Parents will now get detailed written notices of suspensions, including a description of the appeals process, among other changes.

Not all board members were satisfied. Board member Leigh Bordley expressed concern over the makeup of the appeal panel, which calls for three teachers to review their principal's punishment. She suggested letting the teachers recommend their own punishment, without knowing what the principal had recommended beforehand.

"I think that's the best we can do to overcome the structural problem in our system, which has employees being faced with the prospect of either overriding a principal's decision or not," she said.

But board members did not agree.

The original changes passed in a 6-1 vote, with board member Fredrick Davis opposing. Davis did not state why he opposed the changes.

Kainz addresses critics

School board member Kirsten Kainz responded sharply to critics of standardized tests and the Reading Street curriculum at the Oct. 22 meeting.

"The hypocrisy that I identified in myself was that my living wage, my ability to go on vacation, the neighborhood where I can purchase a home, the safety and health of my children are all benefits of my social status that have been conferred to me from two sources: one, the family I was born into and two, my performance on standardized tests," she said in a statement. "The hypocrisy I recognized in myself I often hear when listening to the critics of standardized testing."

"To sit in my position of relative social comfort and fail to work for a system that can not only enrich the educational experience of its students but also improve the test scores of its students is to reap the benefits of my society while simultaneously denying them to other people."

"And its not just any other people. It's not the people who live next door to me. I'll be honest, in Durham, it's the people who live on the east side of Durham. It's the people who live on the east side of Durham primarily, and I think we're done with that."

"The burden our generation has inherited is a stiff one. Thirty years ago, it was easier to sweep people under the rug. Thirty years ago, it was easier for us to push them into special education. It was easier to push them into education tracks where their performance was not being evaluated. I don't think we've reached the final point in developing a quality education program for all students in the United States...But the burden that my generation has inherited is that we can't sweep the children under the rug anymore, and we must do right by them.

"I am much more reluctant in my public life to criticize standard testing because I am daily aware the benefit my society confers on me based on my test scores, my husband's test scores, my family's test scores. But [in Durham] we're going to use those test scores as a marker for awhile."

Visit the Bull's Eye blog at blogs.newsobserver.com/bullseye to read her entire statement.