Wake Schools appear on The Colbert Report.
RALEIGH -- The Wake County school board is being mocked on national television for eliminating its socioeconomic diversity policy to move toward neighborhood schools.
Comedian Stephen Colbert devoted part of Tuesday night’s “Colbert Report” show on The Comedy Central Network to lampooning the school board’s actions. It’s the latest round of national attention placed on Wake since a Jan. 12 front-page Washington Post article reported on the situation in the school district.
“Sure, integrating schools may sound benign, but what’s the use of living in a gated community if my kids go to school and get poor all over them?” Colbert said.
Colbert, who pretends to be a conservative commentator during his satirical reports, singled out school board member John Tedesco during his segment.
“Luckily, Tedesco is part of a group of Tea Party backed Republican school board members who recently voted for Wake County schools to go back to the old system of separate neighborhood schools to better teach the kids the 3 Rs,” Colbert said as the words “Readin,’ 'Riting,' and Resegregatin’” flashed on the screen.
Colbert mocked Tedesco for having said in the Washington Post article that Wake’s old policy of trying to balance the percentages of low-income students in schools diluted the problem so people could ignore it.
“See? Misguided government do-gooders foolishly diluted the problem by addressing it,” Colbert said. “We need to ignore it, so we'll pay attention to it!” Colbert also called Wake's old diversity policy "an out of control success story."
Tedesco could not immediately be reached for comment today. But fellow GOP school board member Chris Malone said Colbert and other critics have ignored the poor academic scores and graduation rates for low-income and minority students under the old diversity policy.
Malone, while calling Tuesday’s segment by Colbert “hysterical,” said he doubted it would have much long-term impact on public opinion.
“We don’t want to give Stephen Colbert too much credit as to how much it will sway people,” Malone said. “It will be forgotten quickly across the country.”
Wake’s national reputation has taken a hit since last week’s Washington Post article, which argued that the Tea Party had taken control of the school board to eliminate the diversity policy. After the article ran, U.S. Education Arne Duncan wrote a letter to the editor that The Post published Friday in which he called Wake’s actions “troubling.”
On Monday, Tedesco defended the school board’s actions during an interview on “The Willis Report” on the Fox Business Network.
