Math & Science backer under fireDougherty accused of 'dirty politics' in supporting Green's challengers By Diette Courrégé (Contact)
The Post and Courier
Monday, July 21, 2008
The startup of the Charleston Charter School for Math & Science has been one of the most divisive issues to come before the county school board this past year, and it looks as if it will be a critical and debated subject in the upcoming school board election. The discussion involving the school has been less about whether it should be allowed to open and more about the money and resources the school district should give to it and potentially to other charter schools. Some also have been concerned about whether the school will have a racially diverse student body; as of now, at least 51 percent of the school's population is a racial minority. The latest dust-up tied to the school are accusations that one of the charter school's organizers, Park Dougherty, has misrepresented the truth about incumbent school board member Toya Hampton Green in an effort to rally support for two other candidates, Robert Russell and Marvin Stewart. At least one school board member says Dougherty has resorted to "lowdown, dirty politics" and "playing the race card" by pushing two candidates, one white and one black, for Green's seat. Dougherty says his motivation in soliciting support for two candidates was to see a robust debate for the downtown school board seat. He described Green as "an enemy of charter schools" and says he didn't know who was going to be in the school board race until the filing deadline this week. Race wasn't a factor in his decision to help two candidates, Dougherty said. "I live downtown and the Charleston Charter School for Math & Science is downtown, and (Green) has fought against it," he said. "We're hoping that future Charleston County school boards will be more friendly to charter schools." He specifically cited Green's vote involved in the renewal of the James Island Charter High School and in providing a building for the Charleston Charter School for Math & Science. Green voted to approve the James Island Charter with a condition that the school address its academic deficiencies and report back to the board in a year, but she voted against approval of the charter without any conditions. She voted against the district's newest charter being able to use the Rivers campus at no cost and against the district paying for the charter school's mobile classrooms. Green said she supports charter schools and explained her votes, saying she thought it set a bad precedent to give one charter school resources that it didn't give others and that she was trying to provide accountability for James Island Charter, which has fallen back in some areas. Board Chairman Hillery Douglas said he's surprised that false information is being spread and that Dougherty would resort to "telling an untruth" to get his agenda done. Green has voted in favor of charter schools on a number of occasions, including approval for Sea Islands YouthBuild Charter to open and to allow it to continue operating despite allegations of problems, and approval for the Charleston Charter School for Math & Science to open and later to add a second eighth-grade class. Green said Dougherty was pushing two candidates because he is a one-issue person, but that one issue won't take care of the district's more than 40,000 students. A second issue in Dougherty's support of two candidates involves race. One of the men Dougherty solicited support for was Russell, who is white, and the other is Stewart, who is black. A previous lawsuit has shown that it's difficult for black candidates to get elected in at-large elections here, said Armand Derfner, an attorney who successfully sued to outlaw at-large elections for Charleston County Council. A judge in that case found that people here, and elsewhere, tend to vote along racial lines, he said. When two black candidates face a white candidate, it's that much harder for either minority candidate to be elected, Derfner said. Douglas, the school board chairman, said Dougherty was playing the race card in his support for Stewart because it would split the vote among black residents and make it easier for the third candidate, Russell, to be elected. "That's lowdown, dirty politics that you don't find in a school board race, especially since you have people interested in the welfare of the entire system and not just an isolated agenda like charter schools," he said. Stewart said that he didn't know who else was running for office, so race wasn't a factor in his decision to seek office. Dougherty didn't ask him to run for a downtown seat, he said. Stewart said he's dissatisfied with Green and most of the county school board, and that's why he's running for office. "I'm just there to try to get rid of this dysfunctional school board," he said. Reach Diette Courrégé at 937-5546 or dcourrege@ postandcourier.com. |
Article tools |
|
Notice about comments: Charleston.net is pleased to offer readers the ability to comment on stories. We expect our readers to engage in lively, yet civil discourse. Charleston.net does not edit user submitted statements and we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted in the comments area. Responsibility for the statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not charleston.net. If you find a comment that is objectionable, please click "suggest removal" and we will review it for possible removal. Please be reminded, however, that in accordance with our Terms of Use and federal law, we are under no obligation to remove any third party comments posted on our website. Full terms and conditions can be read here. |
Comments
This article has 15 comment(s)
Posted by karmann on July 21, 2008 at 7:20 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Yet again, politics takes over education.
Posted by mlm on July 21, 2008 at 7:34 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The author of this piece, Diette Courrege, appears to be doing a lot of misrepresenting herself. The teaser said a charter school official lied. To the best of my knowledge I can see from these reports that no one from the charter school has been found to have lied to anyone. It would appear that the people who really lied in this case are Diette Courrege, Barbara Williams and Toya Green.
Ms. Courrege lies when she gives selective and misleading information in her reports about downtown education issues. She more often than not dutifully reprints CCSD news releases as if they where her own reports. Ms. Williams lied when as the editor of the paper two years ago she gave a ringing endorsement of Ms. Green because Ms. Green was said to support charter schools in her lead up to the last election. Ms. Green lied when she said she would be available to District 20...after the election...and would support the charter school for math and science. Ms. Green lied on both counts.
People like Hillery Douglas survive politically only through the exploitation of others. Ms. Green is his understudy. Ms. Green has learned to use race to her personal advantage while ignoring it when it comes to the needs of the people in her district she so recently said she doesn't represent.
If Ms. Courrege is going to do a hatchet job on those in favor of school choices, she should act her age. She appears to be too young to have properly witnessed race card politics becoming passé except among those like Mr. Douglas and his protégées. Then again her employer isn't exactly known for being on the cutting edge of ideas either.
I believe she was told this isn't even a story anymore by at least one of the persons mentioned in her hack job of a report. Come on Ms. Courrege, this is 2008, not 1961. Is the newspaper staff that hard up looking for something to balance the flag controversy? The truth is that in this day and age, neither issue has any relevance.
The fact remains, almost anyone would be better than Toya Green. She's not only the enemy of charter schools, she's the enemy of any one wanting access to quality public education among those living downtown...Black, White and everyone in between. Marvin Stewart speaks for the majority of us when he says he's dissatisfied with Ms. Green's performance and that of most of the county school board.
Posted by Early on July 21, 2008 at 7:48 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Seems the blacks are fighting among themselves to me.
The whole system is about a racially divided school system where people fight to get what they think their race wants and have not focused on the good of the system. This is the way it works in all of SC's government offices.
Posted by zekemire on July 21, 2008 at 8:49 a.m. (Suggest removal)
With this and other education issues, racial diversity should never be a factor! The most qualified, eligible students must be accomodated whether the racial mix is vastly white, or, vastly minority should never be a consideration! As long as we as a people, and especially our government(s), continue to label everything with a racial connotation, we will never move into an unbiased racial country! The most disturbing uses for the non issue of racial diversity are the census, school attendance zones, college admissions, workplaces and others when the only considerations should be whether we are American citizens or not, and, if the most qualified person(s) are in those places! The census should never ever have been used to seperate us by race or ethnic origin, only to have an accounting of the populations of the various states and the country as a whole.
Posted by scienceguy on July 21, 2008 at 9:30 a.m. (Suggest removal)
For background on this “controversy” log on to http://couriercritic.blogspot.com/.
Posted by ColdBeer on July 21, 2008 at 9:41 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The more I learn about charter schools, the less I like the idea of them being publicly funded. The idea of having specialized schools is a good idea (especially math and science), but I'm starting to think that it's too hard to manage them fairly. In my personal opinion, publicly funded schools should all be funded equally (based on the number of children attending the school) and they should be for the children that live in that area. Anything else probably needs to be handled by the private school sector. Otherwise you end up with too much time, effort and money being wasted playing politics with education.
Posted by STREETLAW on July 21, 2008 at 9:44 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Yikes. How can anyone get a good education in this school system?
Do a study of SAT scores by state and then notice that states with the lowest minority ratios have the highest SAT averages. Then add the cost per student to the mix, again paying attention to minority ratios. States with the highest cost per student have the highest minority ratios.
Do the numbers lie? Or do they tell us that states with the lowest minority ratios produce more educated children at a lower cost?
It is not a matter of whether minority children drag down the test scores, or or not as educable. The problem is they are pawns in the cultural power play in a system that is burden by a duplicity of effort to ensure a balance of racial representation and disbursement of public funds. And the children gladly join in the fun.
Administrators and teacher who actual want to do the job they think they are being paid to do are thwarted at every turn and will either be fired, quit, move to a more progressive school district, or learn to play the game and let their passion for teaching wane.
So essentially it takes two or three teacher to satisfy the politics of the matter; one black, one white, one gay. And the cost go up accordingly. And nothing changes except the cost, as year by year the children in Charleston County wind up near the bottom of the academic standing on the national scene.
The Charleston County School System is full of nepotism, cronyism, political patronage and fraud, waste and abuse. And very few of the teacher and administrators have the backbone to expose the details to public view. This is in part to the scarcity of men in the system overall. Men in general are more principled than women and cannot be run over as easily.
Strangely, the Post and Courier has chosen not to let people use pen names in their letters to the editor, but do allow it in these comments.
Employees of the Charleston County School District are encouraged to use this venue to enlighten the taxpayers about how their money is being squandered. Just use every article about education as an opportunity to air all the dirty laundry you can. If enough of it comes out, maybe some wholesale changes will be made by the powers that be and we will actually see an improvement in education and a reduction in taxation.
Posted by scienceguy on July 21, 2008 at 10:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)
STREETLAW:
Generally, your posts are pretty well thought out. But, your information in this case is inaccurate. Generally the states that spend the most per student have the highest performing students. Compare Connecticut to Mississippi for example.
There are no quota requirements for the hiring of teachers in South Carolina and gay teachers have no constitutional or statutory protections. Oddly enough, the most recent Charleston School District high profile racial discrimination case involved a white woman. Someone should ask her what she thinks of Hillery Douglas, Toya Hampton Green, Greg Meyers, and CCSD attorney Alice Paylor.
Posted by STREETLAW on July 21, 2008 at 10:36 a.m. (Suggest removal)
And some idiot doesn't seem to understand that if a race represents 51 percent of a group it is no longer a minority. Nor do they realize that there is no authority in being a cultural majority. It is not like you have won an election or any special privilege by virtue of your procreative urge.
If you feel that way, and you take your South Carolina "education" to most of the United States, you are going to find it doesn't count for much. Blacks represent only about 12 percent of the population nationwide.
But not to worry. Despite all the efforts to divide and conquer base on the color of peoples skins, we all come from common ancestry somewhere down the line. And people somehow relate to each other because of that fact, regardless of their superficial differences. Its the attitude that causes problems, regardless of race.
And there is no doubt that a lot of people in the Charleston County School System have some very bad attitudes. And a few in the press as well.
Posted by wjhamilton3 on July 21, 2008 at 2:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
We have a wonderful Charter School in our neighborhood in Mt. Pleasant. East Cooper Montessori Charter School has great tests scores, 10 applicants for every desk, a wonderful cirriculum and is about to start it's second year in it's new building. It recieves the stardard funding available to charter schools, competes for grants and raises money. It's a valued part of our neighborhood.
Posted by bigwhip on July 21, 2008 at 3:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)
MIM, excellent comments! Funny how the print media just avoids writing about certain behavior to suit their "philosophy". Didn't see much in our local print media about Jesse Jackson's use of the "n" word nor anything about the absolutely stupid attempts to defend JJ by certain high profile minorities.
Posted by mlm on July 21, 2008 at 8:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Nor did we see anything in this paper about Hillery Douglas and his assault case. Funny how selective this paper is in giving "some people" a platform to cry "dirty politics" but when the same "some people" behave in a most uncivilized manner and physically threaten others there is no news to be heard. That's why it's called the newsless courier.
Posted by EvilGenius on July 21, 2008 at 8:52 p.m. (Suggest removal)
http://www.hypemovie.com/
Posted by rollo on July 21, 2008 at 9:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I think it's entirely possible that a number of people in positions of authority plan to advance their own authority. Educating children to think critically is potentially a threat to the aforementioned plans.
Posted by belovedbliff on July 21, 2008 at 11:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Streetlaw has excellent points. I am a Charleston County teacher and I am harassed at every turn because I point out the incompetence of my downtown school administrator--pathetic liar.
Regarding the Montessori in East Cooper, I would not celebrate it too much. I have a friend who works there--no racial diversity--students or staff, but that is what you would expect from a school that caters to the I'on.