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Saturday, February 13, 2010
Stealth
When does a Republican not run as a Republican? When the office sought is on the Wake County School Board. The admission that Deborah Prickett changed her party affiliation from Republican to Unaffiliated in order to run (successfully) for the Board of Education in Raleigh, because she thought that being Republican might hurt her chances, brings up an obvious question:
Why would voters conceivably think twice about electing a Republican, any Republican, to a school board, any school board?
Might it be that Republicans (especially in the South, bless its heart) don't really believe in public education and have extolled the virtues of being rich enough to afford private schools, or being brilliant enough to home-school your own youngins?
Or might it be that Republicans (esp. in South, yadda yadda), even when they believe that public education is okay, are a trifle concerned about the complexion of the kid sitting next to their own lily white offspring?
Or might it be that Republicans seem awfully willing to throw science out of the curriculum in favor of Creationism and to do what they can to prepare students in public schools for life in, say, the 12th Century rather than the 21st?
Whatever, now that Deborah Prickett is firmly installed on the Wake County Board of Education, she's gotten all brave and stuff and declared that she's actually a Republican and damn proud of it! Which only helps explain the severe right turn that educational policies have recently made in Wake County.
Why would voters conceivably think twice about electing a Republican, any Republican, to a school board, any school board?
Might it be that Republicans (especially in the South, bless its heart) don't really believe in public education and have extolled the virtues of being rich enough to afford private schools, or being brilliant enough to home-school your own youngins?
Or might it be that Republicans (esp. in South, yadda yadda), even when they believe that public education is okay, are a trifle concerned about the complexion of the kid sitting next to their own lily white offspring?
Or might it be that Republicans seem awfully willing to throw science out of the curriculum in favor of Creationism and to do what they can to prepare students in public schools for life in, say, the 12th Century rather than the 21st?
Whatever, now that Deborah Prickett is firmly installed on the Wake County Board of Education, she's gotten all brave and stuff and declared that she's actually a Republican and damn proud of it! Which only helps explain the severe right turn that educational policies have recently made in Wake County.
Labels: Republican "brand", Wake County Schools
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
How the Republicans Play in Wake County
The Republican take-over of the Wake County school board has already been chronicled.
Now add the Wake County Commission, where one Democrat is sick (and hence absent) from the 4-3 Democratic majority, and another commissioner had to go to the bathroom, so in her absence down the hall in the crapper (so to speak) the Republican commissioners elected one of their own as chair.
Maybe you'd better read about it for yourself. Wasn't this the plot of a bad Dick Van Dyke comedy in 1967?
Now add the Wake County Commission, where one Democrat is sick (and hence absent) from the 4-3 Democratic majority, and another commissioner had to go to the bathroom, so in her absence down the hall in the crapper (so to speak) the Republican commissioners elected one of their own as chair.
Maybe you'd better read about it for yourself. Wasn't this the plot of a bad Dick Van Dyke comedy in 1967?
Labels: Wake County, Wake County Schools
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Wake County School Board ... The Sound, The Fury, and The Dyspepsia
The new conservative majority on the Wake County School Board took control yesterday, and they seized the moment to install themselves in power, to spring new agenda items on the board's minority without prior warning, and to end the hated "diversity" policies of the previous majority. It was a tumultuous meeting. Citizens yelled at them. Teachers walked out. And ... oh, yeah ... one of the new board members regaled the crowd with a Bible reading.
We don't pretend to know all the background on the issues (Keung Hui of the N&O has a barebones recap of the major actions taken yesterday), but the crowing of the John Locke Foundation crowd tells us a great deal about this particular regression in educational policy.
FOOTNOTE
Andrea Verykoukis at The Progressive Pulse points out that the new majority arrived for their swearing in with an agenda they'd obviously worked out and agreed on beforehand and asks if that could possibly be legal. They did, and it was legal, and if I were in their position I would have done the same thing, though perhaps with less jackbooting. If the new right-wing majority is going to operate in this arrogant manner, however, I would expect them to remain in the majority no longer than the next election.
We don't pretend to know all the background on the issues (Keung Hui of the N&O has a barebones recap of the major actions taken yesterday), but the crowing of the John Locke Foundation crowd tells us a great deal about this particular regression in educational policy.
FOOTNOTE
Andrea Verykoukis at The Progressive Pulse points out that the new majority arrived for their swearing in with an agenda they'd obviously worked out and agreed on beforehand and asks if that could possibly be legal. They did, and it was legal, and if I were in their position I would have done the same thing, though perhaps with less jackbooting. If the new right-wing majority is going to operate in this arrogant manner, however, I would expect them to remain in the majority no longer than the next election.
Labels: John Locke Foundation, Wake County Schools
