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David Currie: Religion Is Not a Rationale for Hatred

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2019 //
62

 

David Currie is a rancher, a pastor, and a member of the board of Pastors for Texas Children. He writes in this post about those who claim that the Bible gives them the right to discriminate against and hate others. He is chair of the Democratic Party in Tom Green County.

http://bit.ly/2ke3t2d

He begins:

“Most of you have probably never heard of Rachel Held Evans, but I want you to know about her. In May, at age 37, she died from severe swelling of the brain brought on by an allergic reaction to medication she was taking for an infection. She left behind a husband and two children — a boy age 3 and a girl just under a year old.

”She also left behind millions of us who admired her and were inspired by her grace and courage.

“I followed her writings on Twitter and simply loved the things she wrote. She was a Christian who struggled honestly with the questions of faith. She wrote four books about her faith, especially encouraging others who struggled with making sense of God, the Bible and living the Christian faith.

“She always wrote about God’s grace, and she was courageous in doing so. She challenged those who gave simplistic answers to life’s complex questions. I’ll share a few quotes that especially resonated with me.

“It’s a frightful thing – thinking you have to get God right in order to get God to love you, thinking you’re always one error away from damnation. … The very condition of humanity is to be wrong about God. The moment we figure God out, God ceases to be God. Maybe it’s time to embrace the mystery and let ourselves off the hook.”

“I’ve come to regard with some suspicion those who claim that the Bible never troubles them. I can only assume this means they haven’t actually read it….

“Writing about Rachel brings to my mind Charles Perry, our state senator, who sponsored SB 17, which I call the “permission to hate in the name of Jesus” bill. It allows people serving the public to refuse service to people whose lives or beliefs conflict with their own “sincerely held religious beliefs.” Of course, what Senator Perry aims to do, in proposing this bill, is to give people the right to discriminate against gay people, or Muslims, or … well, you get the idea. If you don’t like the way someone chooses to live their lives or the way they think, it’s OK to disrespect them and refuse to serve them. Personally, I can’t imagine Jesus being pleased. Seems to me Jesus didn’t treat people this way.

“Rachel wrote: “I thought God wanted to use me to show gay people how to be straight. Instead God used gay people to show me how to be Christian.” Same thing has happened to me. I finally figured out what Dr. Tracy tried to teach me at Howard Payne — that the love of God is unconditional and that my role as a follower of Christ is to love people, not judge them.

“Maybe you disagree with Rachel and me. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives you the right to believe as you see fit, but it does not give you the right to discriminate against those who disagree with you. You need to learn the difference between acceptance and approval. You don’t have to approve of the way that others use their freedom in living out their faith and their lives, but you do have to accept their right to do so. It’s the American way….

“During the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, there were plenty of people who did not want to serve African-Americans in their restaurants, hotels, or other places of business because of their “sincerely held religious belief” that white people were superior to black people. Sadly, that appears to be the “sincerely held religious belief” of millions in America today who are encouraged by our president and his statements in support of white supremacy and racism.

“What most bothered me about Senator Perry’s bill was his statement about how the Bible doesn’t need interpreting … that it speaks for itself. That just blew my mind, but it is typical of the thinking of Religious Right fundamentalists.

”Take, for example, Psalm 137:9 (NIV): “Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.” I kind of think that verse (and a few thousand more) might need some interpretation….

“But I am very concerned that many Christian leaders — for example, Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, and Jerry Falwell, Jr.; and political leaders — for example, President Trump, Gov. Abbott, Senator Ted Cruz, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, and State Senator Charles Perry, are working to redefine religious liberty as the right of Christians to be mean and hateful in the name of Jesus.

“That is not the meaning of the First Amendment, which guarantees all people in America — not just Christians — the freedom to worship (or not) freely without interference. It does not guarantee them the right to use their “sincerely held religious beliefs” as an excuse for racist and bigoted — or downright evil — actions toward others…

“In 1791, Baptist preacher John Leland defined religious liberty as well as it will ever be defined: “Let every man speak freely without fear — maintain the principles he believes — worship according to his own faith, either one God, three Gods, no God or twenty Gods; and let the government protect him in so doing.” America was founded on this very sentiment…”

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Bias, Injustice, Racism, Religion, Texas

My Gift to You, an Hour of Sheer Pleasure

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2019 //
19

I recently watched the PBS special about the Jewish legacy on Broadway, and I enjoyed every minute.

It is online, and I share it now with you. 

I hope it is still online.

I have always loved Broadway musicals, and many are reprised in this special.

But in addition to the entertainment and the rich cultural history, we see a very contemporary story of immigrants coming to America and becoming quintessentially American. We see Irving Berlin arriving as a five-year-old from Russia, having survived a pogrom, then becoming the composer of “God Bless America,” “Easter Parade,” and “White Christmas,” among the thousands of songs he wrote. We see stories in which composers used their music to teach lessons about racism, intolerance, and bigotry, like “South Pacific,” and the song “You Got to Be Taught to Hate.” Often they told the stories through the experiences of other groups, like “Porgy and Bess” and “West Side Story.”

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I am sending a gift to PBS for remaining a beacon of light in these dark times.

Categories Art, Bias, Bigotry, Creativity, Joy, Love

Hate Hate Hate in America Today

By dianeravitch
July 26, 2019 //
72

 

Three students at the University of Mississippi posed with rifles at a memorial to Emmett Till, a Black boy who was murdered by vigilantes in 1955. 

For a long period of time, open racism was underground. Now, thanks to our president, racism is okay again.

The students were suspended by their fraternity. But not by the university. Not yet.

Categories Bias, Education Reform, Mississippi, Racism

FAIR: The NewYork Times Hates Bernie Sanders

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2019 //
134

 

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) reports on the New York Times’ consistently biased reporting about Bernie Sanders.

it seems fair to say that the New York Times wants to knock Senator Sanders outif the Race.

Why?

Categories Bias, Media

Florida: Politicians Fund Anti-LGBT Schools

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2019 //
30

In Florida, the Governor and legislators proclaim their love of “equality,” as they funnel millions of public dollars to religious schools that openly discriminate against LGBT students. 

The state currently spends $1 billion a year on vouchers and the Legislature recently voted to expand them.

During pride month, Florida politicians love talking about their passion for equality.

They’re much less eager to talk about the anti-equality programs they fund the rest of the year — specifically millions of public dollars they send to schools that discriminate against LGBT families and even expel students who say they’re gay.

At one of Florida’s approved voucher schools in Brevard County, for example, being gay is actually the only expellable offense listed in the school’s “ethics” policy.

Lying, cheating and destruction of school property are also bad, according to the Merritt Island Christian School student handbook — but only to the extent that they’re listed as “Class II infractions” worthy of punishments like a five-day suspension.

Categories Bias, Bigotry, Florida, Hypocrisy, Religion, Vouchers

Texas: GOOD NEWS! Texas House Rejects Bill to Ban Lobbying for Public Schools, But Allow It for Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2019 //
10

Charles Foster Johnson, leader of Pastors for Texas Children, describes an effort to censor and silence those who advocate on behalf of public schools:

Texas Senate Bill 29 was roundly defeated late yesterday afternoon in
the Texas House on an 85-58 vote. The bill would have prohibited local
school districts and other local government authorities such as
counties from taxpayer-supported advocacy in the Legislature. It is a
policy designed for one purpose: to silence those defending and
protecting public education and the public good and to enable those who advocate for privatization
and for personal financial profit.

Dirty little secret? The bill exempted charter schools. The bill would
have empowered them to lobby for even more public funding– without
being hassled by traditional public school advocates.

It failed miserably. The House of Representatives is generally
pro-public education here in Texas. They have held the line against
sweeping privatization efforts. We have repudiated vouchers multiple
times over the past couple of decades, and will never have them,
precisely because these conservative public officials hold to the
principle of local control and accountability that public schools so
beautifully incarnate.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who was behind the entire push, is livid.
His project to dismantle public education and the public good in Texas
is now exposed, and is losing. He lost his cool about it at the Senate
chair last night. He is coming unraveled and his chamber is
desperately broken. Unfortunately, our Governor Greg Abbott supported
the bill also. His only concern is not allowing Patrick to
“out-rightwing” him, so his political obsession is to stake out
whatever non-existent sliver of territory there is to the right of
Patrick.

Of course, this ill-fated bill serves the opposite purpose. Pro-public
education advocates will dramatically increase next legislative
session. Our pastors are in the Capitol every day. Next session we
will have a platoon of them daily instead of two or three. We are
grateful to NPE for joining us in our fight through the perfectly
timed action alert yesterday! Legislative offices were FLOODED with
calls opposing this ridiculous bill. Our strong solidarity together got the job
done!

Pastors for Texas Children and many other groups supporting public schools joined to defeat this proposal. NPE Action contacted its allies across the state of Texas, who joined with many thousands of parents, educators and citizens to defeat this effort to censor advocates for public schools.

Categories Accountability, Bias, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Supporting public schools, Texas

Phoenix: BASIS Charter School Teacher Humiliates Black Student

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2019 //
10

 

A teacher at a BASIS charter school shamed a black student by teaching a lesson about the civil rights movement by inviting the class to isolate him.

BASIS is known for its high test scores and its exclusionary practices.

“A Phoenix mother says her 9-year-old son was forced to walk through his class as his teacher and fellow students yelled at, humiliated and berated him during a lesson on school segregation.

“Claudia Rodriguez posted on Facebook that a third-grade teacher at BASIS Phoenix Central singled out her son, who is black, as the class was learning about the civil-rights movement.

“The Head of School had the nerve to tell me that there was some educational value in this incident because it started conversations in the homes of the other kids,” Rodriguez wrote. “I felt the need to speak up so that no other child ever has to feel what my son felt.””

 

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Bias, Charter Schools

John Rogers: School and Society in the Age of Trump

By dianeravitch
March 26, 2019 //
67

 

John Rogers and his research team at UCLA have completed a valuable study of the effect of Trump and his ideology on schools, students, and society. 

If you go to the link, you can open the report.

Here is a summary:

“This study examines how a broad set of social issues at the forefront of the Trump presidency are felt and affect students and educators within America’s high schools.  We look closely at:

  1. Political division and hostility;
  2. Disputes over truth, facts, and the reliability of sources;
  3. Opioid misuse and addiction;
  4. The threat of immigration enforcement;
  5. The threats of gun violence on school campuses.

“In addition to assessing the impact of these challenges on students’ learning and wellbeing, we also report on how high school principals throughout the U.S. are addressing these issues.  Further, we measure how the impact and responses differ across schools depending on student demographics, geographic location, or partisan orientation of the surrounding community.

“The study findings are based on an online survey conducted in the summer of 2018 by UCLA’s Institute for Democracy Education and Access (IDEA) of 505 high school principals whose schools provide a representative sample of all U.S. public high schools. UCLA IDEA also conducted 40 follow-up interviews with principals who participated in the survey selected to be representative of the larger pool of schools.

“Our findings make clear that in the age of Trump, America’s high schools are greatly impacted by rising political incivility and division.

  • Eighty-nine percent of principals report that incivility and contentiousness in the broader political environment has considerably affected their school community.
  • Eighty-three percent of schools see these tensions intensified and accelerated by the flow of untrustworthy or disputed information and the increasing use of social media that is fueling and furthering division among students and between schools and the communities.
  • Sixty-two percent of schools have been harmed by opioid abuse.
  • Sixty-eight percent of the principals surveyed say federal immigration enforcement policies and the political rhetoric around the issue have negatively impacted students and their families.
  • Ninety-two percent of principals say their school has faced problems related to the threat of gun violence

“In the face of these societal challenges, it is students themselves who bear the brunt of the impact.  Many students feel greater anxiety, stress, and vulnerability, and parental opioid misuse and aggressive immigration enforcement have both resulted in greater material deprivation for young people—unstable housing, insecure food supplies, and a lack of other necessary supports.

“School principals are also impacted. The average principal in the study reports spending six and a half hours a week addressing the five societal challenges. One in four principals spend the equivalent of one workday a week responding to the challenges.  That time represents lost opportunity costs, taking time away from efforts to meet students’ academic needs and enhance the quality of teaching and learning.

“The report closes with a call for relationship-centered schools that attend to the holistic needs of young people and their families, while building social trust and understanding.  We recommend:

  1. Establish and communicate school climate standards emphasizing care, connectedness, and civility and then create practices that enable educational systems to document and report on conditions associated with these standards.
  2. Build professional capacity within educational systems to address the holistic needs of students and communities and extend this capacity by supporting connections between school-based educators and other governmental agencies and community-based organizations serving young people and their families
  3. Develop integrated systems of health, mental health, and social welfare support for students and their families.
  4. Create and support networks of educators committed to fostering care, connectedness, and strong civility in their public education systems.”

 

 

Categories Bias, Bigotry, Disruption, Education Reform, Injustice, Principals, Racism, Students

When “School Choice” Means “Schools Choose”

By dianeravitch
December 28, 2018 //
11

Two scholars demonstrated what we already knew: many charter schools are skimming and choosing the students they want while excluding the ones they don’t want, the ones likely to cost too much or pull down their test scores.

Peter Bergman and Isaac McFarlin Jr. tested the hypothesis.

Here is the abstract of their paper.

School choice may allow schools to “cream skim” students perceived as easier to educate. To test this, we sent emails from fictitious parents to 6,452 schools in 29 states and Washington, D.C. The fictitious parent asked whether any student is eligible to apply to the school and how to apply. Each email signaled a randomly assigned attribute of the child. We find that schools are less likely to respond to inquiries from students with poor behavior, low achievement, or a special need. Lower response rates to students with a potentially significant special need are driven by charter schools. Otherwise, these results hold for traditional public schools in areas of school choice and high-value added schools.

An excerpt from the study:

We find that, overall, traditional public schools’ response rates are similar to the response rates from charter schools across treatment messages. However, there is a different response rate to messages that signal a child has a significant special need. Traditional public schools exhibit no differential response rate to these messages, but charter schools are 7 percentage points less likely to respond to them than to the baseline message. This result is important because students with disabilities are twice as expensive to educate than the typical student without a disability (Moore et al., 1988; Chambers, 1998; Collins and Zirkel, 1992), and students with the severe disabilities can cost 8-to-14
times to educate compared to the typical non-disabled student (Griffith, 2008).

Here are commentaries.

From the Atlantic:

Parents of students who are “harder to educate” may have a hard time getting schools to reply to their emails about how to apply.

From U.S. News:

Students with behavior problems, low achievement or special needs are sometimes not encouraged to apply to charter schools…

Charter schools and public schools of choice – those in school districts that allow students to choose from any number of schools instead of zoning them to just one – are less likely to encourage students with a history of poor behavior, low academic achievement or special needs to apply.

Charter schools, in particular, were less likely to encourage students with a potentially significant special need to apply.

That’s the latest research published Thursday by Peter Bergman, an assistant professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, and Isaac McFarlin Jr., assistant professor at University of Florida’s College of Education.

The researchers sent emails from fictitious parents to nearly 6,500 schools in 29 states and the District of Columbia, asking whether any student is eligible to apply to the school and how to do so. Each email signaled either a disability status, poor behavior, high or low prior academic achievement, or no characteristic at all. The researchers also varied students’ implied race, household structure and gender.

“We find that schools respond less often to messages regarding students whom schools may perceive as more challenging to educate,” the researchers concluded.

The baseline response rate was 53 percent. But emails signaling a student with a potentially restrictive special need were 5 percentage points less likely to receive a response; emails signaling a behavior problem were 7 percentage points less likely to receive a response; and emails signaling prior low academic achievement were 2 percentage points less likely to receive a response.

Notably, emails indicating good grades and attendance were neither more nor less likely to receive a response.

In one sub-analysis, the researchers compared the responses of charter schools directly to the nearby traditional public schools. Overall, they found the response rates similar with one major exception: If an email signaled a child had a significant special need, charter schools were 7 percentage points less likely to respond while traditional public schools were not more or less likely to respond.

“This is one of the most striking findings of the study,” McFarlin said, “because it raises the question of whether high-performing charter schools are successful in part because they screen out the costliest-to-educate students from their applicant pools.”

Categories Accountability, Bias, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Special Education

Florida Editorial: Corcoran is the Right Choice for GOP, the Wrong Choice For Public Schools

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2018 //
5

The Sun-Sentinel of Florida explains why Richard Corcoran is a disastrous choice for Florida’s public schools as Commissioner of Education. He is unqualified. He has no education experience. He is hostile to public schools and their teachers. He has done everything he could think of to shift local tax monies from public schools to charter schools. During his campaign for governor, Ron DeSantis never visited a public school, although 90% of Florida’s children attend them.

Put succinctly: “Richard Corcoran for state education commissioner? Sure. Why not make Tallahassee’s hostility to public education even more apparent?…

In Corcoran, DeSantis has an education soulmate. Last year, Corcoran leveraged his power as speaker to push through legislation that for the first time gave charter schools — which use public money but may be privately operated — some of the property tax revenue that school districts use for construction and maintenance. When Florida allowed charter schools in the mid-1990s, operators said they never would need such money.

“House Bill 7069, which legislators hardly got to read, did much more. It gave charter companies $200 million to build “schools of hope” near low-performing public schools but with no guarantee that the charters would take all the students. The bill made it harder for school districts to use federal money designed to help those same struggling students.

“Former Palm Beach County Superintendent Robert Avossa called Corcoran’s creation “the single largest piece of legislation to dismantle public education that I’ve ever seen.” True, but HB 7069 simply extended the attack on public education by Republicans since they took control in Tallahassee two decades ago.”

Elections have consequences. Floridians who value their public schools will have to fight for them, or see more of their tax dollars diverted to for-profit charter entrepreneurs and religious schools that teach creationism and racism.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Bias, Charter Schools, Florida, For-Profit, School Choice, Separation of church and state
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