This month, Mark Johnson announced a reorganization at the Department of Public Instruction, one of the many results of a recent court case that took over a year to settle and an audit that cost over a million dollars which said that DPI was underfunded.

Part of the official announcement contained this new position that at that time had not been announced : the Deputy Superintendent of Operations.

“The Deputy Superintendent for Operations has not been announced yet.”

 

Under that title comes duties associated with overseeing the Chief Financial Officer, Chief School Business Officer, Human Resources, and Information Technology – the kinds of positions that seem to be the glue of the establishment.

For someone to fulfill the duties of such an office, that person would need to know the in’s and out’s of school operations and functions from the minute details to the most visibly seen and carry out the wishes of the boss.

And there is one person above all most qualified to carry out the wishes of the establishment and its leader to such a loyal fault that to enact all of that leader’s decrees would always be more important than actually keeping the best interest of the public schools in mind.

And no one has a better resume for such a position than Dolores Umbridge, the former High Inquisitor at Hogwarts.

Think about it. All of those “decrees” that the North Carolina General Assembly is attempting to enact in all traditional public schools? Umbridge is literally a master of that. No one “decrees” better than she.

At Hogwarts she adored delivering her “Educational Decrees.” Defined by the Harry Potter Wiki website (http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Educational_Decree), these decrees were,

“…laws created by the Ministry of Magic to set or modify standards at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

…the Ministry (spearheaded by Dolores Umbridge) created new educational decrees to suppress and outlaw behavior of which the Ministry did not approve, some of which would outright expel the students found to be in transgression of. In truth, however, is just an excuse to strip Albus Dumbledore of his headship of the school and give it to Umbridge.”

Sounds like North Carolina right? Even the NCGA is using a special session as an excuse to strip Gov. Cooper of his office’s powers and give it to the same people who control the person who is supposedly the boss at DPI.

Imagine seeing these decrees posted at each school under “In God We Trust” on a wall visible to all.

Maybe a decree that says, “Teachers shall report all video titles shown in class to an anonymous person in Raleigh to keep tabs on them.”

And it doesn’t seem far-fetched to hear someone loyal to Mark Johnson say the following when a citizen or veteran teacher calls into question the manner in which DPI is being run:

“I am sorry, dear, but to question my practices is to question the State Superintendent, and by extension, the NCGA themselves. I am a tolerant woman, but the one thing I will not stand for is disloyalty.”

“Your previous instruction in this subject has been disturbingly uneven. But you will be pleased to know from now on, you will be following a carefully structured, Mark Johnson-approved course of curriculum. Yes?”

“It is the view of Johnson’s DPI that a theoretical knowledge will be sufficient to get you through your examinations, which after all, is what school is all about.”

Apparently, in reaction, some local systems are already placing in local schools bands of centaurs.

And more Latin courses.