Feud with Wilder criticized - Mayor's
panel on education faults inaction on closing
of old schools, building anew
The leaders of a mayoral commission on education
say they're fed up with feuding between Richmond
Mayor L. Douglas Wilder and the district's School
Board and administration.
The Wilder-appointed commission voiced frustration
yesterday over inaction on plans to close old
schools and build new ones. Members pointedly
urged the mayor, School Board and school administration
to come together and work out their differences,
or bring in an outside party to mediate the
dispute.
"There is not enough regard for what is
right, as opposed to who is right," said
former Richmond School Board Chairman Melvin
D. Law, a member of the commission and a political
ally of Wilder.
Commission members called for more communication
and cooperation to take steps to close underused
school buildings, saying the city should reinvest
that savings to create new, more efficient schools
.
"Who moves the ball first?" asked
former state Superintendent of Education William
C. Bosher Jr.
The Wilder administration argued again yesterday
that the School Board has to take the next step
-- closing schools it has identified as underused
-- before the mayor will commit money to build
new schools through his City of the Future plan
for capital projects.
"Now is the time for action and execution,"
said Harry E. Black, Richmond's chief financial
officer. "The money's there. The mayor
is just asking for some level of accountability
and responsibility."
But Richmond School Board Chairman George P.
Braxton II told the commission that the school
system can't act without cooperation from City
Hall.
"The one thing that has not happened since
I have been on the board is any collaboration
between the city administration, the School
Board and the school administration," he
said.
As an example of the School Board's willingness
to take a hard look at itself, Braxton cited
a report pending by the city's internal auditor
about the operations and management of the school
system. He said the board volunteered for the
audit, which was an early recommendation of
the mayor's advisory commission.
"Many of us want our operations to be
much tighter than they have been," Braxton
said.
Braxton said he is trying to open lines of
communication, but Black argued that only the
mayor has been taking proactive steps to improve
the schools, charging that the school system
is stuck in a "denial phase." The
advisory commission is concerned about the direction
and cost of the Richmond school system, which
continues to struggle in key areas, such as
dropout rates and truancy, despite higher per-pupil
expenditures than school systems in most other
cities and counties across the state.
Wilder has vowed to exclude school projects
from the City of the Future plan until the School
Board closes and consolidates more schools.
Instead, the administration said it is looking
at educational investments such as vocational
education and development of charter schools.
But the commission's frustration over the stalled
initiative reflects a growing unease among policymakers
and the public over the impasse.
Wilder's former senior policy adviser, Paul
Goldman, has re-entered the fray with a threat
of a petition drive for a referendum to prevent
the mayor from carrying out a threat to exclude
schools from the City of the Future program.
"The guts of the City of the Future was
the schools," said Goldman, who calls himself
the architect of the mayor's original plan.
"The politics have overrun the policy."
City Council President William J. Pantele said
he hopes to settle the dispute through the upcoming
budget process. If that doesn't work, he said,
it may be time to revisit Goldman's idea of
a school-closing commission modeled on the approach
used by the federal government to close and
consolidate military bases
Pantele said this week that a proposal to redirect
dollars from schools to other projects would
be tough to get past City Council. "I really
have no interest in that at all," he said.
On the other hand, Pantele added, "I don't
believe that the City of the Future plan for
schools can happen without the mayor."
William H. Goodwin Jr., the chairman of CCA
Industries, called for the parties to pay for
an outside consultant to produce a five-year
plan for the schools. "Somehow we can't
get together on one plan that we all rally together
towards trying to accomplish," he said.
Other members suggested it's time for the commission
to finish its work. The prevailing sentiment,
however, was that the feuding needs to end.
"We are in a new year, with a new school
board and a new school board chairman,"
said Heidi W. Abbott, a lawyer who serves on
the committee. "We recognize it is a critical
juncture. It's time to let some of that stuff
go."
