THE FACTS ABOUT THE NCNAACP OFFER TO HELP WAKE SCHOOL BOARD

      
          Per the article I wrote this week pertaining to what direction Wake County School System is going, toward the end of the article, I wrote the following:
       Meanwhile NCNAACP Pres. Rev. William Barber, who has been lamenting the Wake School Board’s changes and right-wing political influence, has agreed to meet with Supt. Tata about his student assignment recommendations. But Tata has also challenged Barber to prove that the NAACP has worked to recruit black teachers and principals, and has helped with school system community outreach.
            Ironically, and apparently Supt. Tata is unaware, but the NCNAACP was rebuffed several times by Chairman Margiotta when it offered over a year ago to work with the conservative majority when it took over, discuss key issues, and fashion a comprise to the Republican-led board’s goal of neighborhood schools.
          Well, an old crabby critic of yours truly, who goes by the handle of "Howler001 (I'll call him or her "Howie000" for short) apparently took offense to this passage after the News & Observer's T. Keung Hui wrote about it in his WakeEd blog Friday.
          Here's Howie's rant:
         In truth, Margiotta offered Barber a private meeting with the school board in early 2010, just as Tata has done this time. Barber turned that offer down because he wanted to make a 45 minute public presentation at a January, 2010 school board meeting. Citing the fact that school board policy has ALWAYS been to refuse ANY organization a public meeting, Margiotta countered with an offer for a private meeting, and was rebuffed by Barber and the NAACP. For details, see:

       http://blogs.newsobserver.com/wakeed/state-naacp-petitions-for-time-at-school-board-meeting

        Readers, be careful here. Michaels has an agenda and he's willing to alter the truth in order to make his point. I wish I had more time to point out all the inaccuracies in his blog posts. 

         First of all, my only agenda EVER, is to report what I see and what I know. Life is too complicated to be just making up stuff.

          Secondly, I offer perspective on what I report for context. Unlike Howie000, I've been here for 30 years, so I have a unique perspective as to where this all fits...if at all.

          Finally, and directly to Howie000's erroneous point, when I wrote that the NCNAACP, "...offered to work with the conservative majority when it took over...," that's because I have the December 15, 2009 letter NCNAACP Pres. Rev. William Barber initially sent to Wake School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta, literally days after the new board was sworn-in, in which Rev. Barber wrote, "I extend our outstretched hands to work with the Wake County Board of Education to meet its constitutional duty to provide a sound basic education for each child in a setting that neither demeans nor degrades any child because of her or his color. "

              Here is the complete first letter that Barber sent to Margiotta:

           15 December 2009

OPEN LETTER

Mr. Ron Margiotta, Chair
Wake County Board of Education
3600 Wake Forest Road

P.O. Box 28041
Raleigh, NC 27611-8041

Re: Request

Dear Mr. Margiotta:

On behalf of the hundreds of thousands of black, white and brown NAACP members in Wake County, in North Carolina, and across the United States of America, I extend our outstretched hands to work with the Wake County Board of Education to meet its constitutional duty to provide a sound basic education for each child in a setting that neither demeans nor degrades any child because of her or his color. 

The NAACP has struggled with the challenge for 100 years to remove the sin of Jim Crow Schools---unconstitutional schools.  Now our nation’s eyes turn toward Raleigh, NC.  Will the nationally recognized program, carefully and thoughtfully put in place, be salvaged – or savaged?

The issue of our children’s all-sided development does not lend itself to ten second sound bites.  The NAACP has perhaps the largest collective store house of what works – and what doesn’t work - to breathe life into the North Carolina and United States Constitutional Promises of a sound basic education and equal protection.

It is with this in mind that I respectfully request time myself and our local NAACP presidents to make an extended (45 minutes) presentation to your full board in January 2010, spelling out the NAACP’s analysis and suggestions for making Wake County Schools live out the promises of our children’s constitutional protections.  Please let me know as soon as possible the time and place for this presentation.  I look forward to hearing you.

Yours in the Spirit of Truth and Justice,

 /s/

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II

President

         

         So it sounds like Rev. Barber honestly, and earnestly offered to work with the new board majority in anyway necessary to ensure the state constitutionally guaranteed right of "each child" in WCPSS to a "sound, basic education."

          After Margiotta turned down the presentation request, Rev. Barber wrote a January 4th, 2010 response, explaining further what the NCNAACP had to offer by way of experience to help the WCPSS:

        January 4, 2010

                              OPEN LETTER

          Dear Chairperson Margiotta:

          I hope this letter finds you and all of your board members well. Your seat as the new chairperson of the Wake County Public County School Board comes with great honor and comes with great responsibility to the 140,000 children your Board serves. I respond to your e-mail that denied our request for a 45 minute presentation to the full Board on the NAACP's position regarding the intersection of the two constitutional requirements for public schools.

            The NAACP challenge to racial segregation in 1954 resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court's over-ruling Jim Crow policies and practices that had been the law of the land since 1896. Brown v. Board of Education adopted our analysis that separating children by race was unconstitutional because it left long-lasting scars on children of color in particular and all children in general.  The great historian who founded the February Black History Month tradition, Carter G. Woodson, said it well: If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told. . .  Change a "man" to a "child" and you have the U.S. Supreme Court's reasoning in Brown.

            The NAACP is also a party to Leandro, the case brought under the North Carolina Constitution's requirement for a sound basic education for each child. We believe the requirements of Brown and Leandro intersect with grace.

             The point is the NAACP has special experience, in thousands of southern class and court rooms, in the critical issues your Board is struggling with. The decisions your Board will make about student, teacher, principal and school placements will create long-lasting impressions on all our children. That's why I make this request.  The public and historical record will show that we have made presentations before major committees of the General Assembly, the state school board, the United States Congress, and even the President of the United States in efforts to work for the betterment of society as a whole.  I received your e-mail denying our request to meet with the full board.  I respectfully ask the Board to reconsider. We would be glad to work out the practical problems such a presentation might raise, and how we can work together to resolve them.

               Thank you for reconsidering our request.  Please call our office if you wish to discuss our request.

               Sincerely,

                   /s/

               Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, President

               cc: NAACP Members and Friends

                As Rev. Barber points out, organizational presentations before public bodies in North Carolina are nothing new. I was present for an African-American Dance Ensemble performance, pushing for more arts funding, in front of a joint session of the NC General Assembly a couple of years ago. In fact, lawmakers loved the presentation so much, they actually GOT UP AND DANCED!

 And that was at least 30 minutes. Been to many a Raleigh City Council meeting where long presentations by outside groups seeking money or offering services or partnerships have taken place.

           There is no "policy" against it. Margiotta just didn't want to give the NCNAACP a platform on what he considered to be his territory. Since he couldn't control what he said, he wanted to eliminate the possibility of political damage by not having pictures of Barber lecturing him, putting him on the spot.

               Regarding meeting with Tata, there would be no natural public meeting with him beyond a school board meeting, and that's the board's party, not the superintendent's. So he had to meet with Barber away from a public forum. But they both immediately came out to the press TOGETHER afterwards to give a public assessment of their talks.

              So once again, Howie000 and "it's" ilk, are trying to run interference against reality. It is important to this ilk that this school board and supt. be seen and portrayed as heroic. They are the catalysts to the change Howie000 et al have so desperately fought for, and anytime someone even breathes the truth about what's going on, they find the time during their apparently very busy days to log on and distort the facts.

             You've just read Rev. Barber's letters. He was willing to work with Margiotta to make something good happen, only to be stiff armed. And this wasn't the last time.

             Back on December 7,  2010, Margiotta didn't invite DEMOCRAT BOARD MEMBERS to meet with investigators for the US Dept. of Education's Office of Civil Rights when they came o town to begin their probe of the NCNAACP racial bias complaint.

            Keith Sutton, the board's only black member, had to demand to be included in the meeting that focused on possible racial discrimination against children in his district.

               Margiotta didn't want not just Sutton, but any of the board Democrats present because he did not want any other viewpoints expressed  to the feds about the NAACP complaint.

              And then, of course, the scheme that Margiotta and Tedesco cooked up last November after Debra Goldman crossed them to keep the board Democrats in the dark about making student reassignment recommendation at the Student Assignment Committee meeting chaired by Tedesco. I uncovered what they were doing via internal emails. I'm certain the feds are looking into this.

              One thing folks have to understand about this board is the Republican members very much see it as an "us against them" situation. Anything they could do to stiff the board Dems or their allies, was inbounds as for as the GOP is concerned. Remember Margiotta springing the Tata vote on everybody last December, even though he'd assured all nothing would happen during the Christmas holidays? So Margiotta's behavior and ruthlessness is well documented. And he has been repeatedly accused of holding information, or keeping the public out of publc business for partisan reasons. It is clear that he was NOT acting on written policy when he denied the NCNAACP a public audience. That was a political decision, and Howie000 KNOWS IT!