THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 20, 1996 TAG: 9609200541
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 72 lines
The School Board had called Thursday's meeting more than a week ago to discuss a new school accountability plan, but another subject had intruded. No. 1 on the printed meeting agenda were three letters: ``NSU.''
School Board members were still steaming over remarks made Tuesday by two Norfolk State University officials that local schools were to blame for the university's low graduation rates because high school graduates arrived unprepared for college work.
``The challenge for Norfolk State,'' School Board Chairman Ulysses Turner said, ``is to join forces with our school system to help find ways for our children to be more college-ready, rather than to complain.''
While clearly stung, School Board members said they didn't want to get into a finger-pointing contest, and they commended NSU's willingness to offer some under-achieving minority students a chance for a college education. But if that open-door policy contributes to the university's low graduation rate, that's not a problem caused by Norfolk schools, School Board members said.
``We don't believe we're creating the problem with their numbers,'' School Board member Anita Poston said, ``but to the extent that our students are not succeeding we are doing our best to address that.''
During an NSU Board of Visitors' meeting Tuesday, one member, retired Maj. Gen. Robert E. Wagner, took specific aim at Norfolk: ``We can't wait for the public school system of Norfolk to wake up and take better care of its kids,'' he said.
Wagner's remark was published on the front page of Wednesday's Virginian-Pilot. On Thursday, School Board member Joseph Waldo called the comment ``malicious.''
``A lot of damage was done,'' Waldo said. ``To blame their problems on us I think was just counterproductive.''
Superintendent Roy D. Nichols Jr., said, ``More than anything we were disappointed such statements were made.''
School Board members said they've moved aggressively to address the problem of underachieving students.
Within the past year, the School Board voted to eliminate the General Diploma, effective for the Class of 2000, a track that the board acknowledged allowed students to graduate without readiness for work or college. Now, all students will be required to pass algebra to graduate and to take more science, while more students will be channeled into college-prep courses leading to an advanced-studies diploma, School Board members said.
Increasingly, more Norfolk students are graduating with an advanced-studies diploma and are taking higher level math, as well as foreign languages, in middle school, Norfolk school officials said.
The board directed Waldo to prepare a written response to the NSU officials' comments.
School Board members said they didn't believe the remarks by Wagner and fellow NSU board member Edythe C. Harrison reflected the university's position.
Nichols said later Thursday that he and NSU President Harrison Wilson had spoken by phone and that Wilson had voiced regrets at the comments. Nichols said Wilson and his staff are preparing a written response to the controversy that might help defuse the situation.
Wilson, reached by phone Thursday, declined to comment, saying that what he had to say about the matter would be included in the written response.
NSU board member Harrison, reached Thursday by phone, said she was ``not trying to attack the schools. I'm trying to say to public schools, `Help turn out more students who are prepared.' ''
``It's obvious Norfolk turns out many wonderfully prepared students, but it's also true that too many children are graduating due to social promotion who really have not mastered what they should to get a diploma,'' Harrison said.
She added: ``I do feel badly, because I was not trying to insult anyone. But if this is a wake-up call, we're all in this together and we better start at kindergarten and use tutoring and everything else we need to. . . . We can't waste those lives, because we're going to have to pick them up somewhere in society.'' by CNB