Have you noticed that the vast majority of public schools that are being closed enroll disproportionate numbers of black students? Even in districts that are majority black, the closing schools are even more segregated than the district. What will happen to these children?
Jersey Jazzman noticed. He calls it the Néw Apartheid
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, the funders behind so-called “education reform” have called it “the civil rights issue of our time”. At first I was incredulous that something this outrageous—and obtuse—could be uttered by such supposedly smart and successful people.
Now, I’ve come around to thinking they WERE right about this after all: it IS “the civil rights issue of our time”…I just didn’t realize then that the Ed Reformers were playing the parts of this era’s George C. Wallace, Bull Connor and Lester Maddox.
Students, parents, citizens and our teachers are the ones sitting in at lunch counters, marching to Selma and refusing to move to the back of the bus.
And like them, in time, we too shall overcome.
Keep the faith, people. Keep the faith.
I’m here in Detroit fighting our Emergency Managers and their involvement in our public schools.
The expansion of the EAA. The majority are minority schools. Pretty sad.
Well they are the poorer performing schools and something should be done. Closing their schools is not the solution unless they are given vouchers to go any school. Could that be a problem for many?
Framing this battle as a civil rights issue is insulting the intelligence of black people. We know this is about Money
And ironically this is supported by the first biracial president who led us to believe change was coming. Little did we know what changes he actually meant. He chose Arne, his basketball buddy, to run the Gates USDOE and now we are all screwed. I don’t feel hope….I feel despair. Shame on all of them.
NCLB was Bush’s baby which was hailed at the time. Race to the Top, I am very familiar with and it is not what is being portrayed here.
People of color are different. Some of us don’t even like each other. We also think differently, have different tastes, and languages.
Race to the Top IS what it is portrayed as being here.
SB 736, Florida’s “merit pay” law, was the essentially the state’s second application for Race to the Top. Race to the Top encourages the very things this sites speaks against such as getting rid of “tenure,” closing schools, grading teachers based on test scores (even if those teachers don’t teach tested subjects or tested grade levels and are thus graded on whole-school results), and the ever-expanding charter machine.
RTT is worse than NCLB. They are continuing the test craze and measuring all growth (students and teachers) by test scores. As a parent and teacher, I know this will not improve teaching and learning. RTT, also known as race to the trough or the race to nowhere, is actually a stimulus program masquerading as reform.
Children of color are being further segregated and I find that ironic and sad considering the ethnic make up of our leader. Silly to assume he would be concerned with further segregating brown children. His daughters though are all set at a top notch, non testing, well rounded, fully staffed private school.
For all the boasting of how great charter schools are I wonder why he didn’t pursue the KIPP chain in DC?
RTT, NCLB on steroids, is now Obama’s baby and he owns it.
Once again, there is no hope and these are not the changes he promised.
Remember his walking shoes pledge? Apparently, he hasn’t found them yet.
RTTT is absolute critical to why the public school system is being destroyed, and Barack Obama OWNS this issue. Quit trying to make excuses for him. NCLB was NOTHING compared to RTTT.
“People of color have dif. tastes, languages…” That is true of any race.
DeeDee, Great Theory! Unfortunately, it is not widely practiced….
To DeeDee…and it wasn’t the point. Who would have thought a president of color would further segregate and discriminate against children of color…beige, brown, dark brown, it doesn’t matter. Their lives are not better. Their schooling is more of a factory model than ever before. Teachers are operating under threats and fear and that is good for our kids?
As was slavery.
Not so quick, Civil Rights Issues were also about the Poor. Remember, MLK Jr. Was killed when he mobilized the poor, working poor and minorities. Closing endless schools in poor Black communities, leaving them gutted, void of decent life, lack of safe streets to walk to schools, empty of community support,etc,etc. We cannot kick-start a lost society, especially with wounded and uneducated residents. I think this is the Civil Rights Issue of 2013. We should be outraged! Even, LBJ would be furious.
Some Trigger Bills give poor children opportunities to go schools of their choice. As long as that is part of the bill, I see it as an opportunity, not a civil rights violation.
Further, what is the alternative? For those children to remain in poorly performing schools without any intervention is a civil rights violation! And criminal!
Consider this- it is not simply the “poor”, nor “minorities”- who are being abandoned. There may be a combination of factors working in concert that lead to the weakening of our community schools.
From what I observe, after the initial skimming by charters, and the resulting cultural shift in our “regular” public school, students with “issues” begin to have a larger presence. These issues include, but are not limited to learning difficulties, behavior problems, and low to non-existant parental support. After all, students in the two latter categories are not likely to be applying to charters, or staying very long.
Thus the snowball starts downhill. I’ve witnessed it firsthand. And it’s not slowing down any time soon.
Angela Grant ~ I am very supportive of families having options. However, 30,000+ children are mandated to leave the schools they knew.This is often as traumatic as many known traumas that children experience. I am absolutely convinced that closing low achieving schools is not the ONLY ANSWER. There are endless experts who have been recommending endless solutions to help kids in those schools. However, legislators do not want to do the right thing, spend the money for support school personnel, smaller classes, MSWs, graduation coaches, recess, stop the testing insanity, support the teachers, respect the teachers, tutorials for learning & not just for testing, job preparations, +++++ endless support for the kids and their community.
Yes, uprooting all those children and their families in struggling communities is to me a crime! We have so many urban school systems that are being treated exactly the same as Chicago and NYC. This is a Civil Rights Issue. Will impact generations for years and destroy neighborhoods.
Great Question!!!!!!! Where are the non-profits in concert with the lawyers? Where
is the loud scream across this country as television after television shows the protesters,
the kids and their parent’s picketing? Where is suburan America for these folks?
Remember, “….and then they came for me!”
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
Well, if you need a story to lift you spirits, check this out. A story about people remembering their best teachers. Test scores aren’t mentioned.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/fl-teacher-impact-anecdotes-20130322,0,6849188,full.story
Thank you for sharing this extremely thorough research. While reading it, some further questions came to mind. In regards to discrimination — How many of the teachers in the schools that are being closed are women?? How many are over 40 years of age?? How many are black or Hispanic? Civil Rights attorneys need to be alert to this ABUSE OF POWER!!!
Marge Borchert
This is what the US DOE was created to oversee. Making sure states and districts abided by the civil rights of students and communities. The DOE has morphed into an omnipresent force dictating every aspect of our public schools– while ignoring its initial charge of protecting all children and schools.
The USDOE is controlled by Gates and serves the overlords. Arne is their puppet. He has no original ideas. He waits for Bill and Eli and the rest to set up his daily agenda.
I truly believe that the 47% Romney so confidently spoke about are being targeted by the 1%. Why should their hard earned money (that they inherited) go to the good of our society in taxes? Let’s just warehouse them and give them bottom dollar, bottom barrel education.
Save the best education for those who can pay for it!
It makes you wonder. Also, they aren’t their base so they don’t care if they make them mad.
Here’s another question that the American people would like to have answered—–
Who ( names please) are making a fortune by investing in Pearson Publishing?? Could it be the wives or in -laws of our so called reform leaders??? Civil Rights and Ethics questions abound. ABUSE OF POWER IS NO SURPRISE!
Marge
@Marge: You are SO true. My rights are violated everyday. Who am I? One of the only black teachers in my school. How long have I held that title? 6 or more years! I have contacted local chapters of the NAACP. I have watched citizens who have moved to my rural southern area try to run for county commissioner positions. They have seen the segregation and civil violations in my county. They have printed the obvious high percentage of black students assigned to 1-2 schools in the local papers. Yet, they are run out of town. I have been ridiculed and been a victim of double-standards my entire teaching career. Teachers of color used to go to neighboring counties to get employment. Teachers of color in my county who go on to obtain higher degrees are NEVER allowed to become principals–only assistants. If they ARE allowed, they have to preside over the pre-dominantly ethnic schools.
Simply put, we do need civil rights lawyers on hand at EVERY school. You’d be surprised how many teachers talk to their ethnic children (Hmong, Hispanic, and African-American) with the jargon of Jim Crow times. Our guidance counselors are so “lily-white” that they are limited in their abilities to help ALL students. At this point, I don’t care about RTT or NCLB because these fights ARE about money. The powers-that-be will do what they want. Teachers that rebel against it find themselves “out of a job on technicalities.”
Please know that in the rural South ethics are violated, Christmas and other “southern Baptist” rituals are observed as a part of the lesson regardless if we have Jewish (a rarity, but possible) or Muslim or Catholic students in the classroom, and many public schools have NO students or staff of color.
It’s unconstitutional.
To all, from chalk face. A message to parents from your child’s teacher:
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?h=315&v=IQ-OtEdFAKI&w=560&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DIQ-OtEdFAKI%26w%3D560%26h%3D315
Does anyone know when in April Diane be in Washington DC? I will be down there and want to go.
Thursday, April 4th…I believe she speaks at 3pm.
Here is the schedule:
http://unitedoptout.com/the-official-schedule-for-occupy-doe-2-0-the-battle-for-public-schools/
Lawyers and civil rights groups like politicians get bought and sold like a cheap suit. Just look close at who funds who and how many top law firms are put on retainer by school districts like LAUSD and N.Y. to prevent anyone else using them and their skills. Read the “Art of War.”
My heart continues to be heavy on these issues. The poor rarely are represented appropriately in public service matters. Can anyone imagine this occurring in any of Chicago’s many prominent suburbs and silence prevailing? Civil rights issues are indeed how the most at risk are treated by the most advantaged! Once again, we are so busy making points we fail to make a difference! I have no answers but I remain wondering why neighborhoods are uprooted by bureaucrats!
The wealthy own the civil rights groups. Just go look at who funds them. Then go look at the insanity of the NAACP with Reverend Pinkney in Benton Harbor. They have sold our their own. This is all easy to check. In fact Rev. Pinkney has a two hour internet radio show every Sunday. And this is just a start.
I have stated this in so many of Diane’s posts–the ACLU needs to be involved. Those of you actively involved in a brouhaha, contact them. We will hold up our end in Chicago.
On January 25 Roland Martin of CNN, the Tom Joyner Show, and Washington Watch, had Michelle Rhee on Tom Joyner’s show. I tweeted him and said that I was ashamed of him for having Michelle Rhee on his show, speaking about education.
I then stated that he is an excellent journalist, and should look into what Michelle Rhee really stands for. I gave him two names, Sabrina Stevens and Diane Ravitch. Another tweeter joined our conversation after Roland became somewhat hostile in his remarks. She pointed out that Roland Martin sat on the board of StudentsFirst. That’s when it got ugly.
His words,@briteeyes49 (and the other tweeter)”do u think I care about your nonsense? @studentsfirsthq is about students and not keeping status quo”
This is a respected journalist in the African-American community, and this is how he responded to me because I dared to question him about Michelle Rhee.
Jose Vilson has also tried to contact John Legend, who is also in bed with Michelle Rhee.
Where are the civil rights lawyer is a good question. Where are our civil rights leaders?Are they also duped by the nonsense spewed by ed “reformers”? Where is President Obama? You can’t ask for our children to get the best education, and then close neighborhood schools!
Why isn’t this something that is forefront in our communities? They are closing our schools! They are giving our children a subpar education. They are taking away everything from them but standardized testing, and no one seems to care.
They don’t give a shit. The Justice Department is not fighting for anyone or thing. Banks too big to prosecute, Voting Rights Act forget it, murder of public education, look away.