Stuart Egan is an National Board Certified Teacher in North Carolina. He writes here about the horrible policies imposed on public schools in North Carolina since Tea Party Republicans took over the state’s General Assembly.
North Carolina was once considered the most progressive state in the South, for its dedication to improving public schools and honoring fine teachers. It had the highest proportion of National Board Certified teachers in the nation.
But then the Tea Party arrived in 2010 with an ALEC agenda of disruption and destruction.
Egan writes:
When the GOP won control of both houses in the North Carolina General Assembly in the elections of 2010, it was the first time that the Republicans had that sort of power since 1896. Add to that the election of Pat McCrory as governor in 2012, and the GOP has been able to run through multiple pieces of legislation that have literally changed a once progressive state into one of regression. From the Voter ID law to HB2 to fast tracking fracking to neglecting coal ash pools, the powers that-now-be have furthered an agenda that has simply been exclusionary, discriminatory, and narrow-minded.
And nowhere is that more evident than the treatment of public education.
Make no mistake. The GOP-led General Assembly has been using a deliberate playbook that other states have seen implemented in various ways. Look at Ohio and New Orleans and their for-profit charter school implementation. Look at New York State and the Opt-Out Movement against standardized testing. Look at Florida and its Jeb Bush school grading system. In fact, look anywhere in the country and you will see a variety of “reform” movements that are not really meant to “reform” public schools, but rather re-form public schools in an image of a profit making enterprise that excludes the very students, teachers, and communities that rely on the public schools to help as the Rev. William Barber would say “create the public.”
North Carolina’s situation may be no different than what other states are experiencing, but how our politicians have proceeded in their attempt to dismantle public education is worth exploring.
Specifically, the last nine-year period in North Carolina has been a calculated attempt at undermining public schools with over twenty different actions that have been deliberately crafted and executed along three different fronts: actions against teachers, actions against public schools, and actions to deceive the public.
Read on to learn about the calculated and vicious attack on public schools and their teachers. This is a record of shame that undermines the public good.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The economic expansion of North Carolina is dramatic and life-changing to most of the inhabitants. The so-called Research Triangle area between Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill have grown so much that it is unrecognizable over the years when I lived there in the early 1980s. Ironically, the expansion itself was largely due to the reputation the state had as a place where people could get a good education for their kids, pay relatively low taxes, enjoy the benefits of living in a community that was not very far from the culture associated with an academic atmosphere, and enjoy as well the closeness of an agrarian mentality.
The Tea Party has used divisive issues to gain access to this climate, and word has never escaped that the party is over. Running off the fumes of good government, these people have taken credit for the economic expansion that came to their tenure largely because of what was done before they took power.
How long will it be until the great traditions that were North Carolina become mired in the debacle of the Pope’s Tea Party Revolution? This is a state that gave us great historians like T. Harry Williams and John Hope Franklin. It gave us Rupert Vance, the sociologist, in the 1930s. Go to Wake Forest University and see the dorm built with the assistance of Winston-Salem resident Maya Angelou.
I grieve for my former home.
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“Vicious attacks” by billionaires against the vulnerable… well, that seems like something Christians would step up to oppose.
Let’s rely on N.C.’s alliance of Catholics and evangelicals to join with Rev. Barber for Moral Mondays. Let’s count on the Catho-evangel alliance to lead the solutions (not reflect the problem). Female church members should refrain from asking white, male leaders of their churches to step up in protection of women’s livelihoods and labor’s rights/ pay because without prodding, religions are known for social justice, not for protection of privilege.
It’s a good sign that there are no significant schisms in the Catholic church nor, evangelical churches over school privatization and its racist origins. It means the political influence of the theocrats is heading in a positive direction for women, racial minorities and workers. The Tea Party and the alliance of Catholics and evangelicals, no daylight between them in service to Jesus Christ and the good of the richest 0.1% which trickles down to the rest.
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