Drowning in his OWN B.S. (The Ed Dennison story)

Thats what happened — according to one of my moles – to Moore County school board chairman Ed Dennison at Saturday’s northern Moore GOP precinct meetings.

If you haven’t followed things closely here, let me recap.  Our school board is the furthest thing from watchdogs.  They are rubber-stamps sitting around waiting to approve whatever the superintendent and his coterie of six-figure-salaried assistants plop down in front of them.  None of them — Dennison included — can intelligently explain or defend the policies they, as a board, approve (without a script provided by the educrats at the central office).  

We’ve got a pretty astute, pretty slick Alinskyite in the superintendent’s office.  Most of them who pass through the various college education departments and the public school system get well-trained and well-practiced in the tactics of the late, not-so-great Mr. Saul Alinsky.  Our current superintendent, Dr. Bob Grimesey, is hosting parent meetings all over the county in which he scares the living crap out of all in attendance.  (*Your kids will all starve and go brain-dead if the county commissioners don’t cough up more money or raise taxes.*) 

Those scared parents then turn around and write hysterical, panic-stricken letters containing nary a fact to the local newspaper.  The lazy local newspaper then treats said hysterical letters as gospel and slants its news coverage to fit the theme of those letters. It’s like this every year in the run-up to the budget process.

This year, things have gotten particularly out-of-hand.  The superintendent and his fellow taxpayer-subsidized minions have gone too far.  They have scared parents into such a frenzy that a leading conservative county commissioner and his wife have been targeted with hate mail and nasty verbal commentary that borders on threats.

Let’s get back to Saturday.  Chairman Dennison showed up to campaign in front of the northern Moore Republican leaders.  After a speech that said basically nothing, Dennison asked the crowd for questions.  One man in the crowd took him up on his offer.  Dennison was asked by the man WHY — if the county system is such a woeful financial state that it is going to have to cut class offerings — the school system is going forward with its multi-million dollar “concept high school”.    Why not hold off on that project and shift some of its money over to cover any anticipated shortfalls in the area of curriculum?  

Chairman Dennison stuttered, stammered and offered up a response along these lines: “Oh, the school is a good idea.  Let’s talk about this one-on-one after this program is done.”

The man in the crowd was not having that: “Why did you ask for questions if you’re not going to answer questions?”

“The concept school is a good idea, and I told you we’d talk about it later,” snapped Dennison, clearly upset at being put on the spot.

Dennison tried to move on: “Any other questions?”

The same man quipped: “Yeah, why won’t you answer my question?”

For far too long we’ve let the school board slip under the radar. Our useless local paper doesn’t give it the coverage it deserves.  Firing Bob Grimesey won’t solve the problem.  Another brain-washed, Kool-aid drinking edu-crat would drop into his slot.

What we need are serious, hard-nosed watchdogs who will keep a close eye on the bureaucrats at the central office.  Make them defend every move they make.  “Dr. Bob” works for US.  (You don’t work for Dr. Bob.) 

There is not a single incumbent school board member who deserves to keep their job, or much less be reelected to their seat.  They have rubber-stamped and aided and abetted a sickening disinformation campaign that has misinformed the public and spawned a terror campaign against a county commissioner and his wife.

We spend so much time focused on the presidential and congressional and gubernatorial races that we often overlook much more significant local races — city council, county commissioner and school board.

The career bureaucrats in the school system would bankrupt their respective counties, the state and the country if they could.  You could empty every bank account and wallet in your county, hand the money over to the schools, and those people would still whine about how cash-strapped they are.

There is no accountability there.  Try to inject some — and you’ll get a lot of boo-hooing about how they’re DOING IT for the chil’ren. 

Want to save our country, our state our county?  Focus on your local schools like a laser beam. Nip this nonsense in the bud before it breaks us financially and melts the brains of yet another generation of kids.