Local News Roundup: NC school performance results released; NC legislature considers Sunday alcohol sales and continues casino debate; Panthers set to play Atlanta

There’s still no budget for North Carolina, but state lawmakers are looking into allowing liquor sales on Sundays at ABC stores. We’ll talk about a bipartisan alcohol deregulation effort — and an update on other movements in the legislature, including some opposition to the effort to legalize casinos.

North Carolina released school performance grades and test scores this week. Pandemic recovery remains an issue, but we’ll talk about small gains being made.

Interim chief of the Charlotte Area Transit System Brent Cagle said this week that the cause of derailments inside the CATS rail yard could be less experienced operators. Is this cause for alarm? Cagle says not. We’ll discuss.

Jaywalking now comes with a fee in Davidson — follow the rules or pay a $30 citation. We’ll talk about what led the town to its new pedestrian safety campaign.

And the Carolina Panthers begin their season with a game against Atlanta. What should we expect from the game?

Guest host David Boraks from WFAE and our roundtable of reporters delve into those stories and more, on the Charlotte Talks local news roundup.

Public education won’t ‘fail,’ unless America abandons the idea and the ideal

While many on the right decry the lack of respect Americans now bestow on the U.S. Supreme Court and its 6-to-3 conservative majority — denouncing the shift in public opinion, a low 18 percent vote of confidence, as sour grapes from liberals who can’t get their way — it wasn’t always so.

In 1954, after the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools violated the Constitution in Brown v. Board of Education, it was many who called themselves conservatives who expressed outrage and did something about it, ignoring the decision in order to maintain the segregated status quo. In a 1956 “Southern Manifesto,” a long list of lawmakers vowed to “pledge ourselves to use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitution.”

What was deemed “lawful” by them often included actual violence inflicted on African-Americans who dared follow the court and the law toward an education that was their right as citizens. After all, they and their families had been paying taxes to support a system closed to them, as well as paying again for schools where they could learn.

To maintain a worldview of white supremacy built on lies of Black inferiority, some states and counties defied Brown with “massive resistance,” closing entire public-school systems — as Prince Edward County, Virginia did for five years — rather than tolerate Black and white learning side by side. Private, all-white “segregation academies” sprung up to educate a portion of the populace, with publicly funded vouchers enabling parents to escape integration until such evasions were ruled unconstitutional.

North Carolina’s Pearsall Plan was enacted with the same intent, to circumvent the Brown decision.

And though the South was the face of this “resistance,” some of the most rage-filled images of white resistance originated from Northern cities.

Schools have always been a battleground. And while race is not always the primary catalyst for the fight, to deny that it’s often in the mix is to ignore history and reality. For instance, the race-neutral insistence on the value of students attending neighborhood schools rings a bit hollow when redlining and housing discrimination have left a legacy visible on the streets where Americans have lived for generations. Schools across America have remained unequal, depending on ZIP code, when it comes to available educational options. In cities such as Chaicago, majority Black schools are also the first tagged for closure when budgets tighten.

It’s ironic, considering it was African-American voters and legislators who were key in creating public schools for Blacks and whites in the South in the late 1800s.

Where does North Carolina stand in the national culture war?

Republicans in the North Carolina legislature are moving forward with legislation that is fanning the culture war flames. The state Senate has just passed SB 49, also known as the Parents’ Bill of Rights.

Supporters say it gives parents a voice in their children’s education. Critics say the bill targets the LGBTQ+ community. It bans curriculum on gender identity and sexuality for elementary students in kindergarten through fourth grade. Democratic Governor Roy Cooper said if the House passes the measure, he’ll veto it.

The measure is similar to the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation that passed in Florida last year. That state’s governor, Republican Ron DeSantis, said this is a pushback on what he called “woke” culture. Along with LGBTQ+ legislation, there have been changes to what can be taught regarding race, with a limit on curriculum on the history and culture of people of color.

On the next Charlotte Talks, Mike Collins and our panel of guests discuss whether North Carolina is following the culture war path of Florida and how these issues are shaping the future of education and politics in our country.

GUESTS:

Laura Leslie, capitol bureau chief at WRAL

Ana Ceballos, state government reporter at the Miami Herald

Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time”

The insidious power of keeping it vague

“Say what you mean and mean what you say,” unless you want to keep everyone guessing. Alas, vague is in vogue, the better to sow confusion about not-so-honorable intentions — and get your way in the end.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has mastered this dark art, most recently as he ordered thoughtful discussions of African American history to end before they had begun, with studies of other cultures somehow escaping his ire.

A pilot of an Advanced Placement course on the subject has run into the buzz saw of the state’s “Stop Woke Act.”

The Florida Department of Education’s letter to the College Board said the content of its AP African American studies course “is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value,” showing by its use of “inexplicably” that it had no earthly reason for a decision intended to close, not open, young minds.

Try teaching the history of the United States of America with “just the facts,” and you might end up with lessons on the enslavement of men, women and children, lynching, redlining and Jim Crow without judgment, without pointing out the evil, the inhumanity and the apathy of those who looked the other way while reaping the benefits of racist oppression.

In the name of not causing trauma in today’s students, Florida policymakers are erasing the trauma of the families and descendants of the Floridians lynched in Tallahassee, the state’s capital city, where the same lawmakers obviously close their eyes when passing markers acknowledging that chapter in American history.

Educators may want to fight back. But with jobs and livelihoods at stake, there are risks. ProPublica talked to a number of professors without tenure who are anxiously changing course names and weeding out terms such as “white privilege” to dodge cancellation and firing. But it’s difficult to avoid something that’s so hard to pin down, knowing all the while that disgruntled students who might be unhappy about a grade know exactly which “woke” cudgel will get immediate results.

So, for those instructors, it’s better to just stop. Just stop any mention of gender politics and the roots of racism, just stop connecting the dots between modern wealth and health gaps and how America’s institutions were constructed with discrimination the motivating factor.

Just stop answering questions from students of every race who are supposed to be curious, but apparently not too curious.

Don’t tell the governor that “woke” comes from a 1938 “stay woke” caution from blues singer Lead Belly, advice for Black Americans who wanted to avoid a fate similar to that of the falsely accused “Scottsboro Boys.” And by all means, don’t teach that in a Florida school. Because in 2023, “woke” means whatever DeSantis wants it to mean.

Unfortunately, Florida has set a template for other states, such as South Carolina, where Republican legislators have proposed a bill already being criticized by organizations such as the state’s American Civil Liberties Union for what it calls vague language that could discourage teachers from settling there.

A vague election law has already had its desired effect in, yes, Florida. After voters overwhelmingly approved opening up the franchise to former felons who had served their time, Republican legislators said, “Not so fast.”

Many of those hopeful voters, after being registered by confused election officials, themselves unsure of exactly what the law said, were swept up by DeSantis’ “election integrity” task force, arrested by law enforcement officers who seemed puzzled about the details of the law the terrified, targeted citizens were supposed to have broken.

Of course, those hauled out of their homes in handcuffs in well-publicized raids were mostly African American, with the white transgressors in The Villages given not much more than a slap on their presumably Republican wrists.

Charges may have been dropped in most cases, but do you think minority folks with a former brush with the law would risk another by voting?

Call it a pattern of intimidation by obfuscation.

Equal Time: Why universal pre-K may help stem crime

 

As Congress deliberates this week on what should be included in the reconciliation bill, child care and specifically universal pre-K is being debated. Educators, parents and doctors have long advocated for pre-K. Another group has added its voice to the chorus: law enforcement.

Mary C. Curtis sits down with Sheriff Vernon Stanforth, the president of the National Sheriffs’ Association, to discuss how early education helps develop life skills.

The education gap

Slavery, Jim Crow laws and COVID-19 all have contributed to a yawning gap between white public school students and students of color. While the 1950s Supreme Court decision known as Brown v. Board of Education was supposed to correct “separate but equal,” there is still a long way to go before public schools can talk about equity. Mary C. Curtis talks with Terra Wallin of the Education Trust to understand how we arrived at this moment and how the nation’s public schools can do better.

Who is afraid of critical race theory?

Even as the U.S. will likely have a federal holiday to mark June 19th or Juneteenth — an important date not a part of many history books — battles over teaching race continue. After the murder of George Floyd, many sought to learn lessons that were absent in the traditional white-washed version of American history taught for generations.

But educating students about race — what some call critical race theory — has become another flashpoint in the culture wars pitting red against blue. Mary C. Curtis talks with education policy expert Jazmyne Owens of New America about why some states are trying to ban the teaching of systemic racism and what it will mean if they succeed.

Sorry, but ‘Gone With the Wind’ is not a history book

The White House issued a proclamation last week, of the sort that most presidents have issued about historical events that deserve commemorating, but that were missing, for the most part, during the Trump reign.

This one marked the 60th anniversary of the first Freedom Rides, on May 4, 1961, when traveling on a bus meant risking your life, if you were with an integrated group, sitting in a spot of your choice. Those southbound heroes were willing to face beatings and the unknown at the hands of fellow citizens intent on stopping progress by any means necessary. Angry and afraid, the violent white supremacist mobs refused to acknowledge the humanity of African Americans or the validity of any law that looked forward not back.

It’s the reality — and not the myth of uncomplicated greatness the country has told the world and itself for far too long.

And it’s not always pretty.

For that reason, many Republicans want to “cancel” it, to use a word today’s conservatives have been misusing with reckless abandon. They’d like to erase the history and the essential lessons that reveal so much about how and why America is so divided and its systems — of health care, housing, education and more — so inequitable in 2021.

Local News Roundup: CMS Prepares For In-Person Class; Transit Plan Gets Movement; New Names For Charlotte Streets

City Council okays a recommendation to rename Charlotte streets with white supremacist ties, but what those new names might be is up in the air. We’ll talk about the council discussion.

Charlotte’s transit plan will need some tweaks if City Council wants to get the regional support it’s hoping for. We’ll update you about what’s being said in council and in northern Mecklenburg County.

This week, Gov. Roy Cooper signed a COVID-19 relief bill — the first of 2021. The bill is designed to help schools reopen, extend a deadline for parents coping with remote learning and fund vaccine distribution. We’ll discuss.

And Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools students return to the classroom. The youngest students begin in-person learning on Monday, keeping the plan that was approved in February. We’ll talk about what this will mean for each age group as well as continued concerns for risk to teachers and students.

Mike Collins and our roundtable of reporters delve into the week’s top news on the Charlotte Talks local news roundup.

Guests:

Erik Spanberg, managing editor for the Charlotte Business Journal

Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time” and contributor at WCCB-TV

Claire Donnelly, WFAE health reporter

Hunter Saenz, reporter for WCNC

Exploring America’s Racial Divide

It’s a challenge that has been with America since its beginning: Where are Americans now, as they deal with a pandemic, economic upheaval and a racial reckoning and what are the paths to unity?