Duncan: Racial Isolation Has Worsened

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1. Joanna Best says:

   May 23, 2014 at 11:47 am

   LOL

   (and then cry)

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2. Michael Fiorillo says:

   May 23, 2014 at 11:57 am

   Wow, what noive, as old time New Yorkers would say.

   Talk about crocodile tears…

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   • George Paolacci says:

     May 23, 2014 at 1:55 pm

     That’s Brooklynites, but it is noive.

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     • Michael Fiorillo says:

       May 23, 2014 at 3:04 pm

       Not just Brooklyn, George: my family goes back in lower Manhattan to before the old Leo Gorcy and the Bowery Boys days, with their “Toity toid and toid…” accents.

       Gee, could I have possibly dated myself any more than I already have?

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3. Marie says:

   May 23, 2014 at 12:02 pm

   There was no informatiion, just the title.

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   • Joanna Best says:

     May 23, 2014 at 1:05 pm

     I think that was the point.

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     • Bob Shepherd says:

       May 23, 2014 at 2:53 pm

       Yes. I love Diane’s sense of humor!

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4. Bob Shepherd says:

   May 23, 2014 at 12:03 pm

   speechless

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5. joe prichard says:

   May 23, 2014 at 12:23 pm

   Maybe this would be a good place to try and get somebody….anybody…..outside the state of Missouri to look at how badly the Normandy school district has been clobbered. 2010….the state board admitted they had failed in a district called wellston, and told the Normandy superintendent they would have to absorb the wellston students into their system. Their accreditation, on shaky provisional ground already….would not be changed for at least three years, said the state.(commissioner Chris Nicastro, a very scary person). 2012….accreditation yanked….2013, supreme court tells Normandy they have to pay tuition for any student who wants to go to another district. 2014, nearing bankruptsy, the state takes over the money management of Normandy….the state legislature refuses to help financially beyond getting the seniors to graduate. This week the state cancels all Normandy teacher contracts, and gets rid of the elected school board……yesterday, as the Normandy superintendent and some citizens file a lawsuit regarding unfunded mandates and equal protection civil rights issues……the state stops them from using the money……which they stole in the first place. Nicastro telling Normandy that you cannot use the money I stole from you……is the only thing that comes close to making sense.
   there are about a dozen articles in the st. Louis media…..this is just one, with some links.
   http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/state-won-t-ok-expenses-normandy-lawsuit
   Missouri education officials, who control the finances of the Normandy school district, say they won’t pay the costs of a lawsuit that asks the courts to take another look at the student transfer case.

   The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in St. Louis County Circuit Court, wants a reconsideration of two issues the Missouri Supreme Court rejected in its unanimous decision last year that set in motion the student transfers: unfunded mandates and the impossibility to comply with the transfer law.

   SOMEBODY….ANYBODY…..SAY SOMETHING.

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6. joe prichard says:

   May 23, 2014 at 12:52 pm

   2 contrasting comments about the story… this guy has it figured out…the teachers’ union..

   locomotivebreath1901 • 6 hours ago

   In other words, our district can spend tax dollars on student tuition and transportation, and we’re solvent, but if those tax dollars follow the students into another district, it will bankrupt us – so we’re suing you and demand you pay for us to sue you.

   Typical teacher union money grubbing tactic.

   A parent responded to locomotive breath….(public radio, wisely, has barred me from making comments)….msblkwidow • 14 minutes ago

   Normandy School District is in a No Win position. What about the children? I think that State School Board and Dept. of Ed. should do everything they can to save our districts. Instead, it’s as if they’ve thrown up their hands. Is this really how American works. Our districts are falling like dominoes. And it’s all by design. Just watch. Next thing we will hear is the call for Charter Schools. THEY DON’T WORK. These Charter schools get taxpayer dollars, then they fail. What about the money??? I’m an angry parent.

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   • Joanna Best says:

     May 23, 2014 at 1:10 pm

     Joe,
     thinking about some of the other posts I’ve read today, to what extent do you think Missouri’s issues come from “white flight” that happened 40 years ago?

     That is, don’t places like Overland Park, KS pretty much exist because whites fled integration in Missouri?

     While the democratic ideals and processes seem obstructed right now, how would you compare what is going on in Missouri to the actions of folks moving away in the 1960s, but now wanting control back? Isn’t that kind of what it is? (I much prefer answers that think of true paths of action and what lead to what, rather than just “it’s greed,” or “it’s oligarchs” or “it’s plutocrats.”) Let’s just assume, for a while, that nobody’s sins are any greater than anyone else’s and consider the logistics of what is happening from a social and demographic standpoint, in relation to what has been happening over the last forty years.

     For the sake of academic and thoughtful dialogue. . .

     anything?

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7. Bob Shepherd says:

   May 23, 2014 at 2:10 pm

   To Arne Duncan, Secretary of the Department for the Regimentation, Standardization, Dehumanization, Privatization, and Monetization of US Education, formerly the USDE:

   I’ll keep this short.

   What part of “hierarchy of needs” do you not understand?

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   • Bob Shepherd says:

     May 23, 2014 at 2:14 pm

     cx:

     To Arne Duncan, Secretary of the Department for the Centralization, Regimentation, Standardization, Dehumanization, Privatization, and Monetization of US Education, formerly the USDE:

     I’ll keep this short.

     What part of “hierarchy of needs” do you not understand?

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     • Michael Fiorillo says:

       May 23, 2014 at 3:05 pm

       Sorry, Bob, but you’re going WAY over his head with that one…

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     • Bob Shepherd says:

       May 23, 2014 at 3:08 pm

       Any suggestions for remediation?

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     • joe prichard says:

       May 23, 2014 at 4:27 pm

       My own hierarchy of needs would be to achieve something other than “so what” from the media in response to what has happened regarding education during the Obama years.
       1. Obama gets clobbered for every possible reason, some justified, many not, for some things significant, for some things which amount to nothing….with one gigantic exception….education. It adds up to a continuation of a historic move to the right begun with nclb, and personified by Arne Duncan and rttt.

       2. Some republicans do oppose common core, and gripe about random other matters, but compared to other subjects, there is very little complaining about Obama from the right. That makes sense.

       3.Democrats just seem grateful that they do not have to worry about criticism of Obama and Duncan and Gates and the others coming from the right. They have enough to worry about and finesse without stirring up any trouble in education. That would make sense….except….

       not reacting with outrage over the destruction of public education is not an appropriate response from anyone.

       So what.

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8. joe prichard says:

   May 23, 2014 at 3:02 pm

   Thanks for asking my opinion about white flight and Normandy, Joanna. My niece in law, Sarah Reckhow, author of a highly honored book called “follow the money”, said this in a brookings study from 2011….”Suburbs with high rates of poverty have substantially fewer grantees and grant dollars per poor person than either central cities or lower-poverty suburbs. Though metropolitan Atlanta has the highest rate of suburban poverty among the regions studied, it has the lowest rate of suburban grant-making per poor person. Denver’s results are a mirror image of Atlanta’s, with the lowest poverty rate and highest suburban grant-making per poor person.”http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2011/07/21-philanthropy-reckhow-weir
   She is major league, I am class d minor league on being able to discuss, but….the one thing that does jump out to me…..is that for all their other faults, central cities usually have a political structure that makes them hard to push around. This thing in Normandy is indredulous…..huge minority percentage and just one community out of 25……so when a state education commissioner has designs of setting her own giant district of poor schools, there is not much to stop them……this has happened in Michigan…..I have been chiding the appointed board in st. Louis to be careful about using this “bring in some non profiteers” to take over five of their worst school……as Nicastro takes Normandy-Wellston, and adds the Kansas City schools, (not sure what percent), she will grab the five slps schools as fast as she can….other st. Louis county schools will be added…..as in Michigan……scores will not matter…..ability to attract attention from large foundations and federal funds will be paramount. There has definitely been white flight from the suburbs…that is not likely to change. One clue, probably not with a huge consequence, is useful in revealing an attitude……….Normandy lost accreditation based mostly on test scores, which triggered the right to transfer to other schools law kicking in. Theoretically, (nonsensical, of course), these transferring students will learn much better at the more fully accredited schools…..but……just in case they do not, and after the long bus rides and other disruptions that is possible…….the teachers in the schools they transfer to will be safe from being judged for any failures….that is written into the state law. I applaud not judging teachers by test results, but I doubt it is much comfort for the Normandy teachers, who, without exception have had their contracts cancelled.

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9. Cosmic Tinker says:

   May 23, 2014 at 3:06 pm

   .

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10. Joyce Murdock Feilke says:

    May 23, 2014 at 3:46 pm

    Arne Duncan: Racial isolation has worsened.

    It should read: Racial isolation has worsened as a result of Arne Duncan’s impotent leadership.

    His track record causes one to wonder if he is “bragging” or “complaining”?

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11. Jeff Nguyen says:

    May 23, 2014 at 10:54 pm

    Mission accomplished.

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