Beaufort mourns loss of student leader, musician

This is a beautiful note and worthy of sharing statewide, by Island Packet reporter Erin Moody.

When Craig Washington talked, everyone listened, his brother Charles said.

It was the same when he played his guitar.

One of the first black children to integrate Beaufort County schools and a jazz musician of local and regional renown, he died Tuesday at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston from complications after an allergic reaction. He was 58.

Marshels' Wright-Donaldson Home for Funerals is handling arrangements, which have not been determined. The funeral home also is helping start a memorial fund for Washington, who did not have insurance, his older brother, Rowland Washington, said.

In 1964 -- nearly a decade before full integration -- the brothers were among the blacks to desegregate Beaufort's public schools, Craig at Beaufort Elementary and Rowland at Beaufort High School.

"I remember my mother taking him to Beaufort Elementary School," Charles said. "She walked him right into the class. It was a very quiet moment. It was something to witness."

Their father, Charles, was a prominent local attorney who attended Morehouse College with Martin Luther King Jr. Their mother, Juanita, was a school teacher. They pushed the idea of their children integrating the schools.

Bucky Wall said he was 12 when he met Washington, who had an easy, friendly demeanor. Their friendship showed him black children and white children had much in common.

"He was really a bold guy and impacted a many of us," Wall said. "White guys growing up in the Jim Crow South, we didn't have a lot of exposure to black guys who were our peers. So for many of us, Craig was that first example."

When longtime friend Ian Davis met Washington in 10th grade, they were both engrossed in music and politics. They played in several bands during high school and, along with Wall, produced an alternative newspaper called The Daily Planet. The paper was funded with a Peace Corps grant, Davis said.

"Our job was to stir up the pot and make sure there was a voice for people our age, for the antiwar movement, for the desegregation movement," Wall said.

Washington was student body president and a National Merit student in high school, received a full scholarship to Morehouse, and earned a history degree, according to Davis. At Morehouse, he also practiced his guitar with local musicians and teachers. He later pursued a law degree at the University of South Carolina, but did not finish and returned to Beaufort.

Washington earned a masters in education from Wheelock College and has substituted for Beaufort County Schools for more than a decade, Davis said. Washington, who was divorced twice and had no children, also took care of his mother and an uncle during their final years, Davis said.

His schedule as a substitute left time for him to play gigs around the area solo and with artists including Tradewinds and George Sheck. Music was his passion, and he played every opportunity he could, Davis said.

"He was kind of a big personality," Davis said. "He's extremely friendly. He got along with everybody."

Craig started playing in high school and initially was self-taught, Rowland Washington said. Rowland was at college up north and feeling lonesome, so his mother sent him a guitar. He brought it back home to South Carolina, left it when he returned to school and Craig took it up.

"He's a great musician," Rowland Washington said. "He actually wrote a book, a mathematical book that explains guitar music. He was a heavy guy, a brilliant person."

Grade-changing costs Beaufort principal his job

An item in the Island Packet reported Friday that the principal of Beaufort High School, Dan Durbin, had resigned immediately at the request of Superintendent Valerie Truesdale "for changing grades."

But there's clearly a bigger story here.

Truesdale says Durbin violated district policy and state law in changing 200 grades for 33 students over the past two years. Durbin never denied making the changes. He chose to resign last week when given the option to resign or be fired by week's end.

In nine years on the job, Durbin built widespread admiration from parents and students. Parents have spoken out in his favor, and students, among other signs of support, protested his resignation by sitting in the school atrium on Durbin's last day until he urged them to go to class.

Mmm. Shades of Dead Poets Society.

The Island Packet takes the editorial position that Durbin's forced resignation is an object lesson, and therefore a good thing.

Parents, too, need to accept the reality of the school district's correct decision and move on in a mature manner.

This is what is often called a teachable moment. In fact, for many of the school's 1,450 students, Durbin's exit may provide their most lasting lesson from high school.

The lesson is that rules are made to be followed, not broken. Rules apply to all, even the principal. And a day of reckoning is coming for all who break the rules. All choices -- good and bad -- have consequences. And in the end, there will be accountability for those choices.

Indeed. Choices have consequences.

And some consequences are slower in coming than others. In this case, Durbin changed grades -- and no one disputes that his intentions were good -- and the consequence upon that discovery was relatively quick.

Durbin maintains his choices were based on the good of the students, and we've yet to see anything to contradict that.

He said each case differed, but many of the grade changes involved struggling students who did extra work or somehow proved they earned a break.

"I hope the message I sent students was that you're not just a number," Durbin said last week. "If you try hard and work hard, we'll work with you."

He went on to say, "I was trying to motivate a kid, trying to help someone get through. But maybe that blinded me and made the rules less important."

Circumspect.

But the Island Packet recognizes that Durbin was no ordinary principal, that he may have been, in fact, an inspirational and catalytic figure.

But at the same time, Durbin is credited with bringing order to the school and a level of community support that is all too rare in public education.

We're struck by his statement, "I'm not sure that the role of principal hasn't passed me by. To me, it's about nurturing, about building up students to be the best they can be. But the new job of principals is about numbers, statistics and test results. I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm just saying that isn't me."

This, too, should provide a teachable moment for those who set school policy.

Are systemic changes needed to accommodate the human element in education? Are school policies, mandates, regulations and expectations reasonable -- or are they too often feel-good mandates made by people who have never tried to teach a classroom full of children? Does anyone other than Congress think every child at every grade level will test above average by date-certain if federal law mandates it? By focusing all energies on test scores, are we leaving children behind?

Numbers, statistics and test results.

Does this sound like your school district, wherever you live and teach? Are numbers, statistics and test results more important than any other elements, intelligences or passions you bring to the table?

I'm fascinated often by the quality of readers' comments that accompany these online news stories. In the case of Durbin's forced resignation, readers unloaded several barrels.

Even a Durbin detractor cast this instance as a larger matter than a grade-changing principal and the consequences of rule-breaking.

So let's bring this back to the subject at hand. Dan Durbin could be a pain. He and I locked horns more than once. But Dan was always a man on a passionate mission. He saw that need to help and never ever backed down.

Given the bureaucracy of modern education - and the history of this BCSD, a man like Dan Durbin was bound to draw the ire of a District office that has no room for dissenters and larger than life views of the opportunities of his students.

Unlike the Packet/Gazette - I'll take 10 Dan Durbins for any single Valerie Truesdale any day.
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Dan Durbin was an agent of change. The old guard of education slapped down Durbin because of their fear.

Another advises that grade manipulation is, in fact, ordered by the district office, and a protocol exists for the process of grade-changing.

There are proper channels for submitting students' changed grades. Here is a portion of an email sent out in one of our BCSD schools:

"Good Morning! A reminder to all staff - the lowest grade that can be entered in Powerschool for any student in 6th, 7th, or 8th grade is a 60 for the first three quarters of the school year. If you have entered a grade lower than 60 please change the grade by overriding it in your gradebook (Powerschool) and send an email to your guidance counselor informing them of the change so that grades may be locked in."

So, which is it? Beaufort County doesn't tolerate grade-changing, or it does tolerate grade-changing under prescribed circumstances? If grade-changing is dishonest, it's dishonest -- right? After all, grade-changing cost a man his job.

Another focuses on the details that aren't public:

Are we, IP/BG readers, to take Valerie Truesdale's word without sufficient details and story background?

And another asks a question that haunts a great many district administrators across the state:

How many years and at what level did Valerie Truesdale and Jackie Rosswurm teach a classroom full of students?

What's going on in Beaufort these days? Are there issues to unearth there?

Island Packet: Education is a core function of government

Hilton Head is hardly a bastion of liberalism. So when the Hilton Head Island Packet questions Governor Nikki Haley's priorities and advocates for greater investment in public schools, something must be terribly wrong.

Gov. Nikki Haley says she wants state spending to focus on "core functions." Providing a good education for South Carolina's children fits that description and should not get short shrift. We could make no better investment in our economic future than to make sure we adequately fund K-12 education in South Carolina.

After three years of declining revenue projections, the state is finally seeing an upturn. State economic advisors have told lawmakers they can expect an additional $210 million in state revenue for the next budget year.

In the budget that has been sent to Haley, the House and Senate spent $56 million of that on education. That would bring state education spending to $1,880 per student, up from the current $1,615, but still below the $2,720 a state school funding formula calls for.

But Haley has vowed to veto that additional education spending, saying any new revenue should go toward paying down state debt or go back to taxpayers.

That sounds good, but means little without specifics.

We suspect a lot of taxpayers, including smart business leaders, would like to see an appropriately funded education system in South Carolina.

Another $146 million of the $210 million is to be used to reduce by 25 percent the unemployment tax assessments on the businesses that do the most firing and put the most strain on the state's unemployment trust fund.

Those businesses faced a steep hike in the amount they pay per employee after the unemployment trust fund went broke in 2009. That came after years of low unemployment taxes and agency mismanagement that left the state unable to handle the unemployment demands of the Great Recession.

It also left South Carolina with a $1 billion debt to the federal government. Using the new revenue to lower those unemployment taxes is expected to encourage the hiring of workers. Let's hope so because we still have to pay that debt, and we still have to make sure we don't find ourselves in a similar situation down the road.
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But lawmakers and the governor will have a lot more credibility on the subject of efficient government when they tackle overall tax reform, including addressing hundreds of millions of dollars in sales tax exemptions approved over the years, repealing the 2006 Property Tax Reform Act and addressing inequitable education funding.

Education is a core function of state government -- the most important function. A strong education system is a sound investment for South Carolina.