- [Narrator] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

- This weekend, "Off the Record", national test scores after Covid, show CMS is either losing ground here in the classroom or gaining ground compared to other school districts or maybe both.

And then there's the Charlotte Transportation Center, above ground or underground, or how about overground?

At City Council, more battery powered buses coming soon.

And what can we learn from other cities, about affordable housing.

In politics Cheri Beasley's getting support, from former President Obama, but Ted Budd's getting more support in the polls.

And if you're a school board member running for reelection, don't count on any support from the Black Political Caucus.

Plus how the little races in Charlotte this election year, could make a big difference in Raleigh next year.

Lots to talk about next on PBS Charlotte.

(upbeat music) And from our PBS Charlotte Studios and Historic Plaza Midwood, I'm Jeff Sonier and we're "Off the Record" talking about the stories, you've been talking about this week.

And if you watch the news, read the news and listen to the news, well, you'll recognize the names and faces, around our virtual table.

Ely Portillo from the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute, Danielle Chemtob from AXIOS Charlotte, and Genna Contino from the Charlotte Observer.

You can also join the conversation at home or from your phone.

Just email your questions and comments, to OffTheRecord@wtvi.org.

Let's start this week with education.

You know, if you're a parent and your child comes home from school, with a report card that puts them near the top of the class and then you find out the entire class is failing, do you feel good about that or do you feel bad about that?

That's kind of the situation that CMS is in this week, as they hear back results of the latest numbers and what's known as the nations or the nation's report card.

Ely, you're kind of the resident parent on our group here.

As a parent, when you see numbers that kind of, send a mixed message like this from CMS, you know, what's your reaction?

- Well, I think there are two ways of looking at, the data that were released this week.

One is that CMS did better, than the average four large cities and many of its peers on reading and math scores, for fourth and eighth graders.

But if you look within CMS, performance has declined and more concerning, even than an overall decline I think, is that the racial gap, especially between black and white students really widened.

So, you know, you can look at it and say, gee Charlotte, CMS is doing better, than some of it's large urban peers, doing better than the average.

But that average isn't great.

And to me, you know, it's the performance gap and that achievement gap that is widening unfortunately and is actually worse than it was a couple decades ago, which indicates to me there's really movement, in the wrong direction when it comes to equity.

- Yeah, I know a lot of the focus on the test scores, is on reading, but math numbers were kind of interesting, in this particular report, it showed that among the 20 and 25 or 30 school districts measured, CMS had the highest performance, when it came to eighth grade math scores, among all the school districts.

But it also showed that the actual measurement itself, was about 30% and you know, the number of Hispanic and African American students, their performance was below 20%.

So, you know, if you're a parent in Charlotte, if you're number one, but your kids are still struggling, if they're still falling behind, especially after covid, it's hard to get excited.

It's hard to put a smiley face on this one, I suppose.

- Yeah, and you know, when you look back at 2019, I believe the math proficiency total was over 41% then, so, you know, falling more than 10 percentage points, in three years is pretty big decline.

And I know we are gonna talk a little, about the school board later.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- And I think that this of course factors into that.

The other one, other factor you mentioned is covid, obviously with remote learning and educational disruptions, that was a big factor.

And I think it's important to look beyond, just remote learning.

It appears that that had an impact, but there's also a lot of instability, around remote learning.

For example, many of the kids who, while were in remote learning but didn't have access, to good internet connections, that's lower income more often Black and Latino kids.

So it's not just being out of school, that was so deleterious here.

I think it's also what happens when you are out of school and who has access to the resources, to mitigate some of those effects or not.

- Yeah and while all the school systems had issues with, you know, covid and remote learning, I thought it was interesting, one of the things they brought up in a CMS briefing, on these numbers earlier this week, was that it looks like remote learning, was that older kids did better with remote learning.

The eighth grade scores generally were higher, than the fourth grade scores.

And again, these are being measured, after covid when kids are finally getting back to school.

But it looks like the remote learning might have had, a bigger impact on those younger kids in particular, you know, than the eighth graders and the older high schoolers.

I guess that's a lesson learned, but it you know, it does raise the question of, you know, what impact will it have, on the upcoming school board election?

You know, school board's pretty much held responsible, for what happened during covid in terms of remote learning, rightly or wrongly.

Can we talk a little bit about, you know, perceptions in the community regardless of these numbers of, you know, who's responsible for the fall off and in learning numbers and if these incumbents, are gonna be hurt by this?

- I think the achievement gap is the biggest issue, in the local election.

And you see from these various groups, even coming from different political perspectives, from groups like Moms for Liberty, to the Black Political Caucus, to the African American Faith Alliance, that are concerned about the impacts and maybe in different ways, but concerned about the impacts of remote learning and kind of how that affected the achievement gap.

Of course, worth noting that I think, the pressure has been on the school board, for a number of years around the achievement gap.

You know, we go through this song and dance, it feels like every year in the last couple of years, around whether, you know, the county's gonna fully fund CMS and that is largely driven by, a desire for more accountability around the achievement gap.

- Yeah and you know, if you talk about who's being held accountable, well CMS, it did get rid of the superintendent, you know, Ernest Winston was pushed out early and they have interim in now, with a nationwide search underway.

So I think you already saw the school board itself, you know, trying to say, hey, we're holding someone accountable, for this performance and all the issues we've had.

One problem I think that comes up with the school board, is there's not necessarily any, you know, district or model that's doing fantastic right now, among large urban districts, you know, CMS is according to this, at close to the top, but those numbers as we talked about are not great.

So, you know, there's a lot of, I think questions about, okay, you want a clean house, you want a new board, if you're a voter out there, that's what you want.

Is there anyone out there who has a great answer?

And that is a tough question.

- It's a larger problem than just CMS.

But at the same time, like I think we have, an interesting history here, that has played into all of this, around the fact that, you know, we were a model for desegregation in the 80s and you know, once that was reversed, now CMS I believe this was as of a couple years ago, is the most segregated school district in the country, I mean, I'm sorry, not in the country, in the state.

So, you know, I think it factors into, all of these issues that we're talking about and there are unique challenges that CMS has to deal with, but they are certainly challenges that school districts, across the country also face.

But our history is really important, to understanding where we are now.

- Yeah and that kind of brings us back around, to that black political caucus story on endorsements.

Not a single incumbent running for reelection this year, was endorsed by the Black Political Caucus and that suggests that, you know, that that leadership change that happened, in the administration on the school system, might translate into a leadership change come election day, depending on how impactful those endorsements are.

By the way that those numbers that we looked at, from that national report card, the school districts that actually did better than CMS, a lot of them were in Florida, which kind of, again, raises the question, Florida opened earlier than than most other states and they put kids back in the classroom, earlier than most other states and while CMS was near the top in a lot of categories, those Florida school districts seem to be at the top, in almost all categories.

So it does raise the question of, you know, did we make the right call back when, you know, when we were in the moment?

And you know, what lessons have been learned going forward and how will the voters react to those decisions, right or wrong, that happened in the middle of Covid, lot of impactful things happened during covid, this may be the most impactful thing, when it comes to our kids and their education, over the next couple of years, but it's an ongoing issue that we'll talk about, I'm sure in future shows as well.

Another issue that we've talked about, on a pretty regular basis is the transit system CATS.

And this week we heard a little bit more, about their plans for a new transportation center, in Uptown Charlotte.

You know, the more you hear about this project, the less you kind of know about this project.

And that's, you know, that's the sense we got this week, as CATS talked with City Council a little bit about their, you know, their choices, when it comes to the options available to them.

Who wants to take the lead on this one?

Anybody?

Genna?

- I was just gonna say great scoop on that AXIOS.

I was actually walking to the transit center yesterday, when I saw for something completely different.

But I was like, well let me ask people what they think.

about the underground, the transit center potentially moving underground.

And I really got mixed reactions.

There was one man I spoke to who is like, well, I'm from Buffalo, New York, and their bus system was underground and was just so much nicer to be out of the weather.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- And in the south I can see this being great, when like on a really hot, humid day to just like kind of feel like you're indoors and out of, because, even though the transit center's covered, you know, you definitely feel, especially with these buses coming in, you definitely feel that heat and humidity in the summer.

And then I spoke to another, to a woman who was telling me, I don't feel safe with this transit center now how it is, like if we move it underground, I feel like that's an opportunity for, I don't know, more crime to happen perhaps.

So it was interesting the different perspectives I heard and I just wanted to throw that out there.

- Yeah, those were some of the issues, brought up by CATS this week, as they talked about the different options, I think, AXIOS had a story about, not just the original two options underground and above ground, but kind of that third hybrid option, right, Danielle?

- Yeah, you know, so we reported basically that CATS is moving forward, with the underground option.

They're not really considering just rebuilding it, at the street level, but there is a third alternative, which I guess since they ruled out the other one, is really the second alternative, which would be to kind of rebuild it on two levels, the street level and like an upper level, that would connect with the Blue line.

So that was interesting.

I think the major downside that they said, of that third option is that it would take, some of the land they're trying to use, the developer they're working with, White Point owns a parcel across the street, that they wanna use as a temporary transit center, while they're, you know, constructing the new one.

And I believe what they were saying was, that it would take some of that land up, as the major downside, but I think it's important to look at, you know, part of the reason that they want to, not just kind of tear it down and rebuild the same thing, is they're trying to address crime, right?

And I think there have been questions about, well, will that address crime?

Is it helpful to put it underground?

His argument was, you know, if we have one level we can monitor it, you know, it would be easier to actually kind of, keep an eye on the two levels.

And then of course the weather aspect and you know, the development aspect is it cannot be understated, right?

I mean, the whole part of the plan, is that they want to have this mixed use tower, that this will be a part of and having that street level retail, is a big part of the plan.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- So I think they're balancing a number of interests.

It sounds like they've heard a variety of feedback.

They've engaged with a couple hundred riders I believe and they had one last meeting on Thursday.

So we'll see kind of how that input, weighs into the final plans.

- Yeah I wanna talk about the development in a second, but Ely, you're part of the Transit Time Blog and I know there's been some experience in other cities, with this underground concept when it comes to crime.

I know that CATS thinks it's the safest option, but that's not necessarily, what other cities' experiences, right?

- Yeah, Denver in particular has gotten, you know, even national attention for some of the struggles, they've had with their transit system and safety.

The bus drivers union there has said that, you know, it's very dangerous situation.

Their underground transit center has struggled with, you know, petty crime and drug use, people who are homeless staying there, for long periods of time.

So that's been a struggle.

Another issue that I think needs to be addressed, is that CATS earlier told City Council, they'd be coming back with three options.

You know, as Danielle said, now they're gonna be coming back with two options and we don't really have cost estimates yet.

So I think that they're and it doesn't look like we're gonna have cost estimates.

So I think that you're probably gonna see City Council, which has been kind of skeptical of this, continue to pose some questions about, how much is it gonna cost to bury it versus go above ground.

Is this really the best way?

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- And you know, do we really have an option here or is CATS kind of saying like, hey, you should pick this option, we're gonna give you another option, but this is the one.

So I think that that's gonna be, something you'll hear about at the next meetings on this.

- You know, I saw the renderings that AXIOS had and their story.

I thought it was interesting.

It was only one rendering and what you saw were towers, which I assume were apartments or offices or a hotel and you saw big retail plaza and you saw one light rail car and no buses at all for a, you know, ostensibly, a transportation project.

You know, this thing, you know, we talk about it as the transportation center, but you know, we're talking about a shopping center.

I mean, that's what CATS is kind of getting into the, in partnership for a shopping center and a hotel and apartments.

And that's a little bit outside their mission, is it not?

- Well, I think that transit, is often an economic development driver, that's certainly really attractive for CATS.

Also, keep in mind that as the bus system and public transit struggles in general, you know, they're asked to kind of prove, hey, show you're worth it.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- In a way that we don't ask other city departments to.

So, you know, Charlotte Water doesn't have to go out and make the case of, hey, you know, we need water pipes, fund our water pipes, even if they don't pay for themselves.

Everyone pretty much accepts we need water and sewer.

So pointing to economic development and saying, you're not just getting a bus station, look, you're getting shiny new towers and retail and apartments and all this good stuff.

I think is another way for CATS in particular and transit systems in general to say, hey, hey, we're worth it, we're worth it, you know?

- Yeah.

- Keep funding us even though we've got ridership struggles.

So that you have to think of the bigger picture too.

- I think CATS' role is an economic development agency, in part too, you know, it goes all the way back, to even the construction of the blue line.

So even predating some of the challenges we've had, with the bus system in recent years, I mean, when you talk about when city council or people in the city talk about the success of the transit, of the Blue line and transit projects, it's often linked to, you know, oh look at all the development we've seen in South End, as opposed to just look at the, you know, benefit of this light rail we've built.

I mean you see that, you know that balance.

And sometimes they come to a head, right?

With whether something's best for economic development or transit, sometimes they can both marry, but sometimes, you know, like for example with the Silver Line, they were originally talking about routing it around uptown and there was a whole conversation about, is that to sort of spur development, but was that the most convenient for rider?

So I think you see that kind of rider convenience, versus development come to a head quite frequently, within CATS' own history.

- Yeah the difference here though I think, maybe is that, you know, when you go out, you know, the blue line extension into areas, that need the development, that need the, you know, the impact, that light rail can bring, that's one thing, but do you really need help at, you know, a block from Trade and Tryon, you know, to build hotels and shopping centers?

It seems to me that the, you know, the market would go there with or without, a new transit center just because it's Trade and Tryon.

I guess that's another question for another day and a future discussion as CATS gets closer here, but you know, there's development in places, that need it versus development that's already happening, with or without a transit center.

And I guess that's an issue, that council will be discussing at one point as well.

- Do you wanna point out, they're kind of doing a similar approach, near the convention center, where they're proposing this land trade, to kind of redevelop it and make it attractive, for hotels to come in.

So they have more hotel rooms in uptown.

So maybe the city sees this need and I know the, they, I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but there's less ho less hotel rooms in uptown, than they would like to serve their tourism population.

- Yeah, that was on council's agenda this week too.

And I know CATS can be an economic driver for housing, theoretically, not just high end housing, but also affordable housing.

And I know Genna, you wrote this week about, what other cities, at least in particular, what one city is doing that maybe, we aren't doing as much of or could be doing more of, in the future.

Talk about what's happening in Nashville.

- Yeah and I wanna preface this with saying, when I was writing this, I was very aware this is kind of a, smaller level solution.

This is a situation where one non-profit's proposal, to build one unit of affordable housing turned and so what happened was a private developer, sought out land that was right next to land, owned by a non-profit.

He knew they were already planning to build, an affordable to build, I think it's like a home ownership.

Yeah, but to build a home there and he came in and rezoned both of the parcels, where they were able to kind of build up, add some density to the project and fit seven units on the same lot.

- So private developers working with non-profits, to kind of expand the inventory, of affordable housing through zoning and zoning properties.

- Right and using the zoning laws, to add affordability, which I pointed out in the story is, something Charlotte's passing of the, unified development ordinance might, make something like that easier, in a area that might have been just for, single family homes before.

- Yeah, well let's talk about that.

You know, the UDO has been, you know, talked about both good and bad and its aim is affordable housing, obviously it's one of its major aims, but Nashville seems to be at least on a small scale, an example of how that actually is working, despite the criticism here, is that something that, you know, could that be the initial impact, of the unified development ordinance that, you know, we'll see these kinds of partnerships, that might not have happened before, because of the zoning opportunities that are presented?

- Yeah, I think it could be.

I know the one argument that, one side of the political spectrum has is that, this will further gentrification like bringing in like, building quadplexes building four units on a lot, that could have just had a single family home.

Like Charlotte's already not ready for the development, that's coming in, not ready for the growth.

Like we're just opening the floodgates.

But I would say the counter argument to that is, there's a lot of people needing affordable housing.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- You can't find a unit for under a $1000.

So this might make it easier, for some people to just have that supply, catch up with demand.

- It's part of the kind of affordable housing argument, that the more density you allow, the more you kind of open up land use.

- Right.

- That is, you know, one of the solutions to getting more affordable units.

I think the basic economic argument and I'm probably making it a little oversimplified, you know, but that the city was making when, the UDO was being considered is, you know, if you can build $1 million house on a massive lot, but you know that it obviously is not affordable, but if you could, you know, sell it, you could sell it in as a quadplex, you know, each one could go for a quarter of that, right?

So, you know, I think that's a basic economic argument.

Will that happen on such a simple scale?

Probably not.

I mean, probably developers will get, what they can get for the unit.

But that being said, I do think that, you know, zoning laws, single family zoning laws, you know, were very restrictive in terms of prices and in terms of you know, the density that they allowed and that did limit, kind of what could be built and what, you know, what could be charged for that.

- Yeah and I think your story on a small scale, showed that some of the pricing for those new units, on those, you know, now multi-family lots was less expensive, than the single family lot pricing.

Is that right Genna?

That some of the new homes were less expensive, than the original ones or the standard rates?

- Yeah I wanna say and I might not be remembering correctly, but that the units were going for about 200,000, which I would say when I was doing research for the story, Nashville's housing market is getting, as crazy as Charlotte's, where it's really hard to find anything under 300,000.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- This might not be for the lowest income earners, that are just really looking for a cheap rental.

For someone really starting to look into buying a home, something around the 200,000 mark might be more affordable, for, you know, a younger family.

- Yeah and you don't know how it affects rental housing too.

That's really the low end housing, the affordable housing that most, you know, lower income families are looking for, not necessarily to buy but to rent first and that's, you know, that's another market, that's just getting harder and harder to afford these days.

Hey, we got two minutes left or so, I wanna talk a little bit about politics, 'cause you know, we're almost to the election.

We saw former President Obama endorsed Cheri Beasley, this week, no surprise there, but is that a needle mover at all, in a race that seems to be, tipping towards the Republican side, as we get closer to election day?

Any thoughts on that?

- You know, I don't think that that endorsement, by itself will move many votes.

It's hard to imagine someone was on the fence and then they see Obama come in for Beasley and decide to go for her.

But that's not really how endorsements work.

I think it's more about building momentum and reminding people, hey, this person is out there and affiliated with our party and this formerly successful leader and also remember Obama had a big midterm wipe out, you know, it was famously called a shellacking, in his words I believe and he's, you know, maybe looking around at the national landscape and getting a little more active in this last week, because if you look at a lot of the polling, it looks like the Democrats could be in, for another shellacking.

So I think that's something to keep in mind with, why you're seeing Obama be a little more active lately.

- Yeah and Danielle, you wrote about the smaller races, having big effect in Raleigh potentially next year.

Tell us a little bit about that.

- Yeah, so I focused on House District 98, which is up in Northern Mecklenburg and that's incumbent representative John Bradford.

He's the only Republican in Mecklenburg County's delegation.

And he has a democratic challenger, Christie Clark, who's, you know, I believe it's a third rematch for the two of them.

And it is mounting a significant challenge.

And then one of my colleagues, also looked at the state senate race for district 42, which is Jeff Jackson's old seat or seat that he's vacating.

But basically both of those are part of, a number of district statewide that on the democratic side, you know, Democrats are really trying to invest energy into, to prevent a Republican super majority.

And of course Republicans are trying to do the opposite, so they can get a super majority.

The Democrats are really making the battle, about abortion rights saying, you know, if the Republicans get a super majority, they could pass further abortion restrictions and the governor wouldn't be able to veto it.

You know, the Republicans are of course, talking about the typical, talking points, inflation, things like that.

So you know, we'll see.

But I think there's quite a bit more energy, on state legislative races this year, than normal because of the landscape.

- Yeah when you look at that small ends and those small races, they don't seem as important, but taken collectively, they can make a lot of difference in Raleigh and probably will make the difference, over the next two years on a lot of big issues.

Hey, we're out of time, but I appreciate you all joining us this week, for another great discussion.

Thanks for joining us at home as well.

You can always send us your feedback, comments or questions to OffTheRecord@wtvi.org.

We love to hear your emails and we we're glad you're with us every week.

We appreciate it and we'll see you next time right here, on "Off the Record".

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] A production of PBS Charlotte.