Archives for category: Civil Rights
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The Disgrace of East Ramapo, New York

By dianeravitch
November 30, 2017 //
40

The New York Civil Liberties Union recently filed a suit against East Ramapo, New York. The town school board has been almost completely captured by members of the Orthodox Jewish Community, whose children attend private religious schools. The school board uses its power to strip the budget for the students who attend public schools, who are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic.

Teacher Bianca Tanis, a member of the board of directors of New York State Allies for Public Education, here describes this shameful situation and calls on the Nee York State United Teachers to take action to protect the children of the East Ramapo District.

She writes:

“96% of public school students in the East Ramapo Central School District are Black and Latino while 98% of the students attending private schools are white with most attending private religious schools. Only one of the nine Board of Education seats is held by a public school parent. Needless to say, the Board of Education has NOT acted in the best interest of East Ramapo’s 8,500 public school students.

“The New York Civil Liberties union found that between 2009 and 2014 the East Ramapo Board of Education slashed funding to public schools and eliminated 200 teaching positions in addition to cutting numerous social workers and other key personnel.

“According the the NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman, “The East Ramapo school district has effectively disenfranchised the Black and Latino community and allowed white residents to hijack the school board in service of the lily-white private schools. The East Ramapo school board has brazenly diverted taxpayer funds to bankroll white private schools and destabilize public schools. Their policies have compromised the education and well-being of thousands of Black and Latino children. The disenfranchisement and degradation must end.”

“What is happening in East Ramapo is tragic. I have seen it with my own eyes…

“The NYCLU lawsuit demands that the board stop holding elections until a “ward” system is adopted. This would introduce voting on the basis of geographic districts; there would be nine individual districts, with one member elected to the board from each district.”

This situation did not develop overnight. The Regents and the legislature have allowed it to fester, while the children of East Ramapo are cheated.

Categories Budget Cuts, Civil Rights, New York

Politico: DeVos Slashes Staff of Office for Civil Rights with Buyouts

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2017 //
18

Betsy DeVos is not shy about revealing her priorities. She must cut positions to downsize the Department, making way for tax cuts for the 1%.

Look where the buyouts are concentrated:

CIVIL RIGHTS OFFICE COULD TAKE BIGGEST HIT IN ED BUYOUTS: The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights could lose 45 employees because of early separation offers – a big hit to an office that many argue is understaffed to handle the number of complaints it receives each year. In fiscal 2017, the office was funded to employ 569 staff members, according to the department’s budget request from earlier this year.

– It would be the most of any division within the agency, according to a document obtained by POLITICO from a congressional office. Of the 255 voluntary offers made Nov. 1 to employees to separate or retire early, 45 people work in the civil rights office, the document says. The Trump administration’s budget proposal had called for cutting 46 positions from the office, which the administration said it would do through attrition.

– The office receives 10,000 complaints of discrimination annually, but has half of the staff it had in 1980, when it received fewer than 3,500 complaints, according to Education Department figures. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the HELP Committee, said in a statement Thursday she was “appalled” that Secretary Betsy DeVos “would use a lack of staffing and resources as an excuse to roll back civil rights investigations and protections, and then turn around and attempt to shrink these critical offices … I will continue to work to give the Department the resources it needs to better aid students and families, and I strongly urge Secretary DeVos to stop putting her ideological agenda above students and work with us.”

– An Education Department spokeswoman noted in a statement that the offers are voluntary and approved by the federal Office of Personnel Management. “Keep in mind, these positions can be backfilled as the workload demands,” said the spokeswoman, Liz Hill.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Budget Cuts, Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education

At the NPE Conference, Dr. Charles Foster Johnson Explains How Pastors for Texas Kids Fought Against Vouchers and for Funding Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2017 //
2

I forgot to include the link on this post, so I am reposting.

This was one of the best keynote speeches from the fourth annual conference of the Network for Public Education in Oakland. They were moving, inspiring, powerful.

Please watch Dr. Charles Foster Johnson of Pastors for Texas Kids explain how he got involved in the fight for public education and why men and women of faith communities must support public schools and protect separation of church and state.

Charlie Johnson is a wonderful speaker. He is working with his peers in other states, including Oklahoma, Arkansas, Arizona, and Indiana. When he finished talking, he was swarmed by people from the South and Midwest, seeking his help and advice.

You will enjoy and learn from his presentation.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Democracy, Funding, Justice, Religion, Separation of church and state, Supporting public schools, Texas

John King: High-Stakes Testing Is Necessary for Equity and Civil Rights

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2017 //
167

John King, who served as Secretary of Education after Arne Duncan departed, went to the Cleveland City Club to praise high-stakes testing as the route to equity and civil rights. He spoke highly of No Child Left Behind and its successor, the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.

He is so wrong. Not just wrong, but misinformed, misguided, and ignorant of facts and evidence about the injurious effects of high-stakes testing on children, teachers, schools, and education. When you read things like this, you remember how the Obama administration sold public education out and paved the way for Betsy DeVos.

All that testing, he said, raises test scores.

Clearly, he never read the report of the National Academy of Sciences (2011) “Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education.”

I recommend that King read Daniel Koretz’ new book: “The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better.” Koretz shows that high-stakes testing produces score inflation, teaching to the test, cheating, and loss of instructional time for non-tested subjects.

Someone should explain Campbell’s Law to John King. Whenever high stakes are attached to a measure, it corrupts the measure as well as the social process that is being measured. That means that when you attach high stakes to tests, you can no longer trust the test results and you mess up what is being measured.

Tests are normed on a bell curve. Every bell curve has a top half and a bottom half. The most advantaged kids cluster in the top half. The most disadvantaged kids cluster in the bottom half. Could someone explain to John King that standardized tests never produce equity? That they measure gaps without reducing them? That they discourage children who are told year after year that they didn’t meet the standard? How does it promote equity to rely on a tool that is designed to measure and reproduce inequity?

Categories Accountability, Campbell's Law, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Equity, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Testing

DeVos Withdraws 72 Regulations Intended to Protect Students with Disabilities

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2017 //
14

During her confirmation hearings, Betsy DeVos seemed unclear about the extent to which children with disabilities were protected by federal law.

Democratic senators challenged her knowledge–or lack of knowledge–of the federal law protecting these children. Many assumed her unwillingness to comment reflected her ignorance of the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act and other legislation and court decisions.

Now, however, there seems to be a darker reason for her incoherence. She doesn’t think the federal government should intrude into decisions that she thinks belongs to states and localities.

She has rescinded 72 “guidance documents” about protecting the rights of students with disabilities.

The Education Department has rescinded 72 policy documents that outline the rights of students with disabilities as part of the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate regulations it deems superfluous.

The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services wrote in a newsletter Friday that it had “a total of 72 guidance documents that have been rescinded due to being outdated, unnecessary, or ineffective – 63 from the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and 9 from the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA).” The documents, which fleshed out students’ rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Rehabilitation Act, were rescinded Oct. 2.

A spokeswoman for Education Secretary Betsy DeVos did not respond to requests for comment.

Advocates for students with disabilities were still reviewing the changes to determine their impact. Lindsay Jones, the chief policy and advocacy officer for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said she was particularly concerned to see guidance documents outlining how schools could use federal special education money removed.

“All of these are meant to be very useful . . . in helping schools and parents understand and fill in with concrete examples the way the law is meant to work when it’s being implemented in various situations,” said Jones.

President Donald Trump in February signed an executive order “to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens,” spurring Education Department officials to begin a top-to-bottom review of its regulations. The department sought comments on possible changes to the special education guidance and held a hearing, during which many disability rights groups and other education advocates pressed officials to keep all of the guidance documents in place, said Jones.

DeVos is moving with all deliberate speed to eliminate the federal role in protecting the civil rights of groups of students who relied on the U.S. Department of Education.

This is not the first time DeVos has rolled back Education Department guidance, moves that have raised the ire of civil rights groups. The secretary in February rescinded guidance that directed schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms in accordance with their gender identity, saying that those matters should be left up to state and local school officials. In September, she scrapped rules that outlined how schools should investigate allegations of sexual assault, arguing that the Obama-era guidance did not sufficiently take into account the rights of the accused.

This should not come as a surprise. Betsy DeVos is a libertarian who does not believe in federal intervention to protect vulnerable groups of students.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights, Special Education, U.S. Department of Education

Despite Stacked Panels, DeVos Gets a Cold Reception at Harvard–from Students and Protestors

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2017 //
20

The Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance did everything possible to make Betsy DeVos feel comfortable, surrounding her with allies in the fight for school choice, but it wasn’t enough.

Protestors outside complained, and students in the audience asked unsympathetic questions about her enthusiasm for school choice, her admiration for for-profit charters, and her determination to roll back the Obama era regulations protecting civil rights. Not even her fellow panelists could save her.

When she was asked why she opposed accountability for charters in Michigan, she answered with a non sequitur. She said that the families with means had already abandoned Detroit, and the charters were a haven for those who remained behind. She forgot about the kids still enrolled in public schools, who are apparently non-persons. And her explanation made no sense.

As she left the stage, some students in the room called out, “What does white supremacy look like? That’s what white supremacy looks like.”

Meanwhile, the Department of Education awarded more than $250 million to states and charter chains to open new charters and expand existing ones.

In her statement accompanying the grants, DeVos said:

“These grants will help supplement state-based efforts to give students access to more options for their education, What started as a handful of schools in Minnesota has blossomed into nearly 7,000 charter schools across the country.”

“Charter schools are now part of the fabric of American education, and I look forward to seeing how we can continue to work with states to help ensure more students can learn in an environment that works for them.”

Shame on any Democrat who supports the DeVos agenda of charter schools and school choice. This is a flimsy, hard-hearted response to income inequality, poverty, and underfunding of schools that enroll students with high needs.

She is a one-woman wrecking crew, intent on destroying the legacy of Horace Mann and other genuine pioneers and reformers in the struggle for public education. Her legacy will be one of wreckage and destruction, untempered by any compassion for those in need. She should ask herself why she generates such antipathy.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

North Carolina: Margaret Spellings and Board of UNC Kill Center for Civil Rights

By dianeravitch
September 10, 2017 //
10

North Carolina was once the most progressive state in the South. Since the Tea Party swept the Legislature, the state is in a race to wipe out every last vestige of its social progress.

The Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina selected former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings as the president of the state system. Faculty objected, since Spellings has no advanced degrees or research or scholarship. It was a purely political decision.

Now the board, presumably with Spellings’ approval, has voted to abolish its Center for Civil Rights. This may be outrageous but it is also appropriate, since the very concept of civil rights has been downgraded in the state and by the Trump administration.

“After months of contentious back-and-forth, the UNC Board of Governors voted this morning to ban the UNC Center for Civil Rights from doing legal work on behalf of the state’s poor and minority populations. The ban would effectively neuter the Center from providing legal representation to those who cannot afford it—groups it has been advocating for since it was founded by the famed civil rights attorney Julian Chambers in 2001.

“Since then, however, the UNC Board of Governors has taken a turn to the right. That’s because board members are elected by the state legislature, which, since 2010, has been controlled by Republicans. In many ways, the reorientation of the board’s political makeup is a reflection of the state’s dramatic rightward shift over the past seven years, which has made its imprint on everything from the redistricting process to, now, the law school’s ability to sue on behalf of the indigent and the poor.

“The Center for Civil Rights is not the only progressively-oriented UNC body that has taken hit as of late, however. In 2015, the Board voted to close the law school’s Poverty Center, which, true to its namesake, focused on the state’s low-income populations. The General Assembly also recently slashed the law school’s budget by $500,000.

“The Center’s opponents say that it’s inappropriate for one body of the state, such as the UNC system, to sue another; proponents say marginalized communities that would likely be unable to afford legal support in civil rights cases rely on its work. Over the years, the Center has litigated a long list of cases that are almost all related to low-income African-American communities: school segregation, racial discrimination in affordable housing, victims of the state’s eugenics program, and more.”

In the perspective of the UNC, the poor don’t deserve legal representation, at least not legal representation funded by the state.

Let them eat cake. But they should pay for it themselves.

Categories Civil Rights, North Carolina, Poverty

Who Benefits from Expanded Access to AP Courses? Students or the College Board?

By dianeravitch
September 10, 2017 //
31

This is a really good piece of investigative writing by Alina Tugend on the value of Advanced Placement courses. It doesn’t answer the question posed in the headline of this post but it supplies valuable information and poses the right questions.

I was interviewed and what really bothers me about the demand for “AP for All” is the implicit assumption that taking a rigorous course and failing the exam will improve educational opportunity. As I say in the article, if this is the goal of the College Board, why not offer the test for free? It is easy to forget that the College Board is a business, not a charity.

There are other ways to reduce the achievement gaps instead of putting kids in a class where the reading level is far beyond their reach and they are near certain to fail.

Although AP was originally designed for elite high schools, some of them have dropped it because their own classes are equally demanding. And some elite college don’t give credit for AP courses.

So the strongest claim of the College Board these days is that their tests supply equity. No standardized test has ever increased equity. They are designed not to. If your primary interest is civil rights, fight for funding and desegregation, not a better standardized test.

Categories Civil Rights, Equity, Higher Education, Standardized Testing

DeVos Will Roll Back Obama-Era Protections for Victims of Campus Sexual Assault

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2017 //
126

In a speech at George Mason University, one of the few universities where she can speak without student protests, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced a retreat from the guidelines protecting victims of sexual assault on campus. She devoted equal time in her speech to the rights of the victims of rape and the rights of those accused of rape.

Her stance seems likely to discourage rape victims from coming forward, since doing so is already hazardous and puts them at risk of ostracism, especially when the alleged perpetrator is a popular athlete on campus.

Given that she was appointed by a man who has boasted of sexually assaulting women without their consent–just “grabbing them by” their genitals–her indifference to victims of sexual assault is not surprising.

When the subject was first discussed by the Secretary and the Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Candace Jackson, Ms. Jackson said that most claims of sexual assault were bogus.

“Investigative processes have not been “fairly balanced between the accusing victim and the accused student,” Ms. Jackson argued, and students have been branded rapists “when the facts just don’t back that up.” In most investigations, she said, there’s “not even an accusation that these accused students overrode the will of a young woman.”

“Rather, the accusations — 90 percent of them — fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk,’ ‘we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right,’” Ms. Jackson said.

“Ms. Jackson later issued a statement clarifying that the conclusion was based on feedback from cases involving accused students, and even if complaints don’t allege violence, “all sexual harassment and sexual assault must be taken seriously.”

“Such comments infuriate advocates for victims and women, who have spent the last six years waging a concerted campaign to educate college administrators, and the public, on students’ rights under the law, and how to combat what some have called “rape culture” on campus. A 2015 survey commissioned by the Association of American Universities found that more than one in four women at a large group of leading universities said they had been sexually assaulted by force or when they were incapacitated while in college.”

The current stance of the Department suggests that Jackson prevailed, that is, if anyone in her Office tried to persuade her that she was wrong. She meant what she said the first time. She believes that 90% of accusations are false.

The steady evisceration of civil rights continues apace.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights

Sheila Kennedy: Vouchers in Indiana Encourage Discrimination

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2017 //
6

Vouchers in Indiana have been an expensive flop. Students don’t learn more. They learn less.

Worse, says Sheila Kennedy, many voucher schools explicitly ban LGBT students.

Only about 3% of the students in the state use vouchers, even though their advocates believe that everyone is clamoring for them. Sorry, they are not.

Where I disagree with Kennedy is that she refers to charters as public schools. They are not. They are run by private corporations. They open the door to vouchers. They are a form of privatization. Frankly, it is sad to see a corporation take the place of a neighborhood school.

Your local public school should not be run by Walmart.

I posted the following comment:

“Diane Ravitch August 29, 2017 at 12:02 pm

“Charter schools are not public schools, even when state laws call them that. They are private schools that receive public money. They are the first step towards full privatization. They are the Gateway to vouchers. When anyone challenges charter corporations in federal court, their defense is that they are not “state actors” and therefore not subject to state laws. The NLRB recently ruled that charters are not subject to labor laws because they are not public schools. Documentation: read my last book: “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools”

Diane Ravitch”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights, Indiana, Vouchers
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