B4 by Derek Kravitz


At least 27 thoroughbred race- horses died Monday near West Virginia’s Charles Town Races af- ter a fire broke out at a group of privately owned stables, local and race officials said. The fire started about 4:45 a.m.


Horse owners and tourists worked to free the animals as fire envel- oped several wooden barns across the street from the racetrack and the Hollywood Casino. About 26 horses were saved, said Ed Smith, chief of the Charles Town Inde- pendent Fire Company. “It was feeding time, and a lot of


S


KLMNO 27 horses die in fire near Charles Town


people saw the fire going, but it all happened very quickly,” said Ken Lowe, president of the Charles Town Horsemen’s Benevolent & Protective Association. Smith said that investigators had not determined what caused the fire but that state fire marshals on the scene said it was probably accidental. Two people, a casino employee and a firefighter, suf- fered minor injuries while battling the blaze, officials said. Three wooden barns were destroyed, and a fourth was damaged. Property damage was estimated


at $1.2 million, and the horses were each thought to be worth at least $10,000, although Smith


No holiday break in D.C. race mayor from B1


Fenty, who trailed Gray by 17 points among likely Democratic voters in a Washington Post poll, repeated his belief that high voter turnout could lead to a victory. Fenty cited his successful 2002 campaign against Ward 4 council member Charlene Drew Jarvis. In that race, Fenty won 57 percent of the vote in a primary that drew 14,535 Ward 4 Democratic voters, up from 9,730 in 1998. Fenty’s supporters appeared


heartened by the turnout in Ward 3, where a majority of voters favor Fenty over Gray. But Gray said that Ward 7, where he lives and which he represented as a council mem- ber for two years, does not have a satellite site for early voting. “At the end of the day . . . the issue is not how many come out on a par- ticular day but how many people come out by Sept. 14th,” he said. The day’s activities reflected the candidates’ contrasting styles, which have become as much a part of the campaign as their stances on education, unemployment and gentrification. At Turkey Thicket, the fast- paced Fenty tried to stir up his


supporters — a mix of Howard University students, senior citi- zens and others led by friend Omar Karim — by touting the city’s award of $75 million in fed- eral Race to the Top school-reform funding and a drop in crime under Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier. “Campaigns aren’t easy,” Fenty, 39, told the crowd. “Transition is tough. When you’re out there, it’s gonna be tough.” As Fenty spoke, community ac- tivist Robert Brannum and Pier- pont Mobley, Gray’s Ward 5 cam- paign coordinator, held up Gray signs and shouted, “Free D.C., Fen- ty must go!” “By the way, did I tell you you’re


going to be interrupted by people who aren’t saying anything?” Fen- ty quipped. The mayor later joined friend


Ron Moten, a co-founder of Peace- oholics, for a news conference in which Moten said that Gray once praised the group for its work with youths, the Fenty campaign said. Moten, Karim and friend and fra- ternity brother Sinclair Skinner are the subject of a Gray attack ad that claims that the trio benefited during the mayor’s tenure. Karim and Skinner own companies at the


said their value was “probably much, much higher.” Three sets of owners, including two local horse trainers, had been identified, offi- cials said. Horse racing is big business at


Charles Town, which opened in 1933. It is about 70 miles from Washington, near the Maryland and Virginia borders. The race- track operates about 220 days a year, and annual gambling rev- enue is usually in the hundreds of millions of dollars.


Smith, who has been Charles


Town’s fire chief since 1974, said Monday’s fire was the “worst, as far as damage, that I’ve ever seen.” kravitzd@washpost.com


center of a D.C. Council probe into construction contracts. Gray, meanwhile, walked a


Ward 4 neighborhood near the Riggs-LaSalle Recreation Center. Drivers on Riggs Road honked and residents came outside before Gray could even knock on their doors. Gray, 67, who hasn’t mas- tered the art of a quick grip-and- grin that would allow him to can- vass quickly, held 10-minute con- versations with passersby and res- idents on everything from schools, to a field donated by the Washing- ton Nationals, to a too-tall tree. Anna Watts, 86, who wants the


city to trim a tall tree in front of her house, told Gray she had been asked to put a Fenty sign next to the one she already had for Gray. “I said, ‘You must be crazy,’ ” she told Gray, to laughter. But catty-corner to Watts’s home, a Fenty sign stood in the yard of Juan Graham’s family. “People don’t understand. Fenty’s had a difficult situation. . . . No one looks at the bright side of what he’s done,” Graham, 26, said. Graham, however, added that he is undecided and wants to know more about Gray before he votes for Fenty. “He has until Sep- tember 14th to tell me who he is,” Graham said. stewartn@washpost.com


How a Rhee exit might affect D.C. schools rhee from B1


counting interim leaders. Rhee’s advocates say instability at the top would jeopardize gains in aca- demic achievement, enrollment and teacher quality that have not had a chance to take root. Some urban school experts agree. “It’s really tough to make a dent in one to three years,” said Har- vard education professor Thomas Payzant, who had uncommon dec- ade-long stints as superintendent in San Diego and Boston. The average tenure for a big-city schools leader is about 31


⁄2 years. It’s a measure of the Dis-


trict’s revolving-door history that if Rhee leaves early next year, she would still be the longest-serving schools leader in the past 20 years. By contrast, Superintendent


Jerry D. Weast plans to step down next year after 12 years at the helm of Montgomery County schools. Loudoun County Superintendent Edgar B. Hatrick III has led that school system since 1991. Yet there is reason to believe


that if Rhee leaves, the old pat- terns of churn and change may not play out again in the same way. Major shifts in education pol- icy, wrought by measures such as the 2002 No Child Left Behind law and President Obama’s Race to the Top grant competition, have created expectations and commit- ments that will be difficult for any new administration to compro- mise or reverse.


Rhee, who is beginning a school year that might finish without her, said she is not focused on what would happen if she leaves. “Hon- estly, I don’t think about it,” she said. “That’s not the way my brain works. I don’t spend a ton of time thinking about the what-ifs. I’m a much better thinker when it’s, ‘Here’s the situation, now what?’ ” One vision of life after Rhee in


D.C. schools holds that a switch in leadership would imperil prog- ress. Gray has said he wants a chancellor who will continue to improve schools while closing rifts between the District and its teachers. But Rhee supporters question how much tension or pushback he would tolerate to continue the reform movement. These supporters also say her


departure would undermine a nascent but discernible growth in parent confidence in the school system, especially among young families. Enrollment has stabi- lized after decades of decline. Any new chancellor would need at least two full school years to as- semble a team and produce real evidence of effectiveness. That would bring the city to the cusp of another mayoral election cycle. “Many parents who just en- rolled their children in school weeks ago are wondering if they made a mistake,” said D.C. State Board of Education member Se- kou Biddle (Ward 4). “Children and families in the District get handed more uncertainty, at least


in the short term.” Some of Rhee’s most significant


revisions were embedded in a col- lective bargaining agreement this year with the Washington Teach- ers’ Union. Provisions include the use of job performance, rather than seniority, to govern teacher job assignments. But the contract will be up for renegotiation in 2012, and there is concern that the union, which has endorsed Gray, will be emboldened to press for a rollback of some measures. Teachers could also pressure


Gray and his chancellor to modify the new IMPACT evaluation sys- tem, which has drawn national at- tention for its reliance on test scores and elaborate classroom guidelines to assess instructors. It is wildly unpopular with many ed- ucators, who say it is rigid and geared toward forcing them out rather than fostering growth. Teachers who rate poorly under IMPACT face possible dismissal. Private foundation support, which is underwriting perform- ance pay for teachers and other new programs, could also dry up if donors lose confidence in the leadership’s willingness to tie compensation to effectiveness. “If [Gray’s choice] is a high-


profile outsider with marching or- ders to reconcile the teachers with the administration, then you will get a virtual dismantling of the high-profile policies, including IMPACT,” said Larry Cuban, for- mer Arlington County superin- tendent and emeritus education professor at Stanford University. George Parker, president of the teachers union, rejected the idea that a Gray mayoralty would mean a dilution of reforms in the con- tract. “I don’t see a wholesale turn- ing back,” he said. “Vince Gray is committed to reform, and so is the union.” As for IMPACT, which was not a part of the contract, Parker said Rhee has made some chang- es, based on teacher concerns. In the other vision of a post- Rhee school system, a new regime would not necessarily mean rein- venting the wheel. Rhee built on key elements put in place by her predecessor, Clif- ford Janey, including new stan- dards, curricula and the citywide test known as the D.C. Compre- hensive Assessment System. (Ja- ney learned last week that his con- tract as superintendent in Newark will not be renewed when it ex- pires in 2011.) In essence, what some Gray


supporters long for is school re- form with an olive branch and a smile, rather than the broom and scowl that defined Rhee on the cover of Time magazine. They want a chancellor who can build a broader base of support, yet fol- low through on what Rhee has be- gun. Any candidate for chancellor, said D.C. State Board of Education member Lisa Raymond (Ward 6), should show “a willingness to real- ly for the most part commit to the momentum and the major initia-


tives already in place.” A new mayor and chancellor could have much to lose in a re- treat from the Fenty-Rhee pro- gram. The four-year, $75 million federal Race to the Top grant the District won last month is con- tingent on following through with core Rhee initiatives: aggressive turnaround strategies, with con- tinued use of outside operators for persistently failing schools; ex- pansion of IMPACT into the pub- lic charter schools; broader use of student test score data to inform personnel and instructional deci- sions; and improved professional development for teachers. Jane Hannaway, director of the


Urban Institute’s Education Policy Center, said the steady accumula- tion of education data, including readouts on how students fare with specific teachers from year to year, is likely to bring more coher- ence to decision-making. “Before, you’d see these wild swings in policy, a lot of them on the basis of people’s hunches, and not informed by real hard infor- mation,” Hannaway said. “These data systems are not going to go away, and they’re going to become more refined and inform the basis for a lot of managerial decisions in school districts.” The District also has joined doz- ens of states in adopting national academic standards for what stu- dents will learn in English and math from kindergarten through high school. That will set in mo- tion changes in curricula, testing and teacher training, regardless of who is chancellor. Other changes under Fenty and Rhee are cast in brick and mortar. A $1 billion construction cam- paign has reshaped the public school landscape, with a new Eastern High School on Capitol Hill and a new home for H.D. Woodson High School, due to open in Northeast next fall with a focus on science, technology, engi- neering and math. The Healthy Schools Act, sponsored by D.C. Council member Mary Cheh (D- Ward 3), also is being implement- ed under Rhee. It is expected to bring more local produce and higher nutritional standards to school meals. A Rhee departure would not mark the end of attempts to over- haul D.C. schools. But it would wind down the most closely watched experiment in public education in memory — without real closure. Sam Chaltain, former national director of the Forum for Education and Democracy, an education advocacy organization, has issues with Rhee’s faith in test score data and her failure to mobi- lize a more collective commitment to reform. Still, he said, her depar- ture at this point would be a loss. “None of us will ever have an


opportunity to really evaluate whether her ideas about reform were effective,” he said, “because they are just a snapshot.” turqueb@washpost.com


J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED PRESS


Jefferson Thomas, far left, sings with other members of the Little Rock Nine and President Bill Clinton during a 1999 ceremony at the White House, where they received the Congressional Gold Medal.


JEFFERSON THOMAS, 67 ‘Little Rock Nine’ member, film narrator by Adam Bernstein Jefferson Thomas, one of the


“Little Rock Nine” who provoked a major civil rights battle when they integrated Arkansas’ largest public high school in 1957 over the opposition of Gov. Orval E. Faubus, died Sept. 5 at a care fa- cility in Columbus, Ohio. Mr. Thomas, who was 67, had pancreatic cancer. His death was confirmed by Carlotta Walls La- Nier, who also enrolled at Central High School in 1957 and is presi- dent of the Little Rock Nine Foundation. Many school districts in the South defied the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that declared racial segregation unconstitutional, forcing lawsuits and violent methods of enforcement. One of the first and most shocking show- downs occurred in Little Rock, when Faubus ordered the state’s National Guard to keep black stu- dents out of Central High in Sep- tember 1957. President Dwight D. Eisenhow- er sent the Army’s 101st Airborne Division to carry out the court’s mandate. Nine black students were caught in the middle — cor- ralled by a spitting and rock- throwing mob of white protest- ers. Taylor Branch, a Pulitzer Prize- winning historian of the civil rights movement, once described Central High’s integration as the “first on-site news extravaganza of the modern television era,” and the subsequent images of the confrontation shocked millions for their disturbing look at Amer- ican race relations. Mr. Thomas said decades later


that he was stunned and trauma- tized by the violence. He said Lit- tle Rock neighborhoods had not been segregated, even if the schools were, and he often prac- ticed football on weekends with white kids from Central High be- fore the conflict over integration. “I had no reason to think that the quiet, peaceful place where I grew up could change so drasti- cally,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “I used to go to Central on weekends and play ball with the kids there.” Mr. Thomas, who lived a mile from Central High and three miles from the all-black high school, was a 15-year-old sopho- more and track standout when he volunteered to break the color barrier at Central. More than 100 black students volunteered, but the list was pared down by school officials. Only nine showed up on Sept. 4, 1957, to go to school, but they were denied entry by the Arkan- sas National Guard. They entered successfully on Sept. 25, escorted by the 101st Airborne. Besides LaNier, the others were Minnijean Brown Trickey, Elizabeth Eckford, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed Wair, Terrence Roberts, Melba Pattillo Beals and Ernest Green. The superintendent of schools counseled the teenagers not to re- taliate against white protesters as the war between federal and state authority was captured on televi- sion. Once attending school, many of the nine were harassed and intimidated for months and years to come. Brown Trickey was expelled af- ter dumping a bowl of chili over the head of a white student who had insulted her; Mr. Thomas, Green and LaNier were the only ones of the Nine to graduate from Central, although all of them went on to college and careers. Mr. Thomas said he tried


whenever possible to avoid draw- ing attention. “I would get out of the way,” he told the Times. “I was a skinny lit- tle guy. I’d been on the track team in junior high. I could run fast. I looked at it this way: If I’d been in


OBITUARIES


TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2010


WILL COUNTS/ASSOCIATED PRESS


Little Rock Central High students shout insults at Elizabeth Eckford as she walks toward the school’s entrance during the September 1957 confrontation over integration.


Jefferson Thomas, shown in 1957 photo.


an all-black school and a 6-foot-1, 200- pound guy pushed me around, I wouldn’t go flying into his chest. Mental- ly what would hurt was when little puny guys came up and


slapped you in the face. You couldn’t hit back. “We got better experienced at


getting out of the way as the year went on. You’d laugh at the fact that they ran into the wall while they were going after you.” Jefferson Allison Thomas, the


youngest of seven children, was born Sept. 19, 1942, in Little Rock. He said his role in the in-


tegration of Central High “de- stroyed the family base,” noting that his father was fired from a sales job with International Har- vester because of the controversy. The elder Thomas scraped by as a handyman and, the day after his son’s graduation, moved to the family out of the state. Jefferson Thomas later re- called his family’s journey to Cali- fornia as a scene of misery from the pages of John Steinbeck’s De- pression-era novel “The Grapes of Wrath” — “everything on top of the car and you move off.” He received a degree in busi- ness administration from what became California State Univer- sity at Los Angeles and then served in the Army in Vietnam. He later worked in accounting for Mobil Oil and the Defense De- partment, from which he retired several years ago. In 1964, he narrated “Nine


From Little Rock,” the Academy Award-winning documentary short directed by Charles Gug- genheim that explored the in- cident through Mr. Thomas’s eyes. His first marriage, to Fatima


Thomas, ended in divorce. Survi- vors include his wife, Mary Branch Thomas of Groveport, Ohio, whom he married in 1998; a son from his first marriage, Jef- ferson Thomas Jr. of Los Angeles; two stepchildren, Frank Harper of Pittsburgh and Marilyn Carter of Columbus; three brothers; three sisters; a granddaughter; and a great-granddaughter. On the 40th anniversary of their enrollment, members of the Little Rock Nine received Con- gressional Gold Medals, the high- est award bestowed by Congress. They were presented by Presi- dent Bill Clinton in a White House ceremony. At a commemoration held near


the 50th anniversary of Central High’s integration, Mr. Thomas tried to bring levity to an other- wise somber occasion. Although discouraged from participating in athletics, he recalled attending a pep rally at the school and


cheering along with white stu- dents, whom he thought were singing the school fight song and the state flag. LaNier glared at him, he said.


He then realized the problem: “That was not the fight song. That was not the Arkansas flag. They’d come in singing ‘Dixie’ and waving the Confederate flag.” bernsteina@washpost.com


December 21, 1944 - September 7, 2009 In Memory of our Father, Brother and Friend We love and miss you.


INMEMORIAM RONALD JAY CAVE


CAVE Love,Your Daughters and Brothers


ROBERT EUGENE DANFORTH, JR. Happy Birthday!


DANFORTH We love you.We miss you.


Love always,Mom,Dad, Kim and Jackie You are in our hearts always. GLOVER


September 07, 1925 - August 07, 2002 Dear Mother, we miss you so very much and want you to know that you are always in our hearts. This is your 8th birthday year without you being here with us. We will always love you. Until then....HAPPY BIRTHDAY toYOU.


Your Children, Grandchildren & Greatgrand HALE LoveYou Much, BETTIE R.GLOVER


September 7, 1922 - January 4, 2004


In loving memory of our dearest wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother on her 88th birthday. Happy Birthday,Granma! Forever in our hearts and prayers. With all our love,


Cynthia, Patricia, Mike,Andie, Jimi, Kirsten, Tristan and Gloria


HUNTER LILLIE MAE HUNTER


In Loving Memory of my wife who departed this life on September 7, 2009. Deep in my heart and families your memories are kept. Your Loving Husband - Pratt Allen Lee Family


NORRIS Jim, Olivia, David, Jill, Jon, Erin, Ethan,


FLORENCE M.HALE


September 7, 1935 - March 15, 2007 Happy Birthday


Your loving husband, Paul


LUCILLE HELEN NORRIS


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