Wake schools' chief says bye, bye

Who couldn't see this coming? On Tuesday, Wake County schools superintendent Del Burns abruptly resigned saying he could no longer "in good conscience" work for the system he has served for decades.

What he actually meant was he could no longer work for the Wake County school board, whose new majority elected a few months ago has pretty much made his life hell by working to undo many of his initiatives and policies he's supported and that have won Wake schools national praise.

Some of those initiatives didn't sit well with some voters, especially year-round schools and policies to keep schools economically diverse. So in November, they ousted some board members and installed a new group that have steamrolled over opposition and made school board meetings a shout-fest at times. They've even made the old Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board meetings look tame by comparison.

Wake school board chair Ron Margiotta acted surprised (he's the only one) by the resignation and said he hoped Burns wasn't leaving because of the board's direction. He said he'll ask Burns, who assumed the superintendent duties in July 2006 and is under contract through June 2013, to reconsider.

Good luck. But for now the state's largest school system (CMS is second largest) has a job search ahead.

Information at her fingertips

From Steve Thomma's McClatchy story today on whether Palin might run for the White House:

"Asked how she would make the decision, Palin said she 'thankfully' has plenty of time. She noted other potential candidates for the Republican presidential nomination know more about the issues.

" 'Right now I'm looking at ... other potential candidates out there who are strong. They're in a position of having kind of this luxury of having more information at their fingertips right now.'

Photos from Huffington Post

Team Supreme Court?

This funny (doctored) photo of the nine Supreme Court justices is making the rounds on the Internet. Well, maybe not so funny....

"The Counter Revolution"

Howell Raines, former executive editor of The New York Times, has an intriguing piece in today's edition about the Greensboro Woolworth Sit-in and its impact on the South 50 years later. He also raises a question: Could the civil rights movement succeed if it had taken place in today's media atmosphere? He says:

"Sure, conservative columnists like Rowland Evans and Robert Novak clucked about Communist influence on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and Paul Harvey seemed vaguely disturbed by dark-skinned youngsters who talked back to Southern sheriffs. But straight, eyewitness reporting dominated television news, and Northern print reporters flooding the region quickly shamed Southern newspapers into covering civil rights in a way that began to look, let us say, balanced — or even, in a few cities, fair. . . .

"Today, however, there’s no denying that traditional reportage of political and social trends seems almost as out of date as segregation. Surely the civil rights movement would have been hampered by the politicized, oppositional journalism that flows from Fox News and the cable talk shows. Luckily for the South, that kind of butchered news was left mostly to a few extremist newspapers in Virginia and Mississippi and to local AM radio talk shows that specialized in segregationist rants."

He goes on to talk about what he and other journalists from his generation got wrong about the movement and the unforeseen ways it changed the politics of the South.

His opinion piece can be found here.

What do you think?

(Image by Zina Saunders, © New York Times)

Big step for N.C. judges

Good news for North Carolina this morning: The Senate Judiciary Committee today backed the appointment of two N.C. judges, including one from Charlotte, to the U.S. Court of Appeals.
The committee voted unanimously to recommend the confirmation of Superior Court Judge Albert Diaz of Charlotte, and voted 18-1 in favor of N.C. Court of Appeals Judge Jim Wynn of Cary.
That suggests that Wynn and Diaz have a strong chance of joining the 4th Circuit appeals court in Richmond, Va., because the Senate often follows the committee's recommendation. President Barack Obama nominated the pair in November.
Politics has kept North Carolina from having its fair share of representation on the appeals court, which handles appeals from five states and is the last stop before the U.S. Supreme Court. The confirmation of Diaz and Wynn would end that. Both are good judges with sharp minds and deserve a seat on the court.
- Posted by The Observer editorial board

Buzz and Forum still crashed, use this new address

Parts of our email service are still down. That means we do not have access to the regular account where the Buzzes and Forum letters usually reside. To send in a buzz or a letter to the editor please use this new, temporary account address:

thecharlotteobserver@yahoo.com

No kumbaya but CMS board aims for respect, tolerance

I'm back from the morning part of the annual retreat for Charlotte-Mecklenburg board of education at the school system's Leadership Academy on Neal Road - an apt place to hold the morning session since the focus was all about the board's leadership. School members and Superintendent Peter Gorman are taking on the more controversial issues of equity and student assignment this afternoon. But the morning session had its moments of high interest.

New member and board chair Eric Davis distributed copies of a vision for what the board could be like in two years - a vision gleaned from the stated desires of the other members. Given the troubled dysfunction of boards of the past, this vision sets the bar high. What would they like the board to be like? Here's part of the list they came up with.

"The BOE, works as a team, inspires confidence, and has won the trust of a majority of the community."

"BOE has become an effective group that makes logical, understandable decisions. The decision making is clearly defined, staff and the public understand the phases of BOE decision making, and BOE members have multiple good choices when making decisions.

"BOE members vigorously debate issues based on data/facts, but do so in a spirit of respect."

"BOE does not inflame the public's passions but carefully informs the public about the complexities of the issues and engages the public in developing effective solutions."

"BOE members listen to each other and display small courtesies of respect. They genuinely respect each other."

The board seemed to get off to a good start on these at the retreat. The camaderie was apparent, with joking and laughter going on. Still, a few bumps in the road were apparent as ideological stands differed over how to support the board's decisions and whether public disagreements were fruitful. Gorman noted of some board behavior in the past that if his "staff had behaved that way they would have been dismissed." That's dismissed, as in fired.

Board members agreed to be respectful but one noted there'd be no "sugarcoating" disagreements and singing "kumbaya".

Stay tuned.

2 of 100 best companies to work for have big Charlotte presence

Fortune magazine today released its annual list of the 100 best companies to work for in America. Seven of them are in North Carolina, including two with big offices in Charlotte.
Alston & Bird law firm is ranked 30th and Balfour Beatty Construction is ranked 76th.
Software company SAS, based in Cary, is ranked #1 in the nation. Fortune cited its long list of great perks.
No S.C. companies made the list.
For the complete rankings, go here.


Here's what Fortune says about its methodology:
"To pick the 100 Best Companies, Fortune partners with the Great Place to Work Institute to conduct the most extensive employee survey in corporate America. Three hundred forty-three companies participated in this year's survey. Two-thirds of a company's score is based on the results of the Institute's Trust Index survey, which is sent to a random sample of employees from each company. The survey asks questions related to their attitudes about the management's credibility, job satisfaction, and camaraderie. The other third of the scoring is based on the company's responses to the Institute's Culture Audit, which includes detailed questions about pay and benefit programs and a series of open-ended questions about hiring, communication, and diversity. Any company that is at least seven years old with more than 1,000 U.S. employees is eligible. The deadline for applying for next year's list is April 2, 2010. For an online nomination form, go to www.greatplacetowork.com."

Senate's new #2 gives a peek of what's to come

Sen. Martin Nesbitt is making the rounds in Mecklenburg County today, meeting some of Charlotte's leaders in business, education and other areas. His visit was organized by Sen. Malcolm Graham, D-Mecklenburg, who wants to send a message that a change in Senate leadership isn't bad news for Mecklenburg or business interests.
The new Senate majority leader, a Democrat from Asheville, chatted with the Observer's editorial board this afternoon. Some highlights:

• Some folks are bracing for a second straight miserable budget debate, but Nesbitt said balancing the ledger won't be so tough this summer. He hopes to restore some funding to mental health services, and to keep education spending flat, despite the ongoing recession. "It won't be easy to fix the budget, but it's manageable. ... People will tell you the sky is falling. It's not good times, but the sky isn't falling."
• The legislature's biggest focus this summer after the budget? Creating jobs. Nesbitt said he thinks the economy won't improve until banks step up their lending to businesses and individuals. He thinks the state legislature can help make that happen. "I think we have a lending problem in this state. We need to work with (the banks) somehow on how to break that logjam."
• Nesbitt said his political philosophy isn't all that different from the majority leader he replaces, Tony Rand. But he said his approach is. "I'm much more inclusive of the members" than Rand was, Nesbitt said. "We'll listen to everyone who wants a say."
• The state needs to reform its tax system "as soon as possible." But that means 2011, Nesbitt said, because it's too big a project to tackle in the 2010 short session.
• Republicans have no chance of winning control in the Senate this fall, Nesbitt said. Republicans beg to differ.

-- Posted by The Observer editorial board