Yep – I went there.

 

In the latest besmirching of public schools, leaders of the Senate Education Committee gave their approval to an Achievement School District in North Carolina, a GOP backed endeavor that places low performing schools from poverty stricken areas in the hands of out-of-state, for-profit charter organizations.

Past ASD “experiments” have proven disastrous. And at the middle of the meeting, the man who collected the votes and announced the decision was none other than the champion of unregulated charter schools, Sen. Jerry Tillman.

Sen. Tillman is no stranger to the assault on public education in North Carolina. His bills and lawmaking have enabled many charter schools to take public funds and run unregulated creating results that are not measured like traditional schools are so they can be trumpeted as successful.

Billy Ball reported in his article on NC Policy Watch on June 24 (“Senate committee approves controversial charter takeover of low-performing schools”),

“Committee Chair Jerry Tillman, a Republican who supports the measure, declared the “ayes” to have won the vote Friday, although to some listeners, the voice vote appeared to be evenly split or favoring the opposition.“

Tillman was going to make sure it would pass. That’s why there was a voice vote. And the oldest ears in the room declared a winner.

That’s being consumed with power.

At one time Tillman was a public school educator and administrator. He still probably receives a pension from the very entity that he now works against – the public schools. It is almost unbelievable that such a transformation could occur. But power can corrupt.

It is not an uncommon theme, the corruption of power. It is told in many stories. It drives plot. It created transformations in the very characters that cannot get enough power.

I remember reading Lord of the Rings as a teenager. Gripping. Then I went to college here in North Carolina and had this roommate who would in the middle of the night come next to me and lightly say, “What’s the Bagginses gots in his pocketses?”

It would make me release my bladder sometimes. Not gonna lie.

My roommate was taking this course called “Faith and Imagination” from the religion department. They read LOTR because of its allegorical nature. And he loved Gollum. And he quoted him in the most uncomfortable situations.

Too much, I think.

Fast-forward 20+ years and we get Peter Jackson’s epic Lord of the Rings Trilogy on the big screen and then we got a wonderful view of how Gollum could be envisioned.

That is an interesting fellow. You won’t forget him.

So when I caught a glimpse of a picture of Sen. Jerry Tillman…

I saw this again –

Then I thought of this,

And it all made sense. A once public school official who championed public schools changed into someone who is willing to sell them away using tax payer money.

Smeagol (Gollum before he was Gollum) was once a Halfling like Frodo and Samwise, but something changed him when he discovered the power of the ring – the one ring to rule them all.

If you look very closely it says, “Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.” Translated, it says, “One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”

Rumor is that it was created by the for-profit charter school industry in Mordor, which is out of state. It is the “precious” that people like Tillman look to have and it calls the same people to send our public schools into disarray.

Actually that’s not true, but metaphorically-speaking it is spot on.

So precious is the link to the for-profit charter school industry that Tillman is not hesitant to shout the wonderful effects of charter schools when he has no proof otherwise. He was reported as saying in that Senate committee meeting that kids in charter schools do better than kids on regular public schools and that is the reason that the kids in the ASD “district” should be given over to the charter industry. Ball even quoted Tillman as saying, “They will make great growth. That’s a fact.”

Wow! Someone is corrupted by the dark side.

Those who know the story of LOTR remember that the ring is destroyed in the very place where it seemed impossible to go – Mordor. It was a happy ending. Worth rewatching over and over again.

Hopefully here in NC it will be a happy ending when those in power realize that placing our kids in the hands of an impersonal entity through an ASD is not the answer.

Louisiana, Michigan, and Tennessee have already found that out.