Gasp! Reporters Discover CCSD's Segregated Schools!

If you really want a quick run-down of de facto segregation in the Charleston County School District, I recommend the left-hand subject column of this blog. What you will discover is that, silly me, for my first five years back in Charleston after more than 40 living in various parts of the country, I actually thought CCSD's schools were integrated! It's a subject that our local paper has chosen not to explore--until now.

The Jonathan Green mural at Sanders-Clyde and the school's curriculum specializing in the history of slavery are a case in point. The mural greets children as they enter--but only black children, since no white faces appear. This message seems appropriate for a segregated school. Well, Sanders-Clyde does have one white student; evidently, CCSD administration never planned for any more. Meanwhile, fully 40 percent of its 720 students have transferred in from other schools. You can't insinuate, as Parker and Hawes do, that only white and not black parents request voluntary transfers based on race. They aren't making these choices based on the school's performance.

Learning of these statistics, what conclusion can you reach except that many black parents want a segregated school? If you know of some other reason, please comment. "Convenience" is the buzz-word for voluntary transfers, and CCSD does not provide transportation.

Let's not forget that federal government policies after World War II started the move from the peninsula to the suburbs as it granted returning veterans VA loans only on new construction. Talk about unintended consequences! But it's ridiculous to suggest that white movement off the peninsula in the seventies and eighties caused downtown schools to re-segregate: the population on the peninsula has remained (and increased) as majority white since the sixties.

It is remarkable to think that the only high school in this majority-white downtown has merely one white student; it's even more remarkable to realize that nearly 30 percent of Burke's students have transferred from other zones. Again, what gives? It's not the lure of its football team!

Parker and Hawes also try to make the case that Berkeley and Dorchester counties lack these fully segregated schools. They cite that Dorchester District 2 "doesn't have a single school lacking in diversity." Of course not: it has Dorchester District 4 to take that position!

Berkeley County is a different story. Traditionally a rural and black population, only in the past 30 years has it developed as a suburb--and new construction disperses whites from Ohio into the diverse mix. The Charleston peninsula has an entirely different, and much older, history.

Lapdog of McGinley, P & C Ignores Charter School for Math and Science

When was the last time you saw good news in the P&C about the Charter School for Math and Science?  Me too. It just doesn't happen. Instead, the reader learns that CSMS has had several principals, has struggled to find space because the Charleston County School Board refuses to allow it to use most of the Rivers building, and is largely confined to mobile classrooms, thanks to the undying animosity of Superintendent Nancy McGinley.

To McGinley's undeniable horror and despite her feeble efforts at integration in the district, CSMS remains the lone example of a fully integrated school in all of Charleston County. The NAACP must hate this.

Now, thanks to an Op-Ed by CSMS's college counselor, we learn that CSMS has been so successful that 200 applied for 60 spots in its sixth grade. Don't you wonder what would have happened in the future if CSMS had been able to find room for those 200 instead of holding a lottery?

At the same time we learn that in Mt. Pleasant (them that has gets) the Charter Montessori school will be able to practically double its enrollment by occupying the old Whitesides campus with the Superintendent's full cooperation. 

No double standard there.

Death of Parody in Little Rock School District

We've come a long way since 1957. Then the Little Rock school district became known for Governor Faubus's use of the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the integration of Central High School. Those were serious times. Not any more.

This fall newly-chosen Superintendent Dexter Suggs set a new dress code for district teachers which was so reviled that he has postponed its implementation until next year--to give everyone time to get used to it. Among the usual strictures one was roundly opposed by organized labor: teachers must wear underwear at all times and females must wear bras.

How could anyone parody that?

Rest in Peace, Maria

No one should die of lung cancer. The news of Maria Goodloe-Johnson's death at 55 must have shocked everyone except a few family and friends. An eight-year-old child is motherless, making her early death even more distressful.

However, while there is no need to speak ill of the dead, let us not sanitize the past as the P&C is wont to do. Remember, that was Winston's job in the dystopian novel 1984. We should always try to remember the past accurately to learn from it.

William Faulkner once wrote words to this effect: the past is not over; it is not even past.

Special Interest PAC Denied by CCSD's Gang of 4

Fireworks burst near the end of the East Cooper School Board candidate forum Wednesday night, but lack of time prevented the spectators from full enjoyment.

Some politically incorrect audience member questioned the independence of the four candidates--Barter, Ramich, Lecque, and Garrett--from Ginny Deerin's slate. Denials sputtered as the moderator called for closing remarks.

Where does the money for the Deerin slate come from? Much of it from the Chamber of Commerce, which has controlled the board for the last few years. With the election of these four, it will maintain control into the future.

Whose board is this, anyway?

Why No College Summit in CCSD?

Cross High School. Berkeley County. Eighty percent free or reduced lunch. Students from the small communities of Cross, Ridgeville, Pineville, Pinopolis and Sandridge. Forty seniors this year.

Where am I going with this one? Not where you would expect.

Named one of America’s Best High Schools by U.S. News & World Report in 2010.

Maybe its participation in a program named College Summit contributed to that recognition. To quote the P & C,

• At Cross, college planning starts in earnest during the spring of junior year, when students are encouraged to take the SAT or ACT. That way, they can meet early decision deadlines, which is Oct. 1 for many colleges.
• Most of the 40 seniors at the school have submitted at least one [college application by now].
• The seniors got a jump on the process thanks to a program called College Summit, a class they all take.
• “We lay out for them how to get into college,” said Seay, who teaches the College Summit program and is chair of the social studies department. “We want them to have a post-secondary plan, but this community is not a wealthy community and we find that some of them will turn down college to go into the military or get a job.”
• For that reason, all of the students also take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, the military’s admission test, and attend an annual career fair with local industry.
• “One of the things I love most about College Summit is that they are very persistent in making sure the students get what they need,” Davis said. “Although not all of the students wind up going to college, it has created a college-going culture here.”

Well, amen to that. Why not Burke or North Charleston High Schools?

Unexpected Comments from P & C Editorial

Imagine my surprise to see the following comments in a Sunday editorial, after all the praise Superintendent McGinley has received in its news columns:

• What is surprising — even galling — is that the number of low-performing schools here is growing instead of shrinking.
• And what is equally distressing is that the number of Charleston County high school freshmen who read at a fourth grade level or below has grown since last year.
• What is most baffling is that students whose reading skills are so poor are able to master subject matter enough to be promoted to the next grade. How do they learn history without reading well? How do they write papers? How do they work word problems in math?
• The fact that they pass eighth grade raises a question about whether general academic requirements are rigorous enough.
• Doesn’t the district have a policy against social promotion?
• . . . there are dynamic alternatives the Charleston County School District hasn’t tried. And when the status quo continues to add schools to the Palmetto Priority Schools list, and when reading progress slips, it is time for more dramatic changes than we’ve seen proposed.
• There is likely no silver bullet to fix high schools whose students failed to receive adequate elementary school educations. And certainly schools serving children who live in poverty have a more difficult job than those whose children don’t face challenges that come with being poor.
• But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to shrink the number of low-performing schools. It just means deciding that failure is not an option, and taking the necessary steps to deliver all students an adequate education.

Is this school board up to that challenge? this superintendent?

Idiocy of Selling Memminger School Property

 Say it ain't so, Joe! Or should we say, Michael  (Bobby, that is)?
While Charleston County School District Superintendent Nancy McGinley promises great future enhancements ("global studies") to the District 20 Memminger Elementary campus now being adjusted to earthquake standards, the district's chief financial officer, Michael Bobby, is preparing the School Board to sell off part of the property.

Do these people talk to each other? Or is something more underhanded going on. You know developers would love to get their hands on this property situated in a prime real estate area not far from King and Broad.

Why would these non-natives in charge of CCSD care if a school named Memminger has been present on that site for over 100 years? Or that the gift of the property to the school district specifically provides for a school on the site? (see below)

CCSD has already allowed the sale of the original Memminger School auditorium after its "benign neglect" over several decades; now it will sell off the property on Wentworth that contains elementary classrooms.

Dectect a pattern?

And construction is moving so slowly. Why isn't the same construction moving slowly at Buist?


20 Beaufain St.

-- Memminger school, The first parsonage of St. Philip's Episcopal Church was built on this site about 1698. It was part of the Glebe Lands, 17 acres given to the minister of the Church of England in Charles Town and his successors in office "forever," by Mrs. Affra Coming, in 1698. The Rev. Alexander Garden, rector of St. Philip's and Commissary of the Bishop of London, opened school for black and Indian children on the GlebeGlebe St.). ln the division of the Glebe Lands between St. Philip's and St. Michael's in 1797, the southern portion, including the old parsonage, was conveyed to St. Michae's. In 1858, the Normal School, for the training of female teachers, was built on the site of the old parsonage. Charleston architect Edward C. Jones designed the large and impressive building which had an arcaded front portico and a high mansard dome. It was built by contractor Benjamin Lucas. The school was later named for Christopher C. Memminger, a leader in establishing Charleston's public school system in the 1850's, and Confederate Secretary of the Treasury in the 1860's. The City Board of School Commissioners bought the property in 1899. Memminger School remained a high school for girls until 1950, when it became an elementary school. This building was built in 1953.

(Smith & Smith, Dwelling Houses , p. 311-313; Wallace, p. 184, 464; Ravenel, Architects , p. 218; Rogers, Charleston in the Age of the Pinckneys , p. 91-92; McCrady, 2:245-247; Williams, St. Michael's , p. 48; Stockton, News & Courier , Aug. 5, 1972; Stockton, unpub. M.S.; Mazyck & Waddell, illus. 21)

*ALERT* Goodloe-Johnson Sighting in West Ashley BI-LO

Yes, it's true.

Let's hope former Charleston County School District Superintendent (and now-embattled Seattle Superintendent) Maria Goodloe-Johnson is merely visiting her in-laws.

Taylor's Irresponsible Resignation

While I have the greatest respect for now former Charleston County School Board member Mary Ann Taylor, I must also respectfully disagree with her decision to resign from the Board over the salary issue.

Perhaps Taylor just didn't understand fully when she ran how nasty and vindictive CCSD's administration can be. Certainly she has gone several rounds with them previously. But Taylor was one of the sane voices on the Board of Trustees. Whoever replaces her is unlikely to know as much about the inner workings of the district or to have as level a view.

Having said that, what does Taylor want for the Board? Perhaps we need a ballot initiative: should only rich people serve on the Board of Trustees? Will anyone take a Board seriously that basically is treated as "volunteer" and paid gas money? A board that supposedly oversees a multi-million dollar enterprise with a "CEO" that packs away more than a quarter of a million dollars per year? Are the districts in Columbia and Greenville simply spendthrifts for the salaries paid to their trustees, or do they simply take their trustees more seriously?

The Post and Courier only added to the confusion by its outrageous headline today. Should we pay the county or city council members only $25 per meeting?

Think about it!

Letter Cites Four Worst Schools in CCSD

For those of you who didn't get Monday's P & C, the following Letter to the Editor was actually printed!

"Worst schools

"Imagine my surprise when I turned on my computer recently to the AOL Web site and read the national news article about the "25 Worst Performing Public Schools in the U.S." and saw that four of them are here in Charleston County. The Web site shows that Brentwood, Charleston Developmental Academy, Youth Build and Morningside are listed as among the worst.

"This superintendent has sold the taxpayers, students and teachers a bill of goods. It is time to send her packing and give these children an opportunity for a good education.

"The Post and Courier education reporter recently called Elizabeth Kandrac and Arthur Ravenel the board members who cause dissension. But they are simply asking the hard questions.

"I think school reporters should be asking the board majority why they continue to give the superintendent a blank check to run this district as she sees fit. It's time for new leadership in our Charleston County Schools.

SANDI ENGELMAN

Who Knew? CCSD's Black Teacher Minority

I'll admit my ignorance. After all, when I moved back to Charleston several years ago, it took me a year or so to realize that all of downtown Charleston's schools (of course, with the exception of Buist, which I remembered as a black school) were de facto segregated. Now I've learned more by reading Superintendent McGinley's latest missive on the CCSD website.

According to McGinley's August 15th letter, 34 percent of CCSD's principals are black. That's no surprise for anyone who's been following their musical-chair assignments. What is a surprise is that only 17 percent of CCSD's teachers are black! I just assumed that after segregation ended, their numbers would reflect the racial makeup of the district. Silly me. After all, segregation didn't end.

Don't misinterpret my meaning. I certainly don't believe in quotas, although I detected a whiff of belief from McGinley's stated goals.

I've been educated on how District 20 (on the peninsula) became segregated again. Maybe someone can explain to me why so few teachers in CCSD are black while so many principals are.

CCSD Teacher-of-the-Year Story Surprise

Don't you just love stories with punchlines? There I was, reading a story about this year's selection of CCSD's Teacher of the Year, thinking that nothing very startling would appear. Was I ever wrong! [See Teacher of Year 'Never Gives Up,' Principal Says.]

First of all, let me hasten to say that Gwendolyn Benton undoubtedly deserves her award. Judging from her many accomplishments and willingness to work in a new and undoubtedly difficult environment (Morningside Middle School), the award is much deserved. I suspect, however, that Benton has more common sense about such awards than the district that made this one.

Someone who spent 35 years of teaching in another state (and at the high school level) who then comes to CCSD to teach for two is not the most likely recipient of this honor. In fact, teachers with as much experience and education as Benton frequently are not hired in CCSD because they must receive higher salaries based on that experience. That's why I continued reading the article after the first few paragraphs.

I learned that "during her last few years in North Carolina schools, Benton worked as a coach for teachers, but she decided when she moved here that she wanted to be back in the classroom." No mention of why she left North Carolina. Should the reader assume she retired with an irrestible yearning to live in Charleston County?

Then I read the Morningside Middle School's principal's remarks:

"Goodwine said she could tell during Benton's interview that Benton would be a good fit for Morningside, and her prediction has come true. Benton has a good heart and a good spirit, and she'll pick the most difficult students in her class to work with and help, Goodwine said."

Was there ever any doubt that Benton would be hired? Are we being asked to believe that Goodwine didn't know that Benton was the wife of the new principal at Burke High School?

This was the article's punch-line: "'If she was not my wife, I'd love for her to teach in my school,' said Charles Benton, principal of Burke High School. 'I'm real excited for her.'"

CCSD Alert: Principal Suspended

Too late for Saturday's paper (naturally), CCSD announced the indefinite suspension with pay of Eric Vernold, the principal of North Charleston High School. According to News Channel 4, it's over a "personnel" issue. Some details will follow presumably at Monday night's School Board meeting.

According to the P & C's on-line version,

"Schools Superintendent Nancy McGinley said it was a personnel issue and that she could not comment further on the circumstances of his leave.

School officials are doing an investigation, and an assistant principal is temporarily charge of the school, she said. She hoped to have more resolution to the situation by Tuesday.

Vernold was in his first year as principal at North Charleston High."

North Charleston High School started this school year without a principal because McGinley failed to replace David Colwell, its previous successful two-year principal (who had also worked at the school the previous 18 years), after Colwell took an out-of-state job. We hope he didn't leave because of an unfriendly attitude on behalf of 75 Calhoun! The school was also short of two assistant principals in August! Why?

Vernold replaced Colwell in October in the midst of a complete breakdown of discipline at the school. We could argue that waiting until then for a permanent principal was not the wisest choice on McGinley's part. Supposedly, Vernold's experience in a rural high school in upstate New York made him qualified for the job.

I always wondered why.

Finally, Some Respect: Misleading Headline

"States Fight Teacher Abuse" announced the headline above the fold in Monday's P & C.

Most teachers reading that headline must have had the same reaction as my cohorts and I: thank goodness, someone has finally realized how abused many teachers are in this country and is prepared to address the verbal and physical abuse that makes the lives of some dedicated teachers miserable and causes many to leave the profession entirely.

How silly of us! It was about strengthening punishments for teacher-student sexual misconduct. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Gadsden Green's Heroes

Mention Gadsden Green to Charlestonians and you are likely to hear complaints about the latest shooting or drug-deal--not about positive developments in this city-owned public housing complex. In fact, this week's local TV filmed mothers of six teens arrested for armed robbery complaining that their families should not be forced out of the complex because the crimes were caused by "peer pressure."

TV 5 News also quoted James Heyward, of the Charleston Housing Authority, as saying "The parents need to be held accountable for their children where they are and what they're doing. . . .We as the Housing Authority in accordance with state and local laws, have a right to remove families who are involved in criminal activity on or away from the property."

Amen to that, and thank you, Mr. Heyward! Gadsden Green has its heroes too.

In fact, recently the P & C focused on the successes of the Charleston Development Academy Charter School and its principal, Cecelia Rogers:

• "founded in 2003 to serve economically and socially disadvantaged children who live in Gadsden Green, a city of Charleston Housing Authority project, and the surrounding area.
• About 75 percent of the 105 students live in that area, and many others are the children of professionals who work downtown.
• The school, in a retrofitted building at Gadsden Green, grew out of a tutoring project at Ebenezer [AME] that was designed to help parents learn to teach their children.
• It developed into a charter school, which is run by a governance board of parents, teachers and community leaders."
• Keith Waring, who is on the governance board, says that its principal, Cecelia Rogers 'has taken the vision, to raise the comprehension levels of the children and make sure they test above the Adequate Yearly Progress level under the federal No Child Left Behind initiative, and is succeeding,' he says.
• 'She's doing what you're not supposed to be able to do: to go into Gadsden Green and turn those children into exceptional students.'"

"Professionals that work downtown" are sending their children to a charter school located in Gadsden Green? Now THAT is news! And this school is meeting AYP while other downtown elementary schools are sinking? GOOD news! Funny, I haven't heard any complaints from the CCSD Board of Trustees about THIS charter school's draining students away from CCSD oversight.

I hope that others in District 20 are taking notes on how Ebenezer AME, Rogers, and the community have succeeded with this school. Visiting the school's website, I was struck by the following statement: " CDA incorporates, The Charleston Plan of Excellence, The Coherent Curriculum and The Core Knowledge Curriculum [italics mine] as the foundation teaching tools."

E.D. Hirsch, Jr.'s cultural literacy ideas have been controversial in educational circles for 20 years. I've always thought Hirsch makes sense, but I'm not an elementary school teacher. I do know that in San Antonio, Texas, several public elementary schools adopted this curriculum and met with success. Do any other elementary schools in CCSD use it?

You can check the curriculum out at http://www.coreknowledge.org/CK/index.htm .

First Anniversary!

1878--Pancho Villa is born; 1967--the Six-Day War begins; 1989--Solidarity defeats the Communists in Poland; and 2006--the Newsless Courier appears!

On June 5th, in an amazingly simple move guided by my computer-savvy son (although I soon realized I could have done it alone), I began to comment on line about the "South's Oldest Daily Newspaper." Clearly, a certain amount of arrogance might have driven me to such an extreme, but actually, it was annoyance.


The P & C's coverage of various items had been driving me crazy ever since I moved back to the Charleston area from Texas. The Caller-Times had been such a horrible excuse for a newspaper that I looked forward to better journalism. Well, the P & C probably is slightly better, but either it improved in retrospect, or it has declined in quality since I last read it on a regular basis. So, that first posting, prompted by an article like many others to come, presented my questions (and opinions) concerning the ParaPro and TAs in CCSD.

People write because there is something that they find important enough to write about. Over the last year my postings have ranged from CCSD to traffic to NCAA high school diploma mills to illegal aliens to global warming to Anglicans, but my focus and commenters keep me coming back to education.

What has pleased me the most is finding a community of like-minded people. I would hope that the Newsless Courier can continue to function for its community as (in no particular order) lessons in history, bulletin board, listening post, call to action, place to blow off steam, and force for positive change. What has happened so far reminds me in a small way of the Russian Revolution--of 1989, not 1914. Opponents of the Soviet regime found each other and successfully coordinated their information and actions through access to fax machines!

Let's do it with the Web!

Front Page News! CCSD's Conflict of Interest

Wow! What a pleasant surprise this morning to see on the P & C's front page coverage of CCSD that wasn't a puff piece extolling district administration. I almost wondered if the editors had been reading my blog.




Friday night was Goodloe-Johnson's going-away-party at the Charleston Yacht Club, but going away wasn't the focus of the article. No, it focused on "three recipients of multimillion- dollar contracts with the Charleston County School District [who] collectively contributed $7,000 for" the party. Goodloe-Johnson was not amused. She must have been shocked to get probing questions from Courrege: in fact, she called such questions "'tacky'." That's as in "lacking good taste"?

Most people would call these contributions kickbacks; they have nothing to do with good taste but are, in some corrupt circles, considered a cost of doing business. The biggest contributor to the party's costs provides custodial services to three-fourths of the constituent districts. It has a multi-million dollar contract that could be extended, especially if it's nice to the administration. Two other companies are "construction management firms for the district's building program." Their "program management" fees total about $17 million over the next few years. What's a minor payment when so much is at stake?

And Don Kennedy's defense: "most of the district's major contractors make donations to the district. School officials who work with the companies asked them to give money for the event."

Well, that's clear, then. Those donations CERTAINLY couldn't be considered kickbacks!

And to cement the soundness of the practice, Kennedy pointed out that the district did the same for Ron McWhirt.

Oh, well then. If they did it in the past, it MUST be okay.

"Kennedy said the district doesn't solicit money from companies that could soon be submitting contract proposals to the district, and he didn't see the donations as a conflict."

Well, he wouldn't, would he? After all, he doesn't see it as a conflict of interest that he sits on the audit committee that selects the auditing firm that audits himself.

They must still be searching for the tattler who told Ravenel where the funds came from. Unfortunately, Ravenel, who chose not to attend as a result, was the only board member who did see the conflict, or as he said, "'It doesn't pass the smell test.' It's difficult for companies that do business with political entities to turn down requests for money for events."

Well, duh. I wonder what the other board members thought.

Academic Magnet Proves Disraeli Right Again

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics," according to noted British statesman Benjamin Disraeli.

Newsweek's "challenge index," as touted for Academic Magnet High School in today's Post and Courier, is just such a statistic. It deserves to be included in that famous little book published several years ago, How to Lie with Statistics.

No doubt CCSD is saying to anyone who will listen, "Well, at least we have the Academic Magnet for our best students." Everyone needs to read the fine print, or at least the rules that govern this index. I'm sure the principals of other high schools in the area are grinding their teeth over the unfairness of this spotlight.

I don't mean to knock the Academic Magnet. It didn't create the index, and one would hardly expect its principal to denigrate an index that makes the school look good.

But here's the reality: what Academic Magnet has is the largest number of AP exams being taken per senior while still keeping an SAT index not significantly higher than 1300 (on the math/critical reading portions).

Contemplate those parameters, please.

• The BEST magnet and charter high schools in the nation ARE NOT RANKED because their SAT scores are too high. Not so with AM.

• The index does not consider if the test-takers PASSED (i.e., made a 3 or better) on the AP exams. Thus, even if none of the test-takers did qualify, AM would still make the list.

May I take this ridiculous statistic to its obvious conclusion? Let's have every student at every high school in CCSD take three or four AP exams. We could blow the list out of the water.

Soooo Many Questions: CCSD Operations

What a plethora of problems (or should I say "challenges") for those of us who care about transparency in how CCSD is run and results in trying to fix it!
A few random ruminations:

1. Annette Goodwin (of Youthbuild) is Hillery Douglas's sister? And now she wants to compete with the group hoping to start a new D20 charter high school--that actually would be integrated? Is that why the Board has been dragging its feet these many weeks? You know what I've said in previous posts on other topics--in the South knowing who's related to whom really sheds insight.


2. Did the Board even vote on approval of dispersal of funds from the Derthick Fund? If so, that was not reported by the P&C. I'm still trying to figure out why the fund even exists. Why wasn't the money in the district teachers' retirement fund taken by the state when the state retirement fund was instituted? Isn't that money that was dedicated to retirement previously? And was it the retirement fund for D20 only?


3. How do we get the Board (and the district) to create REAL magnet schools that measure up to magnet schools in every other part of the United States--that have resources and a stated purpose or focus?


4. What's the way to make CCSD give Charleston Progressive a foreign language teacher so that its middle schoolers will not be at a disadvantage when entering 9th grade?


5. What exactly is the "Reconfiguration Plan" and why is it sitting on the shelf?


6. Why didn't Goodloe-Johnson or the P&C report that McGinley is on vacation? G-J sounded like she's meeting with her every day when interviewed on local TV.


7. Where do I begin with the CCSD budget and shortfalls? Can of worms!


8. What now can be done to move forward on the Fraser-Sanders-Clyde shared principal front?


9. Has the US Attorney ever taken an interest in the shenanigans in District 20--where the powers-that-be are satisfied with segregated schools?


10. I've got more . . . soon.