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Education gap group strategizes

A go-getter of a leader will renew pressure on the Pinellas County School District.

By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published December 10, 2006

A citizens group that monitors Pinellas schools is about to up the ante in its seven-year battle to close the achievement gap between black and white students.

Concerned Organizations for Quality Education for Black Students, or COQEBS, announced a new campaign Wednesday to attract the attention of the Pinellas County School District, which it maintains has not done enough to properly educate black children.

Leading the Close the Gap campaign will be a former Pinellas student who earned a master's degree in public policy at Harvard University. The first item on Gypsy Gallardo's agenda: securing 10,000 names on a petition urging the district to honor its commitment to quality education for black students.

"I know the power is there and the path has been laid," Gallardo told a group of 40 COQEBS members at last week's meeting. "What we've got to do is bring that power and those people together to get behind this mission."

COQEBS recruited Gallardo, 35, after achieving what it considers only limited success in lobbying the school district to serve the needs of black children. Co-chairman Watson Haynes has high hopes that Gallardo, editor and publisher of a magazine that features prominent local African-American entrepreneurs, will rocket the group's agenda to a new level.

"She's a take-no-prisoners kind of person," Haynes said. "She'll do a phenomenal job of putting some meat on the bones of this public effort."

Nathaniel Ramsey, immediate past president of the Clearwater NAACP, also is pleased that Gallardo is on board. He is eager to see a strong countywide push to close the achievement gap with greater participation north of Ulmerton Road.

"This community needs to be brought to a point where it understands how serious the matter is concerning education," Ramsey said.

The accusations

COQEBS has contended for years that the school district has violated the spirit and the letter of a court-ordered settlement in which it agreed to work to improve seven areas of its operations where black students are concerned.

Last winter, the group contended that the school system had not even tried to close the education gap between black and white students. What's more, the members said, school officials had no intention of keeping the promises they made under a 5-year-old settlement in federal court that led to the school choice plan.

School superintendent Clayton Wilcox called the charges "flat out wrong."

Gallardo acknowledges that she's a newcomer to the fight. But she has vowed "to put on tennis shoes and get out in the street and try to make things happen." Along with Close the Gap co-chairwoman Gwendolyn Reese, she plans to distribute 10,000 handbills to 300 locations countywide, send an e-mail "blast" to 2,000 community members, and launch a media campaign that will include radio advertising and interviews.

That's only Phase I of the campaign. Long-range plans include looking forward to the 2008 School Board election and "exercising the power of the vote to censor people from office."

Hostile or cooperative?

School Board member Carol Cook, whose term expires in 2008, said she is all for getting the community involved in closing the achievement gap. But she said she hopes the Close the Gap campaign will be grounded in a spirit of cooperation.

"Raising public awareness and saying, 'The district can't do it alone' is a positive step," Cook said. "Raising awareness and saying, 'Look what the district has not done for your children' is not accomplishing anything."

Cook and board member Nancy Bostock disagreed with COQEBS members who charged in January that the district had done little to honor the court order aside from building three new schools in southern St. Petersburg. But Gallardo contends that the organization was right on target.

"I don't see how any honest and fair interpretation would determine they have been faithful to it," she said. "They have done something about student assignment, but they have missed the quality- education piece."

After seven years of gaining little traction, COQEBS member Sami Leigh Scott thinks Gallardo's presence will give the group some much-needed credibility with the district.

"They've ignored us because we weren't loud enough," said Scott, who also serves on the committee that monitors how well the district is complying with the court settlement. "This Close the Gap campaign is what needed to be done years ago."

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. Fast facts

The gap

Black students in Pinellas County have made modest gains in performance in the past three years. But because white students are gaining as well, the gap persists. At the current rate, the gap would not close for another generation.

Percent of students proficient in reading:

Percent of students proficient in math:

Source: Florida Department of Education

[Last modified December 9, 2006, 20:21:15]