Bits and Pieces
Remembering Winston
Before you can have a merger of two towns, you have to have two towns. The founding of
the Winston part of Winston-Salem happened 150 years ago. On Wednesday the city celebrated
the event with ice cream and cake in Grace Court on Fourth Street. Eric Elliott, the
president of the West End Association, had the idea.
Salem was founded in 1766. The towns merged in 1913. Winston was created as the county
seat when Forsyth County was split off from Stokes County. In those days, incorporation
was a matter of a public land auction and $256.25.
Times have changed. Winston grew to the point where Winston-Salem was at one time the
largest city in the state. The celebration of the anniversary this week, appropriately,
was more reminiscent of the early days. It's good to acknowledge and respect your roots.
School Redistricting
Stripped of its rhetorical excesses, the message that the Rev. Carlton Eversley, the
chairman of the local NAACP's education caucus, delivered to the Forsyth County
commissioners this past Monday night resonated with considerable reason: The city-county
public school system's redistricting plan generally and the themed school method of
attracting a diverse student body in particular aren't working very well to achieve racial
balance. So increasing the spending to develop schools with educational themes designed to
attract students from other districts to improve racial balance seems at best premature.
Schools Superintendent Don Martin continues to defend the plan, and says that 25
percent of all students in middle school have chosen schools outside their neighborhood
district. That's good, perhaps, but is it good enough?
Of the 24 schools that have used themes, 15 do not meet the racial balance guidelines
set by the school board. These guidelines are not particularly stringent. Ceding the point
that Martin makes about racial balance being just one goal of the redistricting plan and
acknowledging that testing results are showing improvement, can the plan really be called
a success if it fails to achieve racial balance, never mind an equitable distribution of
educational resources?
One would hope not.
Performance Gap
Speaking of the city-county school system, perhaps the most telling educational
statistic of all is the one that compares Forsyth County math and reading achievement test
scores in the eighth grade. In 1998, 47 percent of black students were at grade level,
while 81 percent of white students were. There is some good news. Black improvement was
greater than white improvement. But that gap is simply unacceptable in a community hoping
for a healthy and harmonious future. What, exactly, racial balance in the schools has to
do with academic performance may be unclear, but that performance gap must close.
It is, to be fair, encouraging to see that not only did blacks improve more than whites
from 1996 to 1998, but they also made significant improvement from third grade to eighth,
from 35 percent in third grade to 47 percent in eighth. That result may not lay to rest
concerns among blacks that minorities and whites enter school at roughly the same level
and then minorities lose ground, but it shows movement in the right direction.
Knee-Jerk Law
Forsyth's Sen. Ham Horton did the right thing this week in helping block a fast-moving
proposal to toughen penalties for school bomb threats.
In the wake of the Littleton, Colo., shootings, bomb threats have been a major problem
across North Carolina. But this proposal would have gone too far, allowing school systems
to sue parents for the costs of disruptions caused by bomb hoaxes. As Horton pointed out
on the Senate floor, the new legislation would have made the penalty for a bomb hoax
heavier than for actually taking a bomb to school.
Familiar Face
Amid the stress of negotiations over the war in Kosovo, where can Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright go when she needs a strong shoulder on which to lean? To Doug Sosnik,
the Winston-Salem native who is a top aide to President Clinton. A photo accompanying a
cover story about ''Albright at War'' in the May 17 issue of Time magazine shows
Albright aboard Air Force One on the way home from Europe, leaning on a smiling Sosnik and
looking over his shoulder at his cards as he plays Hearts with Clinton.
Valuable Experience?
In his new autobiography, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura brags about losing his virginity
at 16 to win a bet, tells of visiting prostitutes, admits he's used marijuana and confides
he doesn't wear underwear. If the backgrounds of some in Washington are any indication, it
sounds as if ''The Body'' may be better qualified for political office than many gave him
credit for.
A Long, Hard Road
Speaking of untraditional politicians, a local TV station's glowing profile of Davidson
County Sheriff Gerald Hege this week proclaimed that, ''The road to the governor's mansion
now runs through Davidson County.'' Well, maybe, but it's a limited access highway.
Published: May 15, 1999
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