The members of the Gang of Five majority on the Wake County Board of Education keep trying to ignore the overwhelming evidence that their move to dismantle the system's economic diversity policy is misguided and will hurt the poor children they claim they want to help.

The thousands of opponents of the policy won't let them. That's what Tuesday's arrests of 19 people, including NAACP President William Barber, were about, forcing the Gang of Five to confront the dangerous direction they are heading.

Board Chair Ron Margiotta read a statement at the start of the meeting saying that the board "does not intend to create high-poverty or low-performing schools in the new zone assignments."

Those would be the still to be unveiled zone assignments that Gang of Fiver John Tedesco has touted, but never really explained, though he has admitted in the past the scheme could indeed create more high-poverty schools.

Implicit in Margiotta's statement was that high-poverty schools would be a problem. Tedesco used to say that the challenges faced by the poor schools could be addressed with more funding, which research shows doesn't work.

Now Margiotta and Tedesco deny their zone scheme would concentrate poor students. They have shifted from trying to deflect questions about a problem to denying that a problem would exist.

It's an example of what understandably infuriates the board's opponents, the willingness of the Gang of Five to mislead, misrepresent, and misstate their plans in service of what is clearly an ideological agenda to remake the schools.

Supporters of the board majority bristle at that characterization, that it's all about right-wing ideology. Tedesco's rant at a tea party rally suggests otherwise.

So does the clear message Margiotta sent by not allowing the NAACP to make a formal presentation to members of the board but hiring the right-wing Civitas Institute to train them.

One point that continues to be missing from much of the coverage of the controversy is that Barber and the other protestors are not simply asking the Gang of Five to take a moral stand for diversity, though that's an important part of their message.

The protestors are asking the board majority to reconsider their decision based on 40 years of evidence that shows their current direction will hurt poor kids. Barber mentioned the evidence in his remarks to a rally of more than 1,000 people in downtown Raleigh Tuesday morning.

He also reminded the crowd that the Gang of Five has not only made the wrong decision, but mislead the public about the impact of the current diversity policy on students and their families.

Ninety-one percent of Wake County elementary school students attend a school within five miles of their home. Only three percent of students are bused for diversity and the average bus ride is 20 minutes.

That's why 94.5 percent of parents said they were satisfied with their child's school in a survey conducted by the new board to fulfill a campaign promise. It's a survey that never comes up anymore because it simply doesn't fit with the agenda of the new board and its wealthy right-wing benefactors.

Tedesco remains the chief defender of the plan that will resegregate the schools and continues to be willing to say anything to promote it. He said Tuesday that he was "sad at the misrepresentation of the issues," which coming from the leading misrepresenter himself is more than a bit ironic.

The protesters are sad about the misrepresentations too and they are also worried about the devastating impact on children and the community of the Gang of Five's plan.

That's why they are protesting, why they are marching, why they are getting arrested. The research is clear that children will suffer whether Margiotta and Tedesco want to admit it or not. People of conscience cannot sit idly by while that happens.

Maybe it's all finally getting to Margiotta. He now wants the board to meet only once a month, instead of every two weeks. It's easier to live with doing the wrong thing if you are not reminded of it as often.