At the hearing this morning, Judge Manning did what everyone expected. Nothing. Sure, he used his entire cache of non-verbal messages: he sighed, rolled his eyes, gave dirty looks, and threw his hands in the air. But he didn?t close a single school, fire a single principal, reprise any threat, or add new ones to the list. I applaud the fact that he did not become a judicial activist today, but he lost some of his street cred by not following through on his threats.
Like Governor Easley, Manning has remarkable faith in the New Schools Project (Learn and Earn, schools within schools, etc.). He wants every struggling high school to adopt a NSP program immediately, even though there is no evidence of its effectiveness.
