Goddamn, the hysteria gets strange when the Democrats are in power: up is down, left is right, Benito Moose-a-lini is now a “smart feminist.”

Locally, the hysteria propelled four GOP-backed candidates to school board victory last month. The new candidates will be sworn in today, but rest assured they’ve already been hard at work stopping new school construction and gay-hating on Gay Clay.

WCPSS has (had?) this weirdo policy of assigning students to ensure socioeconomic diversity in all its schools, a policy lauded by Gerald Grant’s far-left Marxist tome Hope and despair in the American city: Why there are no bad schools in Raleigh. Yes, Grant’s book was released THIS year, but academic texts have never been known to stop the rich and ignorant from banging like babies in their high chair whenever they want something.

In this case, it was an end to busing. District 7’s Deborah Prickett had this to say in her campaign mailer:

“As a parent who has personally experienced the sacrifice and stress of an unstable school environment and constant reassignment for so called ‘healthy schools’ sake, I feel that change in the current Board of Education’s vision is critical,” Prickett says in the mailer. “Healthy students should be our focus.”

Oh, the sacrifice. Do you want to know what motivated Deb to spearhead the Butthurt Housewives of Wake County crusade? Her child was reassigned from Panther Creek to Broughton. Yeah dude. BROUGHTON. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??!?

Here she is on election night:

Celebrating her victory! The last time Mrs. Prickett looked this elated, a ham sandwich was involved.

The problem with our school system is lack of teacher diversity, not student diversity. I think we can all agree that throwing a 23-year old from Cary into Barwell or Bugg benefits no one. It just doesn’t work. Teacher retention statistics and the montage in season 4 of The Wire back me on this. Neighborhood schools could be effective in theory if coupled with generous incentives ($5,000-$10,000/yr range) for tenured teachers who agree to sign a multi-year contract to teach at a low-income school. Take advantage of the toilet economy!

But that’s like advocating for a one-year freeze on all home foreclosures: sounds great, but it just ain’t gonna happen. I can imagine Deb at her desk now, elbow deep into some Atkins-approved dish, mumbling “We just don’t have the money.”

One more thing. Here’s what Gerald Grant (a sociologist who actually taught at Broughton) had to say about the evils of the Wake County school system:

To me, Raleigh is the new city on the hill of the 21st century of America. It’s what we ought to be doing as a country. It’s delivering on the most fundamental promise that we make, that [to offset our great disparities in wealth and income] we’re going to provide equal educational opportunity to the poorest kids so they can climb the ladder.

And, if we don’t deliver on that promise, I think the nation of the privileged that remains is going to corrode and eventually collapse.

Clay may have called the new board idiots. I’m just glad I don’t have kids.