Campaign ’14: The Moore County School Board — FIRE ‘EM ALL. (Let God sort it out.)
Here in Moore County, we’ve got a problem with our school system that you likely see in many other counties. We’ve got an elected school board that submits itself to the whims of the edu-crats who run the daily affairs of the school system. There are few, if any, questions. There is little to no accountability. We’ve regularly elected a bunch of rubber stamps.
What we’re advocating this November is a pretty simple solution — vote out every single incumbent on the ballot. I’m talking about Ed Dennison, Enola Lineberger and Charles Lambert. They have failed in their responsibilities to the voters. Sue Black is trying to return to the school board after a previous electoral defeat. When she served before, she was a pawn of the educrats. I see no evidence that would change with a return to the board. (DO NOT VOTE FOR HER EITHER.)
For example, in 2013, our elected “leaders” on the school board were led by the nose by local educrats to approve a resolution condemning the work of the Republican-controlled state legislature. The resolution repeated a lot of the same lies vomited by Bill Barber and regurgitated this year by Kay Hagan.
Also, in 2013, this board went along with the educrats’ public disinformation efforts about alleged underfunding of the local school system. Never mind that the school system’s internal documents show the schools have been OVERFUNDED by roughly TWO MILLION over each of the last few years.
We need some spines on the school board. We need people who will actually represent the interest of the taxpayers and the parents over those of the taxpayer funded bureaucrats at the central office. In November, cast your vote for Pam Thompson for District 3. In the at-large seats, you can VOTE FOR THESE THREE: Scott Caddell, Becky Smith Carlson, and Daniel Armstrong.
Give them a shot. If they get too impressed with the action at the central office, we can fire them the next go around. We need to get a handle on our government. Our elected officials should be directing the unelected bureaucrats — not the other way around. We owe it to the kids — whose future is being frittered away by Common Core and other politically-correct nonsense.
Just as things are getting better between the Board of Commissioners and the Moore County Board of Education; just as some reasonable planning was put forth at today’s meeting and just as a the dollars are being counted correctly, the Daily Haymaker delivers this disruptive garbage.
Commissioner Picerno has joined with others from local government to lobby for more predictability in NC State funding. Construction of new needed facilities is scheduled to be paid for from cash flow-postponing the need for a major debt financing. The funding request would appear to be ready right after the first of the year.
In most cases the “throw the bums out” slogan has merit, but your article missed the mark big time.
Your article points out what is a very common problem with school boards, and that is getting under the thumb of a bureaucrat, the county superintendent. When county school boards get to the point that they cannot comprehend that this overpaid bureaucrat is their employee, not their boss, they badly need to go.
This article points out is what is happening all over the country and affects every area of government. Those “in charge” feel no need to be responsive to those they serve. Their arrogance is only surpassed by their incompetence.
Too often when individuals are elected they quickly forget is who pays their salary. Conversely, too few citizens give a hoot anymore.
WOW! THANK YOU BRANT CLIFTON. I’ve fought as a parent and citizen the dumbed down curriculum of goals 2000,OBE,FUZZY MATH, WHOLE LANGUAGE, TESTS THAT DO NOT MEASURE REAL LEARNING, etc etc for years! Sir, you speak the truth. We’ve spent billions in America for zero results except to give enormous salaries to bureaucrats who mouth empty platitudes: ‘it’s for the children’! Common Core is more of the same on steroids.
We can’t afford more mindless leftist indoctrination. I support your recommendations for School Board. I’m tired of waiting for REAL CHANGE that WORKS. If money was the solution, we’d be number one in the world. Instead we can’t even teach reading correctly. Send a message to the ‘establishment’: WE DON’T TRUST YOU ANYMORE.
Here in Brunswick County, we have the same issue. The all GOP BOE hired a liberal superintendent and seem afraid to buck him at all. They rubber stamp everything because he plays the elitist educrat card and they are intimidated into thinking they are just dumb hayseeds. At least that’s what I see. Now some have made the super’s life a bit miserable and he has announced he’s leaving in 1 year. So the BOE says OK and now he’s gone rogue like congress in a lame duck. I know a couple of people on the BOE who are trying to get rid of him in every way they can, but they can’t get a 3rd vote.
Thank you Brant for speaking the plain and honest truth once again. Our local school board has been nothing but an unthinking bunch of rubber stamp robots who have constantly joined the chorus of the “Moore Money Melody”. They have shirked their responsibilities for insisting on complete curricula and fighting for quality education while parroting the refrain of “never enough money”. They have been concerned more about the aesthetics of their construction program and Common Core grants than about serving the best interests of the students, teachers, parents, and constituents.
These people don’t want to do the really hard work and research. They want the perks while swallowing the charts and talking points of the administrators and bureaucracy without question. I’m with you. Let’s clean house and get some folks who really are interested in education. As long as we keep electing the same folks, why do we think anything will change?
Maybe we should try the solution that was put forward in Florida for this problem. Education bureaucrats who are anything but power obsessed pompous leftwing twits are a rarity, and they are grossly overpaid. That is a problem everywhere.
Pinellas County, Florida, where my grandparents lived, had that problem back in the late 70’s. They would elect people in that GOP county pledged to put him in line but they always ended up coopted by the superintendent. Finally, one of the local conservative Republican state senators had had enough so he put in a bill to make the office of county school superintendent an elected position by the voters of that county, and it passed the Senate. The problem was that when it got to the House, a lot of other Republican legislators decided that was a good idea in their districts, too, and amended the bill in committee to add other counties. That drew the attention of the education unions who then went all out against the bill and stopped it.
In NC, we elect our state school superintendent. Why not our county superintendents as well? I think we would do a lot better with a businessman in that position than these pompous educrats.
Hear, Hear! I’m all for more accountability to the taxpayers and parents. Electing our county school superintendent in a general election rather than a closed, inbreeding selection by the school board and local administrators would be a most welcome change. It would certainly change the dynamics of loyalties and priorities within the small governing clique of the school system. Accountability to the parents and taxpayers must be paramount!
First, I would agree that the school board is often a rubber stamp for what a superintendent wants. I think that many members of the BOE in Moore County have done just that.
BUT! Take a look at the video records from the BOE meetings. You will see that there is often some debate that our local paper, The Pilot, fails to report. Charles Lambert (in full disclosure, he is my father) fault hard against the resolution condemning the GOP for the state of education in NC. That was completely ridiculous. In fact, much of the debate is never captured in our local media.
Lambert prevented the closure of Elise, a measure that saved taxpayers a lot of money and made fellow board members and School administrators angry. He is hardly a rubber stamp. In fact, I would bet that many of the board members would call him a thorn in their side.
If you want to see change–I agree that some incumbents have to go. But getting rid of Lambert? Thats getting rid of your only chance to change this “rubber stamp” board.
Lambert is a conservative. If you take a look at his public primary voting record he has voted REPUBLICAN every election since 2004. He has had children in school (my brother and I) and he will soon have a grandchild. He is interested in the schools. His challenger, Pam Thompson, was a former board member (you forgot to mention that in your article) but she also has a liberal voting record if you look at the public primary ballots. I personally know Pam as incredibly classy and a wonderful person. However, I do know that the “rubber stamp” incumbents are backing her.
I believe that the school board needs people from diverse backgrounds. But Lambert is the only candidate (or current board member) who has ever called a classroom home. And while he actually has experience in education he is hardly an “edu-crat” because he remains incredibly close to teachers and parents and advocates on their behalf. His phone rings off the hook and members of the public approach him every day at the grocery store, walking down the street, etc. to discuss the successes and failures of MCS.
We need someone on that board who won’t demand from teachers what they refuse to do themselves. We need someone who knows where we have been and the mistakes MCS has made…and there have been many.
The truth is the election is bigger than a race between two candidate. It is about having AT LEAST ONE person on the school board who has actually been an educator and someone who is still in touch with teachers and parents.