Archives for category: Bigotry
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Indiana Republicans Say That School Libraries Are “Loaded” with Pornography

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2023 //
73

One of our readers in Indiana noted the paradox that Illinois has banned the banning of books while Indiana Republicans are welcoming any parent or ne’er-do-well to complain about a book and get it removed from school libraries.

Indiana’s Republican-controlled General Assembly decreed this year in House Enrolled Act 1447 that every public school board and charter school governing body must establish a procedure for the parent of any student, or any person residing in the school district, to request the removal of library materials deemed “obscene” or “harmful to minors.”

The procedure may provide for an intermediate response by school personnel to a request to remove a library book, but it must include the school board reviewing, and possibly implementing, each removal request at its next public meeting.

The new law followed claims by Hoosier Republicans that Indiana school libraries are secretly loaded with books containing pornography and other content inappropriate for children.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Bigotry, Cruelty, Democracy, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Fraud, Freedom to Read, Indiana, Injustice, Lies, Literacy, Literature

Kathryn Joyce: How Sarasota County Became Florida’s Laboratory for Far-Right Extremism

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2023 //
7

If you read one article today, make it this one.

Kathryn Joyce is an outstanding journalist who has written several excellent articles about the far-right conspiracy to destroy public education. In this important article, published by both the Hechinger Report and Vanity Fair, she examines the rightwing takeover of public schools in Sarasota, Florida, by the extremist Moms for Liberty and their hero Governor DeSantis.

Joyce begins:

SARASOTA COUNTY, Fla. — On a Sunday afternoon in late May 2022, Zander Moricz, then class president of Sarasota County’s Pine View School, spent the moments before his graduation speech sitting outside the auditorium, on the phone with his lawyers. Over the previous month, the question of what he’d say when he stepped to the podium had become national news. That March, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had signed the Parental Rights in Education Act, quickly dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law for its ban on all mention of gender identity and sexuality in K–3 classrooms and restriction of those discussions in higher grades as well. Moricz, a student LGBTQ+ activist, had led several protests against the act that spring and joined a high-profile lawsuit against the state. In early May, he charged on Twitter that Pine View’s administration had warned that if he mentioned his activism or the lawsuit at graduation, his microphone would be cut. (In a statement released last year, the school district confirmed that students are told not to express political views in their speeches.)

In the tumultuous weeks leading up to the ceremony, Pine View — Sarasota’s “gifted” magnet institution, consistently ranked one of the top 25 public high schools in the country — was besieged with angry calls and news coverage. Moricz stayed home for three weeks, he said, thanks to the rvolume of death threats he received, and people showed up at his parents’ work. When a rumor started that Pine View’s principal would have to wear a bulletproof vest to graduation, he recalled, “the entire campus lost their minds,” thinking “everyone’s going to die” and warning relatives not to come. His parents worried he’d be killed.

But after all the controversy, graduation day was a success. Moricz, now 19, delivered a pointedly coded speech about the travails of being born with curly hair in Florida’s humid climate: how he worried about the “thousands of curly-haired kids who are going to be forced to speak like this” — like he was, in code — “for their entire lives as students.” Videos of the speech went viral. Donations poured into Moricz’s youth-led nonprofit. That summer, he left to study government at Harvard.

Half-a-year later though, when Moricz came home, Sarasota felt darker.

“I’m wearing this hat for a reason,” he said when we met for coffee in a strip mall near his alma mater in early March. “Two years ago, if I was bullied due to my queerness, the school would have rallied around me and shut it down. If it happened today, I believe everyone would act like it wasn’t happening.”

These days, he said, queer kids sit in the back of class and don’t tell teachers they’re being harassed. A student at Pine View was told, Moricz said, that he couldn’t finish his senior thesis researching other states’ copycat “Don’t Say Gay” laws. (The school did not respond to a request for comment through a district spokesperson.) When Moricz’s nonprofit found a building to house a new youth LGBTQ+ center — since schools were emphatically no longer safe spaces — they budgeted for bulletproof glass.

“The culture of fear that’s being created is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do,” he said. And much of it was thanks to the Sarasota County School Board.

Over the last two years, education culture wars have become the engine of Republican politics nationwide, with DeSantis’s Florida serving as the vanguard of the movement. But within the state, Sarasota is more central still.

Its school board chair, Bridget Ziegler, cofounded the conservative activist group Moms for Liberty and helped lay the groundwork for “Don’t Say Gay.” After a uniquely ugly school board race last summer, conservatives flipped the board and promptly forced out the district’s popular superintendent. In early January, when DeSantis appointed a series of right-wing activists to transform Florida’s progressive New College into a “Hillsdale of the South” — emulating the private Christian college in Michigan that has become a trendsetting force on the right — that was in Sarasota too. In February, DeSantis sat alongside Ziegler’s husband and Moms for Liberty’s other cofounders to announce a list of 14 school board members he intends to help oust in 2024—Sarasota’s sole remaining Democrat and LGBTQ+ board member, Tom Edwards, among them. The next month, Ziegler proposed that the board hire a newly created education consultancy group with ties to Hillsdale College for what she later called a “‘WOKE’ Audit.” (Ziegler did not respond to interview requests for this article.)

The dizzying number of attacks has led to staffing and hiring challenges, the cancelation of a class, a budding exodus of liberals from the county, and fears that destroying public education is the ultimate endgame. In January, Ziegler’s husband, Christian — who chairs the Florida Republican Party — tweeted a celebratory declaration: “SARASOTA IS GROUND ZERO FOR CONSERVATIVE EDUCATION.”

It wasn’t hyperbole, said Moricz. “We say that Sarasota is Florida’s underground lab, and we’re its non-consenting lab rats.”

For as long as Florida has been grading schools and school districts — a late 1990s innovation that helped spark the “school reform” movement — Sarasota, with its 62 schools and nearly 43,000 students, has enjoyed an “A” rating. Perched on the Gulf Coast just south of Tampa, the county’s mix of powder-soft beaches and high-culture amenities — including an opera house, ballet and museums — have made it a destination for vacationers and retirees. And that influx has made Sarasota one of the richest counties in the state.

Since many of those retirees, dating back to the 1950s, have been white Midwestern transplants, it’s also made Sarasota a Republican stronghold and top fundraising destination for would-be presidential candidates. Both the last and current chairs of the state GOP — first State Senator Joe Gruters and now Christian Ziegler — live in the county. Sarasota arguably launched Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign, thanks to Gruters’s early support. These days, though, Sarasota isn’t just conservative, but at the leading edge of Florida’s turn to the hard right.

Partly that’s thanks to the Zieglers, who have become one of Florida’s premier power couples, with close ties to both Trump world and the DeSantis administration and a trio of daughters enrolled in local private schools. As founder of the digital marketing company Microtargeted Media, Christian did hundreds of thousands of dollars of work for pro-Trump PACs in 2021, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported. After being elected state GOP chair this February, he announced his goal was “to crush these leftist in-state Democrats” so thoroughly that “no Democrat considers running for office.” Although Bridget stepped down from Moms for Liberty shortly after its founding, she subsequently helped draftFlorida’s Parents’ Bill of Rights, which helped pave the way for DeSantis’s 2021 ban on mask mandates and ultimately last year’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. In 2022, the right-wing Leadership Institute hired her as director of school board programs, and built a 6,000-square-foot headquarters in Sarasota to serve as a national hub for conservative education activism. This winter, DeSantis also appointed her to a new board designed to punish the Disney Company for criticizing his anti-LGBTQ laws….

Last year, when Ziegler was up for reelection and two other board members were terming out, she ran as a unified slate with former school resource officer Tim Enos and retired district employee Robyn Marinelli. The candidates drew support from both DeSantis’s administration — which unprecedentedly endorseddozens of school board candidates across the state — and local members of the far-right. A PAC partially funded by The Hollow’s owner campaigned for the “ZEM” slate (a shorthand for the candidates’ surnames) by driving a mobile billboard around the county, calling one of their opponents a “LIAR” and “BABY KILLER” because she’d once worked for Planned Parenthood. Proud Boys hoisted ZEM signs on county streets and a mailer was sent out, castigating the liberal candidates as “BLM/PSL [Party of Socialism and Liberation]/ANTIFA RIOTERS, PLANNED PARENTHOOD BABY KILLERS, [who] WANT GROOMING AND PORNOGRAPHY IN OUR SCHOOLS.” (Enos and Marinelli did not respond to requests for comment for this article.)

Open the link and read all of the article. It is a devastating article about the takeover of the school board by hateful extremists whose tools are fear and divisiveness.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Corruption, Cruelty, Curriculum, Democracy, DeSantis, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Read, Gender, Injustice, Lies, Parent Groups, Politics, Privatization, Propaganda, Safety, Shame, Students

Florida: Insurance Costs Soar While Politicians Fight WOKE

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2023 //
46

The Miami Herald editorial board wonders why the state’s leaders devote all their time fighting WOKE but ignoring the dramatic rise in insurance rates.

Ron DeSantis and the Republicans in the legislature have spent an entire session battling drag queens, gays, trans kids, public schools, Black history, librarians, and academic freedom. They have given each other high fives, but homeowners will get hikes in their insurance, which was not on the political agenda.

We know all too well that Florida property insurance costs have been skyrocketing, with no end in sight. Now there’s a new study that shows just how bad it’s gotten, and it’s even worse than we thought.

According to the data analysis company LexisNexis Risk Solutions, the state’s property insurance costs are up by an incredible 57% since 2015 — nearly triple the national average of 21%, as the Miami Herald reported.

If that weren’t enough misery, Florida distinguished itself in another way: Insurance costs have been rising faster in Florida than in any other state.

Given all of that, you might expect to see the governor and Legislature running around as though their hair was on fire, trying to come up with fixes for our crippled insurance market before regular, non-rich Floridians are forced out and lawmakers get blamed for destroying the middle class.

Lawmakers distracted

But that’s the kind of logic that worked in saner times. In 2023, Florida’s leaders are so busy trying to get Gov. Ron DeSantis into the White House — with a legislative session tailored to his agenda, no matter the cost — that they can’t be bothered to spend much time on insurance, even though it’s a complicated and important issue that affects regular people.

No, in Florida, the long-running and worsening property insurance crisis has been buried under an avalanche of anti-woke measures, the ones DeSantis seems to think will carry him to Washington.

That’s a dangerous strategy. As the Florida governor hits the campaign trail in places like Iowa, he leaves himself vulnerable to charges that he’s not taking care of business at home.

For example, on Wednesday, the governor was set to visit the U.S. southern border. It’s a clear attempt to generate more headlines on immigration, following another taxpayer-financed stunt in which Florida flew migrants from Texas to California. Meanwhile, Floridians back home will be facing record hikes in flood insurance — an average hike of 131%. Where’s the governor’s outrage on that?…

The state is facing a property insurance crisis. Where are our leaders?

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Bigotry, Corruption, Democracy, DeSantis, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Failure, Florida

NPE Releases New Report about Christian Nationalist Charter Schools, Funded with Taxes

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2023 //
16

The Network for Public Education released a new report today that should concern everyone who cares about public schools and the use of public resources. The report shows that a growing segment of the charter industry is controlled by Christian nationalists, who indoctrinate their students, using taxpayer dollars.

Contact: Carol Burris

cburris@networkforpubliceducation.org

(646) 678-4477

NEW REPORT DOCUMENTS HOW FAR-RIGHT CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE FUELING THE CULTURE WARS

Right-wing Republicans involved in the creation and governance of charter schools

American taxpayers across the country are funding the recent explosion of growth in far-right, Christian nationalist charter schools, including those affiliated with Hillsdale College, according to a new report, A Sharp Right Turn: A New Breed of Charter Schools Delivers the Conservative Agenda, released by the Network for Public Education (NPE) today.

NPE identified hundreds of charter schools, predominantly in red states, that use the classical brand or other conservative clues in marketing to attract white Christian families. From featured religious music videos to statements that claim they offer a faith-friendly environment, these charter schools are opening at an accelerated rate, with at least 66 schools in the pipeline to open by 2024. While some of these schools, such as the Roger Bacon Academies, are long-standing, nearly half of the schools we identified opened after the inauguration of Donald Trump–representing a 90% increase.

The report exposes how right-wing Republican politicians, including Congressman Byron Donalds of Florida and failed Colorado gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl, have embroiled themselves in creating and governing these schools, with some benefiting financially. In fact, NPE found that right-wing charters are nearly twice as likely to be run by for-profit management companies than the entire charter sector.

According to NPE Executive Director Carol Burris, who co-authored the report with journalist Karen Francisco, “Sectarian extremists and the radical right are capitalizing on tragically loose controls and oversight in the charter school sector to create schools that seek to turn back the clock on civil rights and education progress. These schools teach their own brand of CRT–Christian Right Theory–capitalizing on and fueling the culture wars. As a taxpayer, I am appalled that my tax dollars are seeding such schools.”

Since 2006, the U.S. Department of Education’s Charter School Programs (CSP) has funneled more than one hundred million dollars to begin or expand right-wing charter schools.

NPE President and education historian Diane Ravitch commented, “Few doubt that the religious right has decided to stake its claim on the next generation of hearts and minds with its unrelenting push for vouchers and book and curricular bans. This report exposes the lesser-known third part of the strategy—the proliferation of right-wing charter schools. It should be a wake-up call to those with progressive ideals who have embraced charter schools. A movement you support is now taking a sharp turn right to destroy the values you cherish.”

To learn more about the rapid growth of right-wing charter schools and their connections with right-wing politicians and the religious right, you can read the full report here.

The Network for Public Education is a national advocacy group whose mission is to preserve, promote, improve, and strengthen public schools for current and future generations of students.

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Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Curriculum, Dark Money, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, For-Profit, Freedom, Freedom to Read, Funding, Gender, Lies, Politics, Privatization, Propaganda, Religion, Separation of church and state, U.S. Department of Education

“Moms for Liberty” Labeled an Extremist Organization

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2023 //
107

The respected Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designated “Moms for Liberty” as an extremist group, along with a number of other astroturf anti-government organizations that popped up during the pandemic to protest masks and vaccines.

In its annual report on hate groups, SPLC named Moms for Liberty and 11 other “parent”groups as extremists who feed on racism, misogyny, homophobia, and bigotry:

Moms for Liberty joins the ranks of groups including the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters and the United Constitutional Patriots, a self-styled militia that “patrols” the U.S.-Mexico border.

Other astroturf “parent” groups were identified as extremist by SPLC:

The 12 “parent’s rights” groups labeled by the SPLC as extremist groups: Moms for Liberty; Moms for America; Army of Parents; Courage is a Habit; Education First Alliance; Education Veritas; No Left Turn in Education; Parents Against CRT (PACT); Parents Defending Education; Parents Rights in Education; Purple for Parents Indiana and Parents Involved in Education.

Will Carless wrote in USA Today that Moms for Liberty “pitched itself as a potent grassroots movement of outraged parents, many of whom weren’t active in school politics until COVID-19 restrictions forced them to pay attention. It has sprouted local chapters in at least 40 states, claims more than 100,000 members and has the ear of the Republican establishment: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has championed their efforts to restrict teaching about race in schools and universities. Critics in Florida slam the group for turning schools into a political battlefield.”

Both DeSantis and Trump will address the annual conference of this two-year-old organization of hate-mongers.

Moms for Liberty and the other organizations are being designated as “anti-government extremist groups,” based on longstanding criteria, explained SPLC Intelligence Project Director Susan Corke. Corke said the grassroots conservative groups are part of a new front in the battle against inclusivity in schools, though they are drawing from ideas rooted in age-old white supremacy.

“[The movement] is primarily aimed at not wanting to include our hard history, topics of racism, and a very strong push against teaching anything having to do with LGBTQ topics in schools,” Corke said. ”We saw this as a very deliberate strategy to go to the local level…”

Despite the national profile, these organizations spread conspiracy theories and operate on the myth that educators are engaged in “Marxist indoctrination” of the nation’s children by imbuing them with dangerous ideas about equality and sexuality, the SPLC said.

While the movement may be reasonably new, it is founded on the same traditional racist, misogynist and homophobic views that brought people out to protest the desegregation of schools in the 1950s and ’60s, the SPLC argues.

Moms for Liberty does not report the names of its funders.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bigotry, Censorship, Cruelty, Democracy, DeSantis, Disruption, Evil, Extremism, Fake, Fascism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Read, Gender, Hoax, Lies, Parent Groups, Privatization, Propaganda, Racism, Republicans, Shame

Florida: Federal Judge Blocks Law Banning Gender-Affirming Care

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2023 //
18

A federal judge in Florida issued a ruling blocking the state’s ban on gender-affirming care. He basically ruled that the issue was between parents, their children, and their doctors, not politicians. As in, butt out and respect parental rights.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A federal judge delivered a stinging rebuke to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature over rules and a new state law that banned minors from receiving “puberty blockers” and other types of gender-affirming care.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle on Tuesday blocked the state from applying the ban to three minors whose parents are part of an ongoing lawsuit, saying they would “suffer irreparable harm” if they were not allowed to continue access to hormones and other types of treatment.

The preliminary injunction does not apply to other minors who may wish to obtain treatment, but the ruling suggests that a key part of the law itself could get knocked down as the legal challenge proceeds. Lawmakers approved the new law in early May at the urging of Republicans, who called the treatments “evil” and “child abuse.”

Hinkle’s 44-page ruling called the decision to pursue the ban on puberty blockers and hormonal treatment a political decision and not a “legitimate state interest.” Several states — including Texas — have also recently enacted bans on gender affirming care.

“Nothing could have motivated this remarkable intrusion into parental prerogatives other than opposition to transgender status itself,” wrote Hinkle, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton.

Hinkle also added that “the statute and the rules were an exercise in politics, not good medicine. This is a politically fraught area. There has long been, and still is, substantial bigotry directed at transgender individuals. Common experience confirms this, as does a Florida legislator’s remarkable reference to transgender witnesses at a committee hearing as ‘mutants’ and ‘demons.’ And even when not based on bigotry, there are those who incorrectly but sincerely believe that gender identity is not real but instead just a choice.”

The parents of the children expressed relief. DeSantis’ office had no comment. The sponsor of the bill responded that he would never stop fighting for children, even if their parents don’t want his help.

Categories Bigotry, DeSantis, Extremism, Florida, Gender, Health

Jennifer Rubin: Federal Judge Tosses Out Tennessee Ban on Drag Shows

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2023 //
17

Jennifer Rubin is a regular columnist at the Washington Post. She was hired by the Post to be its “right” voice, but the Trump years flipped her politics. (I think she is my doppelgänger.) Before she became a columnist at WAPO, she wrote for The Weekly Standard, National Review, Commentary, and Human Events, among other conservative publications. Trump turned her into a Democrat. She has a BA and law degree from Berkeley.

She wrote here about a decision by a federal judge in Tennessee, overturning the state’s law banning drag shows. Drag is a performance. Drag queens, whether male or female, wear costumes to entertain audiences. If you don’t approve, don’t go to a drag show. If you think children should not see men pretending to be women (like “Mrs. Doubtfire” or “Tootsie,” don’t let them watch).

I have never been to a live drag show, though I enjoy seeing Tyler Perry play “Medea” in the movies and have enjoyed films like “Some Like It Hot” and “The Birdcage.” To me, drag is an age-old theatrical device, a performance intended to be humorous. If you believe in parental rights, trust parents to decide whether their children should go to a drag story hour at the local library. Once a legislature begins declaring what can be alllowed onstage, we are on a very dangerous path.

Rubin wrote:

Republicans, right-wing judges and MAGA activists have set out to trample on free speech and individual rights in the name of battling “wokeism.” If they don’t like what teachers say about history, gag them. If they don’t like certain books, ban them. If they don’t like a corporation defending LGBTQ rights, retaliate against it. Their crusade has become an expression of not only white Christian nationalism but of contempt for the Constitution and the First Amendment.


But last week, U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Parker, appointed by President Donald Trump, stood up to the thought police and the MAGA bullies in striking down the so-called drag queen ban (the Adult Entertainment Act) in Tennessee.

Parker began with an ode to the First Amendment: “Freedom of speech is not just about speech. It is also about the right to debate with fellow citizens on self-government, to discover the truth in the marketplace of ideas, to express one’s identity, and to realize self-fulfillment in a free society.” He continued, “That freedom is of first importance to many Americans such that the United States Supreme Court has relaxed procedural requirements for citizens to vindicate their right to freedom of speech, while making it harder for the government to regulate it.” And the Tennessee statute impermissibly tried to regulate free speech, he found.

Parker ruled that the law was “both unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad” because of the prohibition on displays “harmful to minors,” whatever that means. The law “fails to provide fair notice of what is prohibited, and it encourages discriminatory enforcement,” especially because the ban applies wherever a minor could be present.

Parker noted that the Supreme Court does not protect obscenity but certainly does protect speech that is unpopular. “Simply put, no majority of the Supreme Court has held that sexually explicit — but not obscene — speech receives less protection than political, artistic, or scientific speech. … The AEA’s regulation of ‘adult-oriented performances that are harmful to minors under § 39-17-901′ does target protected speech, despite Defendant claims to the contrary.” In a retort to Republicans seeking to rid libraries, classrooms and performance venues of anything they find offensive, Parker wrote, “Whether some of us may like it or not, the Supreme Court has interpreted the First Amenmentas protecting speech that is indecent but not obscene.”


And Parker also found the law “targets the viewpoint of gender identity — particularly those who wish to impersonate a gender that is different from the one with which they are born.” This is prohibited “content-based, viewpoint-based regulation on speech.” Republicans insist there is no such thing as gender identity other than gender determined at birth. That’s not a fact, as the MAGA censors insist; that’s a viewpoint. And it is impermissible to ban other viewpoints. That, Parker underscores, is what a free society is all about.


Simply because MAGA politicians want to write trans Americans out of existence does not make it constitutionally permissible. “The Court finds that the AEA’s text discriminates against a certain viewpoint, imposes criminal sanctions, and spans a virtually unlimited geographical area,” Parker wrote. “The AEA can criminalize — or at a minimum chill — the expressive conduct of those who wish to impersonate a gender that is different from the one with which they were born in Shelby County. Such speech is protected by the First Amendment.” He concluded, “This statute — which is barely two pages long — reeks with constitutional maladies of vagueness and overbreadth fatal to statutes that regulate First Amendment rights. The virulence of the AEA’s overbreadth chills a large amount of speech, and calls for this strong medicine.”

I hope you can open the link and read the rest of this excellent article.

Categories Art, Bigotry, Censorship, Creativity, Democracy, Extremism, Fascism, Gender, Stupid, Tennessee

Harold Meyerson: Two Nations, Red and Blue

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2023 //
21

Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect writes here about the sharp divergence between red states and blue states. Their elected officials have very different ideas about how to build their state and serve the needs of the public. There is one issue that he overlooked: vouchers. Red states are busy handing out tax dollars to families whose children are already enrolled in private and religious schools and tearing down the wall of separation between church and state.

Which side are you on?

He writes:

Two Prospect pieces on red and blue trifecta states make clear we really are two separate nations.

If there’s anyone who’s still mystified about why congressional Democrats and Republicans can’t come to an agreement on anything so basic as honoring the debts they’ve incurred, may I gently suggest they take a look at what Democrats and Republicans are doing in the particular states they each completely control.

Yesterday, we posted a piece by my colleague Ryan Cooper on how Minnesota, where Democrats now control both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office, has just enacted its own (to be sure, scaled-back) version of Scandinavian social democracy—including paid sick leave for all, paid family leave, a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers, sector-wide collective bargaining in key industries, and the outlawing of “captive audience” meetings, in which management compels employees to attend anti-union rants. A new law also strengthens women’s right to an abortion. Similar laws have been enacted or are under consideration in other Democratic “trifecta” states, though none quite so pro-worker as some of Minnesota’s.

Also yesterday, we posted one of my pieces, this one on everything that Texas’s Republican legislature and governor are enacting to strip power from their large cities, almost all of which are solidly Democratic. One new bill says the state can declare elections to be invalid and compel new ones to be held under state supervision in the state’s largest county, Harris County, which is home to reliably Democratic Houston. And the state Senate has also passed a bill that would strip from cities the ability to pass any regulations on wages, workplace safety, business and financial practices, the environment, and the extent of property rights that exceed the standards set by the state. Which leaves cities with the power to do essentially nothing. No other Republican trifecta states have gone quite as far as Texas, but Tennessee’s legislature did effectively abolish Nashville’s congressional district and expel its assemblymember; Alabama’s legislature revoked Birmingham’s minimum-wage law; and Florida’s governor suspended Tampa’s elected DA because he wouldn’t prosecute women and doctors for violating the state’s new anti-abortion statutes. Beyond their war on cities, Republican trifecta states have long refused to expand Medicaid coverage, have recently also begun to re-legalize child labor and legislate prison terms for librarians whose shelves hold banned books, and in the wake of the Dobbsdecision, criminalized abortions.

Just as cosmic inflation propels the stars away from each other with ever-expanding speed, so Democratic and Republican states are also moving away from each other at an accelerating pace—the Democrats toward a more humane future; the Republicans borne back ceaselessly into a nightmare version of the past. Any dispassionate view of America today has to conclude that the differences between these two Americas are almost as large and intractable as those that split the nation in 1860 and ’61. (The South’s opposition to fairly paid and nondiscriminatory labor was the central issue then and remains a central issue now.)

That said, when confronted with the choice between those two Americas, voters in those red states have frequently backed the blue-state versions of economic rights and personal freedoms, as is clear from their many initiative and referendum votes to raise the minimum wage, expand Medicaid, and preserve the right to an abortion. Likewise, the polling on unions shows their national favorability rating now exceeds 70 percent of the public, including roughly half of self-declared Republicans. Only by their relentless demagoguery on culture-war issues and immigration, their adept gerrymandering, and the disproportionate power that the composition of the Senate vests in barely inhabited states can the Republicans enforce their biases against a rising public tide—but enforce them they do wherever they have the power.

All right, as John Dos Passos wrote in his USA Trilogy, we are two nations—and becoming more so with each passing day.

Postscript: In his Washington Post column…, Perry Bacon noted that while a number of news publications have gone under recently, a few, in his words, “are reimagining political journalism in smart ways.” He cited seven such publications, and his list was headed by—ahem—The American Prospect.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Democracy, Democrats, Disruption, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom to Read, Funding, Health, Houston, Unions, Vouchers

Indiana: More Laws to Stifle Freedom of Thought and Democracy

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2023 //
1

A reader who signs in as CarolMalaysia described the latest education-related laws passed in Indiana:

She writes:

These are some of the new Indiana laws that will take effect on Saturday. [Indiana is run by the GOP and they have NO respect for public schools or teachers.] Gary is a poverty area and they cannot vote for their school board members. 87% of Hoosier children attend public schools and they are continuously underfunded.

Book bans — Every public school board and charter school governing body is required to establish a procedure for the parent of any student, or any person residing in the school district, to request the removal of library materials deemed “obscene” or “harmful to minors.” School districts must also post a list of the complete holdings of its school libraries on each school’s website and provide a printed copy of the library catalogue to any individual upon request. (HEA 1447)

Charter schools — The proceeds of each new voter-approved school funding referendum in Lake County must be shared with local charter schools in proportion to the number of children living in the school district who attend charter schools. Beginning July 1, 2024, all incremental property tax revenue growth at Lake County school districts must be shared on a proportional basis with local charter schools. (SEA 391, HEA 1001)

Gary schools — A five-member, appointed school board is reestablished for the Gary Community School Corp. to eventually replace the Indiana Distressed Unit Appeals Board as the governing body for the formerly cash-strapped school district. Gary’s mayor and the Gary Common Council appoint one member each, and the three others are chosen by the Indiana secretary of education, including at least one Gary resident, one resident of Gary or Lake County, and a final member from anywhere. (SEA 327)

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Fascism, Indiana, Librarians, Libraries, Literacy

Kentucky: Gov. Beshear Names Gay Man as State Poet Laureate, Enraging GOP

By dianeravitch
June 2, 2023 //
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Writing in The Daily Yonder, which covers the rural South, Skylar Baker-Jordan writes about Governor Andy Beshear’s selection of Silas House as the state’s poet laureate and about his own painful childhood in Kentucky.

Kentucky is usually a red state, but Governor Beshear is a popular Democrat. While the Republican-dominated legislature has passed bills that are anti-gay, Governor Beshear boldly selected House, an openly gay man, for the prestigious honor. Republicans are furious because House, a highly regarded author, insulted them with a tweet.

Baker-Jordan writes:

After Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear announced Silas House as the new poet laureate of Kentucky, there has been a significant backlash against his appointment from Republicans who claim that House “hates” Kentucky.

The Republican Governors Association called him a “radical” who thinks most Kentuckians are “bigots.” Meanwhile, a gay Republican activist wrote in the Louisville Courier-Journal that he has “no respect for Mr. House, nor should Republican Kentuckians,” arguing that it was Mr. House (as opposed to his own party, which recently passed a slate of anti-LGBTQ laws) which is standing in the way of LGBTQ rights. That’s because House once dared to tell Trump voters to “kiss [his] gay country ass” in a tweet.

I can understand Silas House’s sentiment. Sometimes, to paraphrase my friend and fellow Appalachian Neema Avashia, it is very hard to love a place that does not always love you back. Just like me, Silas House is from Leslie County, Kentucky. He loves his home state, but his home state does not always love him back.

On the one hand, Kentucky truly is the “land of milk and honey” early white settlers described: Verdant forests atop rugged mountains giving way to rolling hills of the richest soil that in turn become the most beautiful wetlands as the muddy waters of the Ohio meander ever closer to the Mississippi. There is hardly an inch of that commonwealth, a name which doubles as a promise, I haven’t tread upon.

Kentucky’s hollows raised me. Its rivers saved me. Its backroads take me home, for better or for worse.

For there is another side to Kentucky. As the only openly gay student in my high school at the dawn of the 21st century, I suffered what I have often described as “a daily crucible of homophobia.” Slurs were hurled, threats were made, and hellfire was preached – all before the morning bell had tolled.

You might be tempted to tell someone to kiss your gay country ass, too. Indeed, if that is the worst thing you say to them, no less than Job would be impressed.

As you drive into Leslie County, you see signs bragging about the accomplished individuals who have called that hidden corner of southeastern Kentucky home: Tim Couch, who played in the NFL; the Osborne Brothers, legendary bluegrass performers; a Miss Basketball from the last century; and, of course, Mary Breckinridge, who revolutionized nurse-midwifery. I often joke that they will never put up a sign claiming me as one of their own. It’s just that – a joke – but it is tinged with a painful truth: no matter how much I accomplish, Leslie County will never claim me.

I know this because they do not claim Silas House. There is no sign proudly proclaiming the county as home of the acclaimed award-winning novelist, even though he has based at least one of his books in a fictionalized version of the county. House is one of the most accomplished sons of Leslie County, but because he does not fit the narrow definition of acceptability, he goes unacknowledged. His name is verboten. Other names, though, are immortalized on a green highway sign.

Perhaps this will change now that he is the commonwealth’s poet laureate. I hope so. House reminds me of the best of Kentucky, of all the reasons why despite the pain it has caused me, I long to move back. He reminds me of Johnny Cummings, who as the first openly gay mayor of Vicco, Kentucky, ushered through a fairness ordinance to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination. He reminds me of Georgia Davis Powers, who defied racism and misogyny to become the first Black woman in the state senate. He reminds me of Loretta Lynn, who clawed her way from poverty to the top of the music charts. He reminds me of all of the countless kindhearted and decent people I have met in every corner of the commonwealth who do believe that I belong, who understand that “y’all” means all, and who work every single day to make sure the rest of the commonwealth understands that too.

Please open the link and read the rest of the article.

Then go to Amazon and look for books by Silas House. You might be tempted to buy one.

Categories Bigotry, Courage, Creativity, Cruelty, Extremism, Freedom, Gender, Kentucky
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