By Ann Doss Helms
ahelms@charlotteobserver.com

As national experts laud Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools' success with low-income and black students, some local families are taking to the streets, accusing officials of shortchanging those very children.

A proposal to close eight urban schools, where less than 10 percent of the total enrollment is white, has state and local NAACP leaders accusing CMS of racism while crowds stand and cheer.

School change is always tumultuous. But people are startled by recent arrests, protests and strident rhetoric in a city known for polite discourse and reticence about race.

"I don't know how widespread it is, but the people who are angry about it are extremely angry," said county commissioners' Chair Jennifer Roberts, who attended a recent NAACP meeting where leaders urged about 200 people to fight school-closing plans, going to jail if necessary.

Tasha Houston, a housekeeper, says she'd never marched for anything until she showed up for a public forum about closing J.T. Williams Middle, where she has a child. Her sense that school officials are mistreating African-American and low-income families led her to the street.

"It's like a volcano is erupting," Houston said, "and we have to deal with it."

Hundreds of parents, including many from the suburbs and affluent in-town neighborhoods, have protested recent changes in boundaries and magnet programs.

But talk of closings takes anxiety to a new level. Superintendent Peter Gorman has suggested closing eight of CMS's 176 schools. They're home to about 4,000 students, mostly black, Hispanic and low-income. The schools were tagged, he says, because they have empty classrooms and/or academic failings. And with budget cuts looming, he says, it's better to sacrifice buildings than teachers.

"We didn't target any one group," Gorman said last week. "What we're doing is targeting problems, and our problem is the financial challenge."

Historic echoes

But to some, it's the latest twist in a cycle of discrimination that dates back to Jim Crow schools, continued with urban renewal projects that razed black neighborhoods, and gathered new force when courts dismantled CMS's desegregation plan about 10 years ago.

That history makes skepticism understandable, says Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, a West Charlotte High alum. He says CMS leaders bear the burden of persuading a wary community that proposed changes will help their children succeed.

Tension spiked at an Oct. 12 forum on westside and central schools, when the board cut off public comments from an overflow crowd. The board plans to hold a makeup session for 19 speakers on Tuesday, but some say the damage is done.

The Rev. William Barber, president of the N.C. conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, came to Charlotte last week to help plan follow-up action. He says Charlotte's national prominence and historic position as a leader in the quest for desegregation makes it the ideal place for a long-term fight against neighborhood schools isolated by race and income.

"Resegregation of schools is the enemy of educational excellence," he said Friday.

Fiery rhetoric

When the Rev. Kojo Nantambu was elected president of Charlotte-Mecklenburg's NAACP branch last fall, he promised to shake up a dormant civil-rights community.

For months, he spoke at school board meetings, denouncing Gorman and the board as racists who encourage school resegregation. Aside from a handful of fellow activists, he got little attention.

Then the school-closing plan landed, bringing out people like Houston, who says she's normally too busy working to attend meetings. Now Nantambu is getting standing ovations from dozens eager to join his fight.

Nantambu was arrested after the Oct. 12 forum, charged with disturbing the peace when he led the crowd in chants of "We want more time!"

His rhetoric in follow-up meetings has been fiery: Resegregation is evil, and CMS is perpetuating "spiritual and mental torture" of children. At an NAACP meeting on Monday, he pinned the blame squarely on Gorman, along with unspecified people controlling him: "They do not want black children and white children to go to school together. They do not want rich children and poor children to go to school together." Nantambu has not returned repeated calls from the Observer after his arrest.

Hero or villain?

When Gorman was hired from California in 2006, he succeeded the district's first black superintendent, James Pughsley. He took over a system that had recently switched, after a long court battle, from race-based assignment to a mix of neighborhood schools and magnets.

And he was hired by a board that had seen the number and influence of black members decline as white and suburban voters mobilized around school issues. To many community and business leaders, Gorman was a refreshing face of reform. He has emerged as one of the nation's high-profile superintendents; on Monday, the Broad Foundation honored CMS as one of the country's five best urban districts. But to some in Charlotte, he symbolizes white political control of a system where about two-thirds of students are black or Hispanic.

County Commissioner Vilma Leake, who says she "reluctantly" voted to hire Gorman when she was on the school board, agrees with much of what Nantambu says about CMS. She blames Gorman for laying off hundreds of employees - including bus drivers, teacher assistants, maintenance workers and other positions dominated by African Americans - and populating his upper echelon with white administrators.

A current list of Gorman's 14-person executive staff includes three African Americans, one of whom, legal counsel George Battle, was hired by the board, rather than Gorman.

Last year's school board election brought in a new majority. Richard McElrath and Joyce Waddell, elected last November, are now the only African Americans on the nine-person board.

McElrath and Waddell attended Monday's NAACP meeting, standing and applauding for some of Nantambu's and Barber's comments. But even though they disagree with parts of Gorman's plan, both say he's not the villain.

McElrath praises Gorman for speaking up about the way housing patterns shape racial and economic isolation of schools. And Waddell notes that the board employs Gorman, so bad decisions rest on them.

Vice Chair Tom Tate, who is white and represents a district with many urban schools, agrees. He has questioned whether Gorman's plan is fair to disadvantaged kids, but "I do not think that there is anything that is motivated by racism of any sort."

CMS asks for trust

Board Chair Eric Davis, one of the members elected last fall, touted the student-assignment review that led to the closing plan as a new era in citizen participation. Starting in July, board members and staff have spent dozens of hours in meetings with parents, educators and others interested in schools.

The process gets mixed reviews. Supporters applaud the time spent listening and Davis's willingness to respond quickly to flaws in the system. Skeptics say they can't keep up with rapidly changing proposals and crucial meetings held during work hours, and complain that CMS staff filters public comments.

Officials unveiled plans for closings and other major changes before they had estimates on savings or details on how the changes would work. They said they wanted to hear public views before delving into details - essentially asking the public to trust CMS to work out the plans before school opens in 2011-12.

No way, many parents, volunteers and educators say. They've chided CMS for trying to launch complex efforts, such as converting elementary schools to accommodate pre-kindergarten to eighth grade or launching year-round school, on a speeded-up timetable and shoestring budget.

Earlier this month, the board voted to pull some popular magnets and suburban neighborhood schools off Gorman's list for closing or other change. That fueled suspicion that inner-city schools are getting short shrift.

As Houston, the J.T. Williams parent, put it: "They're not targeting the schools that have these giant PTAs. They're targeting our children because we are who we are."

Key meeting dates

Decisions about 2011-12 school closings will take shape on Tuesday, when Gorman's staff presents final recommendations, and Nov. 9, when the board votes.

Both meetings are likely to be packed. Parent groups are planning candlelight vigils and other strategies.

Bud Cesena, chief of CMS police, says he hopes to avoid making more arrests. If chants or disruption arise, he says, his force will get the school board into a back room, leaving the meeting chamber to protestors and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police.

Foxx says he has been on the phone with board members and other leaders, trying to figure out how to bring the community together in two weeks. "There's some important dialog that's got to take place between now and then," he said .

But tension isn't likely to end Nov. 9. One scenario: Some version of the current plan could be approved on a split vote, with the board's two black members on the losing end.

The question then becomes: What next?

Barber says the state NAACP and allied groups are in it for the long haul. He said he plans to bring civil-rights lawyers to Charlotte for a panel talk about legal options.

In Raleigh, Barber has led school-board sit-ins to protest school resegregation. Some wonder whether Charlotte will see similar scenes.

"This could be as fragile as Wake County, just because everybody's nervous or on edge," said Kathy Ridge, executive director of Mecklenburg Citizens for Public Education, or MeckEd. "I hope it's not a tinderbox getting ready to blow."

Malachi Greene, a former Charlotte City Council member who is African American, sees other options.

"It's another one of those community problems that we've got to roll up our sleeves and do the Charlotte way: Work it out without tearing Charlotte apart," he said. "We've got to get through this without hurting what we all love, and that's our children and our community."

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