Power Doesn't Get More Naked Than This: GOP Wants to Get Rid of Democratic School Board in Wake County by Shortening Terms and Redistricting

Well, redistricting worked for the North Carolina General Assembly. Why not also for the Wake County School Board, which the new Republican majority in the General Assembly hates with a passion.

In 2011, the Wake County School Board elections returned control to the Democrats, which has become a huge bone caught in the throats of Republican lawmakers. Then the Wake County School Board fired the militaristic Superintendent Tony Tata, who was in turn promptly hired by Governor McCrory to run the Department of Transportation.

But that wasn't revenge enough for a bunch of radicals whose pulse quickens at the thought of payback.

Senate Bill 325 was introduced on March 13th to simply nullify the Wake County school board elections of 2011. How?

1. The bill would put all nine school board seats on the ballot in 2014 (rather than this year), thus lengthening the terms of Republicans Bill Fletcher, Deborah Prickett and John Tedesco and Democrat Tom Benton. It would shorten the terms of the five other Democrats on the board – Susan Evans, Kevin Hill, Christine Kushner, Jim Martin and Keith Sutton.

2. The bill would redraw the school board districts to suit the Republican radicals in the General Assembly; that is to say, three current Democratic members of the board are drawn into the same district.

Hey, if redistricting worked so well for guaranteeing Republican domination of the General Assembly, why won't it work well for the Wake County School Board too?

On top of this towering pile of arrogance, now find the pea-brained crowing of one John Tedesco, a Republican member of the Wake County School Board whose term of service would otherwise be ending this year and who ran unsuccessfully for state Superintendent of Public Instruction last year to dismal effect. He couldn't stop himself from strutting in an email, bragging that the pay-back for his fellow (Democratic) School Board members is only just getting underway.

We don't doubt it for a minute.

Why Not Just Go Ahead Make 'em Wear a Pink Sombrero?

Last June, the so-called "Deferred Action Program" went into effect nationally for certain immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. The Deferred Action Program offers work permits and a two-year deferral from deportation until a more permanent immigration reform can be worked out in the U.S. Congress.

In North Carolina, some Republicans were mightily aggrieved by this. It reeked strongly to them of amnesty. Since the Deferred Action Program allowed for the now-grown-up baby-immigrant to work in the state, state driver's licenses were mandated. At first Tony Tata, appointed by Gov. McCrory to lead the state's Department of Transportation, sat on his hands. Then Attorney General Roy Cooper said to Tata, you've got to issue driver's licenses.

So what did Tata and his boys at DOT come up with? A pink stigmatizing strip on just those driver's licenses issued to people covered by the Deferred Action Program. This Pink Badge of Discrimination, DOT said, would be issued starting March 25th.

There are such echoes of the yellow Stars of David sewn on unwelcome residents' clothing in another era that some Republicans in the General Assembly have quailed at the bad publicity, now grown to international scope.

A bill has been introduced in the NC General Assembly to delay DOT's plan to June. One of the bill's sponsors, state Rep. Mark Brody, said transportation officials overstepped their authority by approving the licenses. He said that is the Legislature's prerogative.

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina condemned the proposed licenses, calling them "an unnecessary marker that could lead to harassment, confusion and racial profiling." The Latin American Coalition in Charlotte said the license would create a "class of 'inferior' citizens."

North Carolina is the only state to mark licenses in this prejudicial way. But then, North Carolina is possibly the only state in the union to be taken over by a radical brand of Republicanism that is so thirsty for absolute power that it would seriously consider branding and shaming people who have really done nothing wrong.

Tony Tata To Lead DOT = A Favor for The Pope

So Pat McCrory appoints the former Superintendent of Wake County Schools, the controversial Tony Tata,  as his Secretary of Transportation, and everybody goes "Say whaaa?" Does that make any sense? Tony Tata got fired as Superintendent of Wake County Schools for botching school bus management, among other things, and compared to the man he's succeeding, Gene Conti, he's woefully under-qualified for this job.

This a.m., a News&Observer editorial gives an explanation for this puzzling appointment: Art Pope wanted it:

The DOT, long riddled with political patronage problems under Democratic governors, was straightened out by the departing secretary Gene Conti, who had experience in the state department and in the federal Department of Transportation before taking the job. Tata’s lack of experience is quite a contrast, and raises suspicions that his appointment is a political statement by McCrory’s budget guru and adviser Art Pope, the Raleigh businessman who contributed heavily to the GOP majority in the General Assembly. Prior to that, Pope helped win a temporary Republican majority on the school board. That majority hired Tata in 2010 despite his scant qualifications as an educator.

We're in for a lot of this sort of thing as long as Pat McCrory plays Assistant Governor to Art Pope.

Wake County Schools Fires Its Superintendent

Remember this guy?

He ain't there no more.

Fired this afternoon by the new majority on the Wake County School Board.

Now, THAT'S Educational!

General (and don't you forgit, boy!) Tony Tata, Superintendent of the Wake County Public School System, is attending a Republican campaign event in Raleigh alongside Republican mayoral and Republican school board candidates.

Well, hell! He was hired by the Republican majority on the Wake School Board, so who would have supposed he might stay aloof from politics, anyway? Plus he obviously needs to help in any way possible to keep the anti-diversity Republicans in power in Wake County. A $250,000 annual salary is a terrible thing to waste!

But how high would Tea Partiers leap if a Watauga County Superintendent became a featured speaker at a partisan Democratic event?

Heightened Interest in Lowered Expectations

Long article in this a.m.'s WashPost profiling the attempt by the new Republican-dominated school board in Wake County to end the decades-long "diversity" policy that mixed income groups in all schools.

One might have expected some D.C. interest in Wake County because of the hiring of Anthony J. Tata, former chief operating officer of the D.C. schools, as the new Wake Superintendent. But we learn nothing from this article about Tata's tenure or reputation in D.C.

We do get word, however, direct from The Czar of All North Carolina, Art Pope, who actually granted an interview to the WashPost. He acknowledges that the new student assignment program proposed by his guys on the school board will create inner-city schools with great concentrations of poor minority students. Pope generously allows as how that might actually be a good thing: knowing where all the poor kids are will make it easier for his other puppets in government to dedicate more money to them (yeah, right!) -- not to mention that such concentrations of black & brown poverty far from the watered lawns of suburbia will make many an affluent parent rest more comfortably.

Happy New Year, Wake County Schools!

News hit this a.m. that the embattled Wake County school district has a new superintendent, former Brigadier General Anthony J. Tata. His hiring was apparently conducted under a cloak of secrecy by the 5-member Republican majority. The special meeting called yesterday to finalize the hiring was sprung on the Democratic minority with 48 hours notice.

Tata's background in education policy and performance seems thin. During the last phase of his time as a general with the military, he spent some time at the Broad Superintendents Academy, a Los Angeles nonprofit institute that trains former generals, CEOs, and others to lead large school systems. With that training under his belt, Tata joined the District of Columbia for an 18-month stint as an operations officer in charge of procurement and other mainly non-academic responsibilities.

A letter-writer in the N&O this a.m. suggested that if an ex-general can be trained to be a school administrator after only 10 months of "instruction," then perhaps ex-school teachers can be trained as generals in a similar period.

Tata's outspoken conservative political views might appear to be his chief attractions for the Republicans on the Wake County Board. Tata has appeared frequently on Fox News, writes political thrillers, and recently said of Sarah Palin after reading her book,

"The recurrent thought in my mind was that this woman is far more qualified to be president of the United States than the current occupant of the White House."

Whatever, Dude. If everything's going to hell, might as well take the rocket toboggan as the stairs.