Jay Robinson, a North Carolina educator for 50 years who was best known as the superintendent of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools, died last week of lung cancer. He was 71.
Mr. Robinson spent 27 years as a mathematics teacher, coach, principal, and superintendent in rural Cabarrus County. In 1977, he became the superintendent of the state’s largest district, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, where for nine years he guided the community through its nationally watched process of school desegregation.
He later worked as a vice president and lobbyist for the University of North Carolina system and had been planning to retire in 1994 when Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. persuaded him to take the helm of the state board of education.
In that post, Mr. Robinson and his fellow board members approved the state’s testing and accountability program. After leaving the board in 1997, he became a trustee of UNC-Wilmington.
—CATHERINE GEWERTZ