The Washington Post published contemporary photographs and videos of the Tulsa Race Massacre. As many as 300 black people were killed.

On May 30, 1921, Greenwood was one of the wealthiest Black communities in the country, home to doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs.

It boasted restaurants, grocery stores, churches, a hospital, a savings and loan, a post office, three hotels, jewelry and clothing stores, two movie theaters, a library, pool halls, a bus and cab service, a highly regarded school system, six private airplanes and two Black newspapers, according to the Greenwood Cultural Center.

Two days later, it was all gone.

Inflamed by rumors that a young black man had assaulted a young white woman, a white mob in Tulsa set out to avenge the alleged event. Fighting broke out between whites and blacks, and a large section of black-owned businesses and homes was reduced to ashes. Hundreds of blacks were killed, and a 35-block area of residences, restaurants, professional offices, and theatre was leveled. Subsequently the black man in the incident was absolved.

Alan Singer of Hofstra University writes here about the day that whites in Tulsa burned down a thriving black community.

Singer writes:

That night, white rioters looted and burned over 1,200 buildings in the Greenwood District, which at the time was a prosperous Black business and residential neighborhood known as Black Wall Street. White mobs bombed, looted, and set fire to buildings and opened fire on Black residents who tried to defend their homes and businesses. A report in the Tulsa Tribune described that “machine guns were set up and for 20 minutes poured a stream of lead on the negroes who sought refuge behind buildings, telephone poles, and in ditches.”

Mercedes Schneider read the letter posted by the board of the celebrated IDEA charter chain. She noted that the chief executive officer and chief operating officer had been fired. She dug deeper and wondered about a culture of corruption and self-aggrandizement that went beyond the leaders who were fired.

The May 25, 2021 Houston Chronicle reports of the firing of IDEA Public Schools charter chain CEO JoAnn Gama and CFO Irma Muñoz “after a forensic review found ‘substantial evidence’ that top leaders at the state’s largest charter network misused money and staff for personal gain ‘in a manner to avoid detection by the standard external audit and internal control processes that the Board had in place.

Schneider dug deep into internet archives to take a close look at the “top leaders at the state’s largest charter network.” The network was rolling in dough. DeVos poured in another $200 million plus. Money and luxury. Greed and temptation.

As blogger Billy Townsend explains, education officials in Florida are either hypocrites or stupid.

In a post that is second in a series, he shows how they campaign against teaching about racism (which they consider “indoctrination”) yet state standards require teachers to teach about the infamous 1920 Ocoee race massacre. Is it possible to avoid teaching about racism and white supremacy while teaching a mandated lesson about racism and white supremacy?

Townsend describes the teacher’s dilemma. He or she might satisfy Governor DeSantis by assuring him that the teacher is definitely not teaching “critical race theory,” because he or she never heard of it before.

Just the facts:

Dear class, today we are going to discuss the Ocoee pogrom, which killed or expelled virtually the entire black population of this little town near Orlando because that black population attempted to vote on the presidential Election Day of 1920.

Here’s the outcome of the Ocoee pogrom demographically:

Ocoee’s purged black population culminated the destruction of a 1920 statewide civil rights/voting registration drive led by black women like Mary McLeod Bethune during the first presidential election of women’s suffrage. Mary McLeod Bethune is about to represent woke Florida in statuary hall in Congress. But in 1920, white people and power crushed her ambition for representative government and legitimate political power with systematic killing and destruction. They did this explicitly to maintain “white supremacy” against black participation in the democratic process and the 1920 presidential election. That’s literally the reason white people gave for doing it — that exact phrase, “white supremacy.” …..

Townsend continues:

I need to quote and address the Chris Latvala Corollary to all these rules: “There is a way to teach it without indoctrinating kids about how bad white people are.” That’s the position of state Rep. Chris Latvala, chairman of the House Education & Employment Committee, on history.

I am not sure what “it” is; so let me just say: White people are awesome. We have always been awesome. Without us, you would not have skinny jeans or emo music or square dancing or hipsters — or so I understand from popular American history. So as you listen to this, remember: it doesn’t mean white people are not awesome. We are. Always have been. OK. Got it?

Even with all that disclaiming, I’m not sure if the Florida powers-that-be will fire me for not teaching Ocoee or for teaching it. Such is the life of an educator in America’s worst designed, worst led, most corrupt, most incoherent, and most stupidly performative state education system.

The New York Times reports on a poll finding that 15% of Americans believe in QAnon conspiracy theories.

Those are the findings of a poll released todayby the Public Religion Research Institute and the Interfaith Youth Core, which found that 15 percent of Americans say they think that the levers of power are controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles, a core belief of QAnon supporters. The same share said it was true that “American patriots may have to resort to violence” to depose the pedophiles and restore the country’s rightful order…

And fully 20 percent of respondents said that they thought a biblical-scale storm would soon sweep away these evil elites and “restore the rightful leaders…”

Mr. Jones said he was struck by the prevalence of QAnon’s adherents. Overlaying the share of poll respondents who expressed belief in its core principles over the country’s total population, “that’s more than 30 million people,” he said.

“Thinking about QAnon, if it were a religion, it would be as big as all white evangelical Protestants, or all white mainline Protestants,” he added. “So it lines up there with a major religious group.”

In a crowded field of candidates in the Democratic primary, only two are opposed to expanding the number of charters in a city with hundreds of them: Scott Stringer and Maya Wiley.

The other candidates support more charters at a time when the national Democratic Party seems to realize that charters are a key component of the rightwing’s longtime goal of privatization of the public schools. Charter advocates started a PAC for Eric Adams. Andrew Yang supports charter schools and is advised by former Mayor Bloomberg’s advisor Bradley Tusk (Bloomberg was very pro-charter). Financier Ray McGuire’s campaign relies on Bloomberg’s chancellor Joel Klein for advice (his campaign manager is pro-charter).

Betsy DeVos loves charter schools, so does the anti-union Walton family and Charles Koch. Across the country, Republican legislators and governors are passing legislation to expand charters and vouchers, while Democrats put public schools first.

This article explains how deeply entangled one of the candidates is with the charter industry. Dianne Morales has pitched herself as the most progressive candidate in the field, but neglects to mention that she was a Pahara Fellow or that she has long-standing ties to charter world.

Those ties are now producing an outpouring of contributions from the charter industry. And Kathryn Garcia, who was endorsed by the New York Times and the New York Daily News, declared recently that she wants more charter schools in the city and will ask the legislature to raise the cap.

There are currently 267 charter schools in the city. Of 1.1 million public schools in the city, 88% are enrolled in the long-neglected public schools. Ironically, by handing off more students to charter schools, the mayor (whoever it may be) is acknowledging his or her own incompetence as leader of the city’s schools.

At the beginning of the campaign, Scott Stringer was the favorite. He served in the legislature, and he is currently the City Comptroller, meaning he has detailed knowledge of the budget and the city’s massive bureaucracy. The United Federation of Teachers endorsed him, along with many progressive groups. But then a woman stepped forward to say that 20 years ago, when they were both single, he groped her. Many of those who endorsed Stringer withdrew their endorsements. Although I have a tendency to believe women in these situations, I think it’s unfair to discredit a candidate based on an unverified allegation. Stringer has been a candidate many times, and the accuser remained silent.

The charter industry has demonstrated time and again that it has the deep pockets to buy elections. What it has not bought is academic success.

Tom Ultican wrote about I-Ready three years ago, and he continues to receive frequent clicks and letters from angry students.

He thinks the deal between Oakland Public Schools and Johns Hopkins University is of dubious value. Hopkins gets the data; students in the Oakland public schools get a curriculum that most will hate.

Ultican notes the connection between I-Ready and Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change. More billionaires with big idea to change the schools.

He writes:

The foundation being cited as funding the i-Ready and Johns Hopkins study has assets of more than $600 million. FounderKenneth Rainin was an entrepreneur from Toledo, Ohio who became wealthy manufacturing and selling laboratory pipettes. When he died in 2007, the foundation became the beneficiary of the majority of his estate.

The Rainan Foundation has spent significant sums on advancing its “Seeds of Learning” reading program and the corporate control of public education. As the LittleSis map depicted above shows, the foundation sends large grants both directly and indirectly to billionaire funded “school choice” promoting organizations.

The “Seeds of Learning” program is supposed to improve reading education results through its preschool efforts. The lead story on the foundation’s web page is “Research Show Seeds of Learning Produces Quick Gains.” The research is not peer reviewed or independent. The Kenneth Rainin Foundation has spent more than $3 million for a Chicago company to produce the results. Report briefs are made available but not the study itself.

The dark side of the study is that they are testing 4- and 5-year olds in alliteration, letter naming, letter sounds, rhyming and vocabulary. That is child abuse. This appears to be an amateur created program that ignores the much greater need for babies to engage in self-directed play in safe and stimulative environments. “Seeds of Learning”  is likely more personality damaging than it is helpful for reading.

Amateurs need to stop using their financial power to control education policy.