Archives for category: Cruelty
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

House Republicans Propose Deep Cuts to Education, Health, Welfare Programs

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2023 //
39

The following is a press release from Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, reacting to deep cuts in the funding bill proposed by House Republicans for federal programs in education, health, labor, and human services. The Title I funding program, which supports schools serving low-income students, is subject to a draconian cut which could lead to layoffs of 220,000 teachers. Every other program sustains cuts. Though not mentioned here, the federal Charter Schools Program received additional funding, one of the few to escape the Tepunlican axe.,

From: House Appropriations Democrats <DemApprops.Press@mail.house.gov>
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2023 10:04 AM
Subject: House Republican Funding Bill Kicks Teachers Out of Classrooms, Takes Away Job Opportunities, and Harms Women and Children

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 13, 2023

Contact:

Katelynn Thorpe, 202-225-1599

 

House Republican Funding Bill Kicks Teachers Out of Classrooms, Takes Away Job Opportunities, and Harms Women and Children

 

In the midst of a teacher shortage, Republicans are kicking more than 220,000 teachers from classrooms.

WASHINGTON — House Appropriations Committee Republicans today released the draft fiscal year 2024 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies funding bill, which will be considered in subcommittee tomorrow. The legislation is an assault on education and job training, decimates research funding, and abandons ongoing public health crises.

 

For 2024, the bill provides $163.0 billion, a cut of $63.8 billion – 28 percent – below 2023. This year’s Republican allocation was the lowest for the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill since 2008. The legislation:

 

  • Decimates support for children in K-12 elementary schools and early childhood education.
  • Abandons college students and low-income workers trying to improve their lives through higher education or job training.
  • Stifles lifesaving biomedical innovation by cutting funding for cancer research, mental health research, and neurological research, and by slashing funding for advanced research projects intended to develop new cures and therapies.
  • Surrenders to ongoing public health crises in mental health, opioid use, HIV/AIDS, and health disparities.
  • Harms women’s health by cutting programs that support maternal and child health, eliminating programs that provide access to health services and contraception, and adding numerous partisan and poison pill riders related to abortion and reproductive health.

 

“When 161 House Republicans voted earlier this year to eliminate all K-12 funding at the Department of Education, I was horrified, but that was just the beginning. Now, in the midst of a teacher shortage, they have introduced a bill that would kick 220,000 teachers from classrooms. We are witnessing a widespread attack on public education that should horrify all of us” Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) said. “Regardless of age or stage in life, this bill means you cannot count on government for any help.  It limits women’s access to abortion while stripping maternal health services and making diapers more expensive. It decimates access to preschool, education, and job training. People can only hope they do not get cancer or need mental health services—you will not find support from House Republicans. These awful cuts will make it very hard for people and should not even be considered by this committee.”

Key provisions included in the draft fiscal year 2024 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill are below. The text of the draft bill is here. The subcommittee markup will be webcast live and linked on the House Committee on Appropriationswebsite.

The 2024 funding bill:

Department of Education (ED) – The bill includes a total of $57.1 billion in discretionary appropriations for ED, a cut of $22.5 billion – 28 percent – below the FY 2023 enacted level. Of this amount:

  • The bill includes $3.7 billion for Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies, a cut of $14.7 billion below the FY 2023 enacted level. This cut could force a nationwide reduction of 220,000 teachers from classrooms serving low-income students.
  • The bill eliminates funding for English Language Acquisition, a cut of $890 million that would remove vital academic support for 5 million English learners nationwide.
  • The bill eliminates funding for Title II-A (Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants), a cut of $2.2 billion below the enacted level.
  • The bill eliminates funding for Promise Neighborhoods, a cut of $91 million below the enacted level.
  • The bill eliminates funding for Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) grants within the Education Innovation and Research program, a cut of $87 million below the enacted level.
  • The bill eliminates funding for Magnet Schools, a cut of $139 million below the enacted level.
  • The bill includes $100 million forFull-Service Community Schools, a cut of $50 million below the enacted level.
  • The bill fails to provide an increase for the maximum Pell Grant award for the first time since 2012.
  • The bill eliminates funding for Federal Work Study, a cut of $1.2 billion that would eliminate work-based assistance to 660,000 students nationwide
  • The bill eliminates funding for Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, a cut of $910 million that would eliminate need-based financial aid for 1.7 million students nationwide
  • The bill includes $1.8 billion for Student Aid Administration, a cut of $265 million below the enacted level.
  • The bill eliminates funding for Teacher Quality Partnerships, a cut of $70 million below the enacted level.
  • The bill eliminates funding for Child Care Access Means Parents in School, a cut of $75 million below the enacted level.
  • The bill eliminates funding for Hawkins Centers of Excellence, a cut of $15 million below the enacted level.
  • The bill eliminates funding for HBCU, TCU, and MSI Research and Development Infrastructure Grants, a cut of $50 million below the enacted level.
  • The bill includes $105 million for theOffice for Civil Rights, a cut of $35 million below the enacted level.

 

Department of Labor (DOL) – The bill includes a total of $9.1 billion in discretionary appropriations for DOL, a cut of $4.7 billion – 34 percent – below the FY 2023 enacted level. Of this amount:

  • The bill eliminates funding for WIOA Adult Job Training state grants, a cut of $886 million that would eliminate job training and employment services for 300,000 adults who face barriers to employment.
  • The bill eliminates funding for WIOA Youth Job Training state grants, a cut of $948 million that would eliminate job training and employment services for 128,000 youth who face barriers to employment.
  • The bill eliminates funding for Job Corps, a cut of $1.8 billion that would eliminate job training and employment services for 50,000 youth who face barriers to employment.
  • The bill eliminates funding for the Senior Community Service Employment Program, a cut of $405 million that would eliminate community service positions for more than 40,000 low-wage seniors.
  • The bill includes $1.4 billion for theWorker Protection Agencies at the Department of Labor, a cut of $313 million below the enacted level, including—
    • $153 million for the Employee Benefits Security Administration, a cut of $38 million below the enacted level
    • $185 million for the Wage and Hour Division, a cut of $75 million below the enacted level
    • $537 million for theOccupational Safety and Health Administration, a cut of $95 million below the enacted level
  • The bill includes $98 million for theOffice of the Solicitor, a cut of $33 million below the enacted level.
  • The bill eliminates funding for theBureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB), a cut of $116 million below the enacted level.
  • The bill eliminates funding for theWomen’s Bureau, a cut of $23 million below the enacted level (including elimination of the Women in Apprenticeship & Nontraditional Occupations program).

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – The bill includes a total of $103.7 billion for HHS, a cut of $17.4 billion – 14 percent – below the FY 2023 enacted level. Of this amount:

  • National Institutes of Health (NIH) – The bill includes a total of $44.6 billion for NIH, a cut of $2.8 billion below enacted level, including:
    • $7.1 billion for the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a cut of $216 million below the enacted level
    • $2.7 billion for the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a cut of $139 million below the enacted level
    • $2.2 billion for the National Institute of Mental Health(NIMH), a cut of $139 million below the enacted level
    • $5.1 billion for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a cut of $1.5 billion below the enacted level

 

  • Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) – The bill includes $500 million for ARPA-H, a cut of $1 billion below the enacted level.
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – The bill includes a total of $7.6 billion for CDC, a cut of 1.6 billion below the enacted level.
    • The bill eliminates funding for Firearm Injury and Mortality Prevention Research, a cut of $12.5 million below the enacted level
    • The bill eliminates funding for Tobacco Prevention and Control, a cut of $247 million below the enacted level
    • The bill eliminates funding for the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative, a cut of $220 million below the enacted level
    • The bill includes $100 million forPublic Health Infrastructure and Capacity, a cut of $250 million below the enacted level
    • The bill includes $75 million forPublic Health Data Modernization, a cut of $100 million below the enacted level
    • The bill includes $371 million forGlobal Health, a cut of $322 million below the enacted level
    • The bill eliminates funding for the Climate and Health program, a cut of $10 million below the enacted level
    • The bill eliminates funding for the Center for Forecasting and Analytics, a cut of $50 million below the enacted level

 

  • Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) – The bill funds SAMHSA at $7.1 billion, a cut of $234 million below the enacted level. 
     
  • Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) – The bill includes $7.3 billion for HRSA, a cut of more than $700 million below the enacted level. (The comparison does not include Community Project Funding included in the FY 2023 enacted bill.)
    • The bill eliminates funding for Title X Family Planning, a cut of $286 million below the enacted level
    • The bill includes $781 million for the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant, a cut of $35 million below the enacted level
    • The bill eliminates funding for Healthy Start, a cut of $145 million below the enacted level
    • The bill eliminates funding for the Ending HIV Epidemic initiative, a cut of $220 million below the enacted level
    • The bill eliminates funding for multiple programs to support diversity in the healthcare workforce, including—
      • Health Careers Opportunity Program($16 million)
      • Centers of Excellence($28 million)
      • Nursing Workforce Diversity ($24 million)

 

  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) – The billeliminates funding for AHRQ, a cut of $374 million below the enacted level.
  • Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) – The bill includes a total of $3.3 billion for CMS administrative expenses, a cut of $798 million below the enacted level.
  • Administration for Children and Families (ACF) – The bill provides $28.3 billion for ACF, a cut of $4.8 billion below the enacted level.
    • The bill includes a total of $11.2 billion for Head Start, a cut of $750 million below the enacted level. This cut would result in more than 50,000 children losing access to Head Start programs.
    • The bill eliminates funding for Preschool Development Grants, a cut of $315 million below the enacted level
    • The bill includes $457 million for refugee programs, includingTransitional and Medical Services and Refugee Support Services, a cut of $414 million below the enacted level
    • The bill includes $2.25 billion for the Unaccompanied Children program, a cut of $3.3 billion below the enacted level.

 

  • Administration for Community Living (ACL) – The bill includes $2.5 billion for ACL, a cut of $22 million below the enacted level.

 

  • Office of the Secretary—General Departmental Management – The bill includes $344 million for GDM, a cut of $258 million below the enacted level.
    • The bill eliminates funding for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, a cut of $108 million below the enacted level
    • The bill includes $26 million for the Office of Minority Health, a cut of $49 million below the enacted level.
    • The bill includes $28 million for the Minority HIV/AIDS Initiative, a cut of $24 million below the enacted level.
    • The bill includes $20 million for the Office on Women’s Health, a cut of $49 million below the enacted level.

 

Related Agencies –

  • The bill eliminates funding for theCorporation for Public Broadcasting, a cut of $595 million below the enacted level.
  • The bill includes $661 million for theCorporation for National and Community Service, a cut of $652 million below the enacted level.

 

  • The bill includes $200 million for theNational Labor Relations Board, a cut of $99 million below the enacted level.
  • The bill includes $13.8 billion for theSocial Security Administration, a cut of $183 million below the enacted level.

Policy Riders –

 

  • The bill includes multiple policy riders to block the Department of Labor from implementing regulatory changes that would improve working conditions for workers in various industries.
  • The bill includes a prohibition on funding to conduct or support research using fetal tissue.
  • The bill includes a prohibition on funding for Planned Parenthood health centers.
  • The bill includes multiple policy riders to block access to abortion services or reproductive healthcare services.
  • The bill includes multiple policy riders to block the Biden Administration’s policies to ensure nondiscrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.
  • The bill includes a rider to amend the Public Health Service Act to create a right to monetary damages in a civil action for a violation of the Weldon amendment (which allows health care providers to discriminate against patients by refusing to provide, pay for, cover, or refer for abortion).
  • The bill includes a rider to block the Department of Education from issuing a final rule to prevent sex discrimination and sex-based harassment at schools or a final rule to clarify how all students can participate in athletics.
  • The bill includes multiple riders to block the Department of Education from implementing regulations related to student loans and income-driven repayment.
  • The bill includes a rider to prevent the NLRB from implementing a rule related to Joint Employer status.
  • The bill includes a rider to block funding related to Critical Race Theory.
  • The bill includes multiple riders to prevent policies or programs intended to promote diversity, equity, or inclusion.
  • The bill includes a rider to block funding to take action against a person who opposes marriage equality.
  • The bill includes a rider to limit which flags can be flown over a federal facility.

 

###

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Cruelty, Democrats, Elections, Extremism, Republicans

Reid Friedson: DeSantis Is a Homegrown Fascist

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2023 //
14

The Republican primary is shaping up as a carnival of horrible. Coasting in the lead is former President Donald Trump, whose ignorance, lying, and braggadocio are well-documented and on display whenever he speaks. His indictments tend to increase his poll numbers, and apparently are no bar to bring re-elected.

In the second spot, far ahead of the rest of the pack is Ron DeSantis, who wants to be known as the meanest one in the race. He will boast about how he crushed academic freedom, how he outlawed drag queens and demonized gays, how he made honest teaching of history illegal, how he encouraged book banning.

In this article, Reid Friedson contends that DeSantis’s full-blown fascism should disqualify him from office. But if the public wants fascism, there he stands, ready to suppress and criminalize dissent, debate, anyone who offends him.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Cruelty, DeSantis, Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Read

Virginia: State Democratic Party Denounces Attacks on Public Schools

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2023 //
54

The Virginia Democratic Party took a strong and well-informed stand in opposition to attacks on public schools.

It issued the following statement:

The Democratic Party of Virginia

Condemns the Right-Wing, Dark Money-Funded, Republican Agenda to Dismantle Public Education, Divert Public Education Funding to Private Education Management, and

Eliminate Critical Thinking and Evidence-based Curricula from America’s Public Schools

Whereas, 

GOP leaders have for decades sought to dismantle public education by reducing public support to facilitate moving  public funds from public to for-profit schools. 

Rather than focusing explicitly on promoting privatization, the coordinated, right-wing, special-interest-bankrolled,  decades-long effort has established such schemes as the annual “National School Choice Week” event and deployed  “parent” groups such as “Moms for Liberty,” “Parents Defending Education” and the “Independent Women’s Forum”  to make it appear that there is wide opposition to public school policies. Their current tactics are to attack public  schools by opposing masking policies, remote learning, and evidence-based curricula; harassing school board  members, administrators, and staff; and threatening to burn books. “School choice” is rooted in efforts to keep  schools segregated by race, class, and disability. 

Truthout wrote, “’Shock Doctrine author Naomi Klein predicted in March 2020 that COVID-19 presented an ideal  opportunity for ‘disaster capitalism,’ a tactic pushed by school privatizers in the wake of the last financial crisis. She  identified the global pandemic as a ‘shock,’ or disruptive event that global elites often use to introduce free-market  ‘solutions’ that redistribute wealth upwards.” Vindicating Klein’s prediction, since the pandemic, a Koch-funded  group produced an “Opportunity on Crisis” report listing numerous school privatization schemes. 

Education is a multibillion-dollar market, and the private sector is eager to get its hands on those dollars. Shrinking  public education also furthers the overarching Republican Party goal of drastically reducing the public sector overall.  Privatization also significantly undermines teacher unions, thereby reducing the voice and power of teachers to  affect the terms and conditions of their workplace. Unions are also a strong and active part of the Democratic base  and hobbling them hobbles their capacity to support Democrats. 

Corporate-focused extreme-right Republican leaders want to censor, control, and narrow the exposure of most  students to the broad knowledge base that would enable them to analyze, understand and accurately evaluate, and  manage the forces that affect their lives. They want to consign the masses of America’s children to for-profit,  unregulated, unaccredited, tax-funded “schools,” with large classes of inexperienced staff or digital platforms with  no teachers at all, designed to supply a less-educated, malleable citizenry and subservient labor pool. Meanwhile,  the children of the financial and corporate elite are to be taught a broad, rich curriculum in small classes led by  experienced teachers in exclusive private schools. 

Preparing people for democratic citizenship was a major reason for the creation of public schools. The Founding  Fathers maintained that the success of American democracy would depend on the competency of its citizens and  that preserving democracy would require an educated population that could understand political and social issues,  participate wisely in civic life, and resist tyrants. Early leaders proposed the creation of a more formal and unified  system of publicly funded schools. 

Thomas Jefferson wrote: “Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced  that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.” Jefferson  further explained: “The object is to bring into action that mass of talents which lies buried in poverty in every country,  for want of the means of development, and thus give activity to a mass of mind, which, in proportion to our  population, shall be double or treble of what it is in most countries.” 

In the 1830s, Massachusetts legislator Horace Mann advocated for the creation of public schools that would be  universally available to all children, free of charge, and funded by the state. He emphasized that a public investment  in education would benefit the whole nation by preparing students to obtain jobs that will strengthen the nation’s  economic position and promote cohesion across social classes. Proponents later reasoned that public schools would  not serve as a unifying force if private schools drew off substantial numbers of students, resources, and parental  support from the most advantaged groups. To succeed, a system of common schooling would require children from  all social classes, and educating children from different religious, and European ethnic backgrounds in the same 

schools would also help them learn to get along. Despite its founding ideals, throughout the historical development  of early public education, there was discrimination against access for girls, children of color, new immigrants, minority religious groups, children with disabilities and others. However, the founding rationale has guided the  evolution of the public-school mission to promoting equity of access to all in the mid-20th century, addressing social  needs after WW II and ensuring that all students receive a high-quality education in the 21st century. 

The original reasons for public schools — preparing people for jobs and citizenship, unifying a diverse population,  and promoting equity–remain relevant and urgent today. The Republican agenda to dismantle public education will  reverse all of these. 

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is facilitating this ongoing right-wing scheme of school privatization and blocking  of evidenced-based curricula with his executive orders allowing parents to opt out of mask mandates in Virginia  schools, and ending “the use of divisive concepts, including critical race theory, in public education.” Meanwhile,  Virginia’s Democratic legislators are introducing and protecting legislation that supports and promotes public  schools with enriched and broad curricula to prepare students for citizenship and work in the 21st century. 

Most American parents, students, and teachers do not agree with this privatization and curricula-limiting scheme,  and many are standing up for schools that protect kids’ health, teach the truth, and promote equality for all. Our  democracy 

requires informed citizens. Public education enables its citizens to develop their full potential, which enables our  democracy to flourish. It enables individuals to learn and grow and creates a successful and prosperous society. 

Therefore, be it resolved that the Democratic Party of Virginia: 

1. Calls on local, state, and federal officials, within the purview of their offices and roles, to: 

a. Investigate, expose, and prosecute all individuals and groups who deploy intimidation tactics, threats of  violence and violence against school board members, administrators, teachers, and others; 

b. Initiate a public campaign, including forums, social and other media, etc., to highlight the historical  compact establishing universal primary and secondary public education as a necessity to prepare an  informed citizenry for their role in a democracy; illuminate the accomplishments of many decades of public  education and the benefit to our country’s democracy; and provide a platform for people, including doctors,  scientists, business leaders, and religious leaders, to relate their stories of the public school teachers who  were instrumental in their success; 

c. Increase funding and support for public schools and educator, administrator, and staff compensation;  and 

d. Introduce legislation and support an enriched, broad, public-school curricula for all students in liberal  arts, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and career and technical education. 

2. Commends Officials at all levels, including democratically elected school boards, who implement and parents  who support an enriched, broad, public-school curricula for all students in liberal arts, science, technology,  engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and career and technical education. 

3. Calls on grassroots activists and organizations to launch a campaign to expose the right-wing, special-interest funded, Republican agenda to dismantle public education, divert public education tax dollars to private management  of public schools, and to eliminate critical thinking and evidence-based curricula from America’s public schools. 

4. Calls on grassroots activists, organizations, community and faith groups, parents, and the public to support increased funding for public schools and educator, administrator, and staff compensation, and to support an enriched, broad, public-school curricula for all students in liberal arts, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and career and technical education.

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Virginia, Vouchers

The Witch Hunt in Tennessee

By dianeravitch
July 7, 2023 //
19

Margaret Renkl is a contributing opinion writer in the South for the New York Times. In this article, she notices that access to civil rights increasingly depends on which state you live in. Red state legislatures exert extreme control over private decisions. Those who live in Tennessee are not free to make their own decisions about medical care.

NASHVILLE — Two weeks ago, while the rest of America was absorbed by the hunt for a doomed submersible, people in Tennessee discovered that their attorney general was conducting a witch hunt.

As part of a “run-of-the-mill” inquiry into possible billing fraud — as officials described their investigation — the attorney general’s office demanded that Vanderbilt University Medical Center hand over a vast array of documents from its clinic for gender-affirming care. According to Tennessee Lookout, a nonprofit journalism site, those documents include, among others:

  • complete medical records for an undisclosed number of patients
  • Resumes of clinic physicians
  • information about the clinic’s Trans Buddy volunteers
  • emails sent to and from a public portal for questions about L.G.B.T.Q. health
  • the names of people referred to the gender-affirming clinic for care

Tell me this isn’t a witch hunt. Tell me this isn’t an open campaign of terror against already vulnerable citizens who had every reason to believe that their medical records — their medical records! — were confidential and every reason to believe that the medical clinic of a major university hospital was a safe space.

During the Juneteenth holiday weekend, Vanderbilt notified patients whose confidential medical records were now in the possession of the state attorney general. The hospital has not detailed which documents it provided the state. When two Tennessee Lookout reporters, Sam Stockard and Anita Wadhwani, asked whether Vanderbilt had complied with every state request in connection with the investigation, a hospital spokesman said, “The short response to your question is no.”

State officials contend that they are investigating only the hospital and certain providers, not the patients they serve, and that all the data they’ve gathered will be kept private. But given the sweeping nature of the documents and the obsessive and relentless way that the Republican supermajority in this state — and in virtually every state governed by a Republican supermajority — has persecuted trans people, it’s impossible to trust such claims…

Though the courts have generally sided with transgender families when these laws have faced legal challenges, the behavior of red-state lawmakers and officials remains in lock step with intimidation campaigns conducted against transgender people by right-wing media figures like the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, who staged an anti-trans rally in Nashville last fall…

Increasingly, this is exactly what it’s like to live in a red state, and not just for vulnerable minorities. The age at which it is possible to marry, the testing required to drive a car, the conditions under which it is possible to carry a firearm — such matters have always varied a bit from state to state. But this is a whole new reality.

Now that Republican-appointed justices dominate the U.S. Supreme Court, we can’t count on the courts to protect us from the most extreme agendas being enacted in Republican-dominated statehouses. Essential civil liberties that citizens of other states can take for granted are no longer liberties that we in the red states enjoy.

Maybe you can count on being able to make health care decisions yourself, following the advice of your doctor. No such luck here, whether you’re seeking transgender care or the safe end to an unsafe or unwanted pregnancy.

Maybe you’re a physician, trained and board-certified in an area of expertise that exactly zero legislators in your state share. You may be under the impression that your education and experience give you the right to recommend medical treatment for your patients. Not in many places here. Even in the case of life-threatening situations, your hands are tied.

Maybe you feel relatively confident that your children are safe in their schools because you live in a state that has enacted measures to keep firearms out of the hands of dangerous people. My state has done nothing of the kind.

Maybe you are represented in Congress by an elected official whose political positions align with the political positions of a vast majority of people who live in the city they represent. In Nashville, as in other blue cities whose voting districts were determined by a Republican legislature, we don’t.

Maybe classrooms and school libraries in your community offer books and other materials that experienced teachers and librarians have chosen for their excellence and their relevance to children’s lives. In the red states, that’s not something parents can count on, for our school boards are being bullied by a minority of conservative parents, and our Republican legislators believe they know better than education professionals which books students are ready to read.

Maybe the full range of birth control options is now available to you in planning whether, or when, to have a baby. Many anti-abortion activists erroneously define birth control measures like intrauterine devices and the medication known as Plan B as abortifacients. If you live in a state where such groups have the ear of legislators, you’d better start paying attention to what’s happening in your statehouse because these folks are coming for you.

We live in two countries now: one in which basic civil and human rights are recognized and enshrined in law, and another in which ideological extremists can decide how everyone else lives.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Cruelty, Democracy, Extremism, Gender, Health, Republicans, Science, Tennessee

July 4: A Day to Recommit to Our Founding Ideals

By dianeravitch
July 4, 2023 //
52

I learned to love the USA from a very young age. I was 7 when World War 2 ended, and I remember very well how patriotic everyone was. From my earliest years, I learned to love America because it provided a safe haven for my family at a time when the Jews of Europe were targeted for mass extinction.

I was brought up in the 1940s and 1950s when our public schools taught only about our goodness and greatness, while leaving out the shameful chapters of our history.

Today, we are challenged to believe that one can study those shameful chapters and still love your country. Today, too many politicians—notably Republicans—are censoring textbooks and banning library books, anything that students may read, to ensure that they never encounter the ugly parts of our history or anything that includes references to sex or gender identity. Our schools confront a multi-pronged assault built on racism, bigotry, prudishness, and fear of the Other.

Too many Republicans practice the politics of hate and division. Instead of talking about their plans to improve the economy, they use their time in the public eye to demonize the powerless.

My wish is that we could strive again towards the Founding Fathers’ ideals of freedom, reason, equality, justice, and respect for the right of others to dissent, to practice their own religion, to live as they wish within a context of laws. The Founders enunciated these ideals but did not live up to them. It’s up to us to reclaim their vision.

Our Founding Fathers did not want to create a Christian nation. There are several clauses in the Constitution assuring that no one would have to conform to a state-sponsored religion, no one would have to pass a religious test to qualify for office. Whatever your religion or if you practice no religion, the Constitution protects you.

And yet, today religious zealots speak as if the nation belongs to them. It doesn’t. It belongs to all of us.

The greatest threat to our democracy at this moment is the Supreme Court, which seems intent on reversing every precedent and returning the USA to a time before the New Deal, when the government did not actively protect anyone’s rights. It is beyond my understanding that this Court ruled that one’s sincere religious views—no matter how hateful—gives you license to be a bigot.

Our ability to thrive as a nation depends on our ability to work with and value people who are not the same as us. We may be the most diverse people in the world. We cannot succeed unless everyone believes that this is their nation too and that they too can have a fulfilling life regardless of where they came from and when they arrived.

Whether we can keep our democracy rests on our shoulders. Trump and his passionate base have done their best to undermine the pillars of our democracy by questioning the legitimacy of any election they lose, by insulting the rule of law, and by assailing the free press.

The strength of our democracy depends on all of us to get involved. Join an organization that defends our rights and freedoms. Encourage others to do the same. Run for office. Democracy is not a spectator sport. 2024 may be an election that determines our future. Take action.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Civil Rights, Cruelty, Democracy, Elections, Injustice, Justice, Religion, Republicans

Heather Cox Richardson: The Supreme Court Is Putting Our Democracy at Risk

By dianeravitch
July 1, 2023 //
87

This is one of the best letters that Heather Cox Richardson has written since I started reading her posts. It puts the current Supreme Court’s radical decisions into historical perspective. This Court, hand-picked by Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society, is engaged in a shameless effort to move the clock back to the world as it existed before the New Deal. This Court threatens our democracy and our rights.

She writes:

Today the Supreme Court followed up on yesterday’s decision gutting affirmative action with three decisions that will continue to push the United States back to the era before the New Deal.

In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis the court said that the First Amendment protects website designer Lorie Smith from having to use words she doesn’t believe in support of gay marriage. To get there, the court focused on the marriage website designer’s contention that while she is willing to work with LGBTQ customers, she doesn’t want to use her own words on a personalized website to celebrate gay marriages. Because of that unwillingness, she said, she wants to post on her website that she will not make websites for same-sex weddings. She says she is afraid that in doing so, she will run afoul of Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws, which prevent public businesses from discriminating against certain groups of people.

This whole scenario of being is prospective, by the way: her online business did not exist and no one had complained about it. Smith claims she wants to start the business because “God is calling her ‘to explain His true story about marriage.’” She alleges that in 2016, a gay man approached her to make a website for his upcoming wedding, but yesterday, Melissa Gira Grant of The New Republic reported that, while the man allegedly behind the email does exist, he is an established designer himself (so why would he hire someone who was not?), is not gay, and married his wife 15 years ago. He says he never wrote to Smith, and the stamp on court filings shows she received it the day after she filed the suit.

Despite this history, by a 6–3 vote, the court said that Smith was being hurt by the state law and thus had standing to sue. It decided that requiring the designer to use her own words to support gay marriage violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.

Taken together with yesterday’s decision ruling that universities cannot consider race as a category in student admissions, the Supreme Court has highlighted a central contradiction in its interpretation of government power: if the Fourteenth Amendment limits the federal government to making sure that there is no discrimination in the United States on the basis of race—the so-called “colorblind” Constitution—as the right-wing justices argued yesterday, it is up to the states to make sure that state laws don’t discriminate against minorities. But that requires either protecting voting rights or accepting minority rule.

This problem has been with us since before the Civil War, when lawmakers in the southern states defended their enslavement of their Black (and Indigenous) neighbors by arguing that true democracy was up to the voters and that those voters had chosen to support enslavement. After the Civil War, most lawmakers didn’t worry too much about states reimposing discriminatory laws because they included Black men as voters first in 1867 with the Military Reconstruction Act and then in 1870 with the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and they believed such political power would enable Black men to shape the laws under which they lived.

But in 1875 the Supreme Court ruled in Minor v. Happersett that it was legal to cut citizens out of the vote so long as the criteria were not about race. States excluded women, who brought the case, and southern states promptly excluded Black men through literacy clauses, poll taxes, and so on. Northern states mirrored southern laws with their own, designed to keep immigrants from exercising a voice in state governments. At the same time, southern states protected white men from the effects of these exclusionary laws with so-called grandfather clauses, which said a man could vote so long as his grandfather had been eligible.

It turned out that limiting the Fourteenth Amendment to questions of race and letting states choose their voters cemented the power of a minority. The abandonment of federal protection for voting enabled white southerners to abandon democracy and set up a one-party state that kept Black and Brown Americans as well as white women subservient to white men. As in all one-party states, there was little oversight of corruption and no guarantee that laws would be enforced, leaving minorities and women at the mercy of a legal system that often looked the other way when white criminals committed rape and murder.

Many Americans tut-tutted about lynching and the cordons around Black life, but industrialists insisted on keeping the federal government small because they wanted to make sure it could not regulate their businesses or tax them. They liked keeping power at the state level; state governments were far easier to dominate. Southerners understood that overlap: when a group of southern lawmakers in 1890 wrote a defense of the South’s refusal to let Black men vote, they “respectfully dedicated” the book to “the business men of the North.”

In the 1930s the Democrats under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt undermined this coalition by using the federal government to regulate business and provide a social safety net. In the 1940s and 1950s, as racial and gender atrocities began to highlight in popular media just how discriminatory state laws really were, the Supreme Court went further, recognizing that the Fourteenth Amendment’s declaration that states could not deprive any person of the equal protection of the laws meant that the federal government must protect the rights of minorities when states would not. Those rules created modern America.

This is what the radical right seeks to overturn. Yesterday the Supreme Court said that the Fourteenth Amendment could not address racial disparities, but today, like lawmakers in the 1870s, it signaled that it would not protect voting in the states either. It rejected a petition for a review of Mississippi’s strict provision for taking the vote away from felons. That law illustrates just how fully we’re reliving our history: it dates from the 1890 Mississippi constitution that cemented power in white hands. Black Mississippians are currently 2.7 times more likely than white Mississippians to lose the right to vote under the law.

The court went even further today than allowing states to choose their voters. It said that even if state voters do call for minority protections, as Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws do, states cannot protect minorities in the face of someone’s religious beliefs. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that for “the first time in its history,” the court has granted “a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.”

It is worth noting that segregation was defended as a deeply held religious belief.

Today, using a case concerning school loans, the Supreme Court also took aim at the power of the federal government to regulate business. In Biden v. Nebraska the court declared by a vote of 6 to 3 that President Biden’s loan forgiveness program, which offered to forgive up to $20,000 of federally held student debt, was unconstitutional. The right-wing majority of the court argued that Congress had not intended to give that much power to the executive branch, although the forgiveness plan was based on law that gave the secretary of education the power to “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to the student financial assistance programs…as the Secretary deems necessary in connection with a…national emergency…to ensure” that “recipients of student financial assistance…are not placed in a worse position financially in relation to that financial assistance because of [the national emergency]”.

The right-wing majority based its decision on the so-called major questions doctrine, invented to claw back regulatory power from the federal government. By saying that Congress cannot delegate significant decisions to federal agencies, which are in the executive branch, the court takes on itself the power to decide what a “significant” decision is. The court established this new doctrine in the West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agencycase, stripping the EPA of its ability to regulate certain kinds of air pollution.

“Let’s not beat around the bush,” constitutional analyst Ian Millhiser wrote today in Vox, today’s decision in Biden v. Nebraska “is complete and utter nonsense. It rewrites a federal law which explicitly authorizes the loan forgiveness program, and it relies on a fake legal doctrine known as ‘major questions’ which has no basis in any law or any provision of the Constitution.”

Today’s Supreme Court, packed as it has been by right-wing money behind the Federalist Society and that society’s leader, Leonard Leo, is taking upon itself power over the federal government and the state governments to recreate the world that existed before the New Deal.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona called out the lurch toward turning the government over to the wealthy, supported as it is by religious footsoldiers like Lorie Smith: “Today, the court substituted itself for Congress,” Cardona told reporters. “It’s outrageous to me that Republicans in Congress and state offices fought so hard against a program that would have helped millions of their own constituents. They had no problem handing trillion-dollar tax cuts to big corporations and the super wealthy.”

Cardona made his point personal: “And many had no problems accepting millions of dollars in forgiven pandemic loans, like Senator Markwayne Mullin from Oklahoma had more than $1.4 million in pandemic loans forgiven. He represents 489,000 eligible borrowers that were turned down today. Representative Brett Guthrie from Kentucky had more than $4.4 million forgiven. He represents more than 90,000 eligible borrowers who were turned down today. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia had more than $180,000 forgiven. She represents more than 91,800 eligible borrowers who were turned down today.”

In the majority opinion of Biden v. Nebraska, Chief Justice John Roberts lamented that those who dislike the court’s decisions have accused the court of “going beyond the proper role of the judiciary.” He defended the court’s decision and urged those who disagreed with it not to disparage the court because “such misperception would be harmful to this institution and our country.” But what is at stake is not simply these individual decisions, whether or not you agree with them; at stake is the way our democracy operates.

Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute didn’t offer much hope for Roberts’s plea. “It is not just the rulings the Roberts Court is making,” he tweeted. “They created out of [w]hole cloth a bogus, major questions doctrine. They made a mockery of standing. They rewrite laws to fit their radical ideological preferences. They have unilaterally blown up the legitimacy of the Court.”

In a shot across the bow of this radical court, in her dissent to Biden v. Nebraska, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that “the Court, by deciding this case, exercises authority it does not have. It violates the Constitution.”

—

Categories Accountability, Biden, Bigotry, Billionaires, Cardona, Miguel, Civil Rights, Cruelty, Dark Money, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fraud, Gender, Higher Education, History, Inequity, Injustice, Justice, Race, Racism, Religion, Shame, Student Financial Aid and Student Debt

Diane Francis: Russia’s Sopranos

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2023 //
89

I discovered Diane Franscis’s blog while reading the latest Robert Hubbell. She writes here what many people suspected: Russia is controlled by a ruthless gang. In this country, we call them the mafia. In Russia, they are the government.

She writes:

The bizarre events in Russia over the weekend provide a glimpse into the reality that the country is not a nation, but an empire with warring factions that is run by a mafia. Vladimir Putin has reigned as the “Boss” for 23 years and remained in place by enriching Russia’s thugs, bridling them, and playing one off against another. Under his rule, they have built palaces, stolen the national wealth, become warlords, amassed staggering portfolios, and lived like Czars. But on February 24, 2022, Putin decided to escalate the grift by invading Ukraine to steal more of its resources. Now this war is failing, as is Russia’s economy and Putin’s grip on power. And on June 23, Putin’s inability to control a wartime feud between warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russia’s military brass turned into a full-blown armed mutiny. Prigozhin pulled his mercenaries from the frontline in Ukraine and led a “march for justice” against Putin’s military inside Russia. Putin labeled Prigozhin a “traitor” on national television, ordered his arrest, then instructed his puppet in Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, to make an offer to Prigozhin that he couldn’t refuse: Stand down, charges would be scrapped, and move to Minsk. The crisis ended quickly, but Putin, the Russian Federation, and the war in Ukraine, will never again be the same.

Putin and the gangsters. David Gothard. WSJ

Prigozhin grew up in St. Petersburg, where Putin did, and went to jail as a young man for fraud and theft. He has since become a billionaire oligarch as a result of his connections to Putin and business smarts. More recently, he has become a household word in Russia because of the success of his personal army, the Wagner Group mercenaries, as well as his diatribes on social media against Russia’s generals. He has accused them of poor strategies, corruption, and of using Russian soldiers as cannon fodder. His gutsy stances have made him a populist hero even though he is also a member of the elite. But Prigozhin is different. He’s gone “native” and dons fatigues, is on the frontlines with his mercenaries in the Ukrainian war zone, and excoriates Putin’s generals for drafting young Russians from poor families and regions then sending them to their deaths by the thousands without training or proper equipment.

“The children of the elite smear themselves with creams, showing it on the internet; ordinary people’s children come in zinc, torn to pieces,” said Prigozhin, a reference to metallic coffins. “Those killed in action had tens of thousands of relatives, and society always demands justice and, if there is no justice, then revolutionary sentiments arise.”

Prigozhin warns of revolution but is not a revolutionary. He became a successful chef, then caterer and started a mercenary army that has operated for years surreptitiously around the world on Putin’s behalf. For instance, Wagner helped Putin occupy Crimea and Donbas in 2014, it fought in Syria and various African countries for Moscow for years, and has been involved in the 2022 invasion, fighting alongside Russian regulars in Ukraine. But last year he began to aggressively criticize Russia’s Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, and Chief of General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov and Putin never intervened. This was because he was doing Putin’s dirty work again and blaming the generals for military failures. But Shoigu and Gerasimov struck back by sabotaging the Wagner Group on the battlefield. Prigozhin claimed they withheld ammunition and provided only sub-standard equipment. Then, last month, he alleged that the two actually shelled Wagner troops.

By June, Prigozhin’s success in the battlefield and growing social media presence across Russia and abroad was becoming a threat, so Putin sided with his generals. He ordered Wagner fighters to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense by July 1. This represented a de facto expropriation which is why Prigozhin pulled his troops from the front line in Ukraine on June 23 and marched them into Russia. That night, Putin condemned Prigozhin on state television and ordered Lukashenko to deliver the deal. Putin has not surfaced since June 24, and unconfirmed reports are that he fled Moscow.

A coup or armed conflict was avoided, but damage was done. Putin’s climb-down and capitulation to a man he had just called a “traitor” destroyed his tough-guy image. It’s obvious that he is not the “Boss”, but merely a figurehead who sits atop a rotten system of squabbling and greedy oligarchs. Prigozhin’s stunt also unveiled Russia’s vulnerability. He was able to march two-thirds of the way toward Moscow in a few hours without resistance. His troops also reportedly shot down six Russian helicopters and an IL-22 airborne command-center plane, killing 13 airmen, along the way, without consequences.

Prigozhin backed down and agreed to self-exile, but he’s not going to disappear, except physically. The generals he demanded that Putin fire still remain in power so he will continue to broadcast his criticisms from afar and plot a comeback, either from a dacha somewhere around the world or on a yacht. He will rebuild Wagner and may attract allies inside and outside Russia who want to overthrow Putin and his generals. He may aspire to be President but that is unlikely. He would be thoroughly unsuitable as President, but, unless assassinated, his ongoing crusade will be a catalyst for change inside Russia and serve the interests of Ukraine and the West. Prigozhin has already undermined Russia’s leadership, damaged frontline morale, stirred up the public, and shredded Putin’s concocted narrative that the invasion was necessary because Ukraine and NATO were a threat to Russia’s existence.

There’s little likelihood that a grassroots movement against Moscow will sprout around Prigozhin because it is a reign of terror and because he’s another thug whose forces have killed many Ukrainians and others. But his popularity was rising in polls before his armed mutiny because his rants resonated with civil society, mostly younger people. He also attracted international recognition with his condemnation of the war itself in the days leading up to the confrontation: “The war wasn’t needed to return Russian citizens to our bosom, nor to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine,” he said. “The war was needed so that a bunch of animals could simply exult in glory.”

The weekend’s events may not have brought about regime change, but Prigozhin has already dealt Putin, and Russia as currently constituted, a fatal blow. As the war continues to backfire, Ukraine and its alliance will push harder and so will separatist movements inside Russia who want autonomy or secession. Putin’s weakness is now apparent, and his tenure uncertain, which will also convince neighboring nations and Russian allies to recalibrate their relationship or forge new ones. Most significantly, Putin’s cave-in and cowardice concerning Prigozhin also means that his many “red lines” in this war are meaningless which is why many have been crossed and more should be ignored in future.

It is ironic that Prigozhin has opened a Pandora’s Box about corruption and injustice in a country run by criminals like himself. His lightning attack also raises fears internationally as to how secure Russia’s nuclear arsenal is from seizure by disgruntled factions such as Wagner or others. Experts say the events haven’t altered the security status of Russia’s nuclear weapons, and the West carefully monitors their movement and storage facilities.

But the country is run by gangsters who have upended the world order. Only “100 beneficiaries and several thousand accomplices” own everything, said Mikhail Kodorovsky, an oligarch jailed by Putin in 2005 on trumped-up charges. “Most of these people began their careers in the criminal underworld of St. Petersburg. Despite having now taken control of the Presidency, the group retains every aspect of the criminal ilk from which they came.”

Putin’s Russia is a criminal organization that must be overthrown. And finally, one of its own has told the world, and Russian people, why it must disappear.

Categories Corruption, Cruelty, Extremism, International

Don’t Miss This TV Documentary: “Shiny Happy People” on Amazon Prime

By dianeravitch
June 27, 2023 //
58

I kept seeing references in the news toa documentary called “Shiny Happy People,” so I turned on Amazon Prime and watched four episodes at one sitting. It’s a fascinating look inside the world of Christian fundamentalism. The documentary focuses on the Duggar family, which achieved fame and fortune because they had 19 children. They live in Arkansas.

The Duggar family had its own TV program on TLC. Television cameras recorded every event in the family. They were the perfect, wholesome American family. Until they weren’t.

This is a good summary of the four episodes. You can see that the family was very attractive. Beautiful girls. Handsome boys. All the children did their chores. And all were home-schooled.

The Duggars belonged to a fundamentalist organization (a cult) called the Institute in Basic Life Principles. It was run by an evangelical preacher who taught a strict and patriarchal way of life. God reigns over man. Man rules over his wife. The parents rule over the children. Good parents administer corporal punishment.

The leader of IBLP knew how every family should act, but he was unmarried.

The father of the Duggar family was elected to the legislature.

It was the perfect family until word got out that the oldest son had molested some of his sisters. Eventually, you learn that the leader of the IBLP was accused of sexually assaulting a number of the attractive young women he chose as his assistants.

There are many interviews with thoughtful people, including some of the adult Duggar children, who reflect on being brainwashed.

We need to know who these Christian nationalists are because they are taking a major role in reshaping our nation and its politics. Nothing is said about national politics but it’s clear that the fundamentalists are a rock-solid part of the Republican Party.

To the extent they gain power, this will be a less tolerant, less open-minded society, indifferent to knowledge and hostile to science.

I hope you watch it.

Categories Arkansas, Bigotry, Censorship, Corruption, Cruelty, Discipline, Extremism, Home Schooling, Parents, Religion

Peter Greene: What Vouchers Will Do to West Virginia

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2023 //
4

Peter Greene looks into the Koch-funded voucher lobby in West Virginia and finds a fairly accurate portrayal of the dystopian future that lies ahead.

First, he details the background of the leaders of the voucher lobby. All have long-time connections to rightwing causes. Most were hired to push West Virginia’s expansive voucher plan, which passed in 2021.

If ever there was a state that needs a strong public school system, it’s West Virginia. But with big Koch money, the Koch puppets will make that impossible.

Instead of good public schools, West Virginians will have the “freedom” to find a good education on their own!

After identifying the staff and board, Greene writes:

So we’ve got the picture now– Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy (which belongs to the State Policy Network) is a Koch organization.

Cardinal Institute is all for the usual Koch version of liberty. They are pushing a West Virginia Miracle, and the four pillars are “Economic Freedom, Labor Freedom, Education Freedom, and Montani Semper Liberi – a culture of freedom.” They would like to promote “limited government, economic freedom, and personal responsibility.” They’ve got a podcast– “Forgotten America.” And they promise a “new paradigm”–

An “island” of poverty in the wealthiest country the world, West Virginia’s brighter future depends on a new paradigm – a new way of looking at the world with new ideas and a philosophy built on innovation, human flourishing, and a recognition that freedom is the greatest alleviator of poverty the world has ever seen. Ours is a philosophy built on the entrepreneur, the tinkerer in the garage, and the idea that small government means more room for people to create and build their own futures.

It’s a curious pitch in a state that is not exactly known for government overreach. West Virginia is a state with a history of labor struggles and a history of state government that exerts its power mostly to aid guys like Charles Koch. Regular people have always had plenty of room in this state that is renowned for its poverty— worst health, worst education levels, worst employment, and geography that makes it hard for basic infrastructure like roads and water and electricity and internet to reach some citizens. (And at least one community gutted by the departure of its WVU college campus–but hey, they’re free now.) It’s hard to imagine that any of these problems would be solved by less government, but libertarians gotta libertarian.

So what does Ballangee say about Mount Everest?

In his Education Next piece, Ballangee comes close to honesty about the larger goals of his particular arm of the school voucher movement. 

There is a common misconception among education reform advocates that passing universal choice legislation is akin to summiting Mount Everest. Upon universal choice’s enactment into law, it is done. Time to exhale and pop the champagne, for the mountain has been scaled.

In other words, voucher laws are not the end game. Simply making a voucher program available is not enough.

Next, the program has to be pushed and promoted. There will be a urge, then a steady growth “as families become aware of the program and hear from neighbors, fellow church attendees, and other connections about their new options” (just in case you had doubts about voucher ties to religion). Nut awareness must be built and PR must be provided to popularize the program.

Failure for an education choice program does not often come in the form of mistakes, fraud, or incompetence. More frequently, the problems are apathy and ignorance.

I don’t know. There’s an awful lot of fraud and incompetence in the school choice world. Nor am I sure how the lack of interest in a choice program is not the same thing as a lack of market demand. But of course modern marketing means creating a demand for your product. So, Ballangee asserts, somebody will need to work on that.

Someone will also need to build/attract a supply of educational “providers.” “Help private schools sign up,” he says, skipping over the question of why a successful private school would want to sign up. Somebody has to reach out to edupreneurs and get them signed up, too. Basically, be an education broker.

Now that choicers need to spend less time lobbying legislators, “the nexus of a successful program [he means a privatizing program, not an educational program] will shift somewhat from legislative considerations, lobbying, and bill design towards family outreach and relationship cultivation, specific government agency relationships, and broad marketing campaigns.”

Also, you’ll have to prepare for those “legions of entities” looking to “besmirch” the program (public education establishment, unions, union-friendly media). 

And this–

You have to figure out how – not if – to help the families about to embark on this journey for the first time…

You must figure out how to manage each “case” not only for the sake of the family and child but also for the overall health of the program.

There will be grandparents who have never used a computer now asked to upload a birth certificate on their grandchild’s behalf. There will be parents with limited education who know only one thing when it comes to navigating this fresh bureaucratic concoction: “my child needs something different.” Be sympathetic, but, more importantly, develop competence.

Learn the law and accompanying statutes backwards and forwards or find someone who does. You must have a path or contact for families to use. “I don’t know the answer, but I know someone who might” will become one of the most useful phrases in your reform handbook.

In short, Ballengee is outlining all the new business opportunities available on the mountaintop voucher peak. The only one he left out was the booming business in K-12 education loans for all those parents for whom state’s voucher won’t cover the cost of their education provider. Not only will government stop providing public education, but there are many opportunities to make a buck or ten in the newly free and unregulated marketplace of education stuff.

The Koch mountaintop

Because here’s what “freedom” means on Koch mountain– you are free to try to get to the top if you can, and I am free to ignore any of your problems (unless you pay me to help you), because the dream remains a world in which I have no responsibility to my fellow travelers on the earth (and certainly don’t have to pay taxes to provide services for Those People). 

Ballangee isn’t going to have any discussion of how well vouchers work as far as education goes (hint: not very well). But that’s okay, because, as he says, “education choice is good and a moral necessity.” I’m of the opinion that guaranteeing each child a decent education is the moral necessity, and, as always, I question the assumption that “education choice” must somehow involve the free market, one of the great unexamined assumptions of the modern choicer movement. Are choice and freedom important values in life? Damn right they are–which is why we as a society bear a responsibility for getting every child an education that will help them freely access more choices.

In the end, Ballengee’s mountain is one that Ayn Rand would probably approve of.

Though the last few steps up the mountain are the steepest and most difficult, they are also closest to what we are looking for when we embark on our journey: helping children find their own path to their own personal summit.

In other words, I’ve got my summit, Jack. Go find your own. 

“Helping” I suppose could mean choice advocates just helping out of the goodness of their hearts (though their hearts, bless them, don’t know much about actual education). But I suspect that help will be provided, for a price (or a cut of your voucher), to those who can find it and access it while navigating a sprawling unregulated complicated marketplace. It’s funny, because another thing we could do is collect all the experts in delivering education under one roof, where they’d be easy to find. And we could pay them with public tax dollars, and recruit and hire them with the understanding that they are there to help students climb their own personal mountain. But then some of us would have to pay taxes to fund it, and they might not be willing to make it all about christianist ideas. 

So instead, Koch-trained folks imagine a mountain, an Everest. By the way, do you know what Everest looks like these days? It’s a crowded mess of wealthy, resource-rich tourists who are hiring someone else to guide them. Well, that’s Everest.

The peak of the school voucher mountain looks a lot like wealthy, well-resourced folks looking down at the folks struggling on the slopes of other mountains and saying, “Well, don’t they look free. I wonder if they’ll make it.”

Categories Billionaires, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Koch Brothers, Poverty, Privatization, Propaganda, West Virginia

NYC: Advocates for Justice Files Lawsuit to Block Forced relocation of Two Schools

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2023 //
12

I wrote at the end of April about an effort by the NYC Department of Education to force a high school for overage students in Manhattan to trade places with a billionaire-funded high school on the other side of town. The school for the high-needs students had better facilities, including a gym. I suggested at that time that the Tisch family, which funds the Young Women’s Leadership Academy, could well afford to buy or build a better facility rather than force out the last-chance students in West Side High School. A few days later, the New York City Board of Education, controlled by Mayor Eric Adams, voted to oust the students from the West Side High School and give their home to the Young Women’s Leadership Academy.

It’s not over. A pro bono law firm, Advocates for Justice, has filed a lawsuit to block the swap. The lawsuit includes another school for overage students that opposes the co-location of another school in its building.

For immediate release: Thursday, June 22, 2023

More information: Laura Barbieri, lbarbieri@advocatesny.com, 914-819-3387

Sarah Frank, sarfrank@gmail.com, 617-838-2032

Lawsuit filed to block the re-location of West Side High School and the co-location of Brownsville Academy -both transfer schools with vulnerable overage and undercredited students

Today, Thursday, June 22, 2023, a lawsuit was filed in the New York State Supreme Court on behalf of parents, students, and teachers to prevent the NYC Department of Education from forcing the Edward A. Reynolds West Side High School from moving across town to a smaller building and to block Brownsville Academy from having to share its building with another school,  Aspirations Diploma Plus High School.  

Both of these schools are transfer schools, designed to ensure that vulnerable, over-aged and under-credited students have the support they need to remain in school through graduation. Many of these students have already dropped out of school once or are at increased risk of dropping out in the future, so any negative change in their learning environment jeopardizes their life chances.

The lawsuit, filed by the pro bono law firm Advocates for Justice, focuses on the inadequacy of the Educational Impact Statements [EIS’s] that the NYC Department of Education is required to prepare in advance of the votes by the Panel for Education Policy to approve these changes in school utilization that occurred on April 19, 2023, and May 1, 2023.

Instead, both EIS’s for these proposed changes in school utilization explicitly assumed that current class sizes at both schools would continue indefinitely, even though half of the classes at Brownsville Academy and more than half of the classes at Edwards A. Reynolds West Side High School are larger than the cap of 25 students per class required by the new state class size law, to be phased in over five years.

In addition, students with disabilities in both schools will likely lose their dedicated rooms for mandated services in these new, far more limited spaces. Both schools have very high percentages of such students: 43% at Edward A. Reynolds West Side High school and 26% of the students at Brownsville Academy have disabilities.

 The failure of the EIS’s to analyze the profound educational impacts of these changes is a clear violation of state education law, and in an innovative legal strategy, the lawsuit also argues that the deprivation of critical space from students with disabilities would cause a disparate impact on these vulnerable students, in violation of the New York City Human Rights Law.

Most egregiously, perhaps, is how the students at Edward A. Reynolds West Side High School will be deprived of their on-site GED program, their full-size gym, the Ryan health care center, and the LYFE day-care center, designed to take care of the young children of these overaged students while they are attending school. Yet the DOE fails to assess the likely negative educational impacts of these profound losses, or even acknowledge them in the EIS .

Also highly questionable is the way in which the DOE and certain members of the Panel for Educational Policy ignored their obligations under the Open Meetings Law (OML). Specifically, the law requires that all voting by members of public bodies must be publicly performed. However, many of the Mayor-appointed PEP members failed to turn on their cameras during the meetings that approved these changes in school utilization, which should nullify their votes. In addition, the DOE failed to record the first several hours of the PEP meeting on May 1, which is also an OML violation. Together, these violations call into question whether these PEP proceedings or their votes were legally valid.

State Assemblywoman Latrice Walker said: ““I have long been concerned about the plan to re-site Aspirations Diploma Plus and co-locate it with Brownsville Academy High School. Though well-intentioned, the proposal would harm two communities. Aspirations is the only transfer school in Crown Heights, and I fear they will lose scholars who are not willing to travel to Brownsville. I also share the concerns of the staff at Brownsville Academy, who are worried about the potentially drastic reduction in the number of rooms. The co-location process would deprive the Brownsville Academy of the space currently being used for counseling, an internship program, and their very successful mentoring services. Brownsville Academy has served the community and its students well, consistently ranking in the top 10 in graduation rates, attendance, and career readiness for transfer schools in the city. The potential impact on the student-to-teacher ratio and the reduction of services would have an adverse impact on some of Brooklyn’s most vulnerable students.”

“I strongly support West Side High School staying where it is and appreciate the effort by Advocates for Justice to halt the move,” said Council Member Gale A. Brewer. “It is inequitable to take away from the student population the LYFE Center, the wellness and health center, the large gym and field, and the kitchen. If the TYWLS building is not adequate to meet the needs of its current student population, then it cannot be adequate for the students now at West Side High School.”

“The relocation of West Side High School and the co-location of Brownsville Academy presents a number of challenges to the families, students, and teachers in both schools.” Said New York City Council Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala. “Students within these schools have either dropped out once before or require special accommodations to ensure they receive a quality education. The Department’s relocation plan does not take those factors into consideration and their decision further jeopardizes the educational prospects of the students within these schools. I urge the Department to reconsider this decision and to work with both schools to find a compromise that focuses on the students rather than the ideal location.”

Added Ashley Norman, a plaintiff, a parent of a current student at West Side High School and herself a graduate of the school: “West Side has paved the way for so many students in its time. Myself and everyone I know felt as if dropping out would be the best option, until we went to this school. They do their best to meet you where you are and push you for greatness. This school is so important for young parents. You can receive your education, have your child cared for, and receive not only mental health care but your physical healthcare as well in the Ryan Center -things that being a young parent are hard to juggle. I decided to participate in this lawsuit because I also worry about the potential for gang violence on the East side that our kids might be exposed to. I believe this school NEEDS to stay here for the benefit and more importantly the safety of our community.”

Lucie Gaba, a plaintiff and parent at Brownsville Academy commented: “Before attending Brownsville, my son attended another high school where he struggled with attendance issues and with being on time. Since switching schools, his attendance has improved and the wonderful staff have inspired him to become an active member of the school community. Brownsville Academy has helped my son improve his academics greatly. I am worried that the co-location will make it harder for him and his friends to get the dedicated help they have come to count on. English is his second language and he receives extra services for this reason. I am very concerned that if the co-location happens, the increased crowding will cause him to lose these services.”

Grisslet Rodriguez, plaintiff and parent of a current West Side High School student, said: “I’m participating in this lawsuit because it is the right thing to do for all of the students in West Side High School. I want to be a voice for my son and all the West Side students since their voices are not being heard. My concern is that if our students are moved to another location, the outcome is going to be devastating. It will have a negative impact on a minority group that already struggles. Students might drop out, have emotional damage, and more mental health challenges. My top concern is the lack of safety in the neighborhood that is on the East side and is dangerous. The new location across town will require many students, including my son, to take a bus and a train, which is a longer commute. Health-wise, there is no gym and no clinic, which is so important for the health, well-being, and growth of the students. The daycare center is crucial to keep the young mothers in school. I hope students can remain in West Side High School, where they feel safe. These students have been through a lot, and we are so proud of them and happy that they found a place where they feel they belong.”

Sarah Frank, teacher at West Side High School and a plaintiff, said: “We have been pushing back on this relocation from the moment it was announced because as a transfer school, we know our vulnerable students need access to smaller classes and additional services and support. Our current building was specifically designed for West Side High School in the 1990s to have an on-site daycare and health clinic. Our Public School Athletic League teams play in our beautiful gym and the field adjacent to the school. The building we are being relocated to on the East Side has none of these resources, and traveling to other locations for daycare, healthcare, and athletics is a huge barrier for our students. While we have had enrollment struggles, our enrollment has grown tremendously in the last few months. The new space will not allow us to meaningfully lower class size and will not afford the space for small groups and other social-emotional supports we have always offered our students, particularly the nearly 50% of our special needs population with IEPs. Our students do not gain anything from this move, they only lose.”

Marissa Moore, a plaintiff, and parent at Brownsville Academy HS pointed out: “Brownsville Academy has provided my son with a rigorous academic experience along with rich social emotional support which is so needed coming out of the pandemic. Under the co-location proposal, I am concerned that BAHS will become overcrowded and offer fewer services just like the larger schools which failed to serve him previously.”

Concluded Hon. Carmen Quinones, President of the Frederick Douglass Houses Association where many of the students who attend West Side High School live, “This is not what Justice looks like: putting a target on our children’s back and making them choose to drop out of school or die trying!”

Here are notes:

Memo of Law ; Verified Petition, and affidavits from Lucie Idiamey-Gaba, Sarah Frank, Anneris Fernandez , Chance Santiago, Marissa-Moore, Grisslet Rodriguez, Ashley Norman, and Leonie Haimson.

 

###

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Disruption, Ethics, Inequity, New York City
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »