 Carolyn McCarthy’s bill goes further than than the assault weapon ban that expired in 2004. | AP Photo | |
| The fiercest gun-control advocate in Congress released the text of a bill she plans to introduce next week that would outlaw high-capacity magazines like the one a gunman used to shoot 20 people in a matter of seconds in Arizona this weekend. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy’s (D-N.Y.) bill also goes further than than the assault weapon ban that expired in 2004, outlawing the sale or transfer of clips that hold more than ten rounds, even those obtained before the law takes effect, according to a copy of the bill obtained by POLITICO. The bill closes a loophole in the expired assault weapon ban that let gun owners buy high-capacity magazines made before the ban took effect in 1994. VIDEO: Bloomberg on gunsThe bill carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison. “The only purpose for the existence of these devices is to be able to shoot as many people as possible as quickly as possible,” McCarthy wrote in a letter to her colleagues that accompanied the bill. “There is no reason that these devices should be available to the general public.” The bill faces an uphill climb in the new Republican-controlled House. An aide to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said it’s unlikely that he would support it. Still, since McCarthy floated her plans for a gun-control bill on Sunday, three other New Yorkers have followed suit, saying they planned to introduce bills as well. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said he will propose a companion bill to McCarth’s in the Senate. Gun control is a personal matter for McCarthy, whose husband was murdered and son seriously injured in 1993, when a disturbed gunman opened fire on a Long Island commuter train. Like the alleged Arizona shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, the gunman who killed McCarthy’s husband also used a high-capacity magazine. “The United States Constitution guarantees to our citizens the right to keep and bear arms,” McCarthy wrote in a letter to her colleagues that accompanied the bill. “At the same time that we can all acknowledge this basic right, I believe that we should also be able to come together to develop reasonable laws designed to ensure that the right to bear arms is exercised safely and responsibly.” McCarthy originally planned to introduce the legislation this week, but in the wake of the shooting, the House suspended most of its regular business until next week. | |
 © 2011 Capitol News Company, LLC |
Friday, January 14, 2011
McCarthy unveils strict gun-control bill
Brokaw: "I Would Be Nervous Going Into A Bar" In Arizona
"Gun control is too simple a phrase to define all the complications and nuances of it, frankly. In Arizona they have a wide open system. I would be nervous about going into a bar or restaurant in Arizona on a Saturday night where people can carry concealed without permits," Tom Brokaw said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." (via Noel at Newsbusters)
UPDATE: A reader points out that Arizona law prohibits the carrying of a firearm while at a business that serves alcohol.
When Customer Service and Humanity Converge
“Are you Mark? We held the plane for you and we’re so sorry about the loss of your grandson.”
The pilot held the plane that was supposed to take off at 11:50 until 12:02 when my husband got there.
As my husband walked down the Jetway with the pilot, he said, “I can’t thank you enough for this.”
The pilot responded with, “They can’t go anywhere without me and I wasn’t going anywhere without you. Now relax. We’ll get you there. And again, I’m so sorry.”
—Conversation between a Southwest Airlines pilot and a passenger whose security check-in made him late for a plane that was to take him to say goodbye to his 3-year-old grandson, an assault victim who was being taken off life support. As one Twitter commenter puts it, “Fire your PR firm, hire kind people. Word will get around.”
Southwest Airlines pilot holds plane for murder victim’s family
It’s easy to be an airline industry critic in an era of “no waivers, no favors” and fees on top of fees. It’s easy to paint airlines as heartless corporations that treat us like self-loading cargo.But every now and then, you hear a story that turns you into an adoring fan. Like Nancy’s story.
Before I continue, I should mention a few things: Nancy is a faithful reader of this site, and I agreed to use only her first name because of the brutal nature of the crime and the age of the victim. Second, I’m not an emotional, John Boehner-type, but I can’t read her story without getting a little teary.
So you’ve been warned: Grab a tissue.
Last night, my husband and I got the tragic news that our three-year-old grandson in Denver had been murdered by our daughter’s live-in boyfriend.He is being taken off life support tonight at 9 o’clock and his parents have opted for organ donation, which will take place immediately. Over 25 people will receive his gift tonight and many lives will be saved.This morning, after only a couple hours sleep, my husband and I began to make all arrangements to get him to Denver to be with our daughter. He is currently on business in LA and is flying Southwest.While his employer, Northrop Grumman, made arrangements to get his ticket changed so he could get to Tucson today (which he had to do in order to not spend any extra money) I called Southwest to arrange his flight from Tucson to Denver so he would be stepping off one plane and getting on another.He has several free flights with them so I couldn’t really do it on the website. The ticketing agent was holding back tears throughout the call. I’m actually her step-mother and it’s much more important for my husband to be there than for me to be there.In LAX, the lines to both check a bag and get through security were exceptional. He got to the airport two hours early and was still late getting to his plane.Every step of the way, he’s on the verge of tears and trying to get assistance from both TSA and Southwest employees to get to his plane on time.According to him, everyone he talked to couldn’t have cared less. When he was done with security, he grabbed his computer bag, shoes and belt and ran to his terminal in his stocking feet.When he got there, the pilot of his plane and the ticketing agent both said, “Are you Mark? We held the plane for you and we’re so sorry about the loss of your grandson.”The pilot held the plane that was supposed to take off at 11:50 until 12:02 when my husband got there.As my husband walked down the Jetway with the pilot, he said, “I can’t thank you enough for this.”The pilot responded with, “They can’t go anywhere without me and I wasn’t going anywhere without you. Now relax. We’ll get you there. And again, I’m so sorry.”My husband was able to take his first deep breath of the day.I don’t know any other airline that would have done this.
I’m speechless. Twelve minutes many not sound like a lot to you or me, but every second counts when you’re an airline. Southwest can turn an entire plane around in about 20 minutes, so 12 minutes is half an eternity.
I shared Nancy’s story with Southwest, and a representative said the airline was “proud” of the way the pilot had held the flight. Again, most airlines would punish an employee who holds up the line for any reason.
My Monday post is normally called, “Can this trip be saved?” But today I’m sharing a trip that was saved amid tragic circumstances by a compassionate pilot and an airline that supported his decision to hold a flight.
Good work, Southwest!
(Photo: gwil more/Flickr Creative Commons)
Politics to a child
By Ezra KleinThere's a line from the president's speech last night that I've not been able to get out of my head. It comes in the section about Christina Taylor Green, the 9-year-old who was killed last Saturday in Tucson. "She was off to meet her congresswoman," Obama said, "someone she was sure was good and important.""Good and important." Those are oddly simple words for a speech like this. But they're exactly the words you can imagine a 9-year-old using if her teacher asked her to describe a member of Congress. "She saw all this through the eyes of a child," the president continued, "undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted."When I give talks around the country, I often describe Congress as a "cynicism machine." The legislative process takes solutions that people are excited about and grinds them down into policies that people are confused by and afraid of. We go to the government with our problems, with the things that scare us, and we leave with more fear and less hope.And it's not because the language on the page changes so dramatically. It's because the process is so ugly. During health-care reform, Republicans liked to say that they agreed with about 80 percent of what was in the bill. But you don't win elections by trumpeting 80 percent agreement, and you don't sell advertisements by leading the evening news with a special report on how there's still broad consensus that insurers shouldn't discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. The voices that get heard are not the ones calmly discussing the legislation. Instead, we're like a kid running his tongue over a sore tooth over and over and over again. We just keep poking ourselves where it hurts, where there's a seam, where we're scared.Consider this exchange (pdf) from a recent debate that former-Rep. John Shadegg participated in over the Affordable Care Act. During the introductions, the moderator, ABC's John Donvan, noted that Shadegg had referred to the health-care law as "Soviet-style gulag health care." Did he still stand by that?John Shadegg: No. I think that it is a -- it is a part of the dialogue that you try to get attention. And that was an attempt to gather some attention.
And Shadegg got a lot of coverage for that comment, despite the fact that everyone knew it was absurd. Try explaining that to a 9-year-old.But what's funny is that I don't think the 9-year-olds are totally wrong. I've met a lot of members of Congress, and I do think most of them are good, or at least are trying to be. Serving in Congress is actually a sort of crummy life: You live in a small apartment, you spend most of your time missing your family, you're constantly in airports, and when you do get home you barely have time to see your kids because you're running to meet with constituents. It's a grind. And -- this is where kids and adults alike overestimate politicians -- you're not that important. No one cares about the speech you just gave or the amendments you just proposed. The media generally doesn't pay attention unless you become part of a controversy, or say something dumb. You have to do what your leadership tells you. You get yelled at a lot. Most of the people who stick with the job stick with it because they believe they're doing some good in the world.But when the public looks at them, they don't see it. Sen. Evan Bayh once told me that "we've got good people trapped in a dysfunctional system." I still think he's right about that. The individuals are trying hard, but the whole is a lot uglier than the sum of the parts. At some point, however, it's up to them to change that. The problem is, no one member of Congress, and no one party, has much incentive to start.By Ezra Klein | January 13, 2011; 10:58 AM ET Politics to a child
There's a line from the president's speech last night that I've not been able to get out of my head. It comes in the section about Christina Taylor Green, the 9-year-old who was killed last Saturday in Tucson. "She was off to meet her congresswoman," Obama said, "someone she was sure was good and important."
"Good and important." Those are oddly simple words for a speech like this. But they're exactly the words you can imagine a 9-year-old using if her teacher asked her to describe a member of Congress. "She saw all this through the eyes of a child," the president continued, "undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted."
When I give talks around the country, I often describe Congress as a "cynicism machine." The legislative process takes solutions that people are excited about and grinds them down into policies that people are confused by and afraid of. We go to the government with our problems, with the things that scare us, and we leave with more fear and less hope.
And it's not because the language on the page changes so dramatically. It's because the process is so ugly. During health-care reform, Republicans liked to say that they agreed with about 80 percent of what was in the bill. But you don't win elections by trumpeting 80 percent agreement, and you don't sell advertisements by leading the evening news with a special report on how there's still broad consensus that insurers shouldn't discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. The voices that get heard are not the ones calmly discussing the legislation. Instead, we're like a kid running his tongue over a sore tooth over and over and over again. We just keep poking ourselves where it hurts, where there's a seam, where we're scared.
Consider this exchange (pdf) from a recent debate that former-Rep. John Shadegg participated in over the Affordable Care Act. During the introductions, the moderator, ABC's John Donvan, noted that Shadegg had referred to the health-care law as "Soviet-style gulag health care." Did he still stand by that?
John Shadegg: No. I think that it is a -- it is a part of the dialogue that you try to get attention. And that was an attempt to gather some attention.
And Shadegg got a lot of coverage for that comment, despite the fact that everyone knew it was absurd. Try explaining that to a 9-year-old.
But what's funny is that I don't think the 9-year-olds are totally wrong. I've met a lot of members of Congress, and I do think most of them are good, or at least are trying to be. Serving in Congress is actually a sort of crummy life: You live in a small apartment, you spend most of your time missing your family, you're constantly in airports, and when you do get home you barely have time to see your kids because you're running to meet with constituents. It's a grind. And -- this is where kids and adults alike overestimate politicians -- you're not that important. No one cares about the speech you just gave or the amendments you just proposed. The media generally doesn't pay attention unless you become part of a controversy, or say something dumb. You have to do what your leadership tells you. You get yelled at a lot. Most of the people who stick with the job stick with it because they believe they're doing some good in the world.
But when the public looks at them, they don't see it. Sen. Evan Bayh once told me that "we've got good people trapped in a dysfunctional system." I still think he's right about that. The individuals are trying hard, but the whole is a lot uglier than the sum of the parts. At some point, however, it's up to them to change that. The problem is, no one member of Congress, and no one party, has much incentive to start.
There's a line from the president's speech last night that I've not been able to get out of my head. It comes in the section about Christina Taylor Green, the 9-year-old who was killed last Saturday in Tucson. "She was off to meet her congresswoman," Obama said, "someone she was sure was good and important."
"Good and important." Those are oddly simple words for a speech like this. But they're exactly the words you can imagine a 9-year-old using if her teacher asked her to describe a member of Congress. "She saw all this through the eyes of a child," the president continued, "undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted."
When I give talks around the country, I often describe Congress as a "cynicism machine." The legislative process takes solutions that people are excited about and grinds them down into policies that people are confused by and afraid of. We go to the government with our problems, with the things that scare us, and we leave with more fear and less hope.
And it's not because the language on the page changes so dramatically. It's because the process is so ugly. During health-care reform, Republicans liked to say that they agreed with about 80 percent of what was in the bill. But you don't win elections by trumpeting 80 percent agreement, and you don't sell advertisements by leading the evening news with a special report on how there's still broad consensus that insurers shouldn't discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. The voices that get heard are not the ones calmly discussing the legislation. Instead, we're like a kid running his tongue over a sore tooth over and over and over again. We just keep poking ourselves where it hurts, where there's a seam, where we're scared.
Consider this exchange (pdf) from a recent debate that former-Rep. John Shadegg participated in over the Affordable Care Act. During the introductions, the moderator, ABC's John Donvan, noted that Shadegg had referred to the health-care law as "Soviet-style gulag health care." Did he still stand by that?
But what's funny is that I don't think the 9-year-olds are totally wrong. I've met a lot of members of Congress, and I do think most of them are good, or at least are trying to be. Serving in Congress is actually a sort of crummy life: You live in a small apartment, you spend most of your time missing your family, you're constantly in airports, and when you do get home you barely have time to see your kids because you're running to meet with constituents. It's a grind. And -- this is where kids and adults alike overestimate politicians -- you're not that important. No one cares about the speech you just gave or the amendments you just proposed. The media generally doesn't pay attention unless you become part of a controversy, or say something dumb. You have to do what your leadership tells you. You get yelled at a lot. Most of the people who stick with the job stick with it because they believe they're doing some good in the world.
But when the public looks at them, they don't see it. Sen. Evan Bayh once told me that "we've got good people trapped in a dysfunctional system." I still think he's right about that. The individuals are trying hard, but the whole is a lot uglier than the sum of the parts. At some point, however, it's up to them to change that. The problem is, no one member of Congress, and no one party, has much incentive to start.
"Good and important." Those are oddly simple words for a speech like this. But they're exactly the words you can imagine a 9-year-old using if her teacher asked her to describe a member of Congress. "She saw all this through the eyes of a child," the president continued, "undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted."
When I give talks around the country, I often describe Congress as a "cynicism machine." The legislative process takes solutions that people are excited about and grinds them down into policies that people are confused by and afraid of. We go to the government with our problems, with the things that scare us, and we leave with more fear and less hope.
And it's not because the language on the page changes so dramatically. It's because the process is so ugly. During health-care reform, Republicans liked to say that they agreed with about 80 percent of what was in the bill. But you don't win elections by trumpeting 80 percent agreement, and you don't sell advertisements by leading the evening news with a special report on how there's still broad consensus that insurers shouldn't discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. The voices that get heard are not the ones calmly discussing the legislation. Instead, we're like a kid running his tongue over a sore tooth over and over and over again. We just keep poking ourselves where it hurts, where there's a seam, where we're scared.
Consider this exchange (pdf) from a recent debate that former-Rep. John Shadegg participated in over the Affordable Care Act. During the introductions, the moderator, ABC's John Donvan, noted that Shadegg had referred to the health-care law as "Soviet-style gulag health care." Did he still stand by that?
John Shadegg: No. I think that it is a -- it is a part of the dialogue that you try to get attention. And that was an attempt to gather some attention.And Shadegg got a lot of coverage for that comment, despite the fact that everyone knew it was absurd. Try explaining that to a 9-year-old.
But what's funny is that I don't think the 9-year-olds are totally wrong. I've met a lot of members of Congress, and I do think most of them are good, or at least are trying to be. Serving in Congress is actually a sort of crummy life: You live in a small apartment, you spend most of your time missing your family, you're constantly in airports, and when you do get home you barely have time to see your kids because you're running to meet with constituents. It's a grind. And -- this is where kids and adults alike overestimate politicians -- you're not that important. No one cares about the speech you just gave or the amendments you just proposed. The media generally doesn't pay attention unless you become part of a controversy, or say something dumb. You have to do what your leadership tells you. You get yelled at a lot. Most of the people who stick with the job stick with it because they believe they're doing some good in the world.
But when the public looks at them, they don't see it. Sen. Evan Bayh once told me that "we've got good people trapped in a dysfunctional system." I still think he's right about that. The individuals are trying hard, but the whole is a lot uglier than the sum of the parts. At some point, however, it's up to them to change that. The problem is, no one member of Congress, and no one party, has much incentive to start.
Children and Childish Things
THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 2011
Sometime after I read Ezra Klein's terrific post about politics through a child's eyes it occurred to me -- and I apologize if others have already noted this, but I hadn't -- that Barack Obama's choice to frame his speech in Tucson that way was fascinating, because the one thing I'd guess people remember from Obama's Inaugural Address was his insistence that "the time has come to set aside childish things."
Can we reconcile these two apparently contradictory pieces of rhetoric?
Yes, we can (as they say).
But it takes me to a different place than where Klein winds up in his post (and, to be clear, I'm not claiming that this is what the president meant). Here's what I loved in his post: (I have to quote the full paragraph, because it's just so good):
My experience with most people is that it's very, very difficult to accept that. We want white hats and big bads; we can't quite see why everyone, at least everyone who is well-intentioned, can't just work things out. Without the sausage-making.
But that's not what real politics is.
So, yes, and apologies in advance for stretching out a bit here, but I hope people can follow Obama and see politicians through a child's eyes and recognize that most of them really are public spirited and well-intentioned -- and also follow Obama and put away childish things, and accept that good people can fundamentally disagree with each other, fight hard against each other, engage in calculated and maybe even devious maneuvers, act out of self-interest, and otherwise behave like real, complex, people.
Politics? It's gonna get messy. Don't let that deter you from jumping in. Don't give up on it.
Can we reconcile these two apparently contradictory pieces of rhetoric?
Yes, we can (as they say).
But it takes me to a different place than where Klein winds up in his post (and, to be clear, I'm not claiming that this is what the president meant). Here's what I loved in his post: (I have to quote the full paragraph, because it's just so good):
But what's funny is that I don't think the 9-year-olds are totally wrong. I've met a lot of members of Congress, and I do think most of them are good, or at least are trying to be. Serving in Congress is actually a sort of crummy life: You live in a small apartment, you spend most of your time missing your family, you're constantly in airports, and when you do get home you barely have time to see your kids because you're running to meet with constituents. It's a grind. And -- this is where kids and adults alike overestimate politicians -- you're not that important. No one cares about the speech you just gave or the amendments you just proposed. The media generally doesn't pay attention unless you become part of a controversy, or say something dumb. You have to do what your leadership tells you. You get yelled at a lot. Most of the people who stick with the job stick with it because they believe they're doing some good in the world.But then he concludes:
But when the public looks at them, they don't see it. Sen. Evan Bayh once told me that "we've got good people trapped in a dysfunctional system." I still think he's right about that. The individuals are trying hard, but the whole is a lot uglier than the sum of the parts. At some point, however, it's up to them to change that. The problem is, no one member of Congress, and no one party, has much incentive to start.See, I can't buy that. Oh, yes, there are plenty of things in the way Congress runs that I'd like to tweak, or even reform in larger ways. But fundamentally, I think that politics, at least at its best, is about good people who are really, honestly, going to disagree. They're going to disagree because their interests are different, their ideas about what government should do differ, or perhaps because they're in groups that see the world very differently. Or maybe even just because they're competing for office; power isn't zero-sum, but electoral politics is.
My experience with most people is that it's very, very difficult to accept that. We want white hats and big bads; we can't quite see why everyone, at least everyone who is well-intentioned, can't just work things out. Without the sausage-making.
But that's not what real politics is.
So, yes, and apologies in advance for stretching out a bit here, but I hope people can follow Obama and see politicians through a child's eyes and recognize that most of them really are public spirited and well-intentioned -- and also follow Obama and put away childish things, and accept that good people can fundamentally disagree with each other, fight hard against each other, engage in calculated and maybe even devious maneuvers, act out of self-interest, and otherwise behave like real, complex, people.
Politics? It's gonna get messy. Don't let that deter you from jumping in. Don't give up on it.
Did the White House "brand" the Arizona memorial service with a logo and slogan?
The Truth-O-Meter Says:
The White House "branded" the memorial service for the Tucson shootings with a "Together We Thrive" logo and slogan.
Michelle Malkin on Wednesday, January 12th, 2011 in a blog post
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The University of Arizona memorial service for the victims of the Tucson, Ariz. shootings was called "Together We Thrive." But Michele Malkin claimed the slogan was cooked up by the White House
In an opinion piece about the Jan. 12, 2011, memorial event, Malkin, a conservative pundit, accused the White House of "branding" the memorial service with the slogan, complete with its own logo.
Malkin noted that all 13,000 people who attended the "Together We Thrive" event were given blue and white T-shirts with the logo.
"Can't the Democrat political stage managers give it a break just once?" Malkin wrote in her column.
The Drudge Report subsequently ran a headline atop its web page, "Political Theme, T-Shirts at Memorial?" It linked to an AP photo of "Together We Thrive" T-shirts draped over the back of chairs before the memorial service at McKale Memorial Center on the University of Arizona campus.
But officials at the University of Arizona said the White House had nothing to do with the name or the logo.
"The name of the event and the logo for the event were done entirely by the university," said Johnny Cruz, a spokesman for the University of Arizona. "Branding of the event was not done in consultation with the White House, or any elected officials or political organization."
The T-shirts were also the university's doing, Cruz said.
"That was the university's idea," he said. "We wanted to give people something to remember, to symbolize the community spirit."
The university bought the shirts without the use of taxpayer dollars, although he wasn't sure if the cost was borne by donations.
"Almost everything was done by the university," Cruz said, including selection of the location for the event and planning the agenda. Once the president accepted an invitation, he said, the White House helped coordinate some logistics, such as security, but that was the extent of the White House involvement.
And "Together We Thrive" was conceived by a University of Arizona student, he said.
"Can't the Democrat political stage managers give it a break just once?" Malkin wrote in her column.
The Drudge Report subsequently ran a headline atop its web page, "Political Theme, T-Shirts at Memorial?" It linked to an AP photo of "Together We Thrive" T-shirts draped over the back of chairs before the memorial service at McKale Memorial Center on the University of Arizona campus.
But officials at the University of Arizona said the White House had nothing to do with the name or the logo.
"The name of the event and the logo for the event were done entirely by the university," said Johnny Cruz, a spokesman for the University of Arizona. "Branding of the event was not done in consultation with the White House, or any elected officials or political organization."
The T-shirts were also the university's doing, Cruz said.
"That was the university's idea," he said. "We wanted to give people something to remember, to symbolize the community spirit."
The university bought the shirts without the use of taxpayer dollars, although he wasn't sure if the cost was borne by donations.
"Almost everything was done by the university," Cruz said, including selection of the location for the event and planning the agenda. Once the president accepted an invitation, he said, the White House helped coordinate some logistics, such as security, but that was the extent of the White House involvement.
And "Together We Thrive" was conceived by a University of Arizona student, he said.
White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs said during his briefing that the university was responsible for logistics. "I think it’s important to understand we were invited to and accepted quite happily the invitation of the university," he said.
We should note that Malkin later added an update to her blog posting that stated, "As noted above, the University of Arizona announced the Together We Thrive event — and a few readers wrote in to say that the campus initiated the logo/campaign. Given U of A president Robert Shelton's embarrassing, thinly-veiled partisan cheerleading for Obama tonight, it may indeed be a 100 percent-campus-initiated campaign. Given the Obama White House's meticulous attention to stage prop details, however, I would say the odds of involvement by Axelrod/Plouffe & Co. are high."
But university spokesman Cruz said all of the "stage prop details," as Malkin called them, were entirely conceived by and arranged by the college.
The burden of proof is on Malkin and she has failed to prove any White House involvement. She may believe she sees the handiwork of the White House at play, but there's no evidence to back that up. Certainly not enough to justify her claim the White House used the shooting tragedy as an opportunity to orchestrate a "branded" political event. We rate Malkin's claim False.
But university spokesman Cruz said all of the "stage prop details," as Malkin called them, were entirely conceived by and arranged by the college.
The burden of proof is on Malkin and she has failed to prove any White House involvement. She may believe she sees the handiwork of the White House at play, but there's no evidence to back that up. Certainly not enough to justify her claim the White House used the shooting tragedy as an opportunity to orchestrate a "branded" political event. We rate Malkin's claim False.
Poll Result of the Day: Raising the Debt Ceiling
| Thu Jan. 13, 2011 4:51 PM PST
Here's an....interesting....poll result from Ipsos Public Affairs:
So 71% of the public doesn't want to raise the debt ceiling. When they hear that this will wreck our credit rating, damage our credibility, and jack up interest rates, this changes to....71% of the public. Urk.
"Today Is a Day To Remember"
| Wed Jan. 12, 2011 1:20 PM PST
"Today is a day to remember," said a mid-fifties man outside the Ministry of Health in Port-au-Prince this morning. "Not a day for protest."
But not everyone agreed with him on how to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands of Haitians. A group whose name roughly translates to Interceptive Resistance Against Forces That Expel gathered outside the government building to protest displaced people being thrown forcibly, and sometimes violently, out of their tent camps by police or landowners.
Photos by Mark Murrmann
After a prayer ceremony in the middle of the street, they took to marching and chanting slogans against MINUSTAH, theunpopular United Nations force supposed to keep the peace. They yelled that all they'd gotten from foreigners is cholera(repeating a common conspiracy theory) when what they really need is houses, that Haitians need to take their own country back. They spray painted the sidewalks and a Red Cross car with "Down With NGOs," covered a UN ambulance with graffiti, and threw rocks at a passing truck full of heavily armed MINUSTAH soldiers.
Though they were intense, these protesters numbered less than a hundred. As the man outside the ministry pointed out, most people spent the day remembering. Throughout town, groups, many religious, organized walks and tributes. Thousands packed a "celebration of life" of songs and prayers near the national palace. The marches and impromptu dance parties were upbeat, with a lot of singing and shouting and, in some cases, moonshine.
Even yesterday, at the ceremony held at the mass graves on the edge of the city, only one woman was prominently crying. (So many photographers crowded to take pictures of her that her friends eventually covered her face.) And today's protest at the ministry started off on a weirdly celebratory note. As the demonstrators amassed and prepared to start hollering for reform, a police brass marching band struck up a happy tune.
Clinton, Ninjas, and Protests: Snapshots Of Haiti
— By Mac McClelland| Wed Jan. 12, 2011 12:21 PM PST
Today's the one-year anniversary of the Haitian earthquake. Here are some scenes from my first few days back in the country reporting on its post-quake progress—and lack of it. (For more pix as they happen, follow me on Twitter.)
Photos by Mac McClellandBig Bill Clinton fans at a Port-au-Prince demonstration today.
Protesters just spray painted the shit out of this Red Cross car.
Nobody knows how many thousands of bodies were dumped in these mass graves, but these dusty gravel lots are massive. They've set up crosses here so officials can hang wreaths on them.
And hello, former president Clinton!
There's a lot of people remembering the dead outside the busted cathedral. They're praying. The chant is, "I have no job. I can't pay the rent. I need some money."
There's a porn theater in this Port-au-Prince tent city. The 20-year old who runs it charges 25 cents per person to watch movies on a wooden bench in the tent.
Actually, they also sometimes show movies about ninjas.
Rebuilding Haiti for the Rich
— By Mac McClelland| Tue Jan. 11, 2011 3:00 AM PST
— Photos by Mark Murrmann"My buddy who's in town with Fox wants to know why Haiti looks exactly the same as after the quake," my Haitian friend texted me the other day. My driver, Sam, has expressed a similar assessment about the lack of progress. But driving around Port-au-Prince today, there was all sorts of rebuilding under way.
Take, for example, Fort National, an area that's a little ways up a hill and is covered with destroyed structures: crumbling cement-block frames, exposed rebar. The government announced on TV the other day that they're launching a giant rebuilding project, lots of apartments you can move into and rent to own. The pictures of what it will all look like when it's done are very impressive. But they haven't started yet.
Okay. A better example is the First National City Bank, a giant ruined structure that used to take up a corner of a busy intersection but is now an almost entirely cleared lot. A Caterpillar bulldozer breaks up the remaining large pieces, with about half a dozen construction workers and 10 scrappers to every one of them. The workers destroy another chunk; the scrappers swarm quickly with saws and little sledgehammers to pull out sellable bits in a chaos of dust and sharp edges. Makelo, a 29-year-old with an armful of rebar, says he makes way more money—several hundred dollars a week—than he did before the quake, when he sold charcoal.
Our conversation halts when a fight breaks out among some scrappers, who are pushing and shoving over a newly smashed, potentially lucrative block of building, and the workers start pushing and shoving them away from the lot. "We shoo them away because this equipment is dangerous and sometimes people get hurt or killed," says Etienne, the 28-year-old site manager. "They shoo them away because they want to keep the good scraps to themselves," Sam says. There is fresh blood on the ground near my left foot.
Nearby, workers are filling in the concrete frame of a big building their boss says will be done later this month. Three apartments on top, several storefronts on the bottom. What stood here before has been completely demolished, and they've been working on this for a couple of months. It's supposed to be done at the end of the month, at a total cost of about $70,000. A little further up some winding roads beyond the heaviest bustle of the city, in Vivy Mitchell, there are crews everywhere, too. Fixing stone walls around recently fixed houses, building a house where a broken house was just torn down.
"People have started reconstructing themselves lately," Sam allows once when I keep commenting that many are definitely hard at work on rebuilding, though usually he responds, "There are many more to be rebuilt," or "This is only a few." "Everyone was waiting for the government to do something, and now it's been so long they know the government isn't going to help them, so they are doing it themselves," he says, although he adds, "Only people who have the money."The prevalence of rich people's development versus the total lack of it for the poor is pointed out to me again later. In response to my description of what I saw, even a wealthy person at my hotel gives me the kind of look that one might level at a particularly disappointing child. "That's all private-sector rebuilding," he says. "That's to be expected." And you cannot, and would not ever, deny that the work needs to be bigger and harder and faster. There are still a million people in tent camps.
"Still, it looks better than it did in September," I say.
"Of course it's better!" Sam says. "There's hope. Every day, the more time that passes after the earthquake, the people have a little bit more hope."
In Search of Progress in Haiti
— By Mac McClelland| Mon Jan. 10, 2011 3:00 AM PST
— Mark MurrmannThis week (or Wednesday, to be specific) is the one-year anniversary of the Haitian earthquake. As it turns out, there's less media in Port-au-Prince than everyone had been expecting. There were indeed CNN cameramen on our flight, and there's more press than on maybe any given Sunday, but it's not exactly a circus. Our popular hotel seems half-deserted. As in, my photographer (MoJo photo editor Mark Murrmann) and I met with our new driver today, and he said many of the fixers are looking for work, calling each other, saying, Where are the reporters? Where's the work at? Does anyone know any reporters who need drivers?
And there's all sorts of events for us, like a soccer match played between two teams of amputees tomorrow, and the launching, finally, of some government housing projects, and junkets coordinated by what the long-embedded press agrees is a veritable army of PR consultants hired for the anniversary.
So what am I doing in Haiti? We'll see, but possibly some follow-up on whatever happened to the aid dollars Americans pledged last year. (A lot of those dollars went to organizations spearheaded by Bill Clinton, who is also the cochair of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission. But he was appointed under outgoing President René Preval, and there's a new election soon, and Clinton isn't a Haitian, so Haitians could see to his forced uninvolvement if they see fit. "We could fuck him so good..." says a wealthy Haitian drinking at the hotel bar.) Possibly some check-in with the underresourced rape survivors mightily battling the stupendous prevalence of sexual violence, which has actually gotten worse since the quake, but has long been a staple of Haitian society. (We had not even left the airport when I ran into a shady guy who threatened me last time I was here. And had only just been delivered our dinner at the hotel restaurant when a patron sat down with us to explain to my photographer that if you lost your erection while trying to rape a woman, you'd have to resort to violating her with a bottle, or a piece of wood, or maybe even a pen—which he helpfully pulled out of his pocket for demonstrative purposes—at which point Mark promptly slid his tumbler full of white rum under my face, which had surely gone tight with horror.) Probably we'll spend a little time with some construction crews picking up the pieces of the destruction that are still everywhere. And definitely we'll be on top of the results of the election commission, which is supposed to announce its investigation into fraud during November's race, which may result in widespread riots.
Bottom line is, we'll be looking into some of the aspects of progress over the last year. Though as we found out today, the usage of that noun is, incidentally, completely hilarious in post-quake Haiti. As in:
Photographer [to Haitian-born driver who wants to know why we're here]: You know, we're looking at various kinds of progress since the earthquake—
Driver: Progress! Ha ha ha ha ha ha...
Photographer and I: Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Sorry. Well, you know...
Yeah.
Turnaround Schools That Work
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has courageously taken on the most important—and most difficult—problem in American education: turning around the country’s lowest-performing schools. Duncan has noted that for years districts allowed failing schools to slide, and has called, instead, for “far-reaching reforms” that fundamentally change the culture in the country’s worst 5,000 schools. Ironically, his preferred approach, which focuses primarily on changing the faculty and school governance, is itself too timid.
—Steve Braden
In a June 17 Education Week Commentary, Duncan wrote that, in Chicago, “we moved the adults out of the building, kept the children there, and brought in new adults.” ("Start Over," June, 17 2009.) But an exclusive focus on changing the principal and teachers misses two-thirds of the larger school community, which also includes students and parents. This partial-turnaround approach in Chicago was met with “mixed” results, the education consultant Bryan Hassel told The New York Times. The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago noted in a recent report
that “most students in the Chicago Public Schools continue to fail.”
that “most students in the Chicago Public Schools continue to fail.”The regulations under which the federal government will award $3.5 billion in Title I school improvement money, announced by Secretary Duncan last week, include four turnaround models that allow states and districts some flexibility in how they deal with failing schools. But the rules also contain strong incentives to choose the models that focus on changing staff and governance. ("Turnaround Grants Facing Tight Leash," same issue.)
Changing the principal and teachers in a school isn’t enough, in part because many years of research have confirmed what all parents know: Kids learn from one another as well as from the teacher. In high-poverty schools, a child is surrounded by classmates who are less likely to have big dreams and, accordingly, are less academically engaged and more prone to acting out and cutting class. Classmates in high-poverty schools are more likely to move in the middle of the year, creating disruption in the classroom, and they are less likely to have large vocabularies, which can rub off on peers on the playground and in school.
Parents are also an important part of a school community. Students benefit when parents regularly volunteer in the classroom and know how to hold school officials accountable when things go wrong. Low-income parents, who may be working several jobs, may not own a car, and may have had bad experiences themselves as students, are four times less likely to be members of a PTA, and are only half as likely to volunteer.
The student and parent makeup of a school, in turn, profoundly affects the type of teacher who can be recruited. Polls consistently find that teachers care more about “work environment” than they do about salary. They care about school safety, whether they will have to spend large portions of their time on classroom management, and whether parents will make sure kids do their homework. That’s why it’s so difficult to attract and keep great teachers in high-poverty schools, even when bonuses are offered.
The most promising “turnaround” model is one that recognizes these realities and seeks to turn high-poverty schools into magnet schools that change not only the faculty, but also the student and parent mix in the school. Failing schools can be shuttered and reopened with new themes and pedagogical approaches that attract new teachers and a mix of middle-class and low-income students. Meanwhile, some low-income students from the old school will be given the opportunity to fill the spots vacated by middle-income children who had been attending more-affluent schools.
A leading example of this comes from Wake County, N.C., which includes the city of Raleigh and its surrounding suburbs. As Gerald Grant notes in his important new bookHope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Schools in Raleigh, Wake County school officials made a critical decision in the early 1980s to avoid the problems associated with concentrated poverty in neighboring Durham schools and provided virtually every Raleigh school with a special theme, such as science and technology, arts and theater, or International Baccalaureate. Raleigh’s inner-city schools, which had been marked by white flight, were soon filled with economically and racially diverse student enrollments. Many of the schools had waiting lists.
To prevent the creation of enclaves of privilege, the Raleigh magnets are nonselective. And to avoid legal problems associated with using race in assigning students, the schools look for a mix of pupils who are and are not eligible for subsidized lunch. The results have been very promising. Wake County, writes Grant, “reduced the gap between rich and poor, black and white, more than any other large urban educational system in America.” The district’s results track with data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress for mathematics, which finds that low-income 4th grade students attending more-affluent schools are two years ahead of low-income students stuck in high-poverty schools.
Of course, there are plenty of examples of places where magnet schools have failed to attract middle-class families. The most famous is probably a Kansas City, Mo., high school that featured a $5 million swimming pool, an indoor track, and a Model United Nations wired for language translation, yet failed to draw white middle-class students.
But well-designed plans poll parents ahead of time to find out what sorts of programs would be attractive to them. For example, in Cambridge, Mass., which has a system of universal choice and seeks an economic balance among schools, officials recently turned the struggling, predominantly low-income Tobin School, located near a large low-income housing complex, into a Montessori school. In 2006-07, Tobin had attracted only 12 first-choice applicants to fill 60 pre-K and kindergarten seats. The next year, when it reopened with a Montessori approach, Tobin attracted 145 applicants, with twice as many middle-class as low-income students applying, says Michael Alves, who administers the student lottery.
Using magnet themes to turn around failing high-poverty schools won’t work everywhere. Some schools located in extremely dangerous neighborhoods may be unable to attract middle-class children. But high-quality, economically integrated schools should be the first turnaround option explored, with efforts to make Plessy v. Ferguson—separate but equal—work as the fallback. Oddly, those two priorities are usually reversed today.
Indeed, there is a strange quality to the turnaround debate. We stand in awe of the impressive efforts of a few schools—like those of the Knowledge Is Power Program—to make high-poverty schools work, and ignore the larger reality, documented by University of Wisconsin professor Douglas N. Harris, that middle-class schools are 22 times more likely than high-poverty schools to be high-performing. Larger school policies cannot be based on the heroic efforts of a small band of young superstar teachers working round the clock. That strategy may succeed in 82 KIPP schools, but it is not scalable to the 5,000 schools that Secretary Duncan has identified.
Moreover, KIPP itself might not be up to the task of turning around failing high-poverty schools. So far, it has succeeded with small, self-selected groups of students who apply to, and persist in, a rigorous program. (In San Francisco-area KIPP schools, 60 percent drop out.) What will happen if KIPP has to try to educate every student—the type of population that regular high-poverty public schools educate every day?
Fundamentally, we need to rethink the basic theory of turning around failing schools. The unspoken assumption of current approaches is that teachers in high-poverty schools (and their union protectors) are to blame, and that if we could fire those teachers, and bring in union-free charter schools, we could fix the problem. Mountains of research, however, suggest that the reason high-poverty schools fail so often is that economic segregation drives failure: It congregates the kids with the smallest dreams, the parents who are most pressed, and burnt-out teachers who often cannot get hired elsewhere.
How have we come to the point where creating high-quality integrated schools isn’t an explicit part of the turnaround discussion?
Does Income-Based School Integration Work?
Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010
School integration has vexed policymakers for more than half a century. The Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that schools can't keep kids out based on race. Then in 2007 it ruled that schools can't bring kids together based on race. After the court struck down two race-based integration schemes in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., attention turned to diversifying schools via students' household-income levels. Economic integration, a concept first floated by early public-school crusaders like Horace Mann, is a compelling idea with intuitive appeal: reduce the preponderance of high-poverty schools by spreading poor students around. The idea jumped back into the spotlight this month when the Century Foundation released a new study touting the benefits of economically integrated schools. The glaring problem from a policy perspective, however, is that low-income families tend to live in the same neighborhoods, and dramatically changing housing patterns — or school-zoning boundaries — as a large-scale reform measure is impractical.
The study looked at about 850 low-income students whose families took advantage of housing programs that enabled them to live in affluent parts of Maryland's Montgomery County. Over the course of seven years, the high-poverty students attending low-poverty schools had better outcomes than their peers who attended schools that had greater numbers of poor students. In particular, the achievement gap at the elementary level was cut in half for math and by a third in reading. (See "Summer Programs Keep Kids' Minds Sharp.")
These findings aren't terribly surprising. It's well documented that, in general, as the level of poverty increases in a school, academic achievement suffers. Low-income students are more challenging to educate, and schools serving them often have fewer enrichment activities, highly effective teachers and other key educational resources — even in places like Montgomery County, which has been sharply focused on addressing the achievement gap over the past decade.
Although the outcomes in the new study are encouraging, there is a disconnect between the enthusiasm for economic integration as a concept and the reality of implementing it on a large scale. For instance, when Jerry Weast, the superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools, noted the logistical challenges of economically integrating a lot of schools, he was castigated by Richard Kahlenberg of the Century Foundation, a leading advocate for economic integration of schools. Kahlenberg wrote in the Washington Post that "Dr. Weast's suggestion that pursuing economic school integration is not possible in the real world would surprise superintendents in almost 80 school districts nationally that use socioeconomic status as a factor in deciding where students attend school."
But there are more than 13,000 superintendents across the nation, many of whom presumably would be less surprised at the challenges Weast highlighted. And many of today's economic-integration initiatives are modest in size or scope while the scale of educational failure for low-income youngsters is not — only about 10% of low-income students earn a college degree by age 24.(See what makes a school great.)
Our schools remain relatively segregated places because American housing remains relatively segregated by income and race. (While the systemic shortchanging of minority students in public schools is increasingly getting attention, poor white students are systemically underserved as well, which points to yet another benefit of focusing on class rather than race.) Elementary schools are especially affected because they tend to draw students from small geographic areas. This has a variety of consequences, including putting good schools out of reach for many students. Erin Dillon of Education Sector, a policy think tank I co-founded, concluded in a 2008 analysis that even in the best-case scenario, only about 20% of students would be able to choose a better-performing school if various school-zoning boundaries were not an issue. In most cases, there simply were not enough good schools near concentrations of low-income students — and when there were open seats in those schools, competition for them was intense.
Compounding this problem is the fact that large school districts like Montgomery County, which has more than 141,000 students, are not the norm. In 2008, only 281 school districts nationwide had more than 25,000 students; 9,698 had fewer than 2,500 students. We can't simply wish these boundaries away, and in many of these districts, the poverty is so widespread that the mathematics of economic integration don't work — there are not enough non-poor students.
In addition to geographic realities, parents are not broadly supportive of ambitious transfer schemes or overly restrictive enrollment policies that constrain their choices. Specifically, parents who are paying the high property taxes that often accompany high-performing public schools are zealously protective of access to that amenity. Education analyst Rick Hess has likened their resistance to zoning changes to the way NFL season-ticket holders would react if their team suddenly announced that seating would be general admission.
School administrators often reflect parents' reticence. In Massachusetts, where school districts can choose whether to accept transfer students from other districts, only about half do. In other states, there is even less appetite to move students around.
In terms of what happens in the classroom, it's worth noting that more-affluent schools are not uniformly good schools, nor are they consistently effective at educating low-income students. The unprecedented transparency required by the No Child Left Behind Act has laid bare the stark inequities that exist within schools. Poor and minority youngsters often lag far behind overall averages — those gaps are a prime reason that even some relatively affluent schools are failing to meet the law's performance standards. Consequently, while the intangible benefits of more-diverse schools are obvious, the academic results from economic-integration initiatives are mixed. Students can be segregated within schools as well as from them.
No one in the mainstream of the education debate wants segregated schools. But while such schools are not an immutable condition, they are an unfortunate fact of life. That's why so many in the reform community see issues such as improving teacher effectiveness, providing a better curriculum and expanding high-performing charter schools in underserved communities as more impactful and immediate steps than grand schemes to change housing policy or school-district boundaries. And of course, there are plenty of schools that demonstrate that high poverty rates and low achievement are not inexorably linked. These reformers, myself included, are not opposed to efforts to create more economically integrated schools. We're just keenly attuned to the practical constraints.
The U.S. has spent decades trying different strategies to bring low-income students to good schools. Perhaps it's time to acknowledge the limitations of those approaches and double-down on the most promising efforts to bring good schools to students who need them — now.
Andrew J. Rotherham, who writes the blog Eduwonk, is a co-founder and partner at Bellwether Education, a nonprofit working to improve educational outcomes for low-income students. School of Thought, his education column for TIME.com, appears every Thursday.
Republican school board in N.C. backed by tea party abolishes integration policy
By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 12, 2011; 12:38 PM
RALEIGH, N.C. - The sprawling Wake County School District has long been a rarity. Some of its best, most diverse schools are in the poorest sections of this capital city. And its suburban schools, rather than being exclusive enclaves, include children whose parents cannot afford a house in the neighborhood.
But over the past year, a new majority-Republican school board backed by national tea party conservatives has set the district on a strikingly different course. Pledging to "say no to the social engineers!" it has abolished the policy behind one of the nation's most celebrated integration efforts.
And as the board moves toward a system in which students attend neighborhood schools, some members are embracing the provocative idea that concentrating poor children, who are usually minorities, in a few schools could have merits - logic that critics are blasting as a 21st-century case for segregation.
The situation unfolding here in some ways represents a first foray of tea party conservatives into the business of shaping a public school system, and it has made Wake County the center of a fierce debate over the principle first enshrined in the Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education: that diversity and quality education go hand in hand.
The new school board has won applause from parents who blame the old policy - which sought to avoid high-poverty, racially isolated schools - for an array of problems in the district and who say that promoting diversity is no longer a proper or necessary goal for public schools.
"This is Raleigh in 2010, not Selma, Alabama, in the 1960s - my life is integrated," said John Tedesco, a new board member. "We need new paradigms."
But critics accuse the new board of pursuing an ideological agenda aimed at nothing less than sounding the official death knell of government-sponsored integration in one of the last places to promote it. Without a diversity policy in place, they say, the county will inevitably slip into the pattern that defines most districts across the country, where schools in well-off neighborhoods are decent and those in poor, usually minority neighborhoods struggle.
The NAACP has filed a civil rights complaint arguing that 700 initial student transfers the new board approved have already increased racial segregation, violating laws that prohibit the use of federal funding for discriminatory purposes. In recent weeks, federal education officials visited the county, the first step toward a possible investigation.
"So far, all the chatter we heard from tea partyers has not manifested in actually putting in place retrograde policies. But this is one place where they have literally attempted to turn back the clock," said Benjamin Todd Jealous, president of the NAACP.
School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta referred questions on the matter to the district's attorney, who declined to comment. Tedesco, who has emerged as the most vocal among the new majority on the nine-member board, said he and his colleagues are only seeking a simpler system in which children attend the schools closest to them. If the result is a handful of high-poverty schools, he said, perhaps that will better serve the most challenged students.
"If we had a school that was, like, 80 percent high-poverty, the public would see the challenges, the need to make it successful," he said. "Right now, we have diluted the problem, so we can ignore it."
So far, the board shows few signs of shifting course. Last month, it announced that Anthony J. Tata, former chief operating officer of the D.C. schools, will replace a superintendent who resigned to protest the new board's intentions. Tata, a retired general, names conservative commentator Glenn Beck and the Tea Party Patriots among his "likes" on his Facebook page.
Tata did not return calls seeking comment, but he said in a recent news conference in Raleigh that he supports the direction the new board is taking, and cited the District as an example of a place where neighborhood schools are "working."
Beyond 'your little world'
The story unfolding here is striking because of the school district's unusual history. It sprawls 800 square miles and includes public housing in Raleigh, wealthy enclaves near town, and the booming suburbs beyond, home to newcomers that include many new school board members. The county is about 72 percent white, 20 percent black and 9 percent Latino. About 10 percent live in poverty.
Usually, such large territory is divided into smaller districts with students assigned to the nearest schools. And because neighborhoods are still mostly defined by race and socioeconomic status, poor and minority kids wind up in high-poverty schools that struggle with problems such as retaining the best teachers.
Officials in Raleigh tried to head off that scenario. As white flight hit in the 1970s, civic leaders merged the city and county into a single district. And in 2000, they shifted from racial to economic integration, adopting a goal that no school should have more than 40 percent of its students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, the proxy for poverty.
The district tried to strike this balance through student assignments and choice, establishing magnet programs in poor areas to draw middle-class kids. Although most students here ride buses to school, officials said fewer than 10 percent are bused to a school to maintain diversity, and most bus rides are less than five miles.
"We knew that over time, high-poverty schools tend to lose high-quality teachers, leadership, key students - you see an erosion," said Bill McNeal, a former superintendent who instituted the goal as part of a broad academic plan. "But we never expected economic diversity to solve all our problems."
Over the years, both Republican and Democratic school boards supported the system. A study of 2007 graduation rates by EdWeek magazine ranked Wake County 17th among the nation's 50 largest districts, with a rate of 64 percent, just below Virginia's Prince William County. While most students posted gains in state reading and math tests last year - more than three-quarters passed - the stubborn achievement gap that separates minority students from their white peers has persisted, though it has narrowed by some measures. And many parents see benefits beyond test scores.
"I want these kids to be culturally diverse," said Clarence McClain, who is African American and the guardian of a niece and nephew who are doing well in county schools. "If they're with kids who are all the same way, to break out of that is impossible. You've got to step outside your little world."
'Constant shuffling'
But as the county has boomed in recent years - adding as many as 6,000 students a year - poverty levels at some schools have exceeded 70 percent. And many suburban parents have complained that their children are being reassigned from one school to the next. Officials blame this on the unprecedented growth, but parents blame the diversity goal.
"Basically, all the problems have roots in the diversity policy," said Kathleen Brennan, who formed a parent group to challenge the system. "There was just this constant shuffling every year." She added: "These people are patting themselves on the back and only 54 percent of [poor] kids are graduating. And I'm being painted a racist. But isn't it racist to have low expectations?"
As she and others have delved deeper, they've found that qualified minority students are underenrolled in advanced math classes, for instance, a problem that school officials said they've known about for years, but that strikes many parents as revelatory. Some have even come to see the diversity policy as a kind of profiling that assumes poor kids are more likely to struggle.
"I don't want us to go back to racially isolated schools," said Shila Nordone, who is biracial and has two children in county schools. "But right now, it's as if the best we can do is dilute these kids out so they don't cause problems. It sickens me."
In their quest to end the diversity policy, the frustrated parents have found some influential partners, among them retail magnate and Republican operative Art Pope.
Following his guidance, the GOP fielded the victorious bloc of school board candidates who railed against "forced busing." The nation's largest tea party organizers, Americans for Prosperity - on whose national board Pope sits - cast the old school board members as arrogant "leftists." Two libertarian think tanks, which Pope funds almost exclusively, have deployed experts on TV and radio.
"We are losing sight of the educational mission of schools to make them into some socially acceptable melting pot," said Terry Stoops, a researcher at the libertarian John Locke Foundation. "Those who support these policies are imposing their vision on everyone else."
'Disastrous' results
Things have not gone smoothly as the new school board has attempted to define its vision for raising student achievement. A preliminary map of new school assignments did not please some of the new majority's own constituents. And critics expressed alarm that the plan would create a handful of high-poverty, racially isolated schools, a scenario that the new majority has begun embracing.
Pope, who is a former state legislator, said he would back extra funding for such schools.
"If we end up with a concentration of students underperforming academically, it may be easier to reach out to them," he said. "Hypothetically, we should consider that as well."
The NAACP and others have criticized that as separate-but-equal logic.
"It's not as if this is a new idea, 'Let's experiment and see what happens when poor kids are put together in one school,' " said Richard Kahlenberg, senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a think tank that advocates for economic integration. "We know. The results are almost always disastrous."
Many local leaders see another irony in the possible balkanization of the county's schools at a time when society is becoming more interconnected than ever.
"People want schools that mirror their neighborhood, but the bigger picture is my kid in the suburbs is connected to kids in Raleigh," said the Rev. Earl Johnson, pastor of Martin Street Baptist Church in downtown Raleigh. "We're trying to connect to the world but we're separating locally? There is something wrong."
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