Wake Superior Court Judge Howard Manning seems satisfied with what state proposes to do in a Leandro case intervention in Halifax County, but has not signed off on a consent order. That's because while the Halifax County school board approved and committed to the plan Monday night and state public schools CEO Bill Harrison backs it, the plan won't go before the State Board of Education until next week. Deputy NC Attorney General Tom Ziko said in court Wednesday that he will bring the proposed consent order to Manning for his signature after the board approves it.
The agreement compels the state to see to it that the main findings of the Leandro Supreme Court decision -- that every school have a competent principal, every classroom have an effective teacher and every school must have the resources it needs so that every child has the opportunity to get a sound basic education -- will be carried out in Halifax County. This would be the first time the state has directly intervened in a failing school district.
Halifax county has a high rate of poverty, with more than 80 percent of its students getting free or reduced-price lunches, and 60 percent of its students are low-performing.
The intervention plan calls for the state to intervene in the Halifax schools for three years, requiring teacher and principal training, new teacher effectiveness standards, and ongoing-coaching and monitoring by a team of 12 coaches who will help teachers keep their classroom skills up to par. The plan also includes accountability measures so that teachers or administrators who don't measure up "will have to exit the system," said schools intervention specialist Pat Ashley.
Manning pressed Ashley and Ziko to recognize that schools are not about adults. It's about children, he said, who are being deprived of the right to a sound education. Manning recounted his long experience with the Leandro lawsuit, working his way through his initial determination that high schools were failing, then that math preparation in middle schools was the problem, and finally his recognition that students in elementary school simply were not getting the fundamental training they need in reading and math. "If you don't get the third grade preparation to read or to do math," he said, those students would never be able to perform adequately. "This is the place we're failing these children," Manning said.
