Today is the six-month anniversary of the big announcement that Wake School Board member, right-wing activist and semi-announced candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, John “Tea Party” Tedesco was taking over the newly formed North Carolina Center for Education Reform as “President and CEO.”
And here are the words that most accurately convey the evident substantive output of the group that employs Tedesco at $6,000 per month (at least from a pretty thorough review of the group’s website):
Zilch. Nada. Bupkis.
I mean, Tedesco and/or his assistant have copied some stuff from some other websites. They’ve slapped up a few videos and some general statements about what they “do” (but never what they’ve done).
Ironically, a lot of the content is written in language so tortured that it would draw the ire of (or at least a few red marks from) the average Wake County middle school teacher.
Stuff like this:
“With 115 Public School Boards (nearly 700 local elected officials), 100 Charter Schools (more on the way), hundreds of Private Schools, and as a national leader in Home School education many best practices and innovative practices are tucked away in silos throughout NC.”
“NCCER is the catalyst that can ignite change we desperately need. Traditionally, change in NC has had to trickle down through bureaucracies as the Governor, Legislature, State BOE and Dept. of Public Instruction.”
“Studies show a significant correlation between high dropout rates and low student achievement in rural and impoverished areas. These areas need assess to a quality education to ensure their success.”
Back on the group’s three-month anniversary, we concluded our initial review of the group’s scanty output this way:
“One has to wonder what the group’s founders and funders are thinking – if anything. Is it: ‘What the heck is going on here?’ or ‘Our plan of providing a convenient cover so that conservatives can pay Tedesco to be on the school board is working out just fine!’”
Three months later, it’s pretty clear that the answer must be choice #2.