Well, the Scrooge before he was wholly transformed through a moral, spiritual, and ethical awakening through the visitations of a variety of spectral figures.
What is happening in Raleigh with Senate Bill 382 is something that will add to the “ponderous chain” that Scrooge supposedly has been building with his malevolent actions against humanity and his inaction to help those in need.
“Ah! You do not know the weight and length of strong chain you bear yourself! It was as full and as long as this seven Christmas eves ago and you have labored on it since. Ah, it is a ponderous chain!”
-Jacob Marley, Stave One of A Christmas Carol
Senate Bill 382 was “billed” as a hurricane relief piece of legislation.
Senate Bill 382 actually offers no direct aid to hurricane victims, but rather spends the bulk of its contents explaining how it will remove power from offices to which people were already elected like the incoming state superintendent, Mo Green.
Remember that charter schools receive monies from local LEAs, but they are monitored by the state, not the local school boards who have to give them money. This further takes away any oversight on charter schools as now DPI will not have any say in appeals by charter school applicants.
What might be even more egregious is that Senate Bill 382 seems to spend more time and space talking about taking away power from the Department of Public Instruction while adding more mandates to its list of duties.
In fact doing a word search in the entire 130+ page bill, the word “hurricane” appears only eight times.
The “Department of Public Instruction” appears over 40 times.
Those chains are getting thicker by the minute.
