Wake Superior Court Judge Howard Manning has arrived at the same conclusion any serious, objective critic of CMS has arrived at in recent months: Blow it up and start over.

Manning has given CMS the ultimatum it has dreaded for several years now, either fix the low performing high schools or begin to shut them down. Or fire the principals. Nevermind if Manning actually has the authority to order such a change (he probably does not) there is simply no denying that CMS, as an institution, has failed in its goal to duck responsibility for the current state of affairs while making the case that more money would fix things.

As an aside, Manning’s decree should effectively end any thought that interim superintendent Frances Haithcock can be the new change agent-in-chief for CMS. Haithcock has come late to the reform bandwagon and seems entirely to too comfortable with working within the existing CMS bureaucracy in hopes that it can somehow reform itself in toto.

And how amusing is that Manning lets loose with his blast on the same day the local Knight Ridder outlet again gives voice to opposition to the suggestions made by the CMS Task Force. Amazing how that Task Force became questionable as soon as it backed a plan to radically re-work CMS, if not blow it up, along with support for outscourcing non-educational elements of CMS.

manning
Manning: Boom