A school accreditation agency has threatened to strip credentials from high schools in Wake County, N.C., unless the local school board can justify some of its recent decisions, including changing the district’s student-assignment plan.
Advancing Excellence in Education Worldwide, or AdvancED, which accredits more than 27,000 schools, gave the board until the end of the month to provide documentation. The review, a rare move, was triggered by a complaint from the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which opposes the board’s decision to scrap a long-standing economic-diversity policy in favor of neighborhood schools. The NAACP has led protests over the board’s decision.
The AdvancED review team will determine whether the school board is making decisions in the best interests of students and the community. The district has called the complaints unfounded and the review completely unwarranted.
