The News & Observer pulled out all of the stops in today’s article, “Role of public schools questioned” by Thomas Goldsmith and Keung Hui.
The name “Luddy,” as in businessman Bob Luddy, is used 11 times in a 1,032 word article! Anyway, if Mr. Luddy wanted to draw families to his private schools, he would have supported the forced busing status quo.
Indeed, Mr. Luddy would have sought to increase parental dissatisfaction, rather than help to elect a school board majority focused on increasing it by implementing neighborhood schools, modifying year-round calendars, and giving parents more choices.
The notion that the school board can create its own voucher program to send kids to private schools is nonsense. A board created program would not hold up under the uniformity clause of the NC Constitution (Article IX, Section 2). Moreover, voucher-type programs created by school boards in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Maine have been struck down courts in those states. There is no reason to expect a different outcome in North Carolina, a state that had much more centralized control of public schools than states in the North do.
So, the theory that there is some scheme afoot is nothing more than paranoia, propaganda, or a little of both.
