in Follow-Up, Politics, Raleigh |

Partisan? Where do we start?

“With this partisan decision, the board has now guaranteed that there will be far fewer great schools in Wake County,” board member Debra Goldman said. “I grieve for our children, our teachers and our staff. There will certainly not be the security and stability that the citizens of Wake County want.”

Yeah, Goldman grieves sooooo much that she’s canceling her political bid for State Auditor to focus on the Wake County school chirren.

What’s that? You say Goldman is only using the Wake Board of Education as a stepping stone to higher political office? Surely you jest! I’m sure John Tedesco is so outraged that he’ll drop his bid to become State Superintendent of Education, too, just so he can stay and set the Wake school board right. I mean, it’s not about him, it’s about the kids, right?

Someone please wake me when all the cheap political grandstanding is over.

via Ousting of Wake schools chief could jeopardize funding :: WRAL.com.

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  1. I watched the whole thing (streamed via WRAL). The grandstanding was absolutely nauseating. The Republicans all acted stunned that anyone would do such a thing (while occasionally referring to their own “mistakes”), but there was enough hot air there to go around. Jim Martin was among the worst (second only to Goldman).

    And you’re right that the Reps were all using this as a stepping stone to other offices — which they said they WEREN’T doing and WOULDN’T do when originally running. That said, the Dems said they wouldn’t replace Tata, either.

    I feel for Tata. He inherited a staff he couldn’t trust and when he started to make changes, everyone was fearing for their job. Unfortunately, that change needed to happen and the resulting “culture of fear” may have been entirely appropriate. People that aren’t willing to change and help the district do new things in new areas probably SHOULD fear for their jobs. I’m good with that.

    In the end, we’ll never know the whole truth, but you can’t argue with Tata’s results — especially when compared to his predecessor.

  2. I like Tata. I think he’s a good guy. Perhaps he didn’t get a clear read on what the board asked him to do, or perhaps the board didn’t convey those directives clearly enough.

    It’s possible Tata was in an untenable position no matter what. All I know is that there were several kids who were left high and dry during the bus fiasco, some not getting home until after 6:30 PM on multiple days. The guy at the top is ultimately responsible.

    As for his bosses, they will have to answer for their performance at the polling places.

  3. I am also holding out hope that whomever replaces Tata earns the near-unanimous approval of the board, if not unanimous. The right candidate could go far towards mending this divide.

    Then again, maybe pigs will soon fly. Sigh.

  4. Agreed on most points. Including the “guy at the top is ultimately responsible”, but…

    There’s a difference between being responsible and being fired for a lower level failure. Kids should not have been left at school or stuck on a bus until 6:30pm, but Wake Co. has NEVER had their act together on busing in the first weeks of school since I’ve lived here. Yes, this year was worse, but given the new “choice” assignment plan, we were doomed to busing problems that were going to be worse than before.

    WCPSS is a $1.5B behemoth serving 150K kids. There will be mistakes, but you don’t fire the superintendent because there were busing problems. I equate the role to CEO, and you don’t fire the CEO because of execution problems unless the problems are systemic and he’s not dealing with them. You fire them because they haven’t set the appropriate vision, haven’t put appropriate lieutenants in place, haven’t made people throughout the “company” accountable for their areas of responsibility, or because they just aren’t getting the job done.

    I didn’t see Tata falling down in any of those areas. And if you believe you DO fire the superintendent for busing problems, God help ANYBODY taking this role. 150K students maps to a lot of parents and we’re both in that role — we can be hard to please when it comes to us being assured that our children are getting the educations we feel they deserve. I’ve been a vocal critic of our schools for a while, but I felt like Tata was the right guy at the right time to address some of our issues.

    Now he doesn’t have that chance, and I don’t have faith that anyone has a better option in store. The rumors about the return of Del Burns have been flying fast and furious. Please, please, please — no.

    And while I share your hope that we can get a superintendent that’s broadly supported by the board, I’m skeptical that it will happen. I’m beyond skeptical — I think it’s so close to impossible as being laughable. The only hope I see for this is that Tedesco/Goldman/Malone all get elected to their respected offices and that when the Dems appoint their replacements they’ll appoint other Dems (hopefully more moderate ones than the radical lot that got elected this time) and that group will agree — save Prickett.

    But be prepared for a concerted Republican push next election, and we’ll watch the whole thing start again. Remember that the last wave of Republicans came after Margiotta had served as the lone Republican “crank” on the board for years. Prickett, while much more sensible than Margiotta, still has her leanings and got in bed with the Republicans right away (after running an “independent” campaign). Plus her husband is a radical right-wing nut job.

    I’ve no doubt this whole thing will continue to be interesting to watch. I’m just disappointed that I’ll have to watch it with significantly less faith that they’ll ever actually accomplish anything. We’ve already seen concerted moves toward the old guard: loading up more ITB magnet seats in schools where it makes no sense, yet another assignment plan with proxies for racial busing, etc.

    But we absolutely agree on one thing: “Sigh”.

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