Across the country, public education is under attack. The number of for-profit charter schools has increased while teachers’ unions are being dismantled and budget shortfalls have put hundreds of thousands of education jobs in jeopardy. In Wake County, the new school board majority — dubbed the “Resegregationist 5″ by critics — have been using race as an issue to distract and divide the public. Their real goal is to weaken and dismantle the nationally-acclaimed Wake County school system in order to make charter schools more attractive. The new board majority may seem like they are “fulfilling campaign promises” with their push for neighborhood schools but it is a ploy to create massively over-crowded schools in both poor and rich neighborhoods.

Art Pope and Bob Luddy were the two largest campaign contributors in the October 2009 school board election. Pope is the North Carolina state head of Americans for Prosperity, a far-right advocacy group, and uses AFP and his vast array of right-wing media to promote charter schools and urge North Carolina to lift its cap on the number of charters in the state. Bob Luddy runs three private schools in Wake County and a charter school in Franklin County. He has stated he wishes to build a network of 25 to 50 schools in Wake County based on his Thales Academy in Apex (of which school board chairman Ron Margiotta is on the board of trustees).

Both men provided a combined $38,000 to get their Republican candidates elected. But that sum is chump change compared to the financial rewards Luddy would reap if his schools were approved for charter status. Consider: if the new board majority approved just one of Luddy’s schools as a charter, under current NC per-pupil spending, a school with 300 students would receive over $2 million in taxpayer money — YOUR money – every year.

It’s not about race. It’s not about diversity. It’s about money. 93.5% of 40,000 Wake County parents surveyed felt they were satisfied with the quality of their child’s education. My goal is to obtain 21,670 signatures — one more than the total who voted the new board majority into office in October and the November runoff election. Sign this petition and let’s get these Republican clowns as far away from our schools as possible.

To sign:

http://education.change.org/petitions/view/republican_millionaires_should_have_no_voice_in_the_future_of_wake_schools

Previous articles:

The Exhaustive Guide On Why Your New School System Sucks(Part One)

The Exhaustive Guide On Why Your New School System Sucks(Part Two)

How Our Town Was Astroturfed

Real Losers In Wake Schools Fiasco — Teachers

I’ve been out of the game for a while. Unlike 99% of my peers, as soon as the financial crisis hit I became instantly obsessed with a desire to learn more and music got kicked down to the bottom of my priority scale. So while I can’t tell you how “gnar” the new 7″ from that new Durham band is, I can probably explain how a credit-default swap works in under 30 seconds. Priorities, man, priorities.

It’s the priorities that are keeping me from attending. It’s not that I think Hopscotch is too expensive and it’s not some weird desire to be contrarian or anything. It’s that I don’t like live music and I suspect I never did. The standing still with arms crossed staring, the awkward lunch-break conversations between bands, the annoying behavior of blackout losers — sorry, this anti-social nerd would rather drink and read in his room alone. But that’s just me. That shouldn’t keep YOU, the average hipster-American, from attending.

Woods would be an excellent choice to go see. They’re so good I actually considered dragging my sad ass out there next month. The criminally under-appreciated Kaze and the rest of 9th Wonder’s show would be awesome as well, probably your best chance all year to catch some new hip-hop. Savannah’s Kylesa won’t be nearly as incredible as they were rocking the fuck out of an Everett Ave. living room, but definitely still worth checking out. The best of the best of local bands will all be playing, and if you don’t like Broken Social Scene, there’s something wrong with you.

Grayson Currin did an excellent job setting this shit up. I really mean that. Go, have fun, get wasted, celebrate Raleigh. I’ll be here, ready to talk your ear off about the coming American economic collapse when you get back.

The only thing more politically deranged than these mopes are their supporters. See, you might wake up enjoying life in your socialist paradise, but for millions of Americans, every day under the totalitarian yoke of the Obama regime brings them a little closer to the breaking point, their dreams shattered as all power is ceded to immigrants and unions while hard-working white men and Christian women get the shaft.  Every once in a while, a story hits that gives them the fuel to harness every single drop of their ignorant rage.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

These are their stories.

On WRAL, dgarrard2 couldn’t resist the tie-in to Obamacare in his anti-socialist screed: “I guess Etheridge is touchy on the subject of whether or not he fully supports Obama’s socialist agenda? I believe that question was answered when he voted for the healthcare bill despite the majority of Americans NOT wanting it! Vote this guy out of office in November and put anybody that will truly represent the views of North Carolina’s residents and not those of the socialist agenda!”

bcarolinabreeze took a different tack, using the generic “North Carolinians are so tough and fearsome and smart” approach: “He wouldn’t try that back in North Carolina. Not that he would be pandering to voters, he would just…shall we say…his hind parts would be quite sore. BTW, Youtube rules!” dugmuster concurred, “Someone needs to slap that old man in the face. I want to get a camera on him and see if he grabbed me like that. He would regret it.” while fdp1 throws in an attempt at humor with his violent fantasy: “You’re true character comes out under pressure. Etheridge is an arrogant phoney and a fake. If it where my second son, Etherige would be in a hospital. If it where my 3rd son, I would have lodged assult charges against the bully!”

MarcoPolo seethes at the double standard: “If he had been a republican, the media bias is such that he would have resigned by noon.” Yeah, just ask Mark Sanford! TheeDude takes it a step further: “I was not shocked when I saw this. Its the typical action of a liberal that has no regard for anything except his own agenda. Lets see how our local liberal TV, News Paper and Radio stations help him out of this mess. 10 to 1 says he will get a pass…” When a commenter asked why the kid’s face was blurred in the video, ContinuityMan cheerfully replied: “He doesn’t want 500 thugs from the local SEIU branch threatening him in his front lawn. You think there won’t be retaliation over this? Ask James O’Keefe.”

qgirl232 bemoans the decline of our democracy, asking “Why are our Congressmen and women allowed to get away with almost murder and no one take a stand?” She then goes on the attack against any commenter who has an issue with the video: “What is it with you die hard E fans? It doesn’t matter if there were props, or if the students baited him. What matters is that Bobby, who all of you must think is a saint, got physical! He didn’t just sit and yell or spit like Barney Frank usually does then cover it up by saying awful words. Bob got physical!”

floyd_lawson throws up his hands, admits defeat: “He HAS to be arrested for this, that is absolutely outrageous!!!! Oh wait, he’s a democrat so he’s above the law, nevermind.” Don’t be so sarcastic, Floyd! Puff up your chest like the commenter below yours: “All of you that come on here and try to defend Big Bad Bob must be what, 16 or so? You need to study what this country was founded on, and how the dems are ruining it. No matter, come November you’re going to see something you’ve never, ever seen in this country, a cleaning of house like never before. It’ll be YEARS before the dems ever have any kind of power again, if ever. Whether you like it or you don’t like it, get use to it!”

On and on it went. katkins01 screeches: “A private citizen is not required to identify himself/herself by name to simply ask a PUBLIC SERVANT WHO SUBSISTS ON TAXPAYER DOLLARS a simple question. He’s acting like gestapo and liberals are protecting him. The double standard is embarrassing, and totally predictable.” woodybeez: “bob etheridge is nothing but a dead beat living of the tax payers and representing harry reid. he does not represent his district he represent nobody but hiself. just wait till they get the health care bill/bill in higher taxes he just passed along with the other cronies and the #1 cronie in the w/h they care nothing about the country or the people. it time for that deadbeat to go HOME PERNAMENTLY ALONG WITH BRAD DEADBAT MILLER AND THE REST. WE NEED TO CLEAN HOUSE IN NOVEMBER”

I had more than my fill of this garbage, but continued to read because I knew with all the anti-Obama anti-Democrat anti-healthcare pontificating, someone sooner or later was going to make a crack about Etheridge and the AZ illegal immigration law. JAFOinWF did not disappoint: “I’m surprised that WRAL is actually covering this since it doesn’t fit their agenda. So, now I’d like to see Elcid explain to me why Etheridge wants to know who these kids are but AZ police cannot ask for ID in that state?!”

To be fair, some of the comments were about the accuracy of the edited video, and some cheered Etheridge for not taking any crap from Republican twerps. A few even nailed the truth: Etheridge was drunk when accosted and acted as such. The overwhelming majority of comments came from right-wingers and had little if anything to do with the video or the article. They can be divided into three camps: the first is angry assholes who took from this article a vicarious and bizarre desire to slug an elected official. The second, heavily overlapping with the first, is comprised of Rethugs who have been ranting about an electoral “Republican bloodbath” since Valentine’s Day 2009 and are using this incident to justify their moronic worldview that the 2010 election won’t be like all those other elections where 90% of incumbents win. The third is the most insane. In their dystopian view, all media is firmly in the pocket of Obama and the Radical Democrats and whatever suits their “agenda” is what We The People receive. This is 9/11 Truther logic at its finest. And yet a strong plurality of comments expressed exactly this view, with some going past the usual liberal media smear and implying that WRAL was actively working to cover this story up. Yes, that’s right, people actually believe some minion in the bowels of the media basement was sweating over how best to cover up this viral internet video because it made a Democrat “look bad.” Never mind that it was on the front-page of the N&O site and WRAL and News 14 covered it. Shit, never mind that progressives regularly criticize Obama in print and CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News all had health-insurance industry shills on their programs. Conspiracy!

I personally recommend that any jobs bill proposed by Congress include $$$ for rooting out “liberal bias” in media. Put the unemployed ‘wingers on the case. They’d work 16 hours a day.

]]> http://www.raleighgawker.com/troll-patrol-wral-commenters-have-meltdown-over-etheridge-video/feed 2 http://www.raleighgawker.com/jackpots-last-days http://www.raleighgawker.com/jackpots-last-days#comments Tue, 13 Apr 2010 01:46:29 +0000 RG http://www.raleighgawker.com/?p=850 I was a hater. Goddammit, I was such a hater. Always for the most childish reasons. First, I couldn’t understand how people drank sooooo much there — dumb. Next up was raging against those driving 25 minutes to go to MY neighborhood bar — also dumb. Too much self-awareness got me the last time. Months and months of getting up at 7 and eating shit drilled this sick little miserable hole of jealousy in my head. The bitterness I had towards the world became directed straight at the young and the wasted, the happy and well-rested jerks who could party all hours of the night and consume the alcohol I could not.

Matt Taibbi said complaining about assholes is our #1 pastime, and when it comes to Raleigh’s liberal arts graduates and service industry, he could not be more right. There’s something about witnessing the endless fake outrage summoned to outdo one’s circle of friends in Jackpot-bashing that makes it seem like a rite of passage, something you can always rely on to pass the time. Why talk about anything real when you can indulge in “God, why is it always so smoky in there (as you’ll once again find out for yourself in a few hours).”

Last year Scrooge here had a change of heart. I embraced the shit talk, I thought it was funny. I had no need for mocking haters or mentally filing complaints under F for “first world problems.” No, after the piles of self-loathing I accumulated stewing on my pathetic career, in front of me were situations I could deal with, the gossip and the cartoonish stupidity of the tables of drunks working as the perfect antidote for my rage and misery.

I loved it. With my new attitude, I no longer felt like a pariah. It was just so tough to refute that all-encompassing logic of “Who gives a shit?” And no one ever did. Whenever I had the time and the dollars (rare), I was able to retreat to my self-important bubble that serves everyone else so well. Whenever the bellyaching would start, I cheerfully offered my solution: DRINK A FUCKING BEER! Take a shot. Relax. Life isn’t so bad. Turn your brain off for a few hours, as I am preparing to do.

Now it’s gone. No more watching over 2am scenes of shitfaced townies you feel like you’ve known your whole life. Boo hoo. The bashing transitioned into fake tears and status updates of “looking forward to Kings re-opening this summer.” The remarkable thing about Jackpot (and the reason I feel outsiders hated it the most) is that the mystique of the bar made people who didn’t deserve it feel popular, interesting, exciting. As for me, I still refuse to be a hater. After having a front-row seat for the cruelty and unimaginable pettiness of middle America, I can say with 100% “trust me” certainty that the bubble is the best lot the world’s going to offer.

Even with six new schools opening in the last two years, 51 year-rounds, and 1,071 mobile classrooms, WCPSS is operating at 91.7% capacity. Now just how bad do you think over-crowding will be after a hack study with Ron Margiotta in charge RE-assigns 140,000 kids to their “community” zone? Unfortunately, over-crowding was always the point. Luddy plans to construct a network of 25 to 50 schools based on his Thales Academy and he needs chaos and a failing school system to make it work. So when this plan blows up, as it always was supposed to, Luddy can claim public schools fail children and a) demand the charter school cap be lifted so Wake County taxpayers can line his pockets or b) start catering with his low-tuition private academies to suburban parents furious with 30+ class sizes.

Luddy’s got all the angles covered. But he needed the help of two of his rabid anti-public school trustees and an arch-conservative millionaire “philanthropist” to get him there:

Same dudes behind the Tea Parties are behind this shit

Annoyed at the suckers who spent all last year protesting free health care? Check out the big money supporting it. Arch-conservative interest group FreedomWorks were immediately found out astro-turfing ”spontaneous” Tea Party protests, leading to CNBC anchor Rick Santelli’s on-air apology for his role. Sister organization and Art Pope-directed Americans for Prosperity quickly picked up the reins. For their nationwide April 15th Tea Party “protests,” AFP organized, sent out press releases and even offered cash rewards for participating. The most infuriating aspect of conservatives is that even after being confronted about their outrageous behavior, they treat it as one big joke:

Astroturf Art also HATES public education. His far-right media and think-tanks have cranked out more than 20 pro-charter pieces in 2010 alone! He was behind the “overwhelming majority” push poll to abandon diversity. The man would sooner give Obama a hug than admit someone from WCPSS actually knows how to do their job. So when Art’s entirely self-funded Civitas Institute congratulates the “grassroots efforts” of WakeCARES and the Wake Schools Community Alliance on electing the new school board majority, you should be really, REALLY fucking suspicious.

It’s all out in the open

The problem is Art Pope’s a genius. The N&O busted him cold in December, printing an internal e-mail praising his vision and calling him the architect of the new school board majority.  This wasn’t some blogger talking shit. The e-mail’s from Wake County GOP fundraising chairman Marc Scruggs to school board member Ron Margiotta. What does Pope do? Flashes a shit-eating grin, shrugs, and then puts on the chinchilla and adjusts his diamond-encrusted watch before jumping in the Escalade with four honeys. He’d make a great rapper.

So how is this Mr. Burns motherfucker you’ve never heard of the architect of anything?! Ask the WSCA. The non-stop non-profit acted as a fucking school choice PR firm, who by their own admission “vetted and endorsed four winning candidates,” “publicized the KIPP charter school model, making it a campaign issue,” and “generated more than 1800 specific mentions of the name Wake  Schools Community Alliance in the News and Observer alone this year.” WSCA had a press release for everything and were at the center of every school board debate. Pretty goddamn impressive for a “concerned group of parents” from Apex!

The long con

Look, it’s not JUST that astroturf leaders Sarah Redpath and Kathleen Brennan are on the board of trustees at Luddy’s private school. Their statements and behavior have done more than anything to undermine confidence in public schools, in particular the idea that year-round schedules are beneath their families. “They’re only for poor kids…and the government certainly can’t FORCE your kids to go there!”

Sarah was on fire during this John Locke Foundation-sponsored era, accusing the school board of acting as “the Gestapo,” “Big Brother,” “Orwellian,” and “arrogant,” while repeatedly insisting that mandatory year-round “hurts the stability of families.” Now contrast the above statements with this puff piece on how Sarah’s lovin’ her kids at private school: IT’S SO GREAT HERE I <3 THALES SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A few things about Thales: They have no buses, cafeteria, or gym. Teachers are made to sign one-year contracts. The school is not accredited. The far-right wants shells like this to REPLACE public schools. Luddy makes no secret about wanting charter school status for current and future Thales academies. One of Thales’ trustees is state Rep. Marilyn Avila, who introduced two bills in the House this year to lift the cap on charters.

Yes, incredibly, the furious basher of public schools wants your tax dollars to pay for her children to go to Thales.

To get more of a sense of the long con, just look at this quote from Kent Misegades, director and trustee of Thales:

“(There was) turmoil due to constant reassignment and then the issue of year-round versus traditional,” said Kent Misegades, director of Thales Academy-Apex. “(There was) continued dissatisfaction with quality and stability of government schools. Many parents reject these altogether and would not enroll their children in any public school. Others have transferred out of WCPSS.”

Uh huh. The idea that a “parents group” of Apex moms had the resources to take a lawsuit against mandatory year-round to the state Supreme Court is a fucking fairy tale, up there with the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, but WakeCARES director and Thales trustee Kathleen Brennan got away with it.

Flashback to 2007: WCPSS planned to convert 22 schools to the year-round calendar to accommodate explosive growth. Republican county commissioners withheld funding but WCPSS went for it anyway out of their savings. Mandatory year-round…the government providing for its citizens…the far-right couldn’t have this. NO WAY. It was desperation lawsuit o’clock, and WakeCARES had as its counsel one William Peaslee, former state GOP counsel and the dude behind the still-unaccounted-for $1.2 million in anti-Obama ads.

Look at it from the school system’s point of view. In addition to preparing for the 17,804 “new faces” entering Wake’s school for the first time in 2007-08, they now had 32,000 year-round consent forms dumped on them from Howard Manning’s ruling ,TWO MONTHS before the start of the school year. Former school board Lori Millberg said at the time it would cause a mad scramble, and she was right.

Chaos. Turmoil. Instability. Frequent reassignments. Sound like a campaign issue? It took two years for the state Supreme Court to rule against the sham lawsuit and reinstate WCPSS’s ability to assign students, but the damage was done. It’s interesting that one of WSCA’s first press releases was they were “extremely disappointed” in the court’s decision. Man, they were just picking up the torch!

This group that caused the massive instability turned around and blamed the board for it and used it as a campaign issue. They’re about to fuck with the program again.

“With all the constructive things that people can do to advocate their point of view in a democracy, this is how they chose to express themselves?” Peaslee said outside of his damaged office early Saturday.

Four years later, Peaslee chose to “express himself” by forming the Committee for Truth in Politics, a 501(c)(4) non-profit “advocating honesty in government”(actual quote, no sarcasm). He then “constructively” blew $1.2 million on these anti-Obama attack ads:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

The second ad was immediately debunked, with FactCheck.org calling it “absurdly wrong.” While we’re meandering down the absurdly wrong path, it’s worth mentioning that Peaslee decided his little Committee wasn’t going to file any federal paperwork, EVER. Not with the IRS. Not with the FEC. In fact, his counsel James Bopp pre-emptively sued the FEC, arguing “that what the group spends on ads is none of the government’s, or the public’s, business.”

More from Bopp: “We believe that the U.S. Constitution protects them from having to file that report. The problem is having to file a report at all. To be regulated at all. To be accountable to the government at all.”

WOW DUDE. Take a second and let that one soak in. Because it didn’t stop there: the Committee for Truth in Politics filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on behalf of Citizens United…as in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, better known colloquially as “that dumbfuck BULLshit allowing free-speakin’ corporations to spend unlimited political $$$.” You know, the ruling even Obama dissed during his State of the Union.

Here’s the twist, the dot no one fucking connected. Bev appointed Peaslee’s Republican ass to the State Board of Elections last summer. There he is, on the far right, chillin’!

Can you even imagine the irony??! Here you have Peaslee, knowing full well he’s sitting on an absolute pile of shit, and he’s got the stones to question Easley about unreported campaign flights? Incredible.

[NPR]What They Don’t Want You To Know

[Washington Independent]Is the Committee for Truth in Politics Legal?

Committee for Truth in Politics on SourceWatch

You should check out the Committee’s new attack ad, it’s hilarious.

Watch Art Pope. The multi-millionaire is so nauseatingly right-wing that there isn’t enough weed in the world to soothe me. Credited as the architect of the school board victory, Pope uses his array of media to push the hell out of charter schools and his dollars to back astro-turfed “parents” organizations like the Wake Schools Community Alliance into doing the same. In this, he allies nicely with George W. Bush, who had no problem “helping” Katrina victims as long as the money went to non-union charter schools (Bush’s notoriously under-funded No Child Left Behind has helped the expansion of charters, but it certainly hasn’t helped our state’s children).

Let’s be clear: the goal of the new board majority is to weaken and dismantle our public school system so a few people can line their pockets. Accomplishing this has less to do with “resegregation” than deliberate overcrowding of schools, making charter schools more attractive for BOTH the suburbs and poor areas. I remember in college reading that Starbucks only needed to siphon 10-15% of business away from a local coffeeshop to put them out of business; similarly, the players behind the scenes only needed to convince 10-15% of parents scared shitless about their property values to vote for them and grind the system to a halt.

It’s worth noting that every single far-right talking point was eviscerated here.

A better example of the future of Wake schools is not Charlotte but Los Angeles, where last year astro-turf organizations like “Parents Union” convinced L.A’s school board to convert 250 public schools to charters while laying off hundreds of teachers. The Los Angeles Times reported seeing classes with 48 students or more in the remaining public schools. Here’s a quote that stuck with me:

Public schools are purposely starved to induce failure in order to bring in the new ‘turnaround artists’ and non-profit privatization outfits to ‘fix the problem’

It might surprise you that Robert Luddy, the largest donor in the school board race, founded the Thales Academy as well as other private and charter schools. According to his bio, Luddy sits on the board of Astroturf Art’’s John Locke Foundation and Civitas Institute, which their ridiculous push polls so Luddy’s buddies can claim “an overwhelming majority oppose blah blah blah.” Check out Thales board of trustees:

Thales Academies are “community” schools funded by and for the communities where they are located. Each has a Board of Trustees consisting of leading civic leaders dedicated to more choices in education. In the case of Apex, the Trustees include Marilyn Avila, member of the North Carolina House; Kathleen Brennan, co-founder and Director of the parent advocacy group WakeCARES; Chloe Gossage is a Senior Policy Analyst at the John W. Pope Civitas Institute in Raleigh; Cory Johnson, Apex businesswoman; Robert Luddy, founder and CEO of Raleigh manufacturer Captive Aire, founder of Franklin, St.Thomas More and Thales Academies; Ron Margiotta, member of the Wake County Board of Education; Kent Misegades, Apex businessman; Richard and Sarah Redpath, IBM scientists and noted Wake County education advocates; and Keith Weatherly, Mayor of Apex. All work on a pro-bono basis for the betterment of their community.

Why is a sitting school board member on the board of a private school??! And the leaders of astro-turf groups WakeCARES and WSCA, whose bullshit we’ve had to listen to for YEARS, what are they doing there? Working for the benefit of “all” Wake’s kids?

Sarah is actually the author of my personal favorite in astro-turf, the hysterical Ayn Rand boner-fest Wake County’s Big Secret. Actual quote from the book (regarding year-round assignments): We felt the local government had suddenly landed in our living room one night and told us to jump and exactly how high. This didn’t feel like free America.

Thales deliberately keeps its tuition low at $5,200 a year, which is less than state per-pupil spending. North Carolina also currently has a cap of 100 on charter schools, which Bev is under constant pressure to lift. Republican dorks are hard at work making sure we don’t get any more federal dollars. With Wake facing a $20 million shortfall and the state untold billions in the red, you can bet Luddy will be knocking on some doors soon talking some shit about how public schools are failing and how he can do it better and cheaper.

Now, if you want to see what a for-profit charter school in a POOR neighborhood looks like, there’s one right here in Raleigh. Pre-Eminent charter is run by Michigan’s National Heritage Academies. It’s 98% black, has no cafeteria or buses, and the worst test scores in the city (even worse than Barwell’s).

Pre-Eminent is the ONLY school in Wake designated “low-performing” (2% of schools state-wide). The school was recommended to have its charter revoked, but Heritage’s slick PR team got them off the chopping block.

It was noted that the majority of charter schools have a white enrollment of more than 70 percent. Sounds like world-class schools for North Raleigh and Apex, world-class dumps for Southeast.

Welcome to the future.

]]> http://www.raleighgawker.com/the-exhaustive-guide-on-why-your-new-school-system-sucks-part-two/feed 0 http://www.raleighgawker.com/the-exhaustive-guide-on-why-your-school-system-sucks-part-one http://www.raleighgawker.com/the-exhaustive-guide-on-why-your-school-system-sucks-part-one#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:40:51 +0000 RG http://www.raleighgawker.com/?p=755 With Del Burns’ resignation, turmoil awaits the 140,000 students of Wake County public schools as no barriers remain in the way of the machinations of the new school board majority. I might as well give you the short version first: Conservative millionaires funded 100% bogus astro-turf organizations which capitalized on parents’ legitimate frustration with reassignments to usher in a group bent on completely dismantling Wake’s nationally recognized diversity policy. But what were the goals behind spending the $$$? And how much are they going to get away with?

The motivations for the new board majority range from the simple (Deb Prickett’s decision to run based on her son’s re-assignment from an over-capacity, 61% white school) to the complex (John Tedesco’s massive proposed restructuring “community assignment zones” scheme). Recently, John took a second to crow after voting to end mandatory year-round assignments:

Two days later, a rejuvenated Wake County Taxpayers Association, the conservative group led by former state Rep. Russell Capps, welcomed the new board members to its meeting as conquering heroes. “Keep your prayers up and pay attention,” Wake school board member John Tedesco told them. “Because I promise you, there’s more to come. We’re just getting started.”

Weird. I prayed John finds out that the lowest-testing elementary school in Wake is in his district…it’s just the Christian thing to do.

Two points of interest regarding Barwell Elementary: first, I think we can all agree from Barwell’s node map that it’s a “neighborhood school” zoning — the style John and his ilk fiercely advocate for the whole county. Second, a school where half the students aren’t on grade level for reading is currently an outlier in a functioning system…but, BUT, given the plans of the new board, Barwell’s a perfect model of the future “success” that awaits schools on the east side.

You don’t need a “diversity task force” for this one. WCPSS already did the work for you. The situation was so dire last year at Barwell that WCPSS head honchos came in to audit the school, including interviews with parents, faculty, and administrators. The resulting 145-page report of recommendations is jam-packed with tedious academic jargon indecipherable to the average human. C-SPAN is riveting by comparison. But if you take the time to really search through it, the results are scarier than driving down Wade Ave. stoned:

Here you have an administrator admitting, on record, that the teacher observations aren’t coming as often as they should (the report recommended at least two visits a week). But from the survey of Barwell’s own staff, it sounds like the administrator was being charitable:

Pretty high negatives! The key here is not to view this information as an arch-conservative or progressive or whatever. Just relate it to your own life. If your boss didn’t come past all week, would you work harder — or would you be on Facebook all day?

Again, own life.  If you heard half the waiters at Sitti didn’t think their restaurant was safe for kids, would you go eat there?

Lowest test-scores. Leading the league in suspensions. All in his own backyard. Where you AT, John?

If only this were the extent of Barwell’s problems. People still want to move here, and the year-round school’s in danger of massive overcrowding. Let’s go back to that map. All those areas in light orange? Most of those kids are staying right where they are, because our toilet economy delayed new school openings for two years. Barwell currently has 797 students. If the mandatory year-round policy goes through, the capacity of the school drops also, from 950 to 750. WCPSS internal projections have enrollment going as high as 1,138 in 2011-12, which would mean 151% of capacity on a traditional schedule. And it’s not even the worst off among year-round schools!

Wake Ed partnership put together a series of maps illustrating WHAT IT BE LIKE if every student attended the school closest to their home. Ideally the goal of many parents, if not the board itself, it could create “dozens of capacity problems” — including three elementary schools that would operate over 200%.

In their report, Wake Ed stated “while some parents believe ‘neighborhood schools’ means all children will attend their closest school, it’s important to understand the new school board majority knows this isn’t possible.” It’s like Homer Simpson running for Sanitation Commissioner: the new majority promised disgruntled parents the world, an end to the unresponsive bureaucracy, all the choice you can imagine, just vote for us, man, we’re caring parents fed up JUST LIKE YOU.

Reminds me of the strategy used by a multi-millionaire former baseball franchise-owning Texan who convinced everyone he was just a regular dude, ready to help save you from the big bad federal government…

]]> http://www.raleighgawker.com/the-exhaustive-guide-on-why-your-school-system-sucks-part-one/feed 2 http://www.raleighgawker.com/americas-sexxxiest-first-world-problem http://www.raleighgawker.com/americas-sexxxiest-first-world-problem#comments Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:03:33 +0000 RG http://www.raleighgawker.com/?p=724 Move over, “There’s not enough space on my iPod” and “I can’t find a celebrity for my Facebook that looks like me,” there’s a NEW first world problem in town: the elationship! While UNC babez are struggling to find a man, any man, our protagonist Rich Giorgi is one town over struggling with a much more grotesque dating issue:

Now, there’s a new online annoyance — the person who doesn’t want to meet but is all too happy to e-mail, text, tweet, IM, or scrawl on your Facebook wall indefinitely. They don’t want a real relationship as much as its virtual doppelganger.

Welcome to the world of the “elationship.”

“I’ve been involved in five or six of these,” says Rich Giorgi, a 48-year-old tech writer from Carrboro, N.C., who in recent months found a “peach” of a girlfriend and left the online scene. “One woman was always popping up on chat programs — ‘What are you doing? Where you have been?’ This went on for a month and then I proposed we meet. But she was always busy. So I called her on it and she said, ‘I’m getting what I need out of this. There’s no need to go any further.’ So I cut it off. I didn’t have the time to waste.”

Look, as a loner/stoner, I hate humanity too…but I don’t feel the need to get all e-cold fish on people. Just drink a fucking beer, man!

You might be asking yourself, as I did after a crippling resin high, why would someone spend all that time communicating with a person they never planned to meet? Fortunately the article asked and answered that question:

Giorgi says he thinks some singles just like to collect “cyber-harems.”

“I have a friend who’s on a dating site and I can see that a lot of the people from the site have started following her on Facebook,” he says. “She has 12 to 15 guys all commenting on her posts and looking to get with her but she’s only interested in the attention. She’s told me plainly that she’s not interested in meeting anybody, she just wants to feel like people want her every now and then.”

Yeah, why would you want to meet anyone? I know after a brutal 50-hour work week, all I ever want to do is interface with a machine and have strangers compete for my attenti—- Jesus, I can’t even be sarcastic about this. It really IS that pathetic.

Maybe it’s a generational gap. Just like how no one over 30 understands the appeal of Jersey Shore, maybe none of us who grew up in the Myspace echo chamber will ever get why you would even want to be a creep online if you’re not going to fucking get gross. All I know is, the next time I run into a Haitian, I’m totally gonna ask if s/he can relate to the following:

“There’s the fear of failure, the fear of rejection, the fear of making a fool of yourself,” [psychologist Patricia Wallace] says. “An online relationship is perceived as being lower risk as compared to meeting in person. When you pick up the phone or meet in person, you have a lot less control over your message and your impression as compared to a Facebook wall post or an IM where you can rewrite and think about what you want to say.”

It’s this no-frills, fast-moving approach that Frist likes. The one-time Senate majority leader has been volunteering with Samaritan’s Purse, mostly in Sudan, for 11 years.

“What distinguishes [Samaritan's Purse] is the efficiency, coupled with speed,” he says. “There’s little overhead, and when there’s a problem, it’s dealt with directly.”

Well, Bill, it’s your “little overhead” comment that I like. Especially because CBS busted you on your World of Hope AIDS charity scam:

The donors included several corporations with frequent business before Congress, such as insurer Blue Cross/Blue Shield, manufacturer 3M, drug maker Eli Lilly and the Goldman Sachs investment firm.

The fundraiser generated $4.4 million in contributions, but only $3 million went to the AIDS charities. The remaining $1.4 million went to overhead, including more than $450,000 in consulting fees to two companies run by Linus Catignani, Frist’s chief campaign fundraiser. The AP story revealed that one of the Catignani’s firms was co-run by Linda Bond, the wife of Missouri Republican senator Kit Bond.

Whoops! Samaritan’s Purse ended up getting $490,000 of that 3 mil. It must have been a great time to be in with the “faith-based initiatives” crowd, because Samaritan’s Purse also received a $5.6 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2004 to work on abstinence programs to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa (Yes, that’s millions spent for fighting AIDS without condoms).

But let’s go back to the Frist/Graham relationship. The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy proved that even among conservative Christian Republicans, you don’t get shit for free:

Senate records reveal, however, that not long before the World of Hope fundraiser, Senator Frist went to Chad, Sudan, and Kenya on a junket paid for by Samaritan’s Purse.

NCRP of course has done its own additional research on the World of Hope connections and would add the following to the AP story:

We found at least three Frist trips sponsored by Samaritan’s Purse, one shortly before the Republican convention between 8/06/04 and 8/11/04 to Chad, Sudan, and Kenya costing $1,594, a one day trip on 9/19/03 to Nashville, TN (with Mrs. Frist) costing $1,524, and a third from 8/27/03 to 9/01/03 to Namibia and Kenya (costs undetermined). Since the Convention fundraiser, Samaritan’s Purse has continued its subsidization of Frist’s trips, including a one-day trip on 9/04/05 for the Senator and his son to Mobile, AL costing $3,311 and a trip on 10/07/05 to 10/08/05, again for the Senator and Mrs. Frist to Asheville, NC for $2,130.

Graham himself was recently busted by the Charlotte Observer for pulling down $1.2 million last year from his NON-profit and his dad’s NON-profit. But I get it, they’re Republicans, we already KNOW they’re crooked, let’s move on from the boring financial stuff and get to the “psycho Christian” part.

Seriously, Google should have searched Franklin during their Super Bowl ad because this shit is HILARIOUS: asking Obama if he’s a Muslim to his face, using the U.S. military to distribute Arabic language Bibles during Desert Storm, calling Hindu refugees “bound by Satan’s power”, the whole Christian Zionist thing, on and on and on…

But it turns out Frank’s not the only Christian Zionist…

(Ed. note: Sarah, we’re living in the Jersey Shore era and that cross necklace JUST ISN’T BIG ENOUGH)

This is where it gets fun: Franklin had a Samaritan’s Purse jet fly Sarah out to see his pops during her “bus” tour, where she told him all about how she came to the J-man as a girl in bible camp and he gave her good quote:

“He’s followed her career and likes her strong stand on faith,” said son Franklin Graham, who was present for the 2 1/2-hour get-together. “Daddy feels God was using her to wake America up.”

Wake up from what??! Well, based on some recent bizarre quotes from Sarah regarding Israel, it turns out she just believes in “unconditional American support to Israel in order to bring about the end of the world and the return of Jesus Christ to earth.” Here’s a little more on this batshit crazy line of thinking. And wouldn’t you know it, Franklin Graham’s into it too!:

Muslims and other non-Jewish religious minorities in the U.S. have no standing with the Christian right; indeed, Christian Zionists are openly hostile toward Islam. Though an evangelical-Islamic dialogue has begun, it is too new to begin to counter the voices of outspoken Christian right leaders such as Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who have consistently portrayed Islam as an evil force that will align itself with the Antichrist to attack Israel, leading to the Battle of Armageddon.

No wonder she’s called Scary Sarah…

]]> http://www.raleighgawker.com/psycho-christian-franklin-graham-lovin-that-non-profit-status/feed 2