If we could please stand for the presentation of the Colors by Boy Scout Troop 1 196 SC salute let’s get Boy Scout TR team one at this time we’ll have Prayer by Brother Douglas Jones you want may be seated let us pray dear heavenly father we thank you for this opportunity to be gathered together Lord we thank you for an intentionality that brings us together
To consider crisis and education Lord there are many issues in our community Lord open our hearts and our minds that we may seek Solutions find Solutions and have the courage to implement Solutions we thank you for our panelists thank you for the Brotherhood their GS and we ask
Your blessings on the work that will come and Lord we ask all blessings that we know not to speak of in the name of your son Jesus Christ amen amen thank you brother Dr Jones we would like to welcome everyone to our anchor public program uh crisis and public
Education before we begin we must start by acknowledging and honoring our veterans and so at this time uh we will have area 2 director brother Paul Brown good evening everyone I’m brother Paul Brown the are2 director but I’m also a retired Chief one officer 4 with 30 plus years of
Service to the government and active duty so retired um it does my heart good that I can do this portion of the program because there’s so many veterans that have given the ultimate sacrifice and those that continue to serve our country the best way they know how that 1% of the country’s
Population they care about everyone that’s sitting in this Auditorium next slide please next slide as this is the Veterans Day weekend we like to say happy Veterans Day on behalf of all the brothers and Families of alpha Fraternity Incorporated next slide next slide please we’ like to welcome all the
Service members and we salute those who are serving who have served and also who have given the ultimate sacrifice next slide please and as we play this video as we State your cohart or your service I would like for you to please stand if you serve any part of the Armed Forces as
Again the United States Coast Guard United States Roar the United States Marine Corp the United States Marine or United States Army States Army [Applause] thank You United States [Applause] Navy The United States Air [Applause] Force and ladies and gentlemen I will be remissed if we did not include United States fa for thank you on behalf of Ana and all service Members at this time I would like to bring up brother Richard Moore to give our recognition of Our Guest good evening first i’ I’d like to uh welcome and I know if he’s here I’m not sure if he’s in the room but our general president brother Willis L loner III is
With us this at the convention uh if there is other National leadership that is here would you please stand vice president attorney Cecil Howard is here okay for regional vice president attorney Cecil Howard if there other Regional leaders would you please stand all right back in back yes our district director brother
Michael Pitman please stand assistant district and let’s I see our assistant District director is here please stand [Applause] amen all right we just recognize you okay um any elected officials would please stand and state your name any elected officials brother rocker William mayor sharks furg nor yes are there any
Candidates that are present any candidates in 2023 yes sir my name is marce spren I go by Mo and I’m a candidate for State superintendent of Public Instruction for the entire stud car now we’d like to recognize any of our divine n that is present with us
Today and I’d like PA you can uh you can just let us know you’re here alphaa Alpha sorority Incorporated Delta Sigma Theta sorority Incorporated Zeta s Gamma Road sorority got it CPA Alpha side Fraternity Incorporated Omega SF fraternity corporated five Beta Sigma fraternity corporated ioda five Theta Fraternity
Incorporated all right well we thank you and we welcome you once again ladies and gentlemen our national Treasurer just walked in brother denel let [Applause] me and we also would like to recognize his wife Miss Nikki Glen District director Pitman will give us closing remarks at the end of our
Panel uh and now for the moment you all have been waiting for it is time for our panel conversation crisis and public education I’m going to start by introducing uh our moderator for the evening as a scholar Dr Anthony Graham Le leverages critical race Theory to examine the academic experiences of
African-American male students and the construction of their academic and ethnic identities in K through 20 educational environments specifically focused on effective pedagogies to engage the special population using this theoretical framework Ram explores the socio cultural and sociopolitical experiences of African-American male K through2 students and teachers in the
United States Public Schools he has published a variety of books chapters peerreview journals and co-author of the book in addition he has served as a managing editor of the historic peer review academic journal the Negro educational review on July the 1st 2023 Dr Anthony Graham assumed the position
Of interim Chancellor at Winston Salem State University prior to this he served as the Provost and vice Chancellor for academic Affairs at Winston Salem State University prior to his position at Winston Salem State University Dr Graham was a tenear full professor and Dean of the College of Education at North
Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University a graduate of Kinston High School he attended the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill where he earned the bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in mathematics in 1997 he obtained the master’s degree in secondary English education in 1999 from the University of North Carolina in
Greensboro and his doctor of philosophy and curriculum and teaching with a cognant in Multicultural education in 2003 from the University of North Carolina in Greensboro ladies and gentlemen gives me great pleasure to introduce to our moderator for the evening Dr Anthony gr good evening and thank you brother
The bass brother bass didn’t mention that um want his former professors at North Carolina State University so you can imagine how pleased I am every time I see him doing the work of alpha doing the work of North Carolina ENT doing the work of an educator doing the work of a
Black man good evening to everyone good evening so glad to have you all here Welcome to our brothers your families our friends to our phenomenal panelists whom we will have the pleasure of hearing this evening our national leadership our regional leadership obviously our district director my homeboy from Kinston North Carolina and
First lady pit and thank you also very much for being here and thank you for allowing me to moderate this panel in the interest of time we’re going to move fairly expeditiously here um we going to spend about 30 to 35 minutes hearing from our panelists on this issue of a
Crisis in public education and then right around 7:35 is we will open the floor so you can ask questions of the benen are we good all right so we will Begin by asking each one of our panelists if he would to spend about 2 or 3 minutes introducing himself sharing
With us the experiences that bring them to this work on public education and then addressing this question of is there really a crisis in public education is there really a crisis in public education and if so what should we be paying attention to so again three parts to this initial question who are
You and what brings you to this work on public education and then is there really a crisis in public education and if so what should we be paying attention to so I’ll start to the for excellent and I’m assuming that this is can y’all I still need the microphone
Yes okay great uh so good evening brothers and everyone else uh this evening again my name is Maurice Green I go by Mo um so I will just share just a few things about myself I served as the attorney for the Charlotte mecklinburg board of education
For a number of years and then from that became the Chief Operating Officer and Deputy superintendent for charl mecklinburg schools from there I became the superintendent of Guilford County school schools and served in that role for S and a half years from there I moved to uh the zith
Reynolds Foundation where I served as its executive director for seven plus years one of the areas that zith reyolds funds is public education so it’s through those experience and certainly I could reference others that I believe that uh I have gained a bit of knowledge and experience related to this question
About whether there’s a crisis in public education so then the question and the answer to me would be absolutely there’s a crisis in public education there’s also an opportunity in public education I’d like to spend a moment uh sort of talking about both the crisis in public education particular particularly in North
Carolina um has been evident for many many years um certainly in the more recent term there is in my mind a intentional dismantling of public education an intentional dismantling of it that would be evident in things like uh funding so if you think about um there’s a longstanding case in North Carolina
Called the Leandro uh litigation that uh in every turn no matter who really leaned into it including the court system it was pretty clear that uh the evidence is that there is inadequate funding of the public education system at the same time then that uh
There was a order to put in to the public education system an additional $1.7 billion uh in this last year the general assembly decided not to honor that but rather to take almost a half a billion dollars and put it into the expansion of a voucher program which is intended to
Allow students to go to private school there is a crisis when you think about the number of teacher vacancies uh across this state there is a crisis when you think about the other positions in which there are uh insufficient numbers of folks to fill them it’s also a crisis when you
Look at uh academic outcomes for um all students but particularly black and brown students particularly black and and brown students we find ourselves with our black and brown students often at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to uh those academic outcomes and I’m sure we’ll spend more time sort of
Exploring them this is also then an opportunity um where there is Crisis there’s a chance for us to step forward certainly highlight the crisis but then say let’s figure out ways to move our IND individual school districts and the entire State forward uh educationally there are already many
Good things going on in public education and we’ll spend a moment or two I’m sure talking about some of those we must build on those uh opportunities and areas of success such that uh we can be sure to educate all of our students particularly our black and brown
Students to the levels that they are uh deserving uh in this state so those are some issues that I think we also should be paying attention to if you will um as we think about the crisis and we think about the opportunity thank you good evening
Brothers uh my name is Terry Brown uh I am an attorney by trade I practice business litigation here in Charlotte North Carolina I also have the honor of serving that North Carolina General Assembly I represent North Carolina house district 92 which is Southwest mecklinburg County uh you guys are
Actually sitting in my district right now so I welcome to District 92 uh and I also have the honor of serving as the house Democratic whip uh for my colleagues in the house uh I come to this as the son of two Public School Educators growing up in Cumberland
County and I see how my parents were able to provide a good life for me you know we weren’t Rich growing up uh but we were able would to be taken care of and have everything that I needed when I was going to school uh and I also see
That myself now sitting here in my mid-30s so many of my classmates who I went to college with who wanted to be Educators like my parents were who wanted to give back to the students across our state who are now already retiring the profession or have left the
Profession many years ago because they simply cannot afford to become and stay teachers and with that we’re losing so much institutional knowledge uh we think about so many of the teachers I had growing up there were those old teachers who had been invested and been in the
System for so long who knew exactly how to reach students and impart that knowledge and when you have students now or teachers now excuse me who are only able to teach for two three four years and they have to leave that profession because they can’t afford it anymore
They can’t make a living they can’t raise their own children and provide a life for their children like my parents provided for me that’s a problem I also as part of the general assembly have a a front row seat to the intentionality that brother green was talking about of
The dismantling of our public school system and it is very clear that this is a intentional problem so I look forward to this discussion we’re going to have tonight and uh discussions of these problems because it is a crisis but there is a way out of that crisis and I
Look forward to joining with you all tonight Brothers thank y’all s good afternoon good afternoon stay here all right good afternoon good evening I am edbert Ward and I have the pleasure to have been involved in education for a number of years in various capacities most recently retired as president of St Augustine’s
University which is one of the oldest historically black colleges in the state of North Carolina founded in 1867 but prior to working at the University I was involved with numerous universities in in their Outreach regarding education North Carolina State University for example and then also 20 plus years with the state of North
Carolina specifically in one area of recruiting students to the state government process and in those experience having been born in Raleigh North Carolina where I was surrounded by two historically black colleges I was introduced to the importance of Education early in life but one of the things I’d like to remind
Us historically was after the Civil War there were three components that our former enslaved people requested one of which was access to education and so what we have witness in I believe in more recent years as our colleagues have already stated is a conservative agenda to dismantle public
Education if you look intensely to our community as a people it has been and continues to be education that served as that trajectory for Upward mobility of our people one of the challenges I think we have beyond the institutionalized strategy to undermine public education is also returning to
Our community the value of education and also insisting and encouraging people to go into education if you look at most of our historically black colleges now at one time the Departments of education and the schools of Education had the highest enrollment than most of the other disciplines on our college
Campuses we have got to do a better job of recruiting people to education lobbying for increased funding for educators so that they can make a living and be contributors to to society and so with that I think there is opportunity but I think that opportunity cannot be realized without the active engagement
Of our community both at the Schoolboard level both at the legislative level where we are recruiting and voting for individuals who have a value for and appreciation for public education and I think that is the charge of our community in collaboration with other individuals who have an appreciation for public education thank
You you’re welcome good evening brothers and other guests my name is Ernest Winston and I have spent approximately two decades in public education beginning as a classroom teacher an English teacher at what was previously Advanced High School school and now named after our dear brother Julius L Chambers high school
And I had the honor and the privilege of bringing that recommendation to our school board uh to rename Vance High School after brother Chambers uh from the classroom I moved into a roling center office in our Communications Department and through several other moves uh began working uh by the way under the
Leadership of uh brother Mo green when he was Deputy super superintendent in Charlotte meinberg Schools um Mo uh departed uh for a wonderful opportunity as superintendent in Guilford County Schools um and I later um several individuals uh after he left I later became superintendent of Charlotte mecklinburg Schools uh serving
Nearly three years in that role uh all of them during the pandemic that began in March of 2020 uh I am fortunate my wife and I to have two daughters in the public school system here in Charlotte mecklinburg a high school sophomore and a seventh grader had the opportunity to Chaperone
A field trip yesterday with about uh several hundred seventh graders oh boy and um I I will say it was it was a pleasure it was a pleasure um any of you brothers and ladies who have done that before you all know what I’m talking about um I once a teacher always a
Teacher and uh what brings me to education is the fact that and I didn’t have Educators in my family um my immediate family but my father uh who’s deceased uh dad grew up in Philadelphia Mississippi uh dad left um Philadelphia to join the Army um Dad left high school and never
Finished high school and I would ask my older brother biological brother who’s also a fraternal brother I would ask him why is Dad always going back to Mississippi for a class reunion because I knew he didn’t graduate and what my older brother told me was Dad values education so much that it
Was important for him to be with his classmates and I see another uh brother Fleming another Mississippian over there uh he valued education so much much that he wanted to go back and be with his classmates so that instilled in me a sense of pride in education even though
He didn’t finish high school he wanted to make sure that his kids understood the value of a public education and so what that’s what brings me to this work in terms of is there a crisis in public education as my fellow panelists have already said AB absolutely and I won’t
Touch on some of the topics that they’ve already uh talked about for the sake of time but I will P back just one layer of the onion and when we talk about student attendance particularly in North Carolina although it’s not just a local or a Statewide issue this is a national
Issue that we’re facing but I wonder how many of you all know that approximately half a million students in public schools in North Carolina are considered chronically absent and so what does that mean being chronically absent means missing at least 10% of the days during the regular school year and that number has
Actually doubl since the 2018 2019 school year pre pandemic so that translates to approximately 17 or 18 school days throughout the year and when you think about that if kids are not in school it becomes impossible to educate them and so that is absolutely a crisis in public education
Um and I don’t put the the blame on the kids they’re dealing with family issues medical issues many of our older kids find the value and helping out with the family and I know we’ll talk a little bit about this later but if you think about this for nearly two years we told
Families stay at home we’re going to do education differently and so I also believe that some of our families have lost the value of education and so with that uh look forward to uh engaging in the rest of the conversation we’ll have today brother Winston I’m going to stay
With you for a moment and I’m going to go off script a little bit but you’re alha me and you can follow me um one of the things we’ like to do in society at large but particularly as it relates to education is we like to romanticize the
Problem what I mean by that is we like to talk about the problem we like to analyze the problem we like to discuss the analysis of the problem and then we talk about all other issues connected to the problem so we keep romanticizing the problem and we rarely address that issue
My question for our panelists each of you to some extent alluded to the intentional dismantling of public education and we have romanticized that issue now for a few years my question for you as you think about the brothers who are in the room alpha alpha the
Divine n people not in the room black community and others what do we do to address this issue of an intentional dismantling of public education what concretely should we be doing to address the issue so that we can pipe back if you will on this intentionality relative to dismantling public
Education well thank you Dr Graham I’ll be brief um first of all and I was sharing with um representative BR I had a conversation on Tuesday with a public school teacher it was after I had just went to vote and uh she and I were having a
Conversation and she saw my sticker that said I voted and um I said absolutely I did I said did you vote she says no she says I don’t I’ve never voted she says I’ve never voted that broke my heart because we proceeded to have a con
About why don’t vote and she says well you know I just kind of go with the status quo I said well what happens when the status quo goes against your values and who you are she says well I just I’ll find a way out of it I’ll find my way through
It first of all as we know through our de Alpha a voteless people was a hopeless people and so when we don’t vote we don’t have a voice and so first of all Dr we have to vote we have to be Advocates that’s it we have to be
Advocates not just for ourselves and our individual families but for the least of these because not every kid comes to school with the same resources and the same support that we in this room have we have to be advocates for for our teachers I learned earlier this year of a teacher another
Teacher um who was considered homeless another teacher had saw her with a pillow and blankets in her car and alerted uh the administration that shouldn’t be that shouldn’t be so when we talk about funding when we talk about funding we have got to make sure to hold those accountable whose responsibility it is
To equitably and properly fund education so holding the individuals accountable and I’ll pause there and uh Dr gah should I pass it to brother General president okay thank you thank you uh brother Winston Dr Graham I’m going to to follow up on a couple of things that have already been said I
Think it needs to be Amplified we’ve got to declare war on individuals and institutions who are trying to destroy public education too often we are passive participants in society there is an organization in the country now entitled moms for Liberty don’t let the name fool you there is no Liberation with those
Mothers there is an allout assault on public education by a group of conservative women with chapters throughout the country who are going to school board meetings who are lobbying and advocating for curriculum change who are advocating for what teachers can teach what uh superintendant can administer and we are sitting passively
By as bystanders and not engaged we must be engaged as it’s already been said whether you have children or not we’ve got to be at Schoolboard meetings and we’ve got to elect persons to the school board who will Advocate un apologetically for our children and if they don’t we need to
Vote them out of office so what I would suggest is that we do a couple of things all of our organizations all the fraternities and sororities it’s time for us to stop stepping for entertainment and go to Schoolboard meetings and speak out for our children number two all information is public
Information for our school systems I see brother Jenkins here go to the school board and request the data that shows how many children are absent what is the academic attainment of our children who are you suspending who are you expelling and I guarantee you the majority of them will look like your children
And my children I wanted to have and so we’ve got to take on a very aggressive posture to deal with the issue and so we got to just like we March for the right to vote we’ve got to March we’ got to Advocate we got to raise money to preserve education and if
It’s not what we want it to be then we’ve got to be willing to destroy it these are our tax dollars and so when they can say in Wake County which I’m a proud person born in Raleigh five generations but if children living in Scotland Neck North Carolina don’t have the same resources
As the children in Wake Forest and carry that is our problem that’s why we got to elect a superintendent who has a intellectual capacity and a willingness to make sure that regardless of where our children live they can have access to a proper laboratory they can have chemistry
Professors and teachers they can have strong algebra teachers you don’t have to live in Wake County or mecklinburg County to have access to Quality education that’s our mandate and I think that’s what we need to do thank you so I think it’s important when we’re thinking about public
Education and the the crisis that’s going on there is to take a step back and look at how we got there and what’s being done intentionally to put us in the situation and I think the number one way you can tell what people’s priorities are are by looking at their
Budget looking at how they spend their money and North Carolina for the past decade plus has consistently defunded fed public education our public education system and they come back and they say well public education system is not working and you look at say why is it not working because we’re not funding
This system we’re not paying teachers we’re not putting the resources into place and then at the same time we’re passing policies that are going to detrimentally affect those teachers and those students I’m going to give you guys two examples of things that have happened this year in the general
Assembly so the first is House Bill 138 uh that is a bill that will take away uh that will excuse me will give principles discretion to expel students give them long-term suspensions for any number of violations they see fit for it could be for talking back to a teacher it could
Be for wearing the wrong thing in the classroom uh it could be for showing up the school late so I think all of us in this room are all for discipline we want to make sure that students are being held accountable in the classroom but but we also know that there are certain
Teachers there are certain principles there are certain Educators that don’t know how to interact with students that look like us in this room and this bill will be able to give principles and teachers all across the state of North Carolina cart blanch to say this student
Talked back to this teacher I can expel them for the entire school year is that doing a student a service it’s not it’s not giving those students the resources they need and giving them the attention they need we also have heard a lot of talk about about as brother Ward alluded
To the moms for Liberty and bills that they’ve advocated for and they’ve pushed throughout the general assembly uh dealing with parents Bill of Rights and those things sound great parents should have rights in the classroom I’m all for that but when you drill down and look into what these bills are doing they’re
Taking away the ability for teachers to teach in the classroom if a teacher has a can’t teach a certain book they want to a teacher can get suspended uh they can require teachers to turn in their lesson plans on a daily basis to make sure that if a
Parent has any objection to what’s going on in that classroom that teacher might not be able to teach those materials parents who have no idea and not even parents actually it can go through for as far as somebody who is not even having a student in that school system
Can complain about what’s going on in an individual syllabus at the same time as we’re putting more and more restrictions on our teachers in our Public School classrooms we are also funding opportunity scholarships and the V programs for charter schools and private schools this year in the general
Assembly we have funded uh the new opportunity voucher program so now you can send your student and get uh State funding to take your student to go to any Charter or private school across the state of North Carolina there are no income caps on that so you could be a
Millionaire and you could get paid by the state to send your child to a private school at the same time we know that money has to come from somewhere else this this year before the budget passed vouchers were funded at $138 million that’s a lot of money the new
Budget that we passed this year will now fund that voucher program at half a billion dollar that money is going to be taken from our public school system so now you have these charter schools there was a story that came out about a charter school here in Charlotte
That they couldn’t even find the location of this school that was getting state funded you’ve got Charter Schools who don’t have to go through or teachers don’t have to go through any requirements to get licensed to teach there they can come in off the street and teach there and at the same time
Teachers who are in our Public Schools who are being licensed who have gotten their master’s degrees who have gone through extensive training and continual education now at the same time you’re going into their classrooms every single day and scrutinizing every single thing they do while they’re not being paid
Anything and we’re funding these charter schools at excessive levels all of these things go into play to systematically defund the our Public School System you have parents saying well I don’t want to send my kids to the public schools because they don’t have the resources why don’t they have the resources because we’re
Not giving them the resources it’s not a money issue the state of North Carolina is fiscally sound right now we have got billions billions with a b and our Surplus fund and our rainy day fund and I hesitate to call it a surplus because when you have a surplus that means
You’ve you’ve taken care of all your bills you have a little extra money left over we’re not taking care of all of our bills as brother green mentioned earlier we’ve had court cases going on we are not funding our Public School System delandro Cas has said that and we’re not
Fund our public school system so we are being derel on our duty but we have extra money billions in the bank right now that we can use to fund our school system but we’re not because there’s no political will for it because the powers that be don’t want that to happen so
It’s imperative that we all go back to our communities and we go out there and we vote because right now it is a republican super majority in the general assembly that means they can pass any piece of legislation including our $28 billion budget without even talking to a Democrat without a single Democratic
Vote that can pass the house it can go over to the Senate who also has a republican super majority and they can pass a budget or any other piece of legislation without a single Democratic vote without even speaking to a Democrat there’s no collaboration needed it can go to the governor the
Governor can veto something it can come back to both Chambers and they can override his veto without a single Democratic vote there and it gets worse because if we want to challenge something in the courts as we know right now a few years back the general assembly and all their wisdom
Uh they decided to add party affiliations to our judicial ballots so now instead of Judges being nonpartisan there’s an r and a d beside all of our judges our state court of appeals has a republican majority our state supreme court has a republican majority until the earliest that we can tilt the
Balance is 2028 for the Supreme Court we’ve had systematic Jerry Mandarin that that that Drew out four black men and one black woman from their seats last year in the general assembly and they’re trying to do the exact same thing with this upcoming election all these things play into how we are
Dismantling and taking away power in education systems and from our communities so that’s the biggest thing that I can implore to say we can work on that is to make sure that we pay attention we educate our friends and our colleagues our family members all across the state because that’s where these
Votes are taking in place and we make sure that we do what we have to do and show up when we have these elections so I’m going to um certainly agree with everything that’s already been said and then perhaps Go a different way Alpha Men We
Lead and so in a crisis we need to be sure that we’re leading what does that Translate late to that means we need to be thinking about what our roles should be in an active way um in this state we need to be serving on local Boards of
Education we need to be running for office we need to be showing up on various educational committees we need to be sure that we are leading folks to the polls we need to be sure that we’re doing the things that these gentlemen have already spoken about but more you
See no longer is it enough for us to to say let someone else handle that well the challenge has become that when we let someone else handle it we end up with what we have Alpha men we must lead this is a constitutional issue in the state of North Carolina North
Carolina is one of the states that makes public education a constitutional right if we’re not careful that constitutional right won’t be showing up in our communities our kids won’t have the opportunities they so richly deserve and then we’ll be sitting around here talking about the crisis in public
Education meanwhile we’ll have to look at ourselves and say did we lead now if it’s not within your being to lead in the way that I’ve suggested because not everyone wants to run for particular office then we must support those who are and support must mean more than say brother I got your
Back it requires resources Financial commitments to those who have said I am going to step forward and so I would suggest to all of us that all the things that folks have already said we must do but we’ve got to go even steps further as I look around this room and
The last thing I’ll say is this um the educational system in North Carolina is not different from those in many other states over three4 of the Educators in our state are white women I’m not saying anything against any of those individuals but when you think about that then where are
We we need to think about becoming Educators you say well hold on Mo that ain’t me but you see if we don’t do it then who will we need to become Educators I know that the pay may not be what we want it to be but we need to think about those who
Are coming after us as well um some of us have already served in a career and so now we’re thinking about what’s next how about we become Educators there are too many young folk that need africanamerican and black men to be in front of them to show them
The way to be sure that they do not get a second class education and so I’m asking all of the things that all of these gentlemen have said and I’m imploring all of us to dig deep and think about what we can do um to serve the public education system of this
State all right Brothers I’m going to move quickly through this last question because I do want to open up the conversation to the audience so of brother General president I’m going to start with you with intentionality here North Carolina has an advantage that many other states across the station
Does not have we have 10 historic black colleges and universities in our backyard significant advantage and impact for the state of North Carolina that we devalue disenfranchised marginalized arree so my question to the panelist very briefly if you had an opportunity to sit down the presidents and chancellors of those
Historic black colleges and universities in North Carolina and their senior leadership teams and say to them this is what we need you to do to step up to the plate to address said crisis in public education what is it that you would say to them how would you challenge and
Anthony GR in Chancellor at West Second State University and my cabinet to address this issue of a crisis of public education brother General president I start with you thank you for that question uh brother gr first thing I would do is emulate a program that’s in
South Carolina and I see uh don Weston our former uh District director from South Carolina is here in South Carolina they have a program called me mister and I think we have to be aggressive to as presidents of historically black colleges number one we’ve got to fund programs to have scholarship dollars for
Young people especially young black males to become teachers the second is I think we have to say to the Presidents and to the Board of Trustees we need you to find dollars for educational program so we can bring in strong professors for the Department of Education and established
Schools of education at our historically black college if you will remember historically black colleges anchor discipline was education Winston Salem State Teachers College Elizabeth City uh University Teachers College St Augustine’s strongest Department was education we’ve got to go back and invest in those disciplines around education those would be the first
Things I do the second is and I want to point him out as well our regional vice president Cecil Howard and I see Dr Harris is here as well educator dean of school of education we’ve got to look at ways in our own network on how we can
Raise money think about the foundations and the fellowship dollars we can set up ourselves wouldn’t it be great if Alpha F Alpha fraternity and our local chapters would establish scholarships and fellowships in the area of Education at our uh various historically black colleges and universities we can go to
Homecoming and and we can talk about the Glory Days of when I was there and old College days swiftly pass and bued with memories fun but if I ask you for a dollar to fund a scholarship or an endowed chair everybody to gets amnesia we’ve got to invest in our own
Communities before we ask others to do so that would be my conversation with a college President thank you Dr Graham before I briefly answer the question I do want to uh build on something that brother green mentioned and he talked about making sure that there’s something that we can do to
Help address this crisis I’ve got a really simple solution and it doesn’t cost a DME we’ve got to go back to lifting the Educators up yes there used to be a time when Educators in our community were highly thought of MH now if your child or grandson or
Nephew or niece came to you yes and let’s be real and said Daddy I want to I think I want to be a teacher yeah see that’s the reaction and so that reaction says a lot yes it does and so you’ve got to think about how you
Respond when young people say I want to be an educator versus and it’s okay to be a lawyer it’s okay to be a psychologist but how do you respond what is your facial expression what does your body language say when they say I want to be an
Educator now I’ll also say this it doesn’t help that educ some educators don’t hold themselves in as high esteem as they should was talking to a teacher one time and she said oh I’m just a teacher I said oh you just a teacher you’re just a teacher so you can’t brother Ward you
Can’t want me to respect your profession more than you amen and so we’ve got to do that that’s right I would just Echo what uh brother Ward said in terms of our hbcus and making sure that we’re creating that pipeline of future Educators where is Dr brother Douglas
Jones is he still he just okay didn’t mean to call him out um but we’ve got to support our HBCU brother Jones is a graduate of Johnson C Smith University if I’m correct Dr Graham I believe a few years ago jcsu eliminated their education program so it’s difficult to you they can’t produce
Teachers but we’ve also got to support them in that and so we’ve got to make sure um that our HBCU have the right programs which means they have to have the right resources which goes back to funding and advocating and policy issues um to make sure that we’re creating that
Pipeline of future Educators that look like us about two minutes each okay yeah and I’ll be brief and Echo everything that the other panels have said uh and to to piggyback on what uh superintendent Winston just mentioned going back into making sure that we’re giving our HBCU
Those resources uh I remember when I was growing up the teaching fellows program was one of the most prestigious things that somebody can do I remember being in high school and our principal would announce the winner of the teach and fellow scholarship on the intercom and
That was a huge honor uh and now uh in North Carolina the teach and fellows program has been cut by tremendous bounds and only two HBCU feville State and North Carolina &t are the only HBCU that currently have the teaching fellows program we need to make sure that we’re
Getting these programs back to get that pipeline back so we can have as brother green mentioned have more teachers in our schools that look like us so they can impart that education in a way that our students can get that that knowledge and the last thing that I would say that
I would encourage all of our HBCU chancellors uh their their Board of Trustees to do is to make sure that you are not afraid to be political and I say that because everybody in the general assembly is always talking about we love our HBCU we want to make sure we support
HBCU but when you look at those budget numbers HBCU are not getting funded at the rate that our other universities are getting funded so I want to make sure that you all are holding myself and my colleagues feet to the fire when we are saying we support our HBCU to make sure
Our HBCU are actually getting those fundings and bringing your students bringing your boards up to the general assembly and saying we’re here we deserve this money we are the backbone of our communities and we’re not going to be quiet so uh I will just Echo what everyone has already said and maybe just
Add the following I believe that HBC use ought to uh think about a strategy that will allow most if not all of the students that enter their universities and colleges to get a teaching certificate along with whatever else they may get one thing we ought to think about the fact
That we can we can we can turn this around we can turn this around uh yeah we already heard about the fact that we need to lift up Educators and be and think about our facial expressions I use the term have used the term for many years we need to Revere
Educators so now if our HBCU think about it from that vantage point and so that when young people who are very impressionable come into their walls uh um and we say yes we want you to do whatever your goals are but in addition how about you get this
Certificate as well what will begin to happen is more of our young folk will find themselves into those into the educational profession and I believe will then start saying this is a profession that is Noble which will get more people into the profession so that would be something that I would encourage our
HBCU to do along with whatever else uh these gentlemen have already lifted up all right we’re going to open the floor up very quickly for some questions that you might have for the panelist and I would ask you as much as possible trying to direct your question to a
Specific person so we can move efficiently through this component of the conversation Ron Wes new lamb chapter here in Charlotte North Carolina I’m probably the worst person to stand up at the mind this panel has forgotten more about this topic than I would ever know uh but I’m
So please be kind ask a sopore question brother Brown it’s going to sound like I’m coming after you when I start out to bear with you uh so abuse of power via h H 138 or any other use is wrong it doesn’t necessarily make the rule wrong it
Highlights the flaw of people that we have in the role if we had H caliber people and motivated properly they would use that power in a responsible fashion to meet the original intent of the rule I’m a business guy not an educator so when business is my tool every
Problem look like a nail okay so every uh every problem is like a nail is it possible that if we focus on the issue of pay and allow vouchers for the best results and let capitalism take its hold knocking down the barriers of politicians that aren’t acting in the
Best interest of our children pay on results volume to motivate principles to keep as many students as possible so we want to make sure that we educate as many students as possible allow the money to move not down of the politicians that are you know because we
Got to get out and vote so brother I’ve agreeing with you there once we take care of that let the vouchers move we get our people so that we can actually get paid I’ll gladly go back to quit do energy to be an educator if the money’s
Right but we need to make sure that the money’s right first and then there’s going to be some turnover great educators are going to stay the ones that AR going to go and we get better education I will put that out there for it be nice yeah no and I I I appreciate
That question and uh you’re absolutely right and and I think that there’s a lot of a lot of times the rhetor gets gets into public schools versus charter schools and making it a this one versus that one situation and I don’t think that’s necessarily the argument there uh
I don’t think that the majority of people have anything against charter schools and the money flowing in the charter schools the issue is the fact that we are using the way the system is currently designed and the way the current political climate is designed is the money for Education the public
Education system is being used for Charter schools and not being used for our public education system if we were to able to pay well we are able to pay our teachers a living wage we are not and they’re doing that polit it’s a political issue because they are able to
Say our school system is not being funded well our schools are falling apart our public schools are falling apart we’ve got a better system in place for the charter schools so let’s funnel money to the Charter Schools instead of trying to fix the public schools but what they’re not saying is the schools
Are falling apart we’re not paying our teachers right people are leaving because you’re using that money you’re creating a artificial dichotomy there so the perfect world would be you still have that charter school system because charter schools public schools aren’t for everybody and there are specialy schools there are schools that are more
In tune for every School student’s individual needs and we can still fund those charter schools and we can also make sure we’re funding our public school system at a higher level the issue is we’re not doing that now and the current political climate is not the
Ones who are doing that and that’s where and right and that’s where it gets into choosing better elected officials and choosing who is in politics that way better um so I think everything you said is spoton and we need to get to the system where we are being able to fund
Both but we’re not there yet until we can change the way politics are working if if if I could I think we also need to understand we’ve got to be very clear and focus Charter Schools were set up as a method to rese segregate schools again
It again Charter Schools were set up so that persons who could not afford to send their children to private school could use tax dollars to move their children out of public schools so let’s not intellectually discuss this and not call it for what it is I know what happens in North Carolina
You didn’t want your children to go with our children to public school so you formed these schools that were Church Affiliated because you couldn’t pay for them to go to the Catholic school or the Episcopalian school so you came to the state and said give us the money so we
Can set up a private school for our children so let’s call it for what it is can I say one more thing too about that just really quickly and I don’t want to I don’t want to beat a dead horse on this topic but I do think it’s important to denote the
Distinctions between the various levels of schools and it goes back to how we’re funding and and our constitutional obligation to provide a sound basic education for every single North Carolina Student technically charter schools are public schools and that is why they’re able to get State funding the distinction there is is brother is
Running to be the superintendent of schools he does he would not have the same oversight over our Charter Schools as he would over our traditional Public Schools like a CMS or a Wake County Schools or what have you there is a distinction private schools are are separate level schools that are not
Getting State funding however now under the current system with the educational voucher system we have there they will be able to get State funding for those private schools it comes comes down to me as a level of equity that we have to think about when we’re thinking about our educational
System it’s not Equitable that charter schools are getting the same funding that public schools are getting or more funding than public schools are getting when their teachers are not having to meet those same requirements meet the same oversight guidelines uh and fall under those same criteria I think that
If we can bring the system in line because I think there is a place for private schools there’s a place for public schools there’s a place for Charter Schools if we can bring the system in line there’s no issue with that but right now we are funding we are filling
Up the bucket for private schools we are filling up the bucket for charter schools and our traditional public schools which are for every student are falling by the wayside and the issue with the private and the charter schools that they run into is they can turn a
Student away if you have a disability if you have other special needs a charter school or public school does not have to accept you and our public schools have a constitutional and a statutory requirement to accept every single student so I think that we need to make sure that we are funding everything
Equitably and making sure that we’re not letting one one go with more one go with less I also want to add just for your your awareness in terms of unequal expectations our traditional public schools have the expectation that 100% of his instructional Workforce is fully licel that expectation is not in place for
Charter and public I mean Charter and private schools so unequal expectations there as well final question brother Dr Graham we have the final question from Dr Ida Jones pit the first lady of Anor of this house let’s give her a round of applause I come to you as a full fully
Educated person out of public schools I attended uh public schools in elementary high school undergraduate and then college so I’m proud of public education um I did not have the fortunate opportunity to attend the HBCU but my children attended and graduated from HBC I currently teach at uh Ben El SM High School
In g county it is one of our comprehensive high schools with over 45 different countries represented um I teach math I teach math at the lowest level and I also have an AB course I will say this uh I’m disappointed in the funding for education in general uh I’m also concerned
About students that are allowed to go to Charter or even private schools receiving the monies but when those schools decide they need to send them back because they can’t deal with the educational needs of our children and they don’t send the money back that they received it becomes a challenge for Us
In the public school system to do exactly what it was designed to do now I’m all for alternative educations I mean I even sent one of my children to a private school because of our educational need I have siblings who also attended private schools because of their educational needs so I’m not
Knocking I’m not knocking those alternative sources but I asked what can be done today to eliminate the dollars that are fed out the kids are bundled back in but then the money stays out can we at least agree we can close that Gap that’s my question I’m I’m supposed to direct a
Question to somebody I go to the representative here that’s on the panel you want take you I mean I yeah so I appreciate that question and thank you for bringing that thank you for your service as an educator as well um that’s the biggest question that we’re having right now that’s the
Biggest problem and proponents of the current system um and the funding that we get that the general assembly gave to uh Charter Schools this year they say it’s follow the kids they want the funding to follow the students and not they want to fund students not systems
Uh and that is what the current model is set up for and goes back to the previous question that we’re saying there that the state of North Carolina has the ability to fund both systems fully the state of North Carolina has that ability the state of North Carolina is not doing
That because of there’s you know I’ll be honest there’s there’s outside influence being given to the charter school system and that funding and there’s lack of oversight there so you’re following those dollars I think that it is incumbent on everybody in this room and everybody to go back to your families go
Back to wherever you you live wherever you grew up at and encourage your family members to advocate for equal funding of all our public education systems uh because there’s no reason why teachers should be having to come out of pocket for students there’s no reason why this
Funding should not be able to be equitably spread out we’ve got billions of dollars to do this uh you know the the the Supreme Court two years ago just said with their Leandro ruling they needed 1 Point number 1.7 billion we’ve got that and we’ll have
Money left over and we can fund that and we can still have Charter Schools we can still have private schools but we have to make sure that we’re taking care of our constitutional obligation to fully fund our uh our fully public school system and I’ll also let uh brother
Green respond to that question as well thank you so I mean to me this is a legislative issue and um you know this isn’t something that that I think can just be handled at a at a local level or just you happened tonight unfortunately we’ve got to have a
Legislative change that says if we’re going to have this system where the dollars follow the child then when the child comes back then the dollars must follow the child back to the public school system that’s got to be part of legis he said legislative so I had my my ears
Perked up and I and I would agree with everything you said and again I like like I said earlier within my previous questions discussions we’ve got to look at the full picture North Carolina for many years was known as the education State we were number one in education in
The South and ACR and in top of the in the across the country 2008 north car the United States elect Barack Obama first president 2010 Republicans took control of the North Carolina General Assembly since 2010 we’ve had a steep decline in education funding and right
Now I was doing as I Was preparing for this panel we are 36 in the nation in total teacher pay and 46 in starting teacher pay in North Carolina we went from being the Pinnacle of Education in this country to now being at the bottom of the barrel Alabama is
Above us no offense to anybody from Alabama but Alabama is above us in education and if I were somebody who was plotting how things sh happened the decline started when a certain power took when a certain party took control of the general assembly and I’ll say
This at the 120 members of the general assembly of the House Representatives that party only has one person who looks like any of us in this room and the 50 members of the North Carolina Senate they have zero members that look like any of us in this
Room so family we have reached the end of this panel and what I want to do is close by uh d you with some information that I hope you’ll chew on and more importantly I hope it will move you to act again I don’t believe in romanticizing the problem if a problem
Exist fix it few statistics for you one of the things that has not been mentioned I have the honor of serving as the chairperson of Governor work Cooper’s Drive task force that task force was formed in December of 2019 focused on how we diversifi the K12 teacher
Workforce and how do we address Equity issues in our K12 classrooms so I have the honor of serving in that capacity couple of things I want you to note and walk out of this building KN with respect to act K12 educator demography 79% of North Carolina’s classroom teachers wied
79% nationally we are at aage nationally at 79% 72% of North Carolina principles white 72% of North Carolina school counselors white it’s an ecosystem of weights with respect to our student demography 54% of North Carolina’s current K12 students are racially and ethically diverse so the majority of our students are students of
Color but we PED in comparison with respect to our educator ecosystem with respect to our educat preparation programs a lot of people don’t talk about our Ed prep programs the Ed prep programs fueled the K12 classroom principal ships and so forth with respect to our educator preparation programs the traditional pathway we
Experienced a 17.6 excuse me 17.6% decline in teacher candidates enrolled in our UNC schools institutions uh educator preparation programs that’s all 17 institutions but with no one ever does is peeled back by disagre if you looked only at our hpcu the entities that prepare the majority of our black classroom teachers
In the state of North Carolina 48.9% decline 48.9% our black students who choose to pursue an education degree graduate with twice as much debt and terms of loans compared to their white counterparts our starting pay is going up to $39,000 you just heard it’s 46 in the nation I started
Teaching in 1997 by starting salary was $30,000 in 26 years the salary has increased by $9,000 for a starting teacher with respect to professionalization North Carolina has the unique distinction of having more nationally board certified teachers than any state in the United States of America 23% of our teachers are national
Board certified you’re probably wondering what does that mean national board certification means you teach at a certain standard you are a master or expert teacher so 23% we lead the way nationally again build back the layers of the onion though 93% of those national board certified teachers White
93% I’ll also add that there’s a 12% pay increase that comes from being National for certified so the challenge that I issue good Brothers of alpha F Alpha and all our family members in the room in leadership we talk about a simple concept called Dak EAC Direction alignment commitment Direction alignment
Commitment where are we pointed as a fraternity more specifically as a district as it relates to these issues in public education you’ve heard a lot of things here this evening the intentionality of dismantling public education teacher retention and vacancies compensation issues we can go on and on and on and on
And on there are a lot of issues in public education we can’t be everything to everybody cuz if you do you’re going to be identityless you won’t know who you are what what are we willing to tackle as a district what’s our directional set issue until we figure out what the
Direction is we’re always going to be misaligned brothers I would argue we’re misaligned we need to figure out the direction what’s the target then we can start asking ourselves how do we how do we align our resources how do we align our expertise how do we ensure that our
Community are aligned around set issue and then we can start getting into what brother green talked about earlier with respect to commit commitment time money Sweat Equity but it all starts with Direction so I leave you with this quote from noted child psychologist like Jan know who was in
The New York area and it goes as follows I have come to to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element it is my personal approach that creates the climate it is my daily mood that makes the weather I possess tremendous power to make a person’s life miserable or
Joyous I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration I can humiliate hurt or heal in all situations it is my response that decides whether a Christ will be escalated or de escalated and a person humanized or dehumanized brothers we are the decisive
Elephant what are we willing to do with what God has blessed us the ability to lead our intellectual capacity our ability to problem solve and critically think our ability to Galvanize we are the decisive element what are you currently doing if the answer is not enough then you are not serving Your
Role is the decisive element Brothers Alpha F Alpha Fraternity Incorporated is the decisive element how are we leveraging our status and our position to make a difference or are we simply Ro romanticizing the issue yet again this is probably the third and fourth time I’m participated in a panel
Since I’ve been a brother of alpha F Alf in the district of North Carolina on the crisis in public education it was a crisis then it’s a crisis now what have we done to fix that crisis enough is enough let’s thank our penist let’s keep you think our model
And as we are standing let’s welcome up our 24th district director of the [Applause] association thank you that [Applause] very did you learn something thank you let’s let’s give brother Marcus Bast a handful of job thought about the process of having a public program again to I want to thank
The pan for the opportunity be to serve this evening it’s always good to see somebody from we came up in the same educational curriculum down in Kingston North Carolina to the same church but before I go any further uh will you please rise and recognize president of Al F attorne corpor and and
Certainly you know we stand here Anthony indicator always say to my leadership team education is the passport to our future I learned when I was taking a mass communication class that the one with the knowledge is one with the power and I know for what I do
At work when I do at the work we have to study our craft and basically we have to align ourselves um as a group and we have to make sure that we’re building relationships and when I talk about I I’m fortunate enough to know that this
Even starts as a Tipping Point as we move forward you would know that I have I can talk to seven superintendant in North Carolina we have about six superintendant of the education North Carolina and I talk to them on a regular basis we have multiple members in the north General Assembly
That I call on a regular bra Bas even though this is the first time that I’ve met brother brown but I’ve talked to him 10,000 times and not only that but I even had somebody send him a check brother brother brother Bo I had somebody sent him a check it was much
Appreciated oh yes good brother but I know this he he’s right right and certainly at the end of the day we need to make sure we got to put our money where our mouth is we got to make sure we be active participants um we got to
Make a difference we got to get involved and Anthony I know at the regional level Vice President we have the main strategy you’re here a lot more about it tomorrow um from committee that we’re doing we’re doing some work and but we have to do more work and one of the things that
We’re trying to do in North Carolina to your point we don’t need for japanes going through the going through the motions of put up of facade you know there has to be as mil David says there has to be some tangible evidence that what you’re doing looks like the work we
Say we we are who we are and that’s what we’re going to be doing my time is short you probably say short tonight but it’s certainly shter than the next since March the 3rd but know this why I still have sitting in the seat we certainly have opportunity to gather and I’ll be
Call on you oh boy to lead the way as we ask we call all our superintendent to lead the way we try to make a difference in this average community that we’re trying to serve God on across St North Carina but we do know what we
Do is local and activities have to be done at the local level I certainly take a moment of personal privilege to say shout out to my lovely wife Dr P it’s good to see you honey time my can say that’s my baby I certainly do that certainly she comes from her family education
She she’s her mother integrated Memphis State she’s one of the eight her mother one of the eight members who integrated Memphis State back in the early 70s her dad is a graduate Michigan State back in 1962 her mother was a strong educator 25 years um my wife um sister has a
Ed uh brother and other sister have the NBA all educ and throughout the school that’s where we need to make a difference but education starts at home I know the co has a lot us out to do the things chapter got to get back to those educational programs uh we also leave we
We’re getting back to our ldci program that we’re doing through across the state and region so look forward for Alpha F from getting back involved these are conversations that we’re having each day we hear you we hear you and we we know it’s important but we are going to
Put our money where our mouth is and I’m excited about what we do do at this point uh what do we do next marks we have a photo with all the panelists with all of our uh regional vice president with our general president uh here over
On this side and then you may want to announce the next event Steph the uh first guest I want to thank you for all coming this evening again we appreciate all the activities and uh we’re excited and I can take the photo the next bit
This even is at 8 there to be our step show is that right Kevin oh next door want to make it off the door next door okay at this time thank you very much thank you for the P now we for get together for a [Applause] thank
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