Gerard Robinson didn't tug nervously at his red tie like Rodney Dangerfield. But Virginia's new education secretary faced a tough audience Tuesday night.
The people assembled at the Richmond Crusade for Voters meeting included skeptics of the education gospel according to Robinson -- a chapter-and-verse litany of the virtues of charter schools and school choice.
Robinson's fanfare-free public debut occurred in a two-thirds-filled union hall in Richmond's North Side. He was invited by Crusade president Antione Green, a board member at the fledgling Patrick Henry Charter School.
Robinson is assuming the reins of a state with only four charter schools and an authorizing structure inhospitable to them.
He faces a wariness of charter schools among black leaders, despite their endorsement by President Barack Obama and a record of improving the achievement of black students in low-income urban areas.
That mistrust cropped up in a question from Michael Brown, a former secretary of the state Board of Elections.
"Maybe I've missed something," Brown said, "but I hear a lot about charter schools. I've overheard you say, 'I'm going to support traditional education, public education.'"
The vast majority of children will remain in traditional schools, which have an assortment of problems, Brown said. "And if many of those things were dealt with, then many of the folks would in fact stay in what would be called the traditional public schools."
Robinson fielded several variations on the charter vs. traditional question but maintained that the two can co-exist.
But with charter schools you get the good, the bad and the ugly. They're not easily typecast as a pariah or a panacea.
"This is not an issue about the right wing or the left wing," Robinson said. "It's about giving our children wings to fly away from schools that don't [teach] and land in schools that do."
But shouldn't all schools nurture children's wings?
Robinson, as public education secretary, shouldn't have to offer what sounded like a disclaimer: "I will work to continue to support the traditional public school system, because that's where most of our children will be."
And when he speaks, he shouldn't shortchange his life story.
He grew up in Los Angeles with other students "who had three options for getting out of the'hood: You either had sports, you had academics or you had violence."
Robinson had football. But after getting hurt his senior year, he found himself with a 1.8 grade-point average, no credits in algebra, biology or chemistry, and no sympathy from a teacher. "And that was my epiphany."
He studied three years at a community college while unloading 18-wheel trucks and hosing down meat rooms at a grocery store. Along the way, he found a mentor. "I said if I can get through this, I'm going to dedicate my life to education."
He earned degrees from Howard University and Harvard University and is pursuing a doctorate from the University of Virginia. He now shapes the lives of students as indifferent as he once was. He owes it to hard work.
That message earns respect in any crowd. Unless Robinson wants to be pigeonholed as the charter-schools guy, he may want to stick to it.
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or mwilliams@timesdispatch.com.
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