RALEIGH – The North Carolina chapter of the NAACP is pursuing legal action under the federal Civil Rights Act to force the school system in Wayne County to end student-assignment practices that, according to the NAACP, are infringing on the civil right of poor, black students to obtain an education.

Rev. William Barber, president of the NAACP chapter, has made it clear that Wake County may be the next target of litigation. By any fair reading of the evidence, however, he should have sued Wake County first, years ago. Its disadvantaged students have lower scores than Wayne’s.

But, of course, that would have required a different litigation strategy. You see, the NAACP is under the impression that sorting and assigning students by race and class is the only way to provide them educational opportunity. Wake is the only urban school system in the state, and one of the few left in the nation, that engages in widespread forced busing. That’s the policy the NAACP is trying to maintain and expand, despite its manifest failure and broad unpopularity.

I don’t know enough about the Wayne County case to assess the merits of the NAACP’s criticism of its student-assignment zones. What I do know is that it makes little sense to defend Wake and vilify Wayne on the basis of helping poor children learn.

By virtually every measure, Wayne County matches or outperforms Wake County when it comes to student achievement among the disadvantaged. According to the most recent state test scores:

• About 49 percent of Wayne County students eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch – the standard for disadvantaged used in public schools – scored at grade level on their reading and math tests. The comparable share of Wake County students was 44 percent. The passing rates for black students was about the same in each county, 45.5 percent in Wayne and 45.2 percent in Wake.

• Among high-school students, the average passing rate on end-of-course tests among disadvantaged students in Wayne was 60.4 percent, vs. 58.5 percent for Wake. Black students in Wake did do slightly better than Wayne on those tests, however.

As with previous warnings about the dire consequences of Wake County following the lead of Charlotte-Mecklenburg by junking forced busing, the NAACP and its supporters among politicians, activists, and editorial writers appear not to have done their homework on the Wayne vs. Wake comparison. Charlotte-Meck’s supposedly regressive school system also posts higher test scores among disadvantaged students than the Wake system does.

Intent on using the Wayne litigation as a shot across the bows to the new conservative majority on the Wake school board, the Left has again advanced a foolish and contradictory position. The guiding philosophy seems to be something like this: never let the facts get in the way of a good photo op.

It’s not working, though. Large majorities of Wake County citizens, in polls taken by both liberal and conservative firms, express opposition to the system’s student-assignment policies. These majorities aren’t just of conservative or white voters. Most Democratic and black residents of Wake also reject forced busing and mandatory year-round schools, as well they should.

That’s the reason conservatives won control of the Wake school board two months ago, not some quirk of fate or conspiracy of silence. Voters knew exactly what they were doing, and came out to the polls in higher proportions than had elected previous school boards. Just about every other urban school system has abandoned these policies because they are costly, unpopular, and ineffective, not because of a secret longing for racial segregation. Wake is lagging behind, not leading a trend.

If Barber and the NAACP want to do something constructive, they could support the elimination of the statewide cap on charter schools, the creation of school-choice programs for poor North Carolina children, and merit pay for teachers. They could go out and start their own innovative charter schools, private schools, or after-school programs in their local communities. They could volunteer, or give money to educational charities. They could urge parents to turn off their children’s TVs and video games and turn on opportunities for learning and character development.

But instead, they’ll keeping threatening to sue. Sure, that’ll help.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation