Fallout over Arne Duncan's criticism of Wake County schools

Ten years from now both sides will still be arguing over the issue of diversity. Both sides are spending a lot of time and intellectual energy - while other more urgent problems go unaddressed. Particulaly, how to defend against the State's proposed, devestating education budget cuts; and, how to raise the quality of education.

Columnist David Brooks had something interesting to say about the political process. It's worth thinking about.                                                                   

 "Civility is a tree with deep roots, and without the roots, it can’t last. So what are those roots? They are failure, sin, weakness and ignorance.

Every sensible person involved in politics and public life knows that their work is laced with failure. Every column, every speech, every piece of legislation and every executive decision has its own humiliating shortcomings. There are always arguments you should have made better, implications you should have anticipated, other points of view you should have taken on board.

Moreover, even if you are at your best, your efforts will still be laced with failure. The truth is fragmentary and it’s impossible to capture all of it. There are competing goods that can never be fully reconciled. The world is more complicated than any human intelligence can comprehend.

But every sensible person in public life also feels redeemed by others. You may write a mediocre column or make a mediocre speech or propose a mediocre piece of legislation, but others argue with you, correct you and introduce elements you never thought of. Each of these efforts may also be flawed, but together, if the system is working well, they move things gradually forward.

Each individual step may be imbalanced, but in succession they make the social organism better.

As a result, every sensible person feels a sense of gratitude for this process. We all get to live lives better than we deserve because our individual shortcomings are transmuted into communal improvement. We find meaning — and can only find meaning — in the role we play in that larger social enterprise.

So this is where civility comes from — from a sense of personal modesty and from the ensuing gratitude for the political process. Civility is the natural state for people who know how limited their own individual powers are and know, too, that they need the conversation. They are useless without the conversation.

The problem is that over the past 40 years or so we have gone from a culture that reminds people of their own limitations to a culture that encourages people to think highly of themselves. The nation’s founders had a modest but realistic opinion of themselves and of the voters. They erected all sorts of institutional and social restraints to protect Americans from themselves. They admired George Washington because of the way he kept himself in check.

But over the past few decades, people have lost a sense of their own sinfulness. Children are raised amid a chorus of applause. Politics has become less about institutional restraint and more about giving voters whatever they want at that second. Joe DiMaggio didn’t ostentatiously admire his own home runs, but now athletes routinely celebrate themselves as part of the self-branding process.

So, of course, you get narcissists who believe they or members of their party possess direct access to the truth. Of course you get people who prefer monologue to dialogue. Of course you get people who detest politics because it frustrates their ability to get 100 percent of what they want. Of course you get people who gravitate toward the like-minded and loathe their political opponents. They feel no need for balance and correction.

Beneath all the other things that have contributed to polarization and the loss of civility, the most important is this: The roots of modesty have been carved away

This is too sadly ironic to believe. It was Arne Duncan's philosophy of community schools that was the beacon for what 'we' did. It was a huge motivator for the change in the election year. Should we maybe blame him? Let's put the onus on his doorstep. Another huge motivator was that we suspected - and now we know - that the diversity policy was based on "Old South" politics. It is decidedly racist. Holdzcum has recently released a statement to the effect that "oh yes, we know that the top rating black students have been suppressed, but here are our excuses why...".  Please read it. It is enlightening. 

Does anyone do their own research and make up their own minds, or does everyone just regurgitate what the media feeds them _ ARNE? 

This county has been systematically suppressing black students - yes, black, not ED, not Asian - black - for years. And until a discontented rabble came along (uncomfortably, and inconveniently 'not from around here' but taxpayers nonetheless) and said that the busing made no sense - no one even looked under the rug. We just said the rug is lumpy. 

WE never looked under the rug, but once we did. Holy crap. Its ugly under there. Arne, you really should look before you defend it another minute. 

A strong leader from Wake County - Mr. Margiotta or Mr. Tata should respond in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post. This is not their business. They have NO idea of the back alley dirty laundry that's been hidden down here for years, for generations I reckon. Please, use the data that shows how black students have been held down systematically. That should give even some koolaid drinkers some pause. 

We need to do the right thing by the children and my God no one who spouts off about "us vs them" cares one whit from what I can see.