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DeSantis Attacks Disney Property Rights Again

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2023 //
42

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is going after Disney again, trying to prove he’s a tough guy. He is angry at Disney because the corporation—Florida’s largest employer—issued a statement opposing the Governor’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.

First, DeSantis retaliated by dissolving the Reedy Creek District, a special self-governing district controlled by Disney, which supplies all services to Disney’s theme park. DeSantis created a new board called the Central Florida Oversight District Board of Supervisors to oversee the district, packed with his cronies.

But before the legislation passed, Disney quietly held public meetings and granted its district decades of future control.

Outraged, DeSantis threatened to increase hotel taxes and put tolls on the roads to Disney. He also told the State Attorney General to investigate Disney. Not a nice way to treat the state’s biggest employer.

Now he is wreaking vengeance again:

The Disney versus DeSantis fight headed into round three on Monday as Florida’s governor announced that the Florida Legislature will revoke the last-minute development agreements that undercut the authority of the governor-controlled board and unleashed a litany of retributive efforts aimed at to the powerful corporation.

“We want to make sure that that Disney lives under the same laws as everybody else,’’ said Gov. Ron DeSantis at the headquarters of the Reedy Creek Improvement District near Orlando.

DeSantis said he has authorized state agencies to increase regulatory oversight over Disney operations, such as the monorail and amusement rides. He suggested the DeSantis-controlled oversight board could use undeveloped land not owned by Disney for other purposes.

“Maybe create a state park, maybe try to do more amusement parks,’’ he said. “Someone even said like, maybe you need another state prison. Who knows? I mean, I just think that the possibilities are endless.”

The announcement comes two days before the newly-named Central Florida Tourism Oversight District’s Board of Supervisors is scheduled to review a new proposal to strengthen its authority over planning, zoning and land development regulations for the special taxing district that operates the 39-square-mile property on which Walt Disney World exists.

DeSantis must be terrifying every big corporation in the nation. This is a guy who puts his nose into corporate governance; he is also hostile to corporations that embrace equity, diversity and inclusion programs and environmental policies.

His desire to exercise political control over private corporations will not win new friends for him except his yahoo base.

Categories Bigotry, DeSantis, Economy, Environment, Equity, Extremism, Fascism, Florida

Tennessee: Legislature Bans Honest Teaching About Racism

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2023 //
10

The Tennessee legislature has passed a law controlling the freedom of teachers and college professors to discuss racism. Quite literally, teachers are required to deliver content without expressing a point of view, for instance, acknowledging that slavery was wrong. The author of the bill says he is promoting freedom of expression by restricting freedom of expression.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—

“Divisive concept” rules are a set of laws passed last year that include many concepts usually taught in courses like sociology, psychology and political sciences.

The bill passed the House of Representatives on April 13, after passing Senate on April 5.

In 2022, lawmakers passed rules that allow state leaders to withhold funding for schools that teach about social, cultural and legal issues related to race and racism. Most of those concepts focus on how the impact of racism affects people today.

The law also specified that schools can teach about ethnic groups’ histories as described in textbooks and instructional materials. Educators can also only teach about controversial aspects of history, such as racial oppression or slavery, as long those discussions are impartial.

The bill, HB 1376, was introduced by Representative John Ragan (R – Oak Ridge). He previously said that the new bill was meant to strengthen the law passed in 2022 by “promoting freedom of expression,” and keep “colleges about advancing knowledge, not about advancing political or social agendas.”

Originally, the bill required institutions to publish a syllabus for each course offered in the semester on its website, meant to assess whether a “divisive concept” may be included in the curriculum. That requirement was removed in an amendment to the bill.

The bill restricts universities from using state funds for meetings or activities of an organization that “endorses or promotes a divisive concept.” It also requires employees who support diversity initiatives to “increase intellectual diversity” and support students through mentoring, career readiness and workforce development initiatives.

Employees would be exempt from the requirement if the new duties conflict with other laws, such as Title IX officers.

It also allows students and employees who believe that the school violated last year’s law a chance to file a report with the school. The school would then need to annually report violations to the comptroller of the treasury, redacting them as needed to stay in compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

The bill would also specifically require universities to allow any guest speaker on campus regardless of “non-violent political ideology” or “non-violent political party affiliation.”

The concepts that were banned from lessons in 2022’s law are listed below.

  • That one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex
  • That a person, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist or oppressive — whether consciously or subconsciously
  • That a person should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of their race or sex
  • That a person’s moral character is determined by their race or sex
  • That a person, by virtue of their race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex
  • That a person should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or another form of psychological distress because of their race or sex
  • That a meritocracy is inherently racist, sexist or designed by a particular race or sex to oppress members of another race or sex
  • That Tennessee or the U.S. is fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist
  • Promoting or advocating the violent overthrow of the U.S. government
  • Promoting division between, or resentment of, a race, sex, religion, creed, nonviolent political affiliation, social class or class of people
  • Ascribing character traits, values, moral or ethical codes, privileges or beliefs to a race or sex, or to a person because of their race or sex
  • That the rule of law does not exist but instead is a series of power relationships and struggles among racial or other groups
  • That “all Americans are not created equal and are not endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
  • That governments should deny to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the law

It also bans lessons that include “race or sex scapegoating” or “race or sex stereotyping,” as those terms are defined in law. In October 2022, a group of UT faculty called the law “chilling,” and questioned the law’s intent.

Rep. Justin Jones (D – Nashville) spoke about the bill when he returned to the House of Representatives after he was expelled and reinstated. He asked a series of questions, such as whether “college students are mature enough to talk about race and systemic racism, some of the concepts you want to prohibit being discussed at the college level?”

“I believe in God. All else is settled by facts and data,” Ragan said.

Jones again asked him to answer the question, but Ragan said he responded to the question.

“So, we’re playing ‘not-answer.’ Okay,” Jones said.

He also asked why the bill was introduced and said it seemed based on “white fragility and fears of the truth of history.”

“This bill was brought to me by a dean of college education, in addition to another university contributed to this bill. That was my motivation, too,” Ragan said.

He also said he did not want to name the person who brought the bill to him.

“How will we be honest about our history if you’re prohibiting any concepts about America’s racist history?” Jones said. “This sounds like fascism. This sounds like authoritarianism. This does not sound like democracy or freedom … This member has consistently invoked God to justify this unjust, immoral and extreme, racist law.”

Speaker Cameron Sexton (R – Crossville) stopped Jones from speaking. Rep. Justin Pearson (D – Memphis) also spoke after being reinstated to the House.

“This is a deeply concerning bill because it is continuing a pattern of practice that is harmful to all people,” he said. “When you try to control what a person thinks, then you are assuming the role of God rather than allowing freedom of thought.”

He said that the list of “divisive concepts” bars discussions on biases, white privilege and racism’s role in slavery.

The bill passed by a vote of 68-26 in the House.

During a meeting on March 13, Ragan said he received complaints from universities in the state about an “overemphasis” of the original law at the expense of “intellectual diversity,” which led to him proposing the new bill.

Representative Harold Love, Jr. (D – Nashville) previously asked if a conference focusing on Black history could still be held and promoted by a university should the bill pass. Ragan said it would be allowed as long as they “are not required to promote or endorse.”

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Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Censorship, Curriculum, Democracy, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Read, Higher Education, Ignorance, Injustice, Propaganda, Racism, Tennessee

DeSantis and His Morality Police in the Schools

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2023 //
26

The editorial board of the Miami Herald knows exactly what Ron DeFascist is up to: He wants to remove local control of public schools and gather complete power over what is taught in the schools. He wants to crush unions. He wants to censor books in school libraries. He wants to make sure that students use the bathroom assigned to the gender on their birth certificate. He wants to control the pronouns that teachers use in their classroom (check every student’s birth certificate so you don’t break the last two laws). He wants to control the state curriculum and tests to be certain that only patriotic history is taught. It’s not at all clear whether Black history can be taught (even though it is mandated) unless it meets his approval. He wants to control school boards, and he doesn’t hesitate to select and endorse candidates who share his views. He is power-mad. And he thinks his authoritarian behavior is a model for the nation! He must have skipped history at Harvard.

Florida Republicans’ ‘ideology patrol’ is coming to a school near you | Opinion

The Florida Legislature could de-certify many teacher unions in charge of negotiating salaries and working conditions.

Florida Republicans’ ‘ideology patrol’ is coming to a school near you | OpinionBY THE MIAMI HERALD EDITORIAL BOARD

It’s the biggest irony of a state that calls itself “free.”

A basic tenet of America’s political system — one that conservatives, more than liberals, have staunchly defended — is that the government closest to the people is best. But the Florida Legislature, egged on by Gov. DeSantis, is poised to further constrain locally elected school boards from making decisions about books, what teachers can say in the classroom and even school bathroom rules.

If the Republican-led House and Senate get their way, by the time they are done local education will be a mere arm of state leaders who act like the ideological patrol of Florida’s K-12 system. Meanwhile, there’s not enough talk about real issues like post-pandemic learning losses and the shortage of teachers. In fact, lawmakers might make the latter even worse with a union-busting bill that could de-certify many teacher unions in charge of negotiating salaries and working conditions.

So strong is the Legislature’s desire to turn K-12 into a field of culture battles, they are seeking to turn school board races, which are currently nonpartisan, into partisan contests. This would play right into DeSantis’ hands. He’s said that his goal is to elect candidates of his choosing in 2024 local races, including for the Miami-Dade County School Board.

This move would exclude millions of Floridians who aren’t registered with either major party — and who outnumberRepublican voters in Miami-Dade — from voting for their board member in primaries. The saving grace is that this measure would only go into effect if at least 60% of voters in the state approve it as an amendment to the Florida Constitution.

Another bill would relax residency requirements for school board candidates. They would not have to live in the district they want to represent until taking office. This isn’t unheard of in Florida. The same requirement applies to sheriffs and other constitutional officers. But it would allow any outsider with money and backing from, say, a powerful governor to run to represent communities they have no connection to.

To be fair, there are some sound proposals making their way forward at the Capitol. Lawmakers want shorter, eight-year term limits for school board members, down from 12 years. There’s a bill to require instruction on the effects of social media on young people and to ban the use of a school’s internet for social media, unless it’s for education purposes. Senate Bill 52 is ready for a Senate vote and also would ban cellphones in class.

But lawmakers are too busy fighting gender pronouns, sex education and transgender youth.

SB 1674 would make it a second-degree misdemeanor for adults to use a bathroom or “changing facility” that doesn’t align with their sex assigned at birth. The bill also would require districts to come up with “disciplinary procedures” to deal with students who violate the ban, further stigmatizing trans kids who already are often the target of ridicule.

Republican lawmakers want to prohibit teachers and staff from calling students by pronouns that differ from those given to them at birth, even when a parent is OK with it. SB 1320 expands a law that bans instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity — known by critics as “Don’t say gay” — through the eighth grade.

That same bill would also give outsized power to a single person to, at least temporarily, ban books from schools. Districts would be required to pull books that have been challenged while a complaint is being heard. It allows not just parents, but any county resident, to file an objection, likely resulting in blanket attempts by activists to ban books about LGBTQ issues and race.

SB 1320 also would take away school boards’ power to choose textbooks for sexual and reproductive health classes. Instead, that would be up to the Department of Education, which reports to the governor.

Current law already requires districts to teach that abstinence is the “certain way” to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and about “the benefits of monogamous heterosexual marriage.” But lawmakers seem to think we still cannot trust the people we elected to run our schools with basic decisions about curriculum.

We’re not fools. This isn’t simply a traditional power grab by Tallahassee. This is an attempt to ensure only certain voices are allowed in public education. Parents and educators who think differently be damned.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Civil Rights, Curriculum, Democracy, DeSantis, Education Industry, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Freedom, Freedom to Read, Teachers, Unions

“School Choice” Will Destroy Public Schools

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2023 //
51

A reader who identifies as “Retired Teacher” sees the school choice juggernaut as a deliberate plan to destroy our common good: public schools. Thomas Jefferson proposed the first public schools. The Northwest Ordinances, written by the founding fathers, set aside a plot of land in every town for a public school.

The origin of the school choice movement was the backlash to the Brown Decision of 1954. Segregationists created publicly-funded academies (charters) for white flight and publicly-funded vouchers to escape desegregation.

What replaces public schools will not be better for students, and it will be far worse for our society.

So much reckless “choice” will make the public schools the schools of last resort for those that have nowhere else to go. Choice is a means to defund what should be our common good. How are the schools supposed to fund the neediest, most vulnerable and most expensive students when so much funding is transferred to private interests? How will public schools be able to pay to maintain the buildings, hire qualified teachers and pay for all the fixed costs like insurance, transportation and utilities?

The billionaires and religious groups behind so-called choice would like to see public schools collapse. Choice benefits the ultra-wealthy and segregationists. Choice empowers the schools that do the choosing, not the families trying to find a school for their child. If public schools become the bottom tier of choice, they will become like the insane asylums of the 19th century where the unfortunate were warehoused, ignored and abused. This dystopian outcome would be the opposite of what the founding fathers envisioned. Their vision was one of inclusion where all are welcome, a place serves the interests of the nation, communities and individuals with civil, social and individual benefits. A tiered system of schools is neither ‘thorough or efficient.’ It is a nightmare, and nothing any proponents of democracy should be supporting.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bigotry, Charter Schools, Community Schools, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, For-Profit, Funding, History, Hoax, Privatization, Racism, Religion, School Choice, Segregation, Separation of church and state, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Texas: Republicans Hate Education: Dumb and Dumberer

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2023 //
5

The Texas Signal has figured out the Republican plan for education. Defund the public schools. Send public money to greedy charter operators who have their eye on the bottom line. Send public money to voucher schools that indoctrinate their students. The goal: Dumb and Dumberer. Members of the Texas House of Representatives—both Democrats and Republicans—voted against public funding for private schools just a few days ago (after this article was posted), but the Governor is likely to try again.

For decades, Texas Republicans have been hoping you won’t notice how much public education is underfunded. Now that the far right is in the driver’s seat, we can see it was a failure by design.

Under Republican leadership, Texas has long underfunded our teachers and schools. For a while, this worked for Texas Republicans – at least politically. If someone complained, they could always point their fingers at the need for property tax relief or blame our failing schools on underpaid teachers. And if that didn’t work– blame Black and Brown communities. And if that didn’t work – hell blame the kids themselves. 

Of course, they could also avoid the topic altogether. Instead of allowing the light to shine on our school, they could simply redirect their high beams to some unfortunate Texas group as a distraction in their signature Texas Republican culture war two-step. Anything to avoid responsibility.

Texas Republicans have been happy to keep up this understanding during their 6-month stay in Austin every odd year. The Texas Republican culture war two-step: bully some women or LGBTQ kids and do the bare minimum so that they can say they’ve done their part for our kids while they find ways to build personal wealth. 

That worked for a while until the failures of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) started to show. 

Republican failures, TEA Takeovers, and Privatization

In 2018, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) was placed under federal oversight by the Department of Education for its failings regarding special education. This was due to the illegal actions of the Texas Education Agency that put a limit on the percentage of students it would allow into special education programs, impacting countless kids.  

This normally would be a wake-up call for any elected official who had the interests of their constituents at heart. But then again, we’re dealing with Greg Abbott. 

Instead of fixing the root of most issues, underfunding, Governor Greg Abbott made a hard right turn led by party extremists. Greg Abbott decided to turn to Republicans’ trusted distracted dance, except now he created a new cultural war two-step. Step 1: Blame teachers at struggling schools in our most diverse cities and 2) funnel money into the pockets of his rich donors who put their kids to private Christian schools through the scheme known as vouchers.

While Abbott has been on a statewide tour pushing his voucher scheme, he simultaneously had TEA take over the Houston Independent School District (HISD) takeover earlier this year. The takeover was blasted by civil and racial rights advocates, including the ACLU of Texas. “The state takeover of HISD is not about public education — it’s about political control of a 90 percent Black and brown student body in one of the country’s most diverse cities,” they wrote on Twitter.

Then in late March, Abbott continued his strategy with a new diverse (and Democratic-run) city: Austin. State Representative Gina Hinojosa (D- Austin) is a leading voice on public education and sits on the prominent House committee. And late on the last Friday of March, she sent an explosive alert on social media to activate pro-public education Texans. She announced that the TEA recommended conservatorship over Austin Independent School District (AISD). 

This means that a team selected by Commissioner Morath will have the power to take action over our local school district indefinitely, similar to the Houston Independent School District (HISD) takeover earlier this year. 

According to Rep. Hinojosa, the agency has cited the district’s failings regarding students receiving special education. And in November, the voters of Austin elected four new trustees and an interim superintendent has since been hired. Most folks agree AISD is heading in the right direction. “Specifically, we know that many of AISD’s challenges are due to staffing shortages, “ said Hinojosa. “Additionally, the TEA has acknowledged that the state underfunds special education in AISD by close to $80 million annually.” 

Of course, facts would only matter if Republicans cared about improving the lives of children. The solution seems simple: more funding equals better results. However, this is all a ruse toward the larger direction right back to the voucher scheme pushed by the extreme right. 

As we’ve noted, current proposals that could become law give families enrolling in private or parochial schools $8,000 per student, per year to cover tuition and other related expenses. 

This would be devastating to our public schools. Texas ranks near the bottom of national rankings of per-student funding, with the basic allotment totaling around $6,160 per student. 

The Governor and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick are fully on board, leaving only the Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan left as a question mark. While Phelan generally is a pushover when it comes to right-wing agenda items, some rural Republicans may force his hand into a fight. 

The solution to most of our public education problems is simple: funding. Simple solutions are usually welcome news. However, with the growing issues of sexual assault problems for Texas Republicans and other issues that plague the state, Republicans go for what they’re most familiar with for answers. The ole’ culture war two-step.

Are you tired of Texas Republicans pushing big lies and trying to steal your vote? So are we, that’s why we’re fighting back against the right-wing lie machine. Our commitment to ethical, fact-based journalism is vital to our democracy, and we can’t do it without you. Consider donating today to help us stay in this fight.

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Musings: How Ted Cruz helped turn politics into pro wrestling
Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Education Industry, Evil, Extremism, Failure, Fascism, Ignorance, Privatization, Propaganda, Stupid, Texas

Peter Greene: Vouchers Restore Discrimination and Segregation

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2023 //
9

Peter Greene has written several columns about the U.S. Supreme Court’s step-by-step effort to tear down the wall of separation between church and state. With its June 21: 2022, decision called Carson v. Makin, the High Court ordered the state of Maine to pay the tuition for students at two religious schools. Under Maine law, districts that do not have a public high school must pay tuition for high school students to attend a private non-religious school. A majority of the justices ruled that Maine violated the students’ free exercise of religion rights by denying them the same benefits as those who go to private schools at the public’s expense.

The decision was 6-3. The majority were all appointed by Republican presidents (Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett). The minority were appointed by Democratic presidents (Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan). All six of the Justices in the majority were born Catholic; Gorsuch graduated from Georgetown Preparatory Academy, a Jesuit school (Brett Kavanaugh was two years behind him.) Gorsuch and his family now attend an Episcopal church. The minority bloc consists of two Jews and a Catholic (Sotomayer).

Before the case was decided, Peter Greene expressed concern that the two religious schools openly discriminated against student, families, and staff by refusing to accept into the school’s community.

He wrote six months before the decision was released:

Bangor Christian Schools require adherence to a code of conduct; trans or gay students will be expelled, even if celibate. Their religious indoctrination is inseparable from their academic instruction. A fifth grade social studies objective is to “recognize God as Creator of the world,” while a ninth grade objective is to “refute the teachings of the Islamic religion with the truth of God’s word.” Teachers at BCS must certify that they are born again Christians.

Temple Academy is an extension of the Centerpoint Community Church. TA is unlikely to admit students that do not come from a Christian family; that family must sign a Family Covenant saying they agree with TA’s views on abortion, marriage, and homosexuality. Again, only born again Christians may be hired to teach; teachers also sign an employment agreement acknowledging that the Bible says that God considers “homosexuals and other deviants as perverted.”

The issue, he wrote, was not about freedom of religion or free exercise of religion, but about whether taxpayers should pay for schools that discriminated against defined groups of people.

For several years, fans of school choice have been pushing the argument that a religious school is not free to exercise its religious faith if it does not get to share in taxpayer dollars. The wall between church and state has thus been characterized as discrimination against religion. Turns out you can’t be really free without taxpayer funding.

A few weeks ago, Peter returned to the subject and reviewed some of the Justices’ arguments. Quite simply, he wrote, the Supreme Court was ordering the state of Maine to pay tuition at schools that engage in discrimination.

Justice Breyer asked:

What happens once “may” becomes “must”? Does that transformation mean that a school district that pays for public schools must pay equivalent funds to parents who wish to send their children to religious schools?

Justice Sotomayor said:

In 2017, I feared that the Court was “lead[ing] us . . . to a place where separation of church and state is a constitutional slogan, not a constitutional commitment.” Today, the Court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.

But the case goes on, because Maine passed a law stating that it would not fund schools that discriminate. The Bangor Christian Academy sued the state and asserted its right to discriminate.

Bangor Christian Schools is now suing the state of Maine, asking first for an injunction against the Maine Human Rights Act (MHRA) restriction that bars them from receiving state money as long as they continue to discriminate. Their assertion is that the “poison pill” of human rights law in Maine violates their religious liberty, that they cannot exercise that liberty unless they can both receive state funds and continue to discriminate against students and prospective faculty that don’t meet their religious requirements.

The state of Maine insists that it will not fund schools that discriminate:

Attorney General Aaron Frey said that “all Mainers deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, whether it be in their workplace, their housing, or in their classrooms. The Maine Human Rights Act is in place to protect Mainers from discrimination and the Office of the Attorney General is steadfast in upholding the law. If abiding by this state law is unacceptable to the plaintiffs, they are free to forego taxpayer funding.”

Peter continued his dissection of the decision in a third post, wherein he debated the libertarian Neil McCluskey of the CATO Institute. McCluskey asserts that secular schools are hostile to religion, and the only way to secure true freedom of religion is to fund all choices, all religions.

Peter writes:

First, I don’t accept the premise that “secular” requires hostility to religion. If you play in the percussion section, you aren’t hostile to melody–it’s just not your job to handle it. A secular education system doesn’t try to fulfill any religious functions, for a variety of reasons we’ll get into.

There’s another issue in that first point, which is the newly revived idea among some folks that they cannot fully and freely practice their religion unless they are free to discriminate against people of whom they disapprove, like the Mom who objects to having her child taught empathy because she believes there are some people her child should not feel empathy for. This is a whole other post, but my short answer is this–there is no placating these people as long as circumstances find them in a pluralistic society.

But where I really disagree with McCluskey is in his central notion that by allowing everyone to retreat to their own personal bubbles, we can end all the various battles over culture and religion…

The whole choice thesis is that by not using taxpayer funds to support private religious choice, the government is discriminating against religious folks (with the newest legal test of this theory coming to a courtroom in Maine). Again, this reasoning goes, I am not fully free to exercise my religion if the taxpayers aren’t subsidizing my choice.

I should get to practice in my little bubble, and the taxpayers should help pay for the bubble.

That’s how this vision of choice leads to religious discrimination on an unprecedented scale and takes us all the way back to the question of separate but equal.

Peter demonstrates a variety of scenarios that show how thorny this issue is.

A variety of secular schools realize that if they re-configure themselves as religious schools, the “free exercise” clause is a ticket to the Land of Do As You Please and they can start discriminating against students and faculty in pretty much any way they wish as long as they claim that it’s an essential part of their religion. This will force taxpayers to fund all sorts of things that they (and not just liberal especially) object to, from aryan supremacists to gender theory schools. One worst case scenario will be a government agency given the task of figuring out which religious schools are “real” religious schools and which are just playing games. The other worst case scenario will be states figuring out how to regulate these schools so that they can’t discriminate in ways that would be illegal for anyone else. Or maybe we’ll just have a government office of educational equality that makes sure that every religion gets an equal shake in the school funding/free exercise department. No way that could end badly. None of these “solutions” will be popular.

Now that we’re establishing that I can’t have freedom to exercise my religion without enough of a taxpayer subsidy, who is going to decide how much subsidy is enough?…

I can imagine taxpayers rejecting bond unissued because they don’t to subsidize all those religious schools.

Peter concludes:

I can imagine plenty of awful scenarios. What I can’t imagine is how vouchers + religious schools results in a free and adequate education for every child or greater harmony and cohesions for our pluralistic nation. Yes, yes, I understand we haven’t exactly mastered either of those things currently, but I don’t see how vouchers + religious schools does anything except make matters worse.

Categories Bigotry, Civil Rights, Disruption, Education Industry, Maine, Privatization, Religion, School Choice, Segregation, Separation of church and state

Fred Klonsky: Tennessee Legislature Revives Memories of the End of Reconstruction and the Birth of Jim Crow

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2023 //
23

Fred Klonsky is a retired teacher who blogs regularly about Chicago, Illinois, the nation, politics, and culture. In this post, he draws an interesting comparison between the recent expulsion of two Black legislators in Tennessee and events concurrent with the end of the Reconstruction era and the reign of Jim Crow. There is this difference: The two ousted members are very likely to be restored to their seats in the legislature by their local elected officials. The Tennessee Three are now national figures revealing the fascist hand in the iron glove of the Republican Party when it has the majority.

Robert Smalls, Congressman during Reconstruction.

The expulsion of Rep. Justin Jones and Rep. Justin Pearson from the Tennessee legislature has a direct historical link to the overthrow of real democracy and Reconstruction following the Civil War.

On May 13, 1862 an enslaved man named Robert Smalls, who labored on a Confederate steamer in South Carolina’s Charleston harbor, set into motion a daring plan.

As his great-great-grandson Michael Boulware Moore explained, “He saw that the Confederate crew had left, and he knew that oftentimes they left for the evening, not to come back until the next day.”

For Smalls and six other enslaved people and their families, the stakes couldn’t have been higher. “They knew that if they got caught, that they would be, not just killed, but probably tortured in a particularly egregious and public manner,” said Moore.

Disguising himself in the straw hat and long overcoat of the ship’s white captain, Smalls piloted the ship past Fort Sumter towards the Union blockade, and freedom.

After serving on a Union Naval vessel during the Civil War, Smalls returned home to Beaufort, S.C., and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives – one of more than a dozen African Americans to serve in Congress during the period known as Reconstruction, when the formerly-rebel states were reabsorbed into the Union, and four million newly-freed African Americans were made citizens.

South Carolina, and throughout the former Confederacy, the era of Reconstruction saw the rise of Black political power and representation in both the U.S. Congress and Southern state legislatures.

During the 1870s, more than a dozen African American men, many of whom had been born into slavery, were elected to the U.S. Congress. 

It was a great democratic movement that ended all too quickly.

Former Southern insurrectionists, aided by the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, violently organized an anti-democratic counterrevolution.

Born in South Carolina, Aaron A. Bradley was a shoemaker in Augusta Georgia. Sometime around 1834 he ran away to the North, where he became a lawyer. 

In 1865 he returned to Georgia. He was the most outspoken member of the Black delegation to the constitutional convention. 

In 1868 he was elected state senator from the First District. Bradley rallied plantation workers around Savanah with his insistence that the formerly enslaved people be given land.

But Black political power and Reconstruction was short lived.

One quarter of the Black legislators in Georgia were killed, threatened, beaten, or jailed. In the December 1870 elections the Democrats won an overwhelming victory in overthrowing democracy and Reconstruction.

In 1906 W. H. Rogers from McIntosh County was the last Black legislator to be elected before Black voters were legally disenfranchised in 1908.

The actions by white Republican members of the Tennessee legislature to expel two elected Black members has all the stench of the overthrow of Reconstruction and the establishment of Jim Crow.

Categories Bigotry, Civil Rights, Corruption, Democracy, Elections, History, Racism, Tennessee

Robert B. Hubbell: Our Democracy Is Not a Theocracy…Yet

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2023 //
49

Robert B. Hubbell is a daily blogger whose reflections on the news are consistently interesting:

Religious extremists have continued their assault on the status of women as equal citizens under the law and full participants in the liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. After the Supreme Court’s reactionary majority engaged in the charade of “returning the question” of reproductive liberty “to the people’s representatives,” a rogue federal judge in Texas has issued a nationwide ban on mifepristone because of his personal disagreement with the FDA’s scientific conclusions regarding safety of the drug. The opinion is equal parts junk science and religious screed. It is an insult to the rule of law and the dignity of women as human beings with control over their bodies and reproductive choices.

The opinion is even more pernicious because mifepristone is frequently prescribed to help women safely manage miscarriages. In the absence of mifepristone and because of dozens of laws criminalizing abortion, a single federal judge with no science or medical training has ordered millions of women to risk infection, sepsis, and death before they can receive medical intervention in a miscarriage.

The DOJ has announced that it will appeal the ruling to the arch-conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which may uphold the ruling. A competing and contrary ruling in Washington state suggests that the US Supreme Court will be forced to intervene soon.

The religious extremists who successfully took down Roe are now using that victory as a roving license to attack fundamental liberties everywhere. They have misread Dobbs, their limited mandate, the will of the electorate, and the rule of law. Whatever Dobbs stands for, it did not convert our democracy into a theocracy—which is the premise of Judge Kacsmaryk’s first in our nation’s history ruling by a federal judge overturning the scientific judgments of the FDA.

Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling is not only wrong, but it is also dangerous in its implications. Under the reasoning adopted by Judge Kacsmaryk, the next logical step is a ruling declaring fetal personhood under the Constitution and an order mandating every state to criminalize abortion. I am not being hyperbolic. I urge you to reach this superb analysis by Mark Joseph Stern in Slate, Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling against mifepristone will force the Supreme Court to act fast. Stern writes:

[Kacsmaryk] deemed fetuses to “arguably” be “people” who are killed by mifepristone, seeking to establish the “fetal personhood” that has always been the end goal of the movement. For support, he cited a brief by anti-abortion advocate Robert P. George asserting that the Constitution compels every state to outlaw abortion. 

There are more dangerous statements in Kacsmaryk’s opinion, which are detailed in Stern’s analysis. While we should not surrender to alarmism (not a comment directed to Stern), we must be realistic about the path to victory. Republican leaders know they have overstepped; editorials in conservative newspapers and conservative commentators are raising the alarm that Republicans have overstepped the advantage granted in Dobbs. See op-ed by Michele Golberg in NYTimes, The Abortion Ban Backlash Is Starting to Freak Out Republicans

But the Republican Party is captive to the religious extremists whose endorsements are now the price of election in Republican primaries. In other words, there is no going back for the GOP, and things may get worse for us before they get better. But Republicans have locked themselves into irreversible losing trajectory and are already paying the price. But we must step our efforts as they ratchet theirs. We can do that; we have begun to do that; we must continue, and most not lose hope. We will win; they will lose. It is just a matter of time.

Tennessee.

The anti-democratic, racially based expulsion of two young Black representatives from the Tennessee House by the GOP has attracted worldwide condemnation. People outside of America who had never heard the name “Tennessee” now associate it with the historical birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan and the modern home for the most virulent strains of racism in America. A reader (“CC”) posted selected citations in the Comments section, with a brief comment:

Justin Jones told the Tennessee legislature that the whole world was watching. Looks like he could be right.

FRANCE: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/04/07/tennessee-republicans-expel-two-democratic-lawmakers-for-gun-control-protest_6021973_4.html

GREAT BRITAIN: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65206459

CANADA: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/us/2023/04/06/gop-lawmakers-consider-expelling-democrats-over-gun-protest.html

SPAIN: https://english.elpais.com/usa/2023-04-06/tennessees-house-expels-first-of-three-democrats-for-protest.html

GERMANY: https://www.dw.com/en/us-republicans-in-tennessee-vote-to-expel-2-democrats/a-65255635

Should Tennessee legislators care what the world media thinks about Tennessee? Only if Tennessee aspires to be part of the global, interconnected business community that will drive commerce in the future (like Nissan and Volkswagen, which both have plants in Tennessee). If Tennessee wants to rely on its other leading industry—entertainment—for future growth, it should consider whether most performers in the entertainment industry want to be associated with a state whose current top export is hate.

And my apologies and sympathy for Democrats and Independents in Tennessee who are fighting the good fight. We need you and will continue to support you. Everyone understands that the hate is coming from the GOP leadership, not from the good people of Tennessee who are struggling to create a more perfect democracy.

But Tennessee Republicans have not learned their lesson. Despite universal condemnation, major media outlets are reporting that Republican leaders are threatening the county commissions that might re-appoint Justin Pearson and Justin Jones—as they are legally entitled to do. Worse, Republicans are threatening not to seat Jones and Pearson if they are re-elected. It simply doesn’t get more totalitarian than that.

The reaction from the business community has been muted because the events occurred late in a week that included observances for Easter and Passover. But it is hard to fathom that the Memphis Grizzlies NBA playoff games next week will not be affected by Black athletes speaking their views on the events of Thursday. It is difficult to see why a nearly all-Black University of Tennessee football team would play in the face of such blatant racism. It is difficult to see why FedEx, Jack Daniels, Tractor Supply, and Nissan would want to support GOP legislators who committed one of the most overtly racist acts in a generation.

The state of Tennessee has yet to feel the business backlash that will follow the legislature’s action on Thursday. When it does, Tennessee Republicans will realize they have roused a sleeping giant.

Clarence Thomas.

Clarence Thomas issued a dissembling non-denial of his grotesque violation of judicial norms over two decades. Let’s set the quibbling aside and focus on the essence: The scale of Thomas’s corruption shocks the conscience. It appears that in some years, Thomas received more free travel by jet and luxury yacht that exceeded his salary by a significant percentage. Whatever the rules are, when someone is bestowing economic benefits on you that exceed your salary, it does not matter whether those benefits are hospitality, gifts, travel, or bribes—the amount of the benefit is corrupt. Period.

Thomas’s evasive non-denial studiously avoided any mention of free travel on a private jet—the clearest violation of the pre-existing rules. Despite his denial, Thomas was dishonest when he claimed that he understood—based on conversations with others—that he was not required to report “hospitality” in the range of a half-million-dollars. Thomas did not believe his own denial because in 2004, he was reporting “hospitality” in the from Harlan Crowe—and then suddenly stopped reporting gifts from Crow after the LATimers article. See After an L.A. Times story on Thomas’ gifts, he stopped disclosing – Los Angeles Times.com) [Behind a paywall.]

In other words, when Thomas’s compliance with the rules attracted attention from the media, he simply stopped reporting. There was no “misunderstanding,” just an intent to conceal corrupt benefits from a conservative mega-donor. Thomas’s flouting of the rules and norms of judicial conduct is entirely out of step with the conduct of most judges in the federal judiciary.

Here’s a personal story: I clerked for a federal court of appeals judge before cell phones were widely available. The federal court system participated in the federal WATS phone utility (“wide area telephone system”) that effectively allowed you to call toll-free anywhere in the US. At the time most landline calls outside of the immediate exchange area cost a dime for the first ten minutes, and then a nickel for each five minutes thereafter. Because the federal WATS system effectively conferred an economic benefit, personal use was prohibited.

The judge for whom I clerked was married to a leader in the civil rights community. Because of that fact and to avoid any appearances of impropriety by using the WATS line for personal communications, the judge installed a personal land line in chambers at great cost to him (about which he complained vociferously; he was complainer by nature).

Having spent countless hours in the judge’s interior office helping to draft opinions, I can attest that 99% of his conversations on his personal land line went something like this: “I’ll be working late again, tonight. . . . I love you, too.”

I don’t mean to hold up my judge as a hero; I mean to say that his attitude about avoiding the appearance of conflicts is emblematic of the high ethical standards followed by most federal judges. Against that backdrop, Thomas’s manifest disregard of judicial ethics is shocking.

You undoubtedly noticed that the federal judicial center issued guidelines a few weeks ago that now explicitly require Thomas to report most of the largesse he received from Crow. As Yogi Berra never said, “That’s too much of coincidence to be a coincidence.” Thomas (or Roberts) obviously got wind of the investigative work by Pro Publica and decided to provide a fig leaf of deniability for Thomas. There is more to this story. It will only take enterprising journalists and Supreme Court practitioners to speak up for the full story to emerge. It won’t be pretty. It isn’t now.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Education Reform

Ryan Cooper: What’s Behind Republicans’ Anti-Woke Hysteria?

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2023 //
14

Ryan Cooper writes in The American Prospect that the anti-woke frenzy among Republicans is a purposeful smokescreen. While their followers rant and rave about WOKE targets, like books and drag queens, the Republican legislators will continue to pass legislation to protect the interests of the rich.

Cooper writes:

It’s long been a truism among liberal political writers that a great deal of conservative culture-war politics is misdirection that disguises the GOP’s real policy agenda. By far the most consistent laws the Republican Party has produced in office since the 1980s are tax cuts for the rich and deregulation. This type of thing is unpopular, even among Republican voters, and so a regular supply of shiny objects is needed to distract them.null

That is of course true of the latest conservative hate frenzy: the crusade against “wokeness,” which the right increasingly uses as a catchall slur for everything they dislike—diversity, reproductive rights, accurate history, climate policy, the dissolution of a failed bank, and so on. Meanwhile, beneath the din, typical pro-rich policy is quietly written up.

Yet not only is the anti-woke frenzy covering up the oligarchic economics of the GOP, it is also directly profiting the allies of Republican politicians. Helping corporate CEOs and anti-woke grifters: Like the gif says, why not both?

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis and his allies are rushing through a law that would force banks not to use “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) criteria in their investing decisions. This is a version of a resolution that Republicans passed through Congress recently, leading to what’s expected to be President Biden’s first veto. As Jason Garcia writes at Popular Information, the Florida law would forbid any bank with accounts from state government from making banking or investment decisions based on a company’s “business sector,” or based on “support of the state or Federal Government in combatting illegal immigration.”

This idea is wildly impractical, as ESG or “business sector” questions must include many factors that directly affect the profits of an investment—like when Norfolk Southern spilled a huge amount of vinyl chloride in East Palestine, Ohio. (Would they get civil rights protections because of that in Florida?) Taken literally, DeSantis’s law would outlaw virtually half of all banking.

Of course, it is not meant literally. The subtext is that Florida banks better start lending again to DeSantis’s favorite immigrant detention camp company, or else. A private prison firm called GEO Group, based in Boca Raton, got cut off from mainstream banking in 2019, thanks to protests over its appalling treatment of detainees. The company has been one of DeSantis’s biggest campaign contributorssince 2018, as well as of Florida Republicans, and it stopped paying dividends in 2022. That is likely to weigh on company stock, unless those “woke” rules turn around and GEO Group can get its financing back.

In short, DeSantis would force Wall Street to once again fund his political cronies, and thence his own political campaigns.

Or in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott recently announced that the state government is taking control of the 200,000-strong Houston school district, supposedly because one of its 50 high schools has struggled academically. (The district as a whole was recently given a “B” by the state education agency.) It’s not a coincidence that, as Forrest Wilder writes at Texas Monthly, Abbott has recently been touring overtly right-wing private religious schools touting the benefits of his school voucher plan. These luxurious schools typically cost over $10,000 per year in tuition. The wealthy, ultra-right-wing families that use them—and the highly paid right-wing administrators and teachers who run them—would benefit from a voucher that might cover about half the cost, while undermining public schools. All that is needed to get the job done is to delete a provision in the Texas constitution separating church and state, which Texas Republicans have proposed, helped along by the fearmongering that woke schools are ruining children’s lives, no doubt.

Not only is the anti-woke frenzy covering up the oligarchic economics of the GOP, it is also directly profiting the allies of Republican politicians.

Perhaps most telling of all is the situation in Hungary, increasingly considered as an anti-woke utopia by American conservatives. CPAC invited Prime Minister Viktor Orban to their conference last year, and prominent conservatives like Tucker Carlson and Rod Dreher make regular pilgrimages.

Hungary is a quasi-dictatorship, and Orban has used his power to turn the country into a colony of international capital. When he took power in 2010, he made Hungary extremely attractive to foreign investors by slashing taxes on the rich and corporations while raising them on the working class. Together with Hungary’s low wages, this set the stage for a decade-long economic boom, concurrent with an explosion in domestic inequality. Orban’s latest plan is to entice a Chinese company into building the largest battery factory in Europe, though the idea is reportedly not popular among locals, who correctly suspect the company is not going to take proper precautions against pollution, and that workers and the local economy will see very little of the benefits.

Conservative politics is about creating, reinforcing, and preserving hierarchy. Oligarchic economics is only natural. Wedge issues that pit the lower classes against one another to cloak this hierarchy are also par for the course. If and when Republicans take national power again, it’ll be one more screaming tantrum after the next, while they rob the American people blind in the background.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Billionaires, Censorship, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Deregulation, DeSantis, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Environment, Ethics, Extremism, Florida, Hoax, Lies, Republicans

Indiana: Bill Would Criminalize Librarians, Allow Parents to Censor Books

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2023 //
16

The Indiana legislature is considering a bill that would empower parents to censor books they find objectionable and to criminalize librarians who allow such books in libraries. The story was originally reported on WYFI, the NPR station in Indiana.

Chalkbeat reported:

The House Education Committee heard hours of testimony Wednesday from school employees, librarians, and others across Indiana who expressed opposition to a proposed amendment to a bill that would strip these employees of a legal defense against charges they distributed material harmful to minors.

The hearing was the latest evolution in a months-long legislative process driven by concerns among some parents that pornography is rampant in schools. While lawmakers have drafted legislation to address these concerns, they’ve presented little evidence to suggest it’s a widespread problem. The latest iteration of the legislation also targets public libraries.

Rep. Becky Cash (R-Zionsville), who crafted the amendment, said she’s heard from “thousands” of parents who have lodged complaints with their schools over books they believed were objectionable.

“Parents have testified in school board meetings and come to me, and many members of this committee and assembly many, many times over the last couple of years saying that the system did not work for them,” Cash said.

She explained that the amendment mandates schools and public libraries lay out a transparent process for parents and residents to lodge complaints.

But several Democratic members of the committee expressed concern that the bill would empower some parents and disempower others by creating a system in which some parents could control access to books for all children. They also expressed opposition to a portion of the amendment that strips librarians and school employees from a legal defense.

“We are not the court of appeals from parents who are unhappy with school board decisions,” said Rep. Ed DeLaney (D-Indianapolis). “But if we were the Court of Appeals, we would want evidence. What parent? What school? What book? What hearing? What process? Not this vague discontent.”

These attacks on librarians and on the freedom to read are despicable. The red states are empowering ignorant censors who want to impose their values on people who don’t share them.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Democracy, Disruption, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Ignorance, Indiana, Librarians, Libraries, Literacy, Literature
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