The Republicans in North Carolina have submitted legislation in the General Assembly to authorize a charter school with powerful political connections.
Ann Doss Helms of WFAE reported:
Buried deep in the 271-page House budget bill introduced Monday night, there’s a provision that would allow an unnamed charter school to bypass state review and open in August.
The description is very specific: The “expedited opening” would apply only to applications filed in 2024, for schools in the state’s largest statistical metropolitan area, in a fast-growing county and a school district serving fewer than 25,000 students.
Also, “the proposed charter school will be located in a fully furnished school facility purchased from a local board of education.”
That description applies to Trinitas Academy, which bought the old Mt. Mourne School in Mooresville from Iredell-Statesville Schools in 2022.
Trinitas hasn’t even begun the state review process that ensures its board is ready to educate students and responsibly handle millions of dollars of public money.
But it does have a website describing it as a K-8 classical academy. It lists a board that includes:
- Susan Tillis, wife of Republican U.S. Senator Thom Tillis and founder of the Susan M. Tillis Foundation. She’s described as having “an extensive background in state and national politics.” (Her name was removed from the site Wednesday, after this story aired.)
- Will Bowen, communications director for Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry.
- Marcus Long of Mooresville, described as a retired chief circuit judge from Virginia.
- Board Chair Mark Lockman, described as having been “part of the district leadership at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and Iredell-Statesville Schools. Additionally, Mark was instrumental in building the State of North Carolina’s first data-based instructional growth model for public K-12.”
They couldn’t immediately be reached. Trinitas board member Mikail O. Clark, a Charlotte lawyer, confirmed that Trinitas plans to open in August, but said he didn’t know enough about the House Bill to discuss it. “We’ve obviously engaged counsel to assist us with this matter,” he said, and hung up before answering a question about the status of the Trinitas application…
State Charter Schools Director Ashley Baquero said Tuesday that she knew nothing about the plan to bypass the approval process.
Open the link to finish the story of cronyism.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sick and utterly disgusting. Those poor kids in CRY-O-lina.
How is it that neither the house speaker nor the co-chair of the house education appropriations committee can claim they don’t know how the expedited opening idea got into the bill? Do NC Republican lawmakers discuss the bills they’re voting on at all or just wave pistols and bottles of bourbon in the air while mumbling drunken nonsense at each other? Pitiful.
Oh no! Misleading double negative by an English teacher! My first sentence should read both the speaker and co-chair, not neither/nor. So difficult it is to look at a screen long enough to edit properly, one of the reasons I’m cutting my screen time in stages down to almost none these days. Deleterious to the quality of one’s work and very unhealthy for sinews and vapors, computers be. Diane, you astonish as such a warrior of the world wide web.
Published way back in 2017:
Our Boadicea, Our Jeanne d’Arc, Is a 79-year-old Grandmother, an Existence Proof of the Stupidity of Ageism | Bob Shepherd | Praxis (wordpress.com)
Bob,
That is amazing! I had never seen it!
Yeehaw!
I wonder if Traitor Trump gets a kickback donation for his approval since the Republican Party is now a fascist subsidiary of the Traitor’s crime family empire.
And in Trump world, nothing gets done without his approval. Everyone must swear loyalty to him or else they are out, preceded and followed by death threats.
And the Traitor must get paid money from everyone and everything under his sway or they lose his protection.
I think the Trump crime family also gets paid money from its “You pay us to avoid death threats” racket.
Requirement for approval: Say, “I believe!” followed by “I have money and power to spare;” followed by “I want it.” CBK