OCR TO HOLD PUBLIC HEARING IN RALEIGH MAY 4, 2011

Parent and Community Meeting

As part of its investigation of complaints filed against the Wake County Public School System (the District) by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and others, staff with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is holding this meeting to hear from the community.  We are interested in listening to the concerns and experiences of parents, students and other members of the community related to:

·      the change in the District’s student assignment policy; and

·      the District’s discipline policies and/or procedures.

Date:  Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Time:  7:00pm to 9:00pm

Location:  Martin Street Baptist Church

1001 East Martin Street,

Raleigh, NC 27601-1641

                            (919) 833-9756.  

OUT SICK, SICK, SICK...

       Nothing from me this week in either The Carolinian Newspaper, Wilmington Journal or here . Got hit with a severe eye infection last weekend, and I'm just starting to recover now. Wouldn't wish this infection on my worst enemy.

        But I am recovering nicely after a real rough ride of 106 temperature and a swollen "Rocky-style" left eye. I thank GOD, my beautiful wife and daughter, and my readers for all the love and support.

        I will be doing my radio program, "Make it Happen" on Power 750 WAUG-AM/Power 750.com this afternoon (Thursday) at 4 p.m. As normal, it will be pre-taped. I'm at 75%, so I should be able to pull it off.

        Back in the saddle next week for sure (unless I fall down the stairs or something).

        Thanks again, and have a great weekend.

         Cash

LET'S BE CLEAR

            I read with great interest what my colleague, T. Keung Hui of The News and Observer, had to say about my most recent piece in The Carolinian Newspaper titled, “Why Feds May Not Buy Wake School Board’s Response.”

            For the record, I have no problem with Hui reviewing any of my work. As one of two esteemed education reporters for the N&O, he has every right to evaluate what is written elsewhere about WCPSS, and report what he believes to be relevant to his many readers. I do the same thing.

            But that doesn’t mean, when necessary, that I shouldn’t clarify some points that he and others may misinterpret.

Hui is correct that I absolutely don’t “put much stock” in the Wake School Board’s limp and blatantly dishonest official response to the US Dept. of Education’s Office of Civil Rights per the racial bias complaint filed by the NCNAACP. And there is a very simple reason - after over forty years of busing for the purpose of school desegregation, there is simply no credible, independent research or data confirming that school bus rides of ten miles or more hurt the academic achievement of poor students of color.

            That to me, confirmed by education research expert Richard Kahlenburg of the Century Foundation, is a critical point, because given the thousands of public school districts we have across the nation, and the number of years we’ve been busing poor children to school, if there was a scintilla of truth to that nonsense, we would have heard it by now for sure.

            Conservatives who just love neighborhood schools policies would have seen to it.

            So the Wake School Board stands undeniably alone in its stupidity, and as the AdvancED accreditation report confirmed, the board’s Republican majority just makes this stuff up, or gets someone else to make it up for them.

            Hui doesn’t quibble with me there, but further on, he does.

            The portion of my story Hui takes issue with:

            Michaels questions Wake's decision to only cite test data on black student achievement since 2007-08 in the OCR response.

"But the board’s response interestingly omits the steady growth of black and Hispanic student achievement in Wake Public Schools between 2000-2005 which reached 81 percent at or above grade level," Michaels writes. "It was during that time that the school system’s SES was making national headlines in the NY Times and Forbes Magazine for academic achievement."

Michaels also takes shots at the OCR response having "no reporting of the school system’s 91.5 percent overall student achievement accomplishment or number one status above 114 other North Carolina school districts." That took place in the mid-2000s.

"Clearly, it would be hard for OCR to believe that black and economically disadvantaged students have been always hurt by SES, if it were also told that before growth and lack of resources impeded the system’s progress, those students were, in fact, achieving and graduating at impressive numbers for several years," Michaels writes.

And here’s Hui’s point:

What's not mentioned in the article is that the test scores from Wake's high watermark came before the state began making the end-of-grade exams a lot tougher in 2006.

Scores dropped for all groups statewide but the sharpest declines were among black and Hispanic students. At least in Wake's case before 2006, many black and Hispanic students were low Level 3s so the new standards hit them especially hard.

As for starting with 2007-08 to report data, that's the same challenge the N&O faced with the Five Questions series in February. We made the decision to use the 2007-08 school year as the baseline because that was the first year of the new reading exams. Using an earlier date would have resulted in sharp spikes based on the change in exams.

OK, what the N&O did and why, is not my concern. They were doing research, and made determinations accordingly. That’s their right.

But here’s the point I was making per how the Wake School Board’s OCR response completely, AND deliberately, omitted the school system’s most successful period of achievement in its history. It doesn’t even try to be honest!

Here, read their version of the period from 2000 to 2007:

“Although WCPSS has received positive attention in the media and from some prominent national figures for its past student assignment policies…”

THAT’S IT, and that’s my point. NOTHING about, as Hui says, “Wake’s high watermark” of test scores for several years, because to do so would confirm that WCPSS DID work mightily with its black and Hispanic students, and for a while, DID succeed with them.

So to make their point to OCR that Wake, under SES, has 'always' failed with poor black students, the school board tries to hide those facts, and ultimately the truth! But let’s not stop there. 

The board’s OCR response doesn’t even try to make Hui’s point that after the state tests were renormed in 2007, that overall scores statewide went down, and black and Hispanic students who were on the bubble to begin with, saw their scores fall the most.

So Hui’s point is because those students flourished under a different, less challenging standard, those earlier numbers before 2007 should be disregarded in the scheme of things.

Though I understand it, here’s my problem, respectfully, with Hui’s contention:

1)             Prior to 2007, all 115 NC school districts competed under the same rules, meaning that even if the end-of-grade tests were less stringent then, they were so for EVERYBODY, and Wake still consistently dominated.

2)             Even after the state tests were renormed and overall scores fell, Wake was still leading, and it wouldn’t be until 2009 that Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s black students would overtake Wake’s.

And that only happened because CMS was under a 2005 court order to improve instruction to poor black students in its numerous high poverty/low performing schools after Wake Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr. accused the system of “academic genocide,” forcing CMS to spend millions of dollars on a four-year program that HAD to begin showing results by 2010.

So CMS students were being driven up, while Wake was regrouping (per its 2007 curriculum management audit) and devising strategies to stop its fall.

But the point can’t be lost that for two years since the renorming, Wake still led CMS!

If any school system could be justifiably accused of “hurting” its poor black students, it would be CMS, until a court order forced them to get it together.

As to Wake’s black students turning the corner and making incremental progress on those scores, again, everyone is under the same rules, so just as Wake’s black students are taking the state tests twice, so are CMS, and Guilford, and every other school district in the state.

And even then, the board in its OCR response doesn’t say a word about this progress, because to do so would give credit to SES, which is still in place operationally until Supt. Tata’s yet-to-be-seen student assignment plan is unveiled and adopted.

In closing, the point of my piece wasn’t so much to retell Wake’s recent academic history, as it was to prove how much of that history the Republican-led Wake School Board, through its glaring omissions in its OCR response, was trying to hide it. But since Hui brought up what he felt was an incomplete picture on my part in my piece, then I might as well take the opportunity to complete that total picture to everyone’s satisfaction.

Everyone, that is, except the Republican-majority on the Wake School Board!

Thanks.

WILL FEDS BUY WAKE SCHOOL BOARD’S RESPONSE?

By Cash Michaels

An analysis

            When citizens stepped forward Tuesday evening during the Wake School Board’s public comment period, many of them made it clear that they weren’t buying the recent numbers the Republican majority have been trying to sell “proving” that poor black and other disadvantaged students were more hurt than helped by the previous socioeconomic diversity (SES) policy, just because they were “forced” to take 10-mile or more long bus rides to school.

            “I am personally distressed by the intellectual dishonesty shown by this board majority by releasing purposely misleading data to support its bad policies,” Rita Anita Linger, who works in Southeast Raleigh, told the board.

            Other speakers also accused the board majority of “lying” with statistics.

            But the question isn’t whether a politically divided public believes the board’s contention or not, but rather if investigators with the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR), which is investigating the Wake School Board, do.

            Especially when, after over forty years of school busing for desegregation across the nation, South and North Carolina, there are no credible independent studies proving the board majority’s point.

            Nothing that confirms, beyond conservative board members own “feelings,” and the dubious statistics school system staff was directed to produce, that undeniably details how academically debilitating a school bus ride from Southeast Raleigh to Cary can be.

            “I know of no research linking bus lengths and academic achievement,” Richard Kahlenburg, senior fellow and SES advocate at The Century Foundation in Washington, D.C., told The Carolinian last week after he was forwarded a copy of the Wake School Board’s March 22 46-page response to the US Dept. of Education’s probe into the NC NAACP’s federal racial bias complaint.

            In that response, not only did the conservative board majority deny any racial animus in its move from the school system’s previous student diversity policy to the neighborhood schools policy it has adopted, but it also boldly proclaimed that, “…the use of SES in student assignment was an ineffective tool to meeting the educational needs of students and that students would benefit more from improving educational opportunities in the schools within their own communities.”

            Translation - poor black and Hispanic children can learn better by attending school in their own high poverty neighborhoods.

            But when OCR - which is tasked to ensure that all agencies receiving federal dollars abide by the US Civil Rights Act of 1964 - goes over the Wake School Board’s defensive response with a fine tooth comb, despite the lengthy legalese the board’s attorneys contrived, it will find many other areas where the board maintains it has done nothing wrong, despite compelling evidence to the contrary.

            OCR may also want to check the public record on Wake Public Schools against the school system’s negative portrayal in the board majority’s response. Throughout that document, reference is made to black student achievement since 2007, when there was a definite decline because of the system’s struggles with tremendous growth.

            But the board’s response interestingly omits the steady growth of black and Hispanic student achievement in Wake Public Schools between 2000-2005 which reached 81 percent at or above grade level. It was during that time that the school system’s SES was making national headlines in the NY Times and Forbes Magazine for academic achievement.

            In the board’s OCR “Factual Background” version of Wake’s achievement history of that period, there is no reporting of the school system’s 91.5 percent overall student achievement accomplishment or number one status above 114 other North Carolina school districts. Only that Wake “received positive attention in the media and some prominent national figures for its past student assignment practices…”

            Clearly, it would be hard for OCR to believe that black and economically disadvantaged students have been always hurt by SES, if it were also told that before growth and lack of resources impeded the system’s progress, those students were, in fact, achieving and graduating at impressive numbers for several years.

            The board’s OCR response maintains that “None of the board’s (majority) decisions was made with discriminatory intent.”

            But just last December The Carolinian exclusively reported how Republican board members schemed to have thousands of mostly black students reassigned out of the upper-middle class, predominately white schools they were attending in the county, and back to Southeast Raleigh neighborhood schools, without allowing the parents of those students to weigh in.

            The scheme, approved by Board Chairman Ron Margiotta and executed by his board lieutenant John Tedesco, was so obvious, fellow Republican Debra Goldman, board vice chair, exposed it, and then joined the board’s four Democrats in voting against it.

            The board majority also maintains to OCR that there is “overwhelming evidence that neither the board nor any of its members was motivated by racial animus in considering and deciding any student assignment issues.”

            But when OCR investigators come back to interview board members next month, they may ask John Tedesco why he saw fit last year to angrily criticize the NC NAACP and other black leaders in a letter where he inferred he knew better what was best for the education of black children because he had had numerous “black girlfriends.”

            Why an elected school board member felt the need to boast about how his past inter-racial dating history enhances his sworn educational duties, is a question that OCR will no doubt ask.

            While the board, in its response, alleges that a majority of the public, and especially parents, did not approve of the prior SES system, it interestingly omits the results of its own 2010 informal survey of system parents that showed that 94 percent were happy with their children’s school and the way things were operating under SES.

            And despite the board’s relentless portrayal of poor black students continuing to fail at disturbing rates throughout the system because they’re not attending neighborhood schools, charts that are still posted in the school system’s own boardroom as of this week clearly show that the academic achievement gap between black and white students in Wake County has actually and significantly been narrowing for at least the past two years.

            Corresponding news reports in both The Carolinian and The News & Observer from July 2009 and July 2010 confirm that black students in both years have made incremental gains in their state end-of-grade test scores. The gains were attributed not only to allowing students to take the tests twice in a 48-hour period (the results of which are officially counted), but also to recommended strategies from the curriculum management audit Wake Public Schools employed in 2007 under SES when black student scores dropped.

            And yet, the board majority, according to the scathing AdvancED accreditation review report (which OCR has also undoubtedly seen), has refused to acknowledge this evidence of academic growth nailed to the wall of their own board room, instead depending on their own “facts and figures” derived independent of the school system’s staff.

            Observers are also quick to note how, in making “minor” changes to the third year of the prior school board’s three-year SES student assignment plan, the board majority created a $25 million super high poverty elementary school in Southeast Raleigh with a projected 81 percent free-and-reduced lunch student population, 52 percent of whom are classified as “low achievers.”

            Democratic school board members say that didn’t have to happen, and there is real doubt beyond its first year after Walnut Creek Elementary opens this August, that the school system will have the requisite funding and resources to fully support what it has created come year two and beyond.

            Especially when just over a year ago, the board majority voted down a request to begin fiscally planning for the numerous high poverty schools its neighborhood schools policy could create.

            Per the recent AdvancED report, beyond depending on the federal Renaissance program funding for next budget year for four additional high poverty schools currently on line, none of the board’s Republicans could offer a plan as to how to fund the system’s high poverty schools beyond that.

            There are other areas in the Wake School Board majority’s OCR response that raises questions, if not eyebrows, as to how they reinterpret events. In the final analysis, has this board operated in a manner that has been detrimental to the education of the system’s poor black and economically disadvantaged children?

            OCR will have to decide.

                                                            -30-

           

            

PRES. OBAMA AT THE NATIONAL ACTION NETWORK 20TH ANNIVERSARY

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

AT THE NATIONAL ACTION NETWORK ANNUAL GALA

Sheraton New York Hotel

New York, New York

April 6, 2011 - 6:01 P.M. EDT

     THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.  Good to be in New York City.  Let me begin by acknowledging some very, very special guests.  Dr. Richardson, thank you.  Charlie Rangel, for your outstanding work on behalf of your constituents.  Mayor David Dinkins.  (Applause.)  Governor David Paterson is here.  (Applause.)  State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.  DiNapoli, excuse me.  This is another one that’s hard to pronounce:  Stevie Wonder.  (Laughter.)  Martin Luther King III.  (Applause.)  All the Keepers of the Dream honorees with us tonight, and the National Action Network.

It is wonderful to be here as you celebrate your 20th anniversary.  Some things have changed a lot since 1991.  I told Reverend Al backstage he’s getting skinnier than me.  (Laughter.)  He’s getting skinnier than Spike.  (Laughter.)  But he hasn’t lost his sense of style.  The other thing that hasn’t changed is the National Action Network’s commitment to fight injustice and inequality here in New York City and across America.  And that’s not only a testament to Reverend Sharpton.  It’s a testament to all of you who are here tonight.  I want to commend you for the work that you’ve done over the last two decades to lift up not only the African American community but the broader American family.  That’s what you’re about.  (Applause.)

The last time I came was in April of 2007, four months ago -- four years ago this month.  Back then I had fewer supporters.  Most of you couldn’t pronounce my name, so Tom, don’t feel bad.  (Laughter.)  I had a lot fewer gray hairs.  I was looking at some pictures -- I looked really young back then.  (Laughter.)  I said that we were facing extraordinary challenges in this country, but that what was stopping us from solving them wasn’t a lack of policies; it wasn’t a lack of plans.  What was stopping us was a broken politics.  A broken politics in Washington -- a politics that was all about the next election instead of the next generation; that was all about what we disagreed about instead of what we had in common; a politics that made us cynical about our ability to change this country.

And I said that if you stand with me and believe in what we can do together, if you do what civil rights groups like the National Action Network have always done, if you put your shoulder to the wheel of history, then we can move this country toward the promise of a better day.  I told you at the time I wasn’t a perfect person, I wouldn’t be a perfect President, but what I could commit to was always telling you the truth even when it was hard, and I would spend each and every day thinking about you. 

And because you made our campaign your own, because you believed in our ability to shape our own destiny, we won that chance to bring about real change.  And I said on inauguration night in Chicago that that was simply the end of the beginning, and that now the real business started. 

Because I didn’t run and so many of you didn’t support me just to win an election.  We won the election so that we could then actually get moving on all the work that had been left undone.  Even though we understood, of course, the magnitudes of the challenges we faced, we didn’t fully realize until late in the game, probably the last month of the campaign, that we would be facing the worst recession in generations -- a recession that was leaving millions of Americans without a home, without a job, without hope for the future. 

And as Reverend Al said, some folks have amnesia about this.  Where are we two years later?  Our economy has started to grow again.  The recovery is gaining momentum.  People are finally starting to get hired back.  We had to make some tough choices in between.  You remember when we decided we had to move to save the American auto industry and everybody said, that can’t happen.  And then two weeks ago, GM just announced that it’s going to hire back every single worker that has been laid off and every U.S. automaker is making a profit.  (Applause.)  But that wasn’t popular.  That wasn’t popular.

A while back, I visited a small trucking business, and its owner Stephen Neal is one of our country’s African American business leaders.  And he told me that because of the uptick in our economy, he was buying new equipment and adding more workers.  And that’s what’s happening all across America.  In the first three months of this year, we’ve added nearly half a million private sector jobs -- nearly 2 million jobs in the last 13 months. 

So we’re making progress, but we’re not there yet.  And I want you to know that so long as there are Americans who cannot find work I will be fighting for jobs, and so long as the gap between the wealthiest few and everybody else keeps on growing I will be fighting for opportunity.  And I know you’ll be right there alongside with me.  (Applause.)

We are going to keep fighting until every family gets a shot at the American Dream.  That’s our North Star.  That’s the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning.  That’s the last thing I think about when I go to bed at night -- the hopes and dreams of people who work hard every single day, look after their families, take care of their responsibilities, and just need a little bit of help to make it.

Now, there are Americans of all colors and creeds who are struggling to live out those dreams today.  That’s part of what our campaign was about, was reminding ourselves that everybody is in this together.  Now, what’s also true, though, is the unemployment rate for African Americans is almost double what it is for other groups.  It’s also true that those with the least have been sacrificing the most during this recession.  What’s also true is that even before the recession hit, too many communities were marked by structural inequalities in health and education and employment that made it profoundly difficult for too many people to get ahead.

     You understood that.  I understood that.  That’s part of the reason I ran for President, because I’ve seen the frustration and the wounded pride in the eyes of folks who’ve lost their jobs or a father who has to go home and tell his kids that we might not have enough this month, might be losing our apartment this month.  I’ve heard the stories of struggling families who are doing everything right and still at the end of the month don’t quite have enough to pay the bills.  I did not start hearing those stories when I became President.  Those are stories that led me to run for President in the first place.  (Applause.) 

     As Reverend mentioned, I got my start tackling the problems of joblessness and hopelessness that afflict so many of our cities and rural communities.  I got my start working to bring opportunity to neighborhoods that were full of boarded-up houses and shuttered stores, fighting to keep kids off the street, fighting to get them into school, fighting to make sure that they went on to college, fighting to make real the promise of justice in our judicial system.

And these causes of justice and equality and opportunity, they aren’t just what led me into politics, they’re what led ordinary people to sit down at the front of the bus, to cross that bridge in Selma, to heed a King’s call to perfect our union.  They’re the heart of what makes us Americans.  That’s who we are.  And because of your support, they’re the causes that I’ve been carrying since I’ve been in the Oval Office. 

With the help of folks at the grassroots, we passed historic health insurance reform that will not only extend coverage to 30 million more Americans and give Americans more affordable choices, but will narrow the cruel health disparities between African Americans of different backgrounds.  That was because of your work.  (Applause.)

We passed Wall Street reform that will protect consumers from the kind of predatory lending practices that helped cause this recession.  We’re rewarding work with an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit.  We’re tackling poverty with Promise Neighborhoods that build on the great work of Geoffrey Canada up in Harlem.  We’re making sure our civil rights and anti-discrimination laws are enforced.  And if you’re interested in learning more, if you want to spread the word about what we’re doing not just in the African American community but all across the country, go to our website and it will give you a long list of what we’ve done over the last two years -- promises made and promises kept. 

That’s what we’ve tried to do over these past couple years -- advance the causes that make us who we are.  But we’ve still got more work to do.  If we’re serious about opening up opportunity and making sure America prospers in the 21st century, we’re going to have to up our game as a nation.  I was talking to Magic right before we came out -- I was talking about the Bulls, of course.  (Laughter.)  He’s still picking the Lakers, but he made the point, a young man Derek Rose upped his game, worked hard, and is having an MVP season.  Well, we have to do that in classrooms, we have to do that in the workplaces, we’ve got to do that in our communities and our neighborhoods.  (Applause.)  Our fathers got to up their games. 

If we want to attract new jobs and new opportunities to our shores, we’ve got to make sure America can out-compete the rest of the world.  That’s what we mean when we say we got to win the future.  It means we got to rebuild our crumbling transportation networks with high-speed rail, upgrade our communications networks with high-speed Internet.  It means we’re investing in cutting-edge research and technology like clean energy -- and most of all, making sure we are giving every one of our children the best possible education.  (Applause.)  The best possible education is the single most important factor in determining whether they succeed.  But it’s also what will determine whether we succeed.  It’s the key to opportunity.  It is the civil rights issue of our time. 

I know education is important to everybody here, especially Reverend Al.  In fact, a while back, he stopped by the White House to talk about education.  He was joined by the great mayor of this city, Mike Bloomberg.  He was also joined by Newt Gingrich.  Newt -- hmm.  (Laughter.)  Newt said he and Reverend Sharpton were “the original odd couple.”  That’s an understatement.  (Laughter.) 

But I welcomed them to the White House because I don’t think there’s anything odd about the two of them coming together around the importance of education.  When there is an achievement gap between students of different races and backgrounds, that’s not a Democratic problem, that’s not a Republican problem -- that is an American problem that we have to address.  (Applause.)  When too many of our schools are failing our children, too many of our kids are dropping out of school, that’s not a black or white or brown problem -- that is an American problem.  We’re going to have to solve that problem.  We are all responsible for the education of all of our children.

That starts with parents making sure that we’re doing right at home, staying engaged in our child’s education, setting high expectation.  Without parental responsibility, nothing else we do will matter.  But we also know that each of us has a responsibility not just as parents, but as civic leaders, as Americans, to do a better job of educating our children.

And that’s why, two years ago, we started something called Race for the Top.  We’re saying to states, prove you are serious about improving education not just for some kids, but for all kids.  And if you do, we will show you the money.  And for less than 1 percent of what our country as a whole spends on education each year, Race to the Top has led 40 states to raise their standards for teaching and learning and student achievement, and developed plans for some of the schools that are underperforming the worst.  And all this was done not in Washington.  It was developed by Republican and Democratic governors across the country.

We’re going to have to take same approach when it comes to fixing No Child Left Behind.  Instead of measuring students based on whether they’re above or below some arbitrary test, we need to make sure our students are graduating from high school ready for a career, ready for college.  That’s what we need to do.  (Applause.)  Instead of labeling our schools a failure one day -- instead of labeling our schools a failure one day and then throwing up our hands and walking away, we’ve got to refocus on the schools that need help the most.  In the 21st Century, it’s not enough to just leave no child left behind.  We’ve got to help every child get ahead.  (Applause.)  That’s our goal -- get every child on a path to academic excellence. 

And we need to make sure that that path leads to a college degree.  That’s why we ended a system where we were subsidizing banks in the student loan program.  They were taking billions of dollars out of the student loan program.  We said, why don’t we give that to the students directly?  That would make sense.  (Applause.)  So we made college more affordable for millions of students.  Millions of students across the country are now getting student loans that they weren’t getting before and more loans than they were getting before.  That’s why we’re making it easier to repay student loans so kids don’t graduate, like Michelle and I did, with massive loan payments each month.  It was more than our mortgage for 10 years.  It’s one of the things I try to remember -- I try to remind people when they say, well, you’re President now.  You’re out of touch.  I said, listen, it was only a few years ago I was still paying off my student loans.  (Applause.)  And it’s true, I don’t pump gas now, but I remember what it was like pumping gas.  (Laughter.)  I remember.  I remember the end of the month.  (Laughter.)  I remember that.  (Applause.)   

We appreciate all of you buying the book, Michelle and I.  (Laughter.)  That’s the college fund right there.  (Laughter.)  That was not a given.  That’s why we’re reinvesting in Historically Black Colleges and Universities.  (Applause.)  That’s why we are -- that’s why we’re upgrading our community colleges that prepare so many working families to succeed in this economy.  And by taking all these steps, I’m confident we are going to meet a goal that I set when I took office that I announced in my first State of the Union:  By the end of this decade, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.  That is something that we can achieve.  That’s something we can achieve.  (Applause.)

That’s how we can out-educate countries around the world.  That’s how we will out-compete.  That’s how we will win the future in the 21st century. 

Now, one thing we won’t be able to win is -- if some of our people are falling behind, we will not win the future.  The only way for America to prosper is for all Americans to prosper.  We’ve seen that in the census that just came out.  The face of America is changing.  You can’t get away with having a third of our children, half of our children, not doing well.  Not today, not in the 21st century.  All of us -- black, white, Latino, Native American, Asian American, men, women, disabled, non-disabled -- in America, we rise and fall together.

An America where the American Dream is within reach of everybody, that’s what we’ve been fighting to build over the last two years.  That’s what the National Action Network has been fighting to build over the past two decades.  I know that there are times where the work is frustrating.  I know there are times where it is hard.  There are times when change can seem painfully slow to come by.  There are times when some of you may have said, I don’t know what Obama is doing there.  There are times where you lose hope, times when folks in Washington focus on scoring points instead of solving problems.  And some of you may just put up your hands and say, politics is too tough.

But in those moments when we start asking ourselves if change is possible, you’ve got to remember what we’ve done together over the past few years.  Remember all the children who will graduate from high school ready for college and beyond. Remember all the Americans who will no longer have to worry about going bankrupt because they got sick.  Remember all the families who will no longer be exploited by insurance companies or a credit card company or a mortgage lender.

I’m not asking you to think about what we’ve already done so you can be satisfied with our progress.  I know this isn’t the National Satisfaction Network.  This is the National Action Network.  (Laughter and applause.)  But I am asking you to draw inspiration from the fact that we know change is possible.  I am living testament that change is possible.  (Applause.)  We know we have the ability to put our shoulders to the wheel of history and steer America towards the promise of a better day.  We know that we stand on other shoulders and step by step, inch by inch, we make progress.

That’s what we’ve been doing.  And if you’re as committed as I am to continuing to change this country for the better, if you feel the same determination that I do to tackle the problems that haven’t yet met, if you’re still willing to believe in what we can do together, I am absolutely confident we will do what you’ve been doing for the last 20 years.  We will build an America where the ideals of justice and equality and opportunity are alive and well, and we will reclaim the American Dream in our time.  So thank you.  God bless you.  God bless the United States of America.  Thank you.

                             END                6:24 P.M. EDT

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MRS. BLACK NC HAS A MISSION

By Cash Michaels

Editor

            She calls herself  “the first bald beauty queen of North Carolina,” and for good reason.

    But it’s not by choice.

            When Sandra Dubose-Gibson of Raleigh was being crowned Mrs. Black North Carolina last weekend at St. Augustine’s College, it was indeed with a beautiful, yet hairless head. A bold, daring fashion statement of personal choice and style perhaps?

            A bold and daring personal statement, for sure, but about courage in the face of physical challenge. Gibson, a happily married woman of 15 years and proud mother of two girls, has suffered from the autoimmune disease alopecia areata - a condition of patchy hair loss that can be brought on by iron deficiency - since the age of 25.

            The resulting loss of hair 12 years ago, at such a young and vital age, forced Gibson to deal with deep issues of low self-esteem and purpose in the face of an irreversible disease that threatened many of her hopes and dreams in life.

            But only if she let it.

            “I entered [Mrs. Black NC] because I know that it would be bigger than me,” Gibson told The Carolinian Monday. “If I could stand and represent women like myself who have been challenged with low self-esteem, whether it be because of hair loss or whatever the issues were, that it was going to make such a powerful statement to so many women.”

            “I did it for myself, I did to prove that it can be done, and to help other women be inspired, and motivated to liberate themselves.”

            Leading by example for her two daughters, ages 13 and 9, was also part of Gibson’s mission, not just in entering the competition, but also in her roles as motivational speaker, actress, singer and documentary filmmaker.

            The Bronx, NY native has appeared in theatre productions across the nation, including in the popular gospel musical, “ Mama, I Want to Sing.” Gibson has performed with gospel great Walter Hawkins and R&B veteran El Debarge.

            And in 2008 Gibson produced the documentary, “Project Liberation: My Alopecia Experience,” from which her song, “I’m Beautiful” comes from.

            Why did this disease strike Sandra Gibson?

            She doesn’t know. Though there is a history of autoimmune deficiency in her immediate family (Gibson’s father died of lupus), she is the only one with alopecia areata.

            Born healthy with a full head of hair, Gibson began noticing a bald patch in her hair in her mid-twenties. Soon more little circles of patches began to appear over time.

            “That’s not a style that any women would chose,” Gibson quipped, noting how alarmed she became as the condition progressed. It was more than a “bad hair day.” She didn’t want to leave her house, and indeed couldn’t without a hat.

            Gibson felt helpless; she couldn’t even look in the mirror. One of a woman’s most personal cherished and coveted attributes was disintegrating every day, right in front of her.

            “There was nothing I could do about it, other than cover it up,” she recalls. Gibson admittedly went through a period of “shame and hiding,” fearing that others would find out, and be judgmental.

A dermatologist told Gibson what it was, and that there was no cure. It wasn’t long before her eyebrows and eyelashes were gone as well.

            “It took me through a period of depression,” Gibson recalls, “and I had to redefine and rediscover who I was outside of those physical attributes, and really tap into the woman that I am inside, which is really the essence of beauty for everyone.”

            That is the lesson that Gibson says she is “passionate’ to share with the world.

            Today Gibson feels empowered enough to wear stylish wigs when she wants to. She is not hiding shame anymore, and her triumph in the Mrs. Black North Carolina Pageant is self-confirmation of that, given that she was crowned bald, photographed bald, and has done TV interviews sans a full head of hair.

Turning “lemons into lemonade” is Gibson’s mission in life now. As the new Mrs. Black North Carolina, she will travel the state making appearances, and speaking to women and at gatherings about her condition, and the strength it has taken her to overcome it.

            “If you don’t love yourself,” Gibson says, “How are you going to expect anyone to do it? It’s not a choice. It’s something that you have to do to have a happy life.”

            For more information visit: www.SandraDubose.com

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