The Face of Hate in Wake County: Votes 5 - 4 to Resegregate

[Hannah Bell]

Despite spirited protests by young people who came to chant, "hey hey, ho ho, resegregation's got to go," racism prevailed this evening as the Wake County School Board voted 5-4 along party lines to end one of the most successful school integration and diversity programs in the U. S. By doing so, the Republican majority, whose campaigns were run by the big money and the old, hateful veterans from the era of Jim Crow, brought Raleigh, Cary, and the rest of the Research Triangle back to the era of separate and unequal schools.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/

On a 5-4 vote, the Wake County school board’s ruling majority agreed tonight to stop busing students for diversity and to move to a community-based system of student assignment.

The community-based system will be developed during a nine to 15-month period and means the system will stop trying to mix students from different socio-economic backgrounds, even if the change creates more schools with high concentrations of students from poor families.

Board member John Tedesco, point man for the resolution, said the current system already allows for high numbers of high-poverty schools. More than three in 10 Wake Schools now have more than 40 percent students who qualify for free and reduced price lunches, he said.

“We are pretending that the problem doesn’t exist” and that the current solution works, Tedesco said.

The decision came nearly nine hours into a tumultuous day on which chair Ron Margiotta and four fellow Republican members elected last fall stuck to their guns on their anti-busing-for-diversity stand. Faced with some vocal opponents and shouted comments, they beat back multiple amendments by opponents who didn’t want to pass the resolution without more study, more research and more information on its cost.

[bluestateguy]

1. Busing was a horrible policy

It's being abandoned all over the country, in many cases with the approval of liberal mayors and school boards.

Busing often worsened racial tensions in neighborhoods, and often failed to even achieve the promise of integration: well off white parents would just yank their kids out of public schools in favor of private schools.

Having known people who were pawns in these little games of experimentation, they all told me the same thing: they hated it; having to wake up at 6AM to be bused to a school in a neighborhood across town where they knew nobody, and often faced social ostracizing; not being able to partake in extracurricular activities because they had to catch the bus at 3:30 for the long ride across town.

[The Northerner]

2. I agree

[Incitatus]

3. good points. It was a stupid idea. nt

[Hannah Bell]

4. wake forest is 7.9 miles square. you can get across town in 15 minutes.

it's being abandoned because the country is resegregating.

[Incitatus]

5. What does Wake Forest have to do with Wake County? Wake County is over 800 sq miles.

[Hannah Bell]

6. you're right, my error.

Tedesco is laying out a vision in which Wake would be divided into up to 20 community-based assignment zones, each with a mixture of magnet, year-round and traditional-calendar schools. He proposes spreading magnet schools around the county - removing programs from some of the 33 existing magnet schools, most of which are clustered inside the Beltline around Raleigh.

His plan would lead to the creation of high-poverty schools in some areas, which he said could be addressed by giving such schools additional money. But the main challenge to implementing the plan may come from members of the board majority.

Tedesco's plan confirms the fears of magnet parents who've been the most vocal critics of the new school board majority. They've argued that abandoning the diversity policy and significantly altering the magnet program would lead to de facto resegregation.

"They're going to get away with saying there's still magnet programs," said Lisa Callan, a parent at Combs Elementary, a magnet school in Raleigh. "But it won't be the same. It's going to be awatered-down version."

Magnet schools are part of a carrot-and-stick approach for maintaining diversity.

While some students are involuntarily bused for diversity, others are encouraged to attend magnet schools voluntarily. Unique academic programs have been used since 1982 to entice suburban students to apply for magnet schools that are mostly located in higher-poverty areas in and near Southeast Raleigh.

[Tunkamerica]

9. That guy is such a putz.

3 people got arrested at the protests last night. The actual meeting looked pretty stressful with all the outbursts. But I think Wake county got what it deserves for voting those assholes in. They made their bed. This guy is trying to do as much as he can as quick as he can.

[Hannah Bell]

10. lol. i posted the picture cause he looks so creepy. i'd never heard of him before i saw it.

but he looks pretty evil to me.

he prays at the board meetings. icky.


oh, i just realized: this is the debate that featured one of the board members saying: "the animals are out of their cages" when some people booed this plan.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gJUeLBbrGWWfnhAN8ik0m_CZ_33gD9E8MA582

[Judi Lynn]

18. He does look evil. He also looks deficient. Repellant personality.

He should try to grow that beard long enough to wrap it over and around his nasty, poorly composed face.

Winger lower natures simply show on their faces. Impossible to miss.

People who use their lives to make life harder for others can never be happy. They bring it on themselves.

[melm00se]

23. the funny thing is

that no one came out to vote during this election even KNOWING what those candidates' platforms were.

Shame on the Wake County voters who sat on their fat asses and didn't even make an effort to get out and fill in the little arrows that make up the ballots here.

[apocalypsehow]

7. Unfortunately, I must side with the majority. Busing is divisive, and gives racists a patina of

legit cred in mainstream circles from which they should be excluded once and for all. Better to focus on improving neighborhood schools in every school district in this country - by raising taxes as high as they need to go to make that a reality.

[Hannah Bell]

8. uh, right. like that's going to happen.

poor segregated schools will get poorer, & charterized to KIPP prison schools.

[mmonk]

11. Thanks Hannah. I'm going to have something on this this week.

The Board is being "trained" by the Civitas Institute. I have acquired some of the training materials through a formal records request through the state's open records law. You will be amazed at the who's who of rightwing ideology that was at one of the "training" sessions.

[Hannah Bell]

12. Another Broad-like "training" institution?

This is making me sick. It's a stealth coup.

If you remember, pls PM me when your thread goes up. I want to make sure I see it, thanks.


The vision of the Civitas Institute is of a North Carolina whose citizens enjoy liberty and prosperity derived from limited government, personal responsibility and civic engagement. The mission of the Civitas Institute is to facilitate the implementation of conservative policy solutions to improve the lives of all North Carolinians. Towards that end, Civitas provides research, information and training to:

• empower citizens to become better civic leaders and more informed voters;
• educate emerging public leaders, enabling them to be more effective in the democratic process; and
• inform elected officials about citizen-based, free-market solutions to problems facing North Carolinians.

http://www.jwpcivitasinstitute.org/about


Start-up funding from:

John William Pope Foundation:

http://www.capitol-monitor.org/non-profit-profiles/john-william-pope-foundation-o.php


not surprisingly, a funder of the usual conservative think-tanks (cato, heritage) as well as school "choice" & vouchers.


With personnel writing for far-right journal Human Events:

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31497

Mr. Schalin is a senior writer with the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in Raleigh, North Carolina. Ms. Robinson joined the Pope Center in January 2007. She was previously the E.A. Morris Fellowship Assistant at the John Locke Foundation, where she worked since 2001.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Events

HUMAN EVENTS gives voice to the great conservative thinkers of our era -- Newt Gingrich, Michelle Malkin, L. Brent Bozell, Terence Jeffrey, Bruce Bartlett, Thomas Sowell, David Limbaugh, Oliver North, Pat Buchanan and many more.

HUMAN EVENTS is the periodical in which the peerless Ann Coulter, author of the smash bestseller, Guilty, drives multicultural defeatists up the wall. (Recent sample: "Baby formula doesn't kill people. Islamic fascists kill people.")

HUMAN EVENTS is the home of Jihad Watch - the fearless watchdog column that alerts you to the true intentions and deadly plots of the greatest threat to world peace since the fall of the Soviet Union. "Page 3" confronts liberal lawmakers with the kind of tough questions the Big Media won't ask -- and then puts their outrageous answers on record.

http://www.humanevents.com/about-he.php


former "human events" editor now with racist website vdare, calls "human events" too liberal. lol.

i remember when "human events" was most well-known for its supports of arthur jensen's racist IQ theories.


HE leadership in turn part of this:

http://www.seekgod.ca/cnp.htm

The CNP, according to their 1996 Telephone Directory, was founded in 1981. While those involved are from the United States, their organizations and influence cover the globe, both religiously and politically. Members include corporate executives, television evangelists, legislators, former military or high ranking government officers, leaders of 'think tanks' dedicated to molding society and those who many view as Christian leadership. Members in many cases are owners or leaders from industry such as lumber, oil, mining, commodities, real estate, the media, including owners of radio, television and print, with all aspects of life covered. Many are involved in education, determining to influence society's direction by direct input with children and youth. Many advocate from the arena of right wing politics, conservatives, family friendly, reconstructionists, dominionists, and so on.

CNP members are found in Christian organizations encompassing James Dobson's Focus on the Family, Bill Bright's Campus Crusade for Christ and it's many branches, Robert Weiner's Maranatha shepherding group, Gideons, Youth for Christ, World Vision, Wycliffe Bible Translators, Billy Graham Evangelical Assoc., Intercessors for America, International Charismatic Bible Ministries, National Evangelical Assoc., National Religious Broadcasters Assoc., Promise Keepers and many more. The potential spiritual impact of this organization, which claims educational status, could be unparalleled.


DOMINIONISTS.

The 1982-1983 officers of the Council for National Policy (CNP) were: Thomas F. Ellis, pres; Nelson Bunker Hunt, vice pres, Bob J. Perry sec-tres; Rep. Louis (Woody) Jenkins, exec dir; and Dr. Tim LaHaye, immediate past pres. (1)

According to Nelson Bunker Hunt in his deposition in the Iran-Contra hearings, the presidency of the CNP rotates. He has been president, Pat Robertson has been president, and the president at the time of the hearings was Richard DeVos. (2)

Hunt also noted that right-wing stalwarts Joseph Coors, Paul Weyrich, and Howard Phillips had served on the executive committee. (2)

http://www.seekgod.ca/1982-1983cnp.htm


Edgar Prince, father of the "Blackwater" Prince = part of this bunch.

1996 In Memoriam > Pg 4> Edgar Prince, Fred Schlafly (Phyllis's husband)

[mmonk]

13. I will. I'm going to get my pdf file creator busy.

[Hannah Bell]

14. thanks.

[OneGrassRoot]

15. Interesting. I look forward to seeing that. Thanks. n/t

[mmonk]

16. It's a full blown war against public education.

[OneGrassRoot]

21. I'm in Wake County, too. So I'm interested in the back story...

thanks for gathering the information.

:hi:


Edit to add that my experience in the last decade here, regarding schools, is that the thumpers homeschool, not wanting to expose their kids to "librul" education, yet the teachers -- in my direct experience -- are right-wingers. There's an English teacher in my daughter's high school -- teacher of the year, every single year -- who is a Palin fan and talks politics nonstop, VERY inappropriately so. She was trashing HRC on Monday.

I can't wait until my daughter graduates so I can speak my mind without repercussion; and, trust me, there ARE repercussions with this group. I've seen it. :(

[mmonk]

24. My oldest is now at NC State and my youngest is at the Fletcher

Academy because he has learning issues and chronic crohn's disease (and I got tired of the "bargaining" process of IEP's to get them to educate him). So I can speak freely and will do so. :) I've gotten plenty of nasty phone calls from previous written LTE's in the The Peoples Forum of the News & Observer, so I am used to it.

[rucky]

17. Unreal.

[depakid]

19. The problems associated with de facto vs. de jure segration always went further than schools

Redlining is one such example- though there are many, many more.

Busing- like the current health care bill, dealt only with some of the more obvious and apparent symptoms. It was a reactionary measure which when viewed in context of the times, appeared to help set a course, but failed to address root causes of the problems.

Which as we can see in Rhode Island Central and elsewhere, are still with us.

[Solly Mack]

20. k/r

[blindpig]

22. k&r n/t

[vaberella]

25. White Power...Long Live Racism...

Seriously this nation is something fuckin' else. I've said it before and I'll say it again...Obama 's candidacy for president introduced me to the fight and struggle of the Civil Right's Movement like nothing before. The subsequent events, from the time of his run to this moment in time and I'm sure far into his re-election we will see more of these divisive actions against people of color. Why? Because racists are afraid and they will do anything to stop change and hope.