John Tedesco Presents Diversity in Wake County

• joe
  12/10 01:50 PM
  

  W T F?

• JD
  12/10 05:52 PM
  

  I am embarrassed to say I don’t get it. Is it saying he wants to separate the races into sectors or he thinks all races look like him. And why the African motif?

• Brian
  12/10 07:08 PM
  

  The Jurassic Park font really makes this.

• above average
  12/11 08:55 AM
  

  wtf, indeed. i am from lake wobegone and do not get it.

• John Tedesco
  12/11 10:57 AM
  

  Hmm? Not sure I get it either. I do know I have dedicated my life and whole career thus far to helping at-risk children by the thousands. I do know I choose to live in a diverse neighborhood and attend a diverse church because that is what I value. In every aspect of my life you see all those different people noted on the picture. My personal philosophy has always looked at the fact that we are all God’s children with red blood running through us - not what color we are on the outside.
  Now I do stand proudly against a failed policy that guised itself under the term “diversity” in an effort to be above reproof. The policy was discriminatory and gave choice to affluent individual suburbanites and access to programs and resources that few have. The policy aimed at our low-income minorities to bear the brunt of its implementation. Low-income families had no choice as they were the ones slated for the farthest bus rides that sent 5 year olds an hour away from home block by block.  Schools of choice (magnet, themed, and calendar) had a weighted selection index based on race/income – ex: for Magnet schools there were 12 steps in the selection algorithm and if you were low income you were ranked at the bottom which almost always guaranteed exclusion since the limited seats were filled up by the affluent first. This is not right! This is but one example of a dozen ways the old model failed and discriminated against these kids. Don’t even get me started on how it systematically excluded minority kids from advanced courses that they were qualified for keeping them off college tracks and put into remedial courses to dumb them down.
  I will always fight for those vulnerable in our community – those without an advocate.  Some elitists wish to tell me they do it for the integrity of the system and make the county more marketable at the expense of our children. The results leave a 56% of economically disadvantaged children in Wake graduate, only 46% of Southeast Raleigh children can read after 5 years of busing, and 21,000 suspensions disproportionately aimed at minorities in Wake stands among the most in America. This is not right. This is unacceptable and I will fight for these children all the way. So I will take the caricature as one willing to fight for all children.
  Sincerely,
  John Tedesco

• Ocsedet
  12/11 03:23 PM
  

  That sounds very noble, but whether you realize it or not your proposed “rezoning” is essentially resegregation.

• Tico
  12/12 03:15 PM
  

  By far my favorite local blog…. but unfortunately NewRaleigh screws the pooch when it comes to cartoons.  There is nothing even slighly clever about this cartoon.  WHy is this??

• JK
  12/12 06:41 PM
  

  You put your agenda in the public sphere and you’re going to have to deal with criticism of all sorts. Learn to take it and not just dish it out, Tedesco!

• Jeff S
  12/12 09:39 PM
  

  John, you’ve been proven a liar on multiple occasions at this point. I can’t imagine anyone would even bother to read your defense at this point.

• Jeff S
  12/12 09:42 PM
  

  Yes, my reply was unintentionally redundant. Oh well, easier for you to dismiss me. Since I didn’t vote for you I’m sure my concerns are irrelevant to you anyway.

• Knave
  12/13 12:27 AM
  

  When Tedesco tried to fix the school system by breaking it, I was fairly annoyed. But now he’s really gone too far with this pathetic attempt to legitimize the total crap cartoons run on NewRaleigh!

  

• WILLNCSU
  12/13 12:29 PM
  

  Silly liberals.

• ATB
  12/13 02:16 PM
  

  Well, John, at least now I know you read more than just the News and Observer and the Republican Caucus News for the upperly moble.

• amy
  12/13 03:32 PM
  

  One of the primary issues here is one that Jeff alluded too…
  Members of the BOE are elected in districts that only residents of that district can vote in, yet these elected officials make decisions that impact the ENTIRE COUNTY.

  I would be interested in learning the percentages of minorities in both Mr. Tedesco and Mr. Margiotta’s districts. I am confident that their districts are at least slightly different than the district I live in - Southeast Raleigh.

  IMHO, touting your “record” of standing up “...for those vulnerable in our community…” sounds a lot like “Oh, I have a black friend”. I’m just saying…..

• cold lamper
  12/13 04:08 PM
  

  In your face, comedy supplied by the Black Van series.

• 150
  12/13 04:21 PM
  

  ^^Haven’t seen our old pal the Hobo for a while, either.  Not since around the Four Loko discussions.  Hmm.

• WILLNCSU
  12/13 06:14 PM
  

  Maybe its meant to be a compliment.  Its like its saying “John Tedesco doesn’t see color(unlike liberals)”.  I think you liberals should push for quotas on who lives in each neighborhood instead.  That would really even things out.

• JD
  12/13 07:42 PM
  

  What a disingenuous “argument” from the tiny majority of the school board. If the parents of all these economically disadvantaged children were leading the charge to put all the “56% of economically disadvantaged children in Wake graduate, only 46% of Southeast Raleigh children can read after 5 years of busing, and 21,000 suspensions disproportionately aimed at minorities…” children in one or two schools, where their chances of success will almost certainly be even more restricted, then I might buy it for a second. However, we all know who is behind this… the richest parents whom don’t want their precious snowflakes around the kids you have to round up into failing south east Raleigh schools.

• TheeChrisDee
  12/13 10:05 PM
  

  Raleigh needs to secede from Wake County.

• Joe
  12/13 11:34 PM
  

  John Tedesco,

  Why are you on the school board in the first place? You have no kids?

  #2: Do you have a college degree from an institution anyone has ever heard of?

  #3: Do you have any experience whatsoever working in a school system?

  #4: We don’t give a shit how you did it up north?  If its so damn good up there, why in the hell did you move down here?

• JT#2
  12/14 11:16 AM
  

  Tedesco isn’t a racist.  He dated a black girl once.

• Eiken
  12/14 12:25 PM
  

  As a parent of young children who happen to live in SE Raleigh, I’m here to tell you the system was b-r-o-k-e-n. I’m sorry, but there’s something wrong with my 5-year old being bussed just shy of 40 miles away each and every day to his base school – how in the world is that a good thing? Where we live, it’s not uncommon to have children on the same street, 2 blocks apart, assigned to 3 different base schools. How in the world is my child “integrating” with a school population that he is completely unable to associate with outside of school hours because it’s so GD far? And how is he supposed to get to know the children in his actual neighborhood when they all go to different schools – schools that children as young as five leave for while it’s still dark, and get home after it’s dark yet again. That.is.wrong. I think it’s easy to be weepy and throw out concepts like “resegregation” when you don’t actually live in the neighborhoods most affected, and most importantly, have children of your own who you see suffering because WC peppers poor kids around the county. The truth is, MANY parents in SE WANTED this policy to change and in fact pushed for it. What kills me is that the entire issue was hijacked and sullied by such divisive political interests rather than those most concerned with actually positively affecting change for ALL of our children. Make no mistake, John Tedesco is no hero of mine - and I’ve been incredibly disappointed (and quite frankly embarrassed for him) to see one ridiculous fit after another, especially in the public eye. But this quagmire isn’t his fault. He was voted in fair and square – just like Margiotta and the rest of the lot. Blame the folks who didn’t bother to get out and vote, even though their district was directly touched. Most importantly, blame the former board who for years ignored the pleas of parents sick and tired of a broken system more bent on keeping up pretenses rather than actually doing a good and fair job of educating our children.

• Festus
  12/14 05:37 PM
  

  The bummer about Tedesco is that he spouts the great rhetoric but his actions as a public official have been exactly at odds with the kind of society he professes to admire. I know some fine people who also walk their talk, and I am glad Mr. Tedesco does that in his private life. But as a public official you have to actually craft policies that protect poor kids, not segregate them into low-income schools. Follow the research, please.

• ethel
  01/19 12:40 PM
  

  John,
  Everyone knows your real agenda so just try to be honest to yourself for one second.  Just go back to your Tea Party friends and stop ruining our county!

• b-fuss
  01/19 02:01 PM
  

  Thank-you Eiken. Now, you on the left who employ Bolshevik and Nazi tactics to ridicule a policy, all the while having no logic to back up your own arguments, STFU.

• benefited from bussing
  01/20 12:11 AM
  

  Tedesco stated “The results leave a 56% of economically disadvantaged children in Wake graduate, only 46% of Southeast Raleigh children can read after 5 years of busing”.

  Question: How does sending a child to a school within a mile or so from their house(neighborhood schools)correct this? I am a product of bussing in Wake Co schools and what it did other than send me to a newer school in a neighborhood near our biggest mall, was enlighten me to a world of possibilities. We weren’t poor. We just grew up in a time where whites lived with whites and blacks lived with blacks. It just so happened that the side of town that was predominitely poor and set aside for minorities. Rather than spending 100% of my time in a neighborhood trying to overcome accepting 2nd and 3rd best, I was able to see opportunities that I could take advantage of by being in a group/school that was recognized and had a good portion of parental involvement from stay at home mothers (not so many in the poor and middle class black neighborhood) VS. being treated as a necessary evil on the other side of town. That education (not taught in classroom by by my experience in another culture and neighborhood) made me able to compete at a predominately white University and become the professional in the financial world that I am today.

• Greg Paul
  01/21 11:45 PM
  

  Anybody remember the saying “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. Dipshit Tedesco obviously never has heard it.

• candy4136
  04/01 01:51 PM
  

  It is beyond me why people want to go to neighborhood schools (well, not if you are rich I guess).  And why aren’t the numerous examples of crappy neighborhood schools all over the country ever used as data to help the diversity program.  Dallas Independent School District?  All the rich homes made sure their “neighborhood” school were drawn into a district of its own (even in the Dallas city limits) so the property taxes could be better funneled into their “rich kids” schools.  Leaving the poor neighborhoods to suffer with little property taxes.  Irving ISD?  Mostly apartments and low income homes…leaving little property taxes for that district.  Examples like this are all over the country.  Why would this work any better in Wake?