Good morning Qcity! Today is going to be a cloudy day in Charlotte. The weatherman is calling for cloudy skies, showers and scattered thunderstorms with highs in the mid 70s.

Here’s what’s brewing in the news:

Federal Report: LA school’s failing minority students

Many see the achievement gap in education as the civil right issue of our time. Now the federal government is targeting the nation’s second largest public school system for wide-ranging reforms.

The U.S. Department of Education announced the findings of a 19-month civil rights investigation on Tuesday, which concluded that the Los Angeles Unified School District was failing to provide equal education to Black students and those who do not speak English as their first language. 

In the district, only one in three Black students rank as proficient in English and 9 percent in math, while only 5 percent of high school English language learners ranked as proficient in the two subjects, according to the schools’ 2009-10 report card.

The district, which has the largest number of English-learning students, has agreed to revamp its English learning program by next year. They have also agreed to make some changes to improve the education of Black students, which include boosting their “academic language proficiency” in the elementary grades.

QUESTION: Although Black students enrolled in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools are performing at levels above those in LA, cries of inferiority in predominantly minority and low income schools are not foreign to the district. Do you think there will ever be equality in education?
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Mayoral candidates go toe to toe

Among his list of accomplishments during the past two years, Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx lists the creation of 14,000 jobs in the area. According the Scott Stone, who is Foxx’s Republican opponent in next month’s election, Foxx’s predecessor Pat McCrory deserves credit for many of those newly created jobs. The two opponents sparred Wednesday night at a forum hosted by the Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg at the Little Rock Community Development Center uptown. If re-elected, Foxx says he plans to focus on recruiting big companies to Charlotte and building a better infrastructure for small businesses. Stone says he has a detailed plan to create more jobs, adding that the 14,000 new jobs created in the past two years is the lowest number in any two-year period during the last decade. "We've got to have a dynamic economy like it used to be," he said. (Read more) 
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Couple arrested in drug raid

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department's SWAT team raided a yellow one-story boarding house on Central Avenue just before dawn Wednesday as part of a drug investigation. Desmond Nelson, 21 was charged with cocaine possession, possession of drugs within 300 feet of a school, maintaining a dwelling for home sales and possession of a firearm by a felon. Sekeena Woodard, 39, was charged with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. According to a witness, police arrived about 6 a.m. and hurled a concussion grenade into the house, broke in through the front and rear doors and through a front window, throwing residents to the floor. According to the warrant, a confidential informant tipped off officers about drug activity in the home. (Read more) 

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