Wake County has added almost 300,000 residents since 2000. It is the ninth-fastest growing county in the U.S. And yet as WCPSS tried to provide in the face of this explosive growth, they were confronted by conservative social hacktivists at every turn. Defeating bonds for new schools, challenging the mandatory year-round policy in court, yelling with their astro-turfed “press releases”, and investing time and money in their “community-based” candidates. Ready for the next step?
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.
