational 'triage' system where only the brightest and the whitest get the good schools, we should focus on bringing all the schools up.
Jeff,
The school board knows that "balanced" schools don't contribute to achievement for all students - they simply make the curve for that school look better. That's why they won't ever conduct a study to show that.
I'm not sure what logic leads one to think that bringing 40 middle-class kids into a school of 500 is going to make the 500 somehow better, instead of bringing down the 40.
This isn't a repudiation of Republican "tea-party" politics. It 100% apathy. I talked to a few of my co-workers asking them if they were going to vote yesterday. Most didn't even know the election was taking place. None cared about it. Very low voter turnout always bodes well for well organized minority activists. My precinct was pretty much empty.
Activists seized the opportunity. Back to the old, failed way of doing things. If you didn't vote, don't complain about the entrenched corrupt policies the school board institutes. There is a reason companies are clamoring for skilled foreign workers. They have the skill sets to get the job done while our kids are dumbed down.
As someone who approved of the elimination of busing according to socioeconomic status, I just have a few question for Bob Geary, and I would appreciate an honest, respectful answer.
I live in Western Wake County, and consider myself to be middle class. At the age of 7, my son was removed from his nearby neighborhood school, and assigned to a high poverty school inside the beltline -- not a magnet school, just a school that had exceeded the poverty guidleine. The reason given to us by the board at that time was that the high poverty school needed some middle class students to keep it from failing. There were 23 elementary schools closer to my home that the one that my child was assigned to. The school board thought that the addition of 40 students from my middle class neighborhood to a school with 30 classrooms would keep that school from failing.
When my daughter went to that same high poverty school, the principal told us that she was too smart and they did not have any programs available to challenge her (apparently because she knew her ABC's and could count to 100). There only recommendation was that she skip the 1st grade and go straight to 2nd grade.
Both of my children suffered emotionally from their experience at this school. In addition, their achievement suffered. Thankfully, they both returned to our local middle school, and with the help of their parents, were able to get their education and their lives back on track.
My questions for you Bob: Is this what you want our school system to go back to? Do you advocate taking 6 and 7 year olds and moving them around like pawns in order to achieve a healthy balance? Do you really think that stability can coexist with balance, and if so, can you explain why our previous boards governed over instability coupled with ever increasing poverty in schools (from just 8 over 40% in 2000 to more than 50 schools over 40% in 2011)?
Do you believe the use of magnet schools to allow parents to choose diversity is sufficient to balance schools in Wake County? Or must the school board continue to disrupt lives with reassignment, all in the name of "healthy schools?"
Finally, do you believe that balanced schools contribute to achievement gains for all students, and if so, will you press the newly elected school board to conduct a study on their assignment practices to answer that question (something previous boards have failed to do)?
Thank you in advance for your response.
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