There are legitimate concerns about the use of surveillance cameras -- concerns to be worked out through conversation, trial and error, and the legislative and judicial processes. Using the sound of a gunshot in an urban area -- sure indication of a crime -- to turn on surveillance cameras seems awfully savvy and hardly an abridgement of the rights of law-abiding citizens.

Right now, the state is inconsistent. For instance, Virginia is a leader in using DNA to catch criminals -- or to sometimes prove those charged or convicted of a crime are innocent. And cameras are OK for policing tollbooths, but not for deadly intersections. Is it that lives don't matter? Or that money matters more, given the increasing importance of tolls for financing highways? Keeping in mind all the promotion of public-private partnerships to build roads, you can bet that no private company is going to join the state in a toll-financed venture without some kind of surveillance of the tollbooth to prevent people from driving without paying.

Newport News' success teaches some large lessons: It reminds us that big educational challenges are not addressed unless they are talked about out in the open, unless progress is checked frequently and the score posted. Newport News is making progress because it's making this a priority, and it's making sure the scoreboard is big and public. It puts the truth about the achievement gap out in the open. It directs attention to it in key publications, including its strategic plan: graphs and data depicting the difference between black and white students on SOL tests, SAT scores, Advanced Placement test results and dropout rates. And near the top of its list of priorities: closing that achievement gap.