Does “conservative” and “tea party” mean the same thing?  The writers at Education Week appear to want readers to think so.  In an article titled, “Tea partiers playing a role in some school board races,” Ed Week identifies Wake County as the “best known example” of the tea party movement’s involvment in school board politics.  Of course, do not ask them for evidence. They ain’t got it.

Though difficult to quantify, the same forces that swept conservative candidates into office on the congressional and state levels appear to be working their way down to some local races.

Did you get that?  The title of the piece declares that tea partiers are playing a role in school board races, but the involvement of the tea party cannot be quantified (unless you, I don’t know, polled voters in these areas).  Furthermore, there are similar “forces” that are “working their way down” to school board races.  What are these magical forces and do they have anything to do with midi-chlorians?

The section of the story on Wake County does not mention tea party involvement or the reasons why these mysterious tea party forces opposed the district’s busing policy.

The best-known example in education circles is Wake County, N.C., which elected four conservative-leaning school board members in 2009 to the nine-member board. Though chosen in a nonpartisan race, the new school board members garnered much of their support from voters displeased with a school assignment policy based on socioeconomic diversity, including some conservative community organizations that viewed the policy as social engineering.

 

The four new members, along with a Republican member already on the board, voted to do away with the old school assignment policy in March 2010. That decision drew criticism from the district’s accrediting agency for high schools, the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights, and federal Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who said “America’s strength has always been a function of its diversity.”

 

District staff members are currently working on a proposal that would assign students to schools based on parent choice and student test scores.

 

A split Wake County board also voted along party lines in December 2010 to hire as superintendent Anthony J. Tata, a former Army general and graduate of the Broad Superintendents Academy. Mr. Tata, who served as chief operations officer for the District of Columbia public schools, blogged for conservative websites and appeared as a commentator on military affairs for Fox News.

 

It is not clear that these anonymous “conservative community organizations” had any influence among voters.  That minor detail aside, do these unidentified organizations include those that promoted conservative causes BEFORE the start of the tea party movement, e.g., Wake Taxpayers Association and the Wake County GOP?  Does blogging on conservative websites and appearing on Fox News make someone a tea partier?  Does that make Juan Williams a tea partier? What is the definition of a tea partier and do the members of the Wake County school board fit that definition?  Fortunately, mainstream journalists do not have to worry about these silly details.

If you are looking for undeniable evidence of tea party influence, do what real journalists do and examine Facebook pages.  After all, Washington Post reporter Stephanie McCrummen found irrefutable evidence of a tea party infiltration via new superintendent Tony Tata’s Facebook page.  McCrummen wrote,

Last month, it announced that Anthony J. Tata, former chief operating officer of the D.C. schools, will replace a superintendent who resigned to protest the new board’s intentions. Tata, a retired general, names conservative commentator Glenn Beck and the Tea Party Patriots among his “likes” on his Facebook page.

So, the tea party is an unquantifiable force that sometimes appears on Facebook.  Of course, my mother also fits that description.