Terry,
Your post about the Left engaging in its usual mix of scare tactics and slimeball attacks is timely. Because the authors involved have never met most of the people they are sliming, never talked to them, never asked them what they think, asserting that the new Wake school board members or their supporters are racists is a classic example of projection ? of engaging in bigotry.
They are bigots. They have drawn conclusions about individuals based only on the latter?s status as members of certain social and political groups. The term fits and should be employed routinely to describe their behavior.
Why are they resorting to bigotry and character assassination? Because they don’t have anything else to say. Their position has no relationship to reality. The views of the new Wake school board members on forced busing and mandatory year-round schools are widely shared throughout the county ? by residents of all parties and ethnic groups. This majority sentiment has been growing for years and been evident for months. Anyone who claims otherwise is uninformed or dishonest.
They also can?t claim that Wake?s abusing student-assignment practices generate results. As previously observed, the much-maligned Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools are better at teaching disadvantaged and minority students than Wake County is. That?s what the state test score data show. CMS isn?t good at it, mind you, but it?s better than Wake. How embarrassing.
Another example: the Left is now trying to assassinate the character of Bob Luddy, my longtime friend and JLF board member who has become an educational entrepreneur. After creating parochial, private, and charter schools in Wake County, Bob has gained significant and valuable experience about what makes local schools successful
Consider the 2008-09 results from his charter school in Wake Forest, Franklin Academy. Among younger students, 90 percent of Franklin students passed state reading and math tests, compared with the state average of 68 percent for reading and 80 percent for math. Franklin high-schoolers outperformed the state average on every end-of-course test, often by huge margins.
Black students at Franklin vastly outperform the state average (86 percent vs. 53 percent among high-schoolers), as do Hispanic students (85 percent vs. 64 percent). Rather than calling Bob Luddy names and rallying against popular candidates he has supported, leftists and civil rights leaders should demand that state legislators abolish the charter-school cap and enact tuition tax relief so Bob can accomplish with many more students what Wake district administrators obviously cannot.
But they?re not doing that. It could be because they are bigots. At this point, why shouldn?t I say so?
