Day One Civitas Institute - North Carolina Conservative Leadership Conference

I was quite excited to be attending the Civitas Institute Conservative Leadership Conference for North Carolina. However a previous commitment to do a presentation at the UHS Hospice luncheon for volunteers meant I would miss half the first day. As soon as I finished my presentation in Ahoskie I headed out for Raleigh at the maximum speed consistent with safety. I am pretty sure I didn't break any speed limit laws because I was not ticketed. (Isn't that the only measure?)

The main reason I was in a hurry was I didn't want to miss the Friday afternoon forum on "Parental School Choice".

Because of my late arrival, I did miss the speech by Rudi Giuliani who was Keynote speaker for the opening luncheon. From comments by people who were there, it was a good speech. He even got into School Choice in his speech and I would like to have heard those comments. Hal Young of the John Locke Foundation had a good question for Rudi, "Isn't this a state activity, not federal?" Civitas President, Jack Hawke, said of Rudi "Our Civitas Decision Maker poll shows Rudy Giuliani squarely in the lead in our state (North Carolina). Today he evoked a spirit we haven't seen since Reagan. And his record of putting people to work and protecting our nation is proven." The Associated Press coverage of Rudi's speech can be found here and here.

I also missed the forum on Education which included Chairman of the NC Board of Education Howard Lee (D) on the panel, along with Dale Fowell, Representative from Forsyth County (R), Harry Brown, Senator from Onslow County (R) and Terry Stoops of the John Locke Foundation . I heard it was rather confrontational forum and I wish I could have been there. I will try to find out more from those who attended and update that here later.

[Update - Here is Hal Young's coverage on the Education Panel including detailed coverage of Howard Lee's comments. Here is Hal's coverage of the Q&A session that followed. ]

First stop when I arrived in Raleigh was at the registration desk where I picked up my credentials for the event. Civitas Institute is a fairly new organization but they are well managed and well organized. The ladies at the desk were superb and it only took a moment. They directed me to the two locations I needed right then, the media room and the location of the "Parental School Choice Forum".

The School Choice Panel, included the following people, shown below, Michael A. Benjamin, Executive Director of "Florida Alliance for Choices in Education", Shaka Mitchell, Outreach Coordinator of the "Institute for Justice", the Moderator was Terry L. Stoops, Education Policy Analyst of the John Locke Foundation, Darrell Allison, President of "Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina", and Deborah Greiveldinger, State Program Director for the "Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation".





Deborah Greiveldinger, shown above, made the first presentation. She gave an excellent background on the history of the School Choice movement, and her presentation included two powerpoint slides that gave the status of school choice changes from 2006 to 2007.




The most significant changes to legal status of school choice have occurred in Georgia with the passage of school choice legislation that merely awaits the signature of the Governor, which is believed to be likely.





Next we heard from Shaka Mitchell, shown below, of the Institute for Justice, a Washington based public interest law firm which is helping pro school choice parents and organizations overcome the hostility of the education unions and bureaucrats.




Shaka helped address the question, "Is school choice constitutional?", since so often the unions and bureaucrats claim it is not.

For the first time ever we have a single authoritative and comprehensive resource for answering that question in every state in the union. That report finds that for nearly every state, the answer is yes, if the legislation is crafted properly. Shaka provided Forum attendees with copies of the report, “School Choice and State Constitutions: A Guide to Designing School Choice Programs,” published by the "Institute for Justice and the American Legislative Exchange Council". It documents the relevant state constitutional provisions and case law in each state and makes specific recommendations for designing programs most likely to withstand legal challenges from school choice opponents.

Clark Neily, an IJ senior attorney who co-authored the report with IJ Senior Litigation Attorney Richard D. Komer was quoted by Shaka as saying “Opponents have become increasingly creative in their use of state constitutions to try to thwart equal educational opportunity, but this report debunks their bogus constitutional claims.” You can read more about the “School Choice and State Constitutions" report on their web site.

Shaka shared one other "fact" that explains why there is so much demand for "school choice". A fact that is unfortunately not true of just the one school system he reported it about. In the Cleveland high school system only one-in-fourteen graduated on time. The exact same number, one-in-fourteen, was physically assualted severly enough that it required medical attention. So an entering freshman had an equal chance of graduating or being beaten. That is our public school system today.




Florida is at the forefront of Parental School Choice and our next speaker, shown above, was Michael Benjamin of FACE who has been active in making school choice happen in that state. Michael provided updates on their ongoing success, and how it is helping to improve educational opportunities for their children. Michael also gave attendees copies of the Florida Department of Education manual on School Choice Options.




The final speaker of the day for the school choice forum was the impressive Darrell Allison, shown above, President of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina (PEFNC). We covered Darrell's organization recently in another article on this blog which you can find here. I met Darrell last year when we were both working on the School Financial Work Group put together by Lindalyn Kakadelis of the North Carolina Education Alliance . The first PEFNC rally was an amazing success. Expecting 300 attendees, over 1,000 people showed up, some having driven for up to two hours on a school night just to find out more about school choice here in our state.




After the School Choice Forum, I spent a little time before the next official function touring some of the booths set up at the conference. At the Fred Smith for Governor booth I got to visit with a couple of friends, Joe Avery, a businessman from Smithfield in Johnston County and Steve Bizzell, Johnston County Sheriff, who was at the conference to participate as a panel member on the Illegal Immigration Forum.



The next forum of the conference was, The Reagan Legacy. This forum was set up in one of the larger rooms to accommodate the large crowd that was expected. Because of weather problems in Washington DC, 3 of the panel members were unable to attend when their flight was cancelled.




Our national anthem was sung by the choir of a local high school to open the forum.




Jack Hawke, shown above, President of Civitas Institute was the moderator for the Reagan panel.



Jim Gardner, shown above, former North Carolina Lt. Governor was the first speaker. Jim gave the seconding speech for Ronald Reagan when he opposed Richard Nixon in 1968, and was a long time supporter and friend. He shared several funny stories about Ronald Reagan amid some great history.




Patrick McHenry, Representative of North Carolina (R) is one of the youngest members of Congress and he was on the panel to give some perspective as it was joked he was not born when Reagan started his campaign for President.



Though Frank Gaffney was also impacted by the weather in Washington DC and arrived late, he did arrive after persistently finding an alternative way to get to Raleigh after his flight was cancelled. Good job Frank. Thanks for your presistence. And thanks for your memories of Ronald Reagan.

Final event of this first day was dinner.

A man whose face became quite familiar before the conference was over is Thomas Stith, shown below. Thomas, Vice President of Civitas Institute, began his career by serving as Special Assistant to former Governor Martin. After leaving the Governor’s office, Thomas pursued a marketing career with IBM’s state marketing branch in Raleigh. He graduated cum laude with a B.B.A. in management and an MBA in marketing from N.C. Central University. Thomas was moderator for most of the important functions of the conference, including this dinner event.




The first speaker he introduced was Justice Robert F. Orr, candidate for Republican nominee as Governor. Bob Orr is a man who spent many years serving at the highest levels of our North Carolina Court System. He spent 10 years as a member of the NC Supreme Court and 8 years on the NC Court of Appeals.




Bob's speech was a series of quotes that were a tad too long and a tad too obtuse for anyone who was not a lawyer to follow. In my opinion Bob comes across as too much of a Judge to connect with the average voter. That does not alter the fact that he is a good conservative and seems to represent the views that I would want a Governor to take. I would be very happy with him if he makes it to Governor.



Patrick McHenry was the second speaker at the dinner. Someone asked if there were 3 speakers for some reason and Jack Hawke said that it was simply due to so many great participants accepting the invitations that they wound up with a crowded calendar.




Closing speaker for the evening was the former Governor from Maryland, Bob Ehrlich. He is a strong conservative and this is indicated by the fact that he turned a $4 billion deficit into a $2.4 billion surplus while he was Governor of this normally rather liberal state and in which he had to deal with a liberal legislature.