Jump starting the culture wars

Republicans from counties with failing schools are attacking the most successful district in the state.

You can tell election season has officially started. The Republicans in the North Carolina legislature are trying to jump start a culture war. They’ve got to run on something because they sure haven’t done much. Their approval rating is in the tank and they can’t even pass a budget so they need to rile up their base with distractions.

This time, they’ve taken aim at the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. They’re an easy target, full of the kids of liberal, educated elites who vote reliably Democratic. Republicans don’t need to worry about a backlash from any base voters in Chapel Hill.

Last week, House Majority Leader Brenden Jones hauled the superintendent and chair of the CHCCS school board before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Jones was outraged that School Board Chair George Griffin made comments that indicated he disagreed with portions of the Parental Bill of Rights passed by the legislature last year. The bill is pretty solid proof that Republicans’ priority in education is enforcing their conservative values, not educating our students. Otherwise, they would be holding hearings to determine why North Carolina is 48th in the nation in per pupil spending.

At one point, Jones pulled out three books with names like “Santa’s Husband,” “It Isn’t Rude To Be Nude.” and the particularly salacious “These Are My Eyes, This Is My Nose, This Is My Vulva, This Is My Toes.” The latter are books designed to give kids some ownership and understanding of their bodies, measures that can prevent sexual abuse.

The books are harmless except that they attract the attention of low-IQ bullies like Jones who think they’re pornography. Then they become bludgeons in performative House Committee hearings designed to rile up the GOP base. You can bet they are the worst three titles in the libraries of all eleven elementary schools in the CHCCS system or we would have seen more.

Jones made unsubstantiated allegations that the book ‘Santa’s Husband” was read to a a group of second-graders and accused Trice of “indoctrinating” students. He read passages from the books and threw them over his shoulder calling the “trash.” He never presented any evidence that they harm students.

Outside of the culture wars, though, Trice, Griffin, and the offending school board must be doing something right. Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools are among the top performing in nation, not just the state. The website Niche ranks CHCCS the best school system in North Carolina and 207 out of 10,394 systems nationally. Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools have a high graduation rate and low dropout rate.

Maybe Jones is just trying to distract from the fact that he’s spent his time in Raleigh ignoring problems that plague schools and students in his own district. Students in the both Columbus County and Whiteville City schools scored significantly below the state testing average. Several schools did not meet growth standards.

While Orange County, with a population of 150,000, only had 52 reports of school-based delinquency incidents, Columbus County with a population of only 50,000 had 150 reports. Orange County has the lowest teen pregnancy rate in the state. Columbus County has the eleventh highest. Clearly, whatever they are doing is not working well in Columbus County. Maybe Brenden Jones should suggest one of those books he considers trash. They obviously haven’t led to more teen sex in Orange County.

Whiteville, the county seat of Columbus County, has a crime rate far above the state average. Columbus County has an income 31% below the state median, the 12th lowest in the state. It’s unemployment rate is about a percentage point higher than the state as a whole and the population is in decline.

I’m not here to run down Columbus County. I have a lot of sympathy for areas that have been left behind by the modern economy and I want them to succeed. I am here to point out that the guy whose job it is fight for Columbus County in Raleigh is spending his time picking culture war fights with a county that is not only thriving but subsidizing the people he represents.

Brenden Jones is part of the tragedy of places like Columbus County. He’s a guy with mediocrity and resentment oozing from every pore. Jones is what passes for a leader in a place that suffers from brain drain. He’s the sediment that rises from the bottom to the top when the best and the brightest leave the county to get educated or trained and never come back.

Columbus County desperately needs a smart, innovative leader to go to Raleigh to work relentlessly for its citizens. Instead they get a guy like Jones, more concerned with picking culture war fights that will help his party win elections so he can stay a big fish in a small pond. Columbus County and North Carolina lose when people like Brenden Jones win.

Correction: An earlier version of this post said that the nearest hospital to Whiteville is 50 miles away. That statement was incorrect since Whiteville has a hospital.