Not that it will surprise anyone here. But still, having Pete Gorman’s former right-hand man come right and admit — boast even — that CMS’ $9m. worth of “learning communities” was primarily about arresting and re-directing public upset about the system and securing the passage of a half-billion bond is depressing as hell.

This is more proof that CMS’ primary output is not education, but spin and outright propaganda. Check it out:

Q. Organizationally, do you have any thoughts or ideas about different structures Guilford County Schools can take? I’m thinking about the significant restructuring in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg system — the creation of mini-school systems. Is that an approach that should be on the table here?

A. In Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools we put in place, when I became the chief operating officer, something that we called learning communities. We have an area superintendent in six learning communities. That person has a staff of a dozen or so individuals. That staff or person is placed in a learning community, which is a collection of pre-K to 12 schools that they are supervising. There’s still a lot of central office relationship to that learning community and that area superintendent. …

Q. Do you think it was working out in Charlotte-Mecklenburg?

A. It’s working very, very well. You can go to Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools now and you don’t really hear deconsolidation being discussed. We went from losing a bond campaign pretty dramatically to winning one very dramatically.

Ahem. I would like to deconsolidate. CMS is too big and the learning communities mere org-chart inventions without real power. I want to deconsolidate into three or four districts, possibly with a “choice” district overlaying them all, as described by the Gantt Commission report. I would like to deconsolidate because the current regime has no clue how many students will show up year-to-year and still cannot give me a school-by-school annual budget.

Good luck, Gboro. You are about to get very dizzy.