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Mississippi: Southern Poverty Law Center Sues Mississippi for Diverting Funds from District Schools to Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
August 11, 2018 //
14

This is very good news.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is one of the most respected civil rights groups in the nation. It is suing the state of Mississippi for diverting funding from district schools to charter schools. SPLC argues that doing this violates the State Constitution, which explicitly says that the funding allocated to each district is to be used solely for its schools. The charter schools are not part of the district. They should not be funded in any way by taking money from the district. The public schools of Mississippi are already woefully underfunded, and the Governor and Legislature have fought efforts to increase funding.

This litigation could have national significance.

Here are a few excerpts.

“The question presented by this case is an issue of first impression. Its determination implicates constitutional issues of enormous importance: the Legislature’s power to interfere with local control of public education, and the Constitution’s restrictions on school funding. The local funding for Mississippi’s second- largest school district will be decided by this case. The Court would benefit from the thorough examination that oral argument provides….”

“Section 206 of the Mississippi Constitution allows a school district to levy an ad valorem tax, and it “clearly states that the purpose of the tax is to maintain the levying school district’s schools.” Pascagoula Sch. Dist. v. Tucker, 91 So. 3d 598, 605 (Miss. 2012). A charter school operates as its own school district. Miss. Code Ann. § 37-28-39. Yet Section 37-28-55(2) of the Mississippi Code requires a school district to transfer ad valorem revenue from its budget to charter schools that are not part of the tax-levying school district.

This case is not about whether charter schools are good or bad. This case is also not about whether the Legislature has the authority to allow charter schools in Mississippi. The Legislature indisputably has that authority.

This appeal presents a single constitutional question — the same question that the Supreme Court addressed in Tucker: “[w]hen Section 206 of the Mississippi Constitution says the purpose of the local school district tax is to maintain ‘its schools,’ can the Legislature force a district to divide its maintenance tax levy with other districts?” Tucker, 91 So. 3d at 602.

STATEMENT OF ASSIGNMENT

Rule 16(d) of the Mississippi Rules of Appellate Procedure provides three reasons why the Supreme Court should retain this case.

First, the constitutionality of Section 37-28-55(2) is “a major question of first impression,” as provided by Rule 16(d)(1).

Second, Section 37-28-55(2) has compelled the Jackson Public Schools District to transfer millions of local ad valorem tax dollars to charter schools that are not part of the district. The constitutionality of this statute is a “fundamental and urgent issue[ ] of
broad public importance requiring prompt or ultimate determination by the Supreme Court,” as provided by Rule 16(d)(2).

Third, this case presents “substantial constitutional questions as to the validity of a statute,” as provided by Rule 16(d)(3).

STATEMENT OF THE CASE I. Factual Background.

The Charter Schools Act was enacted in 2013. Miss. Code Ann. § 37-28-1, et seq. Charter schools are approved by the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board, and are exempt from rules, regulations, policies, and procedures established by the State Board of Education, the State Department of Education, and the school district in which the charter school is geographically located. Miss. Code Ann. § 37-28-7; Miss. Code Ann. § 37-28-45(3),(5). In 2015, two charter schools opened within the geographic boundaries of the Jackson Public School District (“JPS”). In 2016 and 2018, two more charter schools opened within JPS’s geographic boundaries. In 2018, a charter school also opened within the geographic boundaries of the Clarksdale Municipal School District.

The Parents in this case live with their children in Jackson. They own their homes, and they pay ad valorem taxes levied by JPS under Section 206 of the Constitution. They all have children enrolled in JPS. R. at 114-15, R.E. at 16-17 (First Amended Complaint at ¶¶11-15). And they want for their children what most parents want for their child: the best public education that the law allows.
Since 2015, these Parents’ children have attended chronically underfunded schools that have lost millions in ad valorem tax revenue to charter schools. In Mississippi, charter schools receive funding through two revenue streams: one from the State, and one from the school district within whose geographic boundaries the charter school is located. The State provides most of a charter school’s funding through the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. A smaller portion of a charter school’s funding comes from the school district where the charter school is located. When a student enrolls in a charter school, the school district where the student resides sends a pro rata portion of its ad valorem revenue to the charter school. Miss. Code Ann. § 37- 28-55(2) (hereinafter the “Local Tax Transfer Statute”).

This appeal does not concern charter school revenue from the State. The Parents expressly waive their challenge related to the state funding stream. This appeal is only about the ad valorem revenue levied by a school district under Section 206.

In Jackson, where the Parents’ children attend school, the school district’s losses of ad valorem revenue are accelerating. During the 2015-16 school year, the Local Tax Transfer Statute cost JPS schoolchildren approximately $561,000 in district ad valorem revenue. R. at 113, R.E. at 15 (First Amended Complaint at ¶5). Just two years later, during the 2017-18 school year, JPS schoolchildren lost more than $2.5 million through diverted ad valorem revenue. Exhibit A (JPS 2017-18 Charter School Payment).1 To date, in only three years, JPS schoolchildren have lost more than $4.5 million of the school district’s ad valorem funds….”

“SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT

“Section 206 of the Mississippi Constitution allows a school district to levy an ad valorem tax “to maintain its schools.” In 2012, this Court held that “Section 206 clearly states that the purpose of the tax is to maintain the levying school district’s schools.” Pascagoula Sch. Dist. v. Tucker, 91 So. 3d 598, 605 (Miss. 2012). Charter schools are not part of the school district where they are located. Miss. Code Ann. § 37-28-45(3) (“Although a charter school is geographically located within the boundaries of a particular school district and enrolls students who reside within the school district, the charter school may not be considered a school within that district under the purview of the school district’s school board.”). Because charter schools are not part of the school district levying the ad valorem tax, Section 206 forbids the school district from transferring ad valorem revenue to charter schools. Therefore, the statute requiring the transfer of district ad valorem revenue to charter schools violates Section 206 and is unconstitutional.”

Charter schools across the nation are diverting funds from local district schools, whose boards have no authority over the charters, which are independent of the district.

Why should 90% of children suffer budget cuts so that 10% of the children may attend a charter school?

That is why this case might have national implications and encourage activists to fight to keep their taxes devoted to their district schools.

Read the entire brief here.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Funding, Mississippi

Mississippi: What Happens When a State Refuses to Fund Its Public Schools

By dianeravitch
June 2, 2018 //
13

Mississippi is usually ranked #49 or 50 or 51 on any measure of poverty or funding for schools. Of course, its students have low scores because standardized tests accurately measure family income.

A state that refuses to fund its schools will have high poverty, a poorly educated citizenry and workforce, and a stagnant economy.

In 2015, educators and parents tried to pass a state referendum to force the Legislature to spend more, but a coalition of very wealthy people from inside and outside the state swamped the voters with propaganda and defeated the referendum. The Koch brothers debated a quarter million dollars (pocket change for them) to ensure that poor black and white children in Mississippi did not get enough funding to offer a decent education.

I recently posted Jeff Bryant’s Report on the pending state takeover of the public schools in Jackson, Mississippi. First, they underfund the schools, then they declare they are failing. And officials who can’t provide a decent education anywhere in the state plan to impose their will on the children of Jackson. You can be sure that their solution is charter schools, not more funding.

A teacher in Jackson wrote this comment after she read Jeff’s article.


Diane, you and I have corresponded several times over the years about the conditions in my school in Jackson. I regret to inform you that the conditions of the physical plant are now beyond words. When I was moved from a classroom with carpet that hadn’t been cleaned in years, a room where I fought respiratory and skin ailments for years, I found my new room infected with black mold. It took a few weeks and a trip to the doctor, but I got that mitigated to the point where I can deal with it.

Then over the Christmas holidays, the city of Jackson suffered a cold snap that destroyed the city water system. Jackson Public Schools had to close for a week due to the water crisis. When we resumed classes, our building’s pipes, I believe had also frozen, leading to a re-occurrence of a sewer line break that has literally rendered the main hall and its classrooms a s—hole. About fifteen years ago, the same situation had occurred when I was also on the main hall. Eventually the district dealt with the situation by going under the building to dig out the contaminated soil and re-plumbing the pipes.

I’ve told everyone who will listen, but the situation only got worse until they finally closed the restroom when the new poop was coming from. Even so, there is always a lingering odor of raw sewage which becomes unbearable after a rain and when the temperature warms up. When I was checking out of my room this week, the stench gagged me, and I swelled up with tears because the whole situation is just so surreal.

The facilities manager was in the building and I told him that I had been trying to decide whose office I needed to visit with a box of poop to put on the desk and ask “How would you like to smell this all day every day?” I told him that it would be his office. He assured me that they will address it this summer.

I also told this story to the principal who related that there is the intent to go back under the building, dig the dirt out again, and once more re-plumb the pipes. If it is effective, then it should hold out long enough to get me through to retirement.

Jackson Public Schools announced this week that they will issue a bond to put money into repairing aging buildings. Our building is one of the oldest in the city, with the distinctions of once having been the only high school in the state for African Americans. We’ll see if our building’s problems will be adequately addressed.

It is absolutely true that the power brokers in this state don’t want to pay for African American children to be educated. When Jackson Public Schools mainly educated the children of the power brokers, the schools were just fine. Now that those children are educated in the private and suburban schools, we see those schools excelling. Meanwhile, the students left in tax-poor JPS are languishing in second-world conditions.

My experience leads me to advocate for a new school funding mechanism that does not put schools at the mercy or benefit of their local tax base. Our country is clearly OK with relegating a third of our children to poverty and its consequences or we would have already done something about it.

(Thank you for letting me rant.)

Lorraine

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Funding, Koch Brothers, Mississippi, Poverty, Privatization, Racism

Jeff Bryant Assesses the Likelihood that Jackson, Mississippi, Can Overcome Its Racist Past

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2018 //
13

Jeff Bryant of the Educational Opportunity Network visited Jackson, Mississippi, to learn about the state takeover plan for the district. As you would expect, Jackson has a sordid and racist past, one where whites ignored the needs and potential of black students.

After the Brown decision declared racially segregated schools unconstitutional, Mississippi fought the decision. When compelled to comply, it introduced school choice, so that white kids would have tax money to pay for private segregated schools.

Today, Jackson has a progressive black mayor. The schools are 95% black. The state now threatens to take over the Jackson schools on mostly trumped-up violations. Test scores are low,but test scores in the whole state are low.

Governor Phil Bryant, a product of segregated white schools, says he wants to create a private-public partnership in Jackson.

Civic leaders are not sure he can be trusted. They know that the schools are desperately underfunded and that the legislature and the state’s Republican leaders don’t want to pay the cost of adequate funding.

The big actors behind the s eyes are the Walton family, which wants charters and vouchers, along with Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children. The black mayors of Jackson and Birmingham know that the purpose of charter schools is to drain money out of public schools that are already underfunded.

The bottom line is that the white Republicans of Mississippi don’t want to pay the cost of educating black children. They never have. The leadership of the state will blabber on about school choice but it’s still the same song and dance. Nothing Jeff reports persuades me that Jackson’s black leadership should trust Governor Bryant, the legislature or their appointees to devote new resources to black children in Jackson. It’s a hoax. Don’t fall for it.

Categories Charter Schools, Hoax, Lies, Mississippi, Racism

Michigan: One of the Most Segregated States in the Nation: Thanks, Betsy!

By dianeravitch
January 5, 2018 //
39

 

The next time an advocate of school choice claims it is “ the civil rights issue of our time,” tell him or her about Michigan. After many years of school choice, it is now one of the most segregated states in the nation, tied with Mississippi and just behind the District of Columbia. 

Is racial segregation the new definition of civil rights?

”Jennifer Chambers and Christine MacDonald with the Detroit News report that the Associated Press analyzed data from the National Center for Education Statistics enrollment data from the 2014-2015 school year.

“The AP found that a large number of African-American students are enrolled in schools which are largely segregated, especially in Michigan, where 40% of black students are in public schools that are in “extreme racial isolation.”

“That puts Michigan in second-place nationwide, tied with Mississippi and behind only Washington, D.C., which came in at 66%.”

Racial segregation is highly correlated with low test scores.

“One major factor was charter schools, which are much more segregated than traditional public schools on average. In Michigan, 64% of black charter students are in schools in which the student bodies are more than 90% black.“

The head of Michigan’s charter association said the charter school hypersegrgatuin merely reflected residential patterns.

Truth is, charter advocates don’t really care about segregation or integration.

 

 

Categories District of Columbia, Education Reform, Michigan, Mississippi, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Black Alliance for Educational Options Is Closing

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2017 //
10

The rightwing-funded Black Alliance for Educational Options is closing its doors. It was launched by Howard Fuller, who was superintendent of Milwaukee public schools in 2000. Fuller was radicalized by his inability to change the system and formed an alliance with the far-right Bradley Foundation, which funded vouchers and wanted to privatize public education. Over the years, BAEO has been funded by white conservative foundations including the Walton Foundation.

BAEO Sought to persuade African Americans that school choice, charters, and vouchers, and privatization were in their interest.

Southern legislatures, controlled by conservative white men, liked BAEO’s ideas.

Education Week credits BAEO with getting Alabama and Mississippi to pass charter laws, and Louisiana and D.C. to pass voucher legislation.

White segregationists embrace school choice readily, as they have wanted it since 1954. Fuller pushed on an open door. Now southern states can fund segregated schools and do it with a clear conscience. Sort of.

Fuller no doubt was following his conscience, but it would be better if he had done it without all that rightwing money.

In the era of Trump and DeVos, it is difficult to play the role of a progressive when their agenda and yours are the same. Especially when the NAACP is speaking out against charters and privatization.

In a related story, the former chairman of the BAEO board Kevin Chavous has been named president of K12 Inc.s Academics, Policy, and Schools. K12 Inc. was founded by junk bond king Michael Milken and his brother Lowell and is the nation’s largest virtual online charter corporation. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Its schools have been notable for high attrition rates, low test scores, and low graduation rates. The NCAA withdrew accreditation from two dozen K12 schools a few years ago because of their poor quality. This is a choice strongly supported by DeVos. K12 Inc. is also known for paying lavish compensation, desite its poor academic results.

Categories Alabama, Black Alliance for Educational Options, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, K12 Inc., Louisiana, Mississippi, Privatization, Segregation, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers

Mississippi: Governor Has a New Idea for Jackson Public Schools Other than State Takeover

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2017 //
11

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant says he is considering a third option for the public schools of Jackson, other than leaving them to the elected school board or state takeover. He is thinking of bringing in a bunch of private-sector organizations to turn around the district, just the way they “turned around” Newark, New Jersey, and Battle Creek, Michigan.

I am not so sure about the turnaround in Newark, except that Mark Zuckerberg dropped $100 million, which most observers think was wasted, Governor Christie and Senator Corey Booker wanted it to be the all-charter New Orleans of the North, and there are still unresolved issues having to do with charter cherrypicking. Is there a reader who can inform us of the turnaround in Battle Creek, Michigan?

Gov. Phil Bryant confirmed this morning that he is working with several organizations as well as the Mississippi Department of Education to find a third option to revitalize the state’s second-largest school district beyond leaving it under Jackson Public Schools’ control or allowing the State to run it.

Jackson Public Schools received its second “F” rating in a row last week and seemed prime for a state takeover, but Bryant hesitated to sign the resolution that would send the district into State control. Today, Bryant said he is working with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Barksdale Reading Institute and the Education Commission of the States. Bryant serves as the chairman of the Education Commission’s board.

The governor didn’t rule out a state takeover, but he is leaving everyone to guess what the third option might be.

Categories Mississippi

Mississippi: White Power Structure Grabs Control of Jackson Public Schools

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2017 //
3

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or worse.

The parents and citizens of Jackson, Mississippi, organized to save their public schoools from state takeover. They think that black people should have the same democratic rights as white people.

But the past is never really past.

The state stepped in to seize control and ousted the superintendent.

Fortuitously, Betsy DeVos just have Mississippi millions of dollars to open charter schools.

Sure looks like a conspiracy by mean-spirited whites people to disempower black people.

Are there educational geniuses at the State DepEtment of Education? No, they will bring in th white charter operators to take over, as they did in Tennessee. And failed.

Donna Ladd, a columnist in Jackson, Mississippi, says there is no question. It is a conspiracy.

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2017/sep/27/yep-jps-takeover-conspiracy-prove-me-wrong/

“The disrespect said it all, really. After the Mississippi Board of Education came back into the hearing room in the old Central High School, it not only declared an “emergency” in Jackson Public Schools, setting a “takeover” into motion, but it went a nasty step further.

“The board insulted the hard-working interim JPS superintendent, Freddrick Murray, who was present, by announcing that Dr. Margie Pulley would become the new superintendent. Huh. It’s one thing to argue, rightfully or wrongfully, that the State of Mississippi can run our largest urban district better than locals can. It’s another to take a spiteful swing at the administrator in the room who is trying to fix the problems. 


“That’s jackassery.

“But the State displayed that tone throughout the kangaroo court designed to wink-wink give the district a proper hearing. It claimed JPS hadn’t done enough to fix problems (that occurred under prior leadership) due to an audit that just came out Aug. 31, a couple weeks before, so they had to hurry before the fixes were in.

“It was the second such circus Jackson has faced in the past two years. The first was Rankin County white Republicans’ push to take over our airport because, you know, they want it—and its revenue potential.

“The predictability of all this takeover hoohaa isn’t lost on anyone who comprehends Mississippi’s history of racial dynamics, white flight and victim-blaming. The state has a long history of white folk running when too many people of color move too close and start owning and running stuff and enrolling kids in “our” schools.

“Don’t forget that Central High School, as well as others like Murrah, were jewels in the crown of white Jackson back before forced integration—in a time when white conservatives abundantly funded public schools and extracurricular activities with tax money for their own. But when the black kids came, suddenly they were bad ole “government schools,” as some old-time Central and Murrah grads call them now.

“The worst part fully hit me on a recent Delta road trip as I stood before the old Delta Democrat-Times offices in the once-thriving downtown Greenville, now across the street from a casino entrance with a whole lot more black people than white evident in the area near it. The old office where Hodding Carter Jr. won his Pulitzer for changing his segregationist views and challenging racists is abandoned with cracked windows and a historic marker.

“They flee and burn it all down behind them,” I told Todd angrily in the car. What I meant was the tragedy not just of so many white people rejecting a fully integrated life for their families, but how they then try to legislatively and politically ruin what’s left. They not only take their tax money, but they pass laws trying to keep public dollars from flowing to where they’re needed, including now-poor schools, and try to redirect it to institutions they control.

“It’s like they leave and never look back except to say (a) we don’t care how bad our actions make it and (b) if you manage to build it into something anyway, we’re going to come back and take it again, teeheehee.

“Now, if you don’t agree with that recounting of local history, feel free to start proving me wrong by staying put and investing time and resources in diverse communities rather than running to a cow pasture or a flood plain and trying to build your own white-run paradise. Until it gets too diverse, of course, and you load up the U-Haul to move further into rural Mississippi and start all over again, leaving dead malls and crumbling schools in your wake.”

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Mississippi, Racism

Jeff Bryant: DeVos Dispenses $253 Million to Fund Failures and Frauds in Charter Industry and Undercut Needy Public Schools

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2017 //
13

Jeff Bryant, writing for the Education Opportunity Network, analyzes the U.S. Department of Education’s recent award of $253 Million to the Failing Charter Industry. He is especially appalled by the funding of charters in New Mexico, whose state auditor has identified numerous frauds in the charter sector, and whose public schools are shamefully underfunded.

He writes:

“Previous targets for federal charter grants have resembled a “black hole” for taxpayer money with little tracking and accountability for how funds have been spent spent. In the past 26 years, the federal government has sent over $4 billion to charters, with the money often going to “ghost schools” that never opened or quickly failed.

“In 2015, charter skeptics denounced the stunning selection of Ohio for a $71 million federal chart grant, despite the state’s charter school program being one of the most reviled and ridiculed in the nation.

“This year’s list of state recipients raises eyebrows as well.

“One of the larger grants is going to Indiana, whose charter schools generally underperform the public schools in the state. Nearly half of the Hoosier state’s charters receive poor or failing grades, and the state recently closed one of its online charter schools after six straight years of failure.

“Another state recipient, Mississippi, won a federal grant that was curiously timed to coincide with the state’s decision, pending the governor’s approval, to take over the Jackson school district and likely hand control of the schools to a charter management group.”

(Coincidentally, Stephen Dyer just posted about Ohio’s scandal-plagued charter sector. He wrote that nearly one-third of the charters that received federal funding never opened or closed right after they got the money, I.e., they were “ghost schools.”)

Worst of all, writes Bryant, is the $22.5 Million that will be sent to New Mexico, which has high child poverty and perennially underfunded public schools, as well as a low-performing charter sector.

What possible reason is there to fund a parallel school system when the state refuses to fund its public schools?

“According to a state-based child advocacy group, per-pupil spending in the state is 7 percent lower in 2017 than it was in 2008. New Mexico is also “one of 19 states” that cut general aid for schools in 2017, with spending falling 1.7 percent. “Only seven states made deeper cuts than New Mexico.”

“New Mexico’s school funding situation has grown so dire, bond rating agency Moody’s Investors Service recently reduced the credit outlook for two-thirds of the school districts in the state, and parent and advocacy groups have sued the state for failing to meet constitutional obligations to provide education opportunities to all students.

“To fill a deficit gap in the state’s most recent budget, Republican Governor Susana Martinez tapped $46 million in local school district reserves while rejecting any proposed tax increases.

“Given the state’s grim education funding situation, it would seem foolhardy to ramp up a parallel system of charter schools that further stretches education dollars, but New Mexico has doubled-down on the charter money drain by tilting spending advantages to the sector.”

To make matters worse, charter schools are funded at a higher level than public schools, and the state’s three online charters operate for profit. Despite their funding advantage, the charters do not perform as well as public schools. There is seldom any penalty for failure.

The state auditor in New Mexico has called attention to frauds and scams that result from lack of oversight in the charter industry.

So the U.S. Department of Education under Betsy DeVos is now in the business of funding failure. Quality doesn’t matter. Ethics don’t matter. Undermining the educational opportunity of the majority of children doesn’t matter. For sure, money matters, but only when it is spent for privatization.

A few pundits predicted that DeVos would be unable to inflict harm on the nation’s public schools. They were wrong.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Corruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Ethics, Failure, For-Profit, Fraud, Mississippi, New Mexico, Ohio, Privatization, School Choice

Sixty Years After Little Rock, Racism Prevails–in Little Rock, in Jackson, and Elsewhere

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2017 //
6

This past week marked the 60th anniversary of the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower nationalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent the 101st Airborne to safeguard the nine black students who entered that school and defied the taunts of the white mob and the defiance of Governor Faubus.

Now, the Little Rock public schools are again segregated due to white flight and are under the control of the state board of education, thanks to the efforts of the Walton family, which pretends to care about children but cares only about union-busting and school choice.

The white power structure in Arkansas has reasserted control of the public schools.

The same story is playing out in Jackson, Mississippi, where white state leaders are taking control of the Jackson public schools. This effort was carried out behind closed doors. It attained a special urgency due to the election of a progressive black mayor in Jackson.

Jeff Bryant tells the story here. It is a story that shames our nation. Or should.

The truth of Little Rock repeats itself over and over in communities throughout the South and across the country.

Jeff Bryant writes:

More recently, I was in Jackson, Mississippi, researching a story about the current effort of the state to take over the local school district there, much in the same way Little Rock schools were taken over. Jackson is similar to Little Rock in that it is a school district populated predominantly by non-white students.

For two days, the Mississippi Department of Education staged a series of meetings that illustrated once again how white elites continue to define education opportunities for black and brown communities.

The racial symbolism of the events was inescapable.

MDE officials, who were predominantly white, presented their case in a room limited in seating and closed to the public over an hour prior to the meeting’s announced start time. Members of the State Accreditation Commission and the State Board of Education, who were predominantly white, decided the fate of Jackson schools in separate closed-door sessions completely sequestered from public view.

Some 100 local citizens, who were predominantly black, were relegated to an auditorium, where they watched events unfold on a live stream video that was often interrupted and garbled during transmission, and then they waited for hours to have decisions announced to them.

Local school officials, who had had a mere seven school days to muster a defense, presented detailed documentation of their recent and ongoing efforts to correct problems in the district, but the thick binders they presented were generally left unread on the meeting room tables as commission and board members convened in closed chambers to cast their votes.

Should the governor agree that Jackson schools are in a state of “extreme emergency,” as the state contends, the district’s school board is dissolved, the superintendent is dismissed, and an appointed conservator, reporting directly to the state Board of Education, is put in place to oversee the schools. In fact, the conservator has already been chosen.

The day the State Accreditation Committee decided to yank the district’s accreditation – a necessary step before proceeding to the Board of Education’s hearing the next day – Jackson’s recently elected progressive mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba told those gathered on the sidewalk outside of MDE headquarters that they had just witnessed a “perfunctory exercise” in which “every commissioner who stepped into that room had already reached a decision.”

He declared “the burden of proof” in the state’s case “was not met.” And he called for ‘turn[ing] the page in Mississippi” and departing from the state’s history of denying black communities control of their schools. “We will not stand silently as they rob our children of an education.”

In D.C., we have a president who assails black football players who express their objection to racism; Trump portrays his attack on the athletes as a “defense” of the National Anthem. He would have us believe that he is patriotic and those who exercise free speech are not.

And we have a Secretary of Education who thinks that black colleges were created because black students wanted to exercise “choice.”

Has racism diminished since 1957, when the Little Rock Nine entered Central High School, protected by federal bayonets?

In many ways it has. We elected a black president. We see black actors on television and in the movies.

But in many ways, racism remains as virulent as it was in 1957. The selection by Alabama Republicans of Roy Moore as their Senate candidate reminds us that racism thrives; Trump reminds us daily that racism is alive. The efforts by the Waltons and other white elites to strip black communities of any role in their community public schools–and to offer them school choice instead–reminds us that racism comes in many forms.

Categories Little Rock, Mississippi, Racism, School Choice

Mississippi: Don’t Let ALEC Destroy Democratic Control of Jackson Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
September 18, 2017 //
13

The government of Mississippi cares more about the corporate-controlled ALEC than it does about local control of its public schools. ALEC likes state takeovers. ALEC doesn’t like local control. ALEC loves privatization.

Parents and educators will not let this happen without resistance. Write letters to the governor and legislators.

The Network for Public Education will alert its members in Mississippi to fight for the public schools of Jackson. If you live in Mississippi, speak up for democratic control of the schools.

Say NO to ALEC!

rsz_1rsz_screen_shot_2017-09-09_at_115149_am

In a closed session, hiding from public scrutiny, the Board of Education decided Thursday that the state of Mississippi would take over Jackson Public Schools. This move eliminates the local school board, and cuts out community voice and input in our local schools. We will not be silenced.

They wanted to quietly send this plan to the Governor to be signed, and keep us out of the process.

Governor Bryant needs to hear that the Jackson community and all Mississipians stand with JPS. Email Governor Bryant now. Tell him this takeover is wrong.

At every turn, the Commission on School Accreditation and the Board of Education shut out community voices.

  • More than 3,300 members of this community signed a petition opposing this takeover; they refused to accept it.
  • Hundreds of people showed up to the meetings to show our disapproval; we were kept out of the room and forced into an overflow room where the decision makers could not see or hear from us.
  • JPS produced a report showing the progress that has been made and the plans for improvements; Commission and Board members never reviewed these materials, and didn’t even take them into their closed session to inform their debate. They decided the fate of our schools and our kids without even looking at all of the evidence.

We are working alongside Jackson parents, educators, leaders, students, and legal counsel to identify every avenue for stopping this takeover.

Thousands of you signed the petition, attended the rally and press conferences, shared on social media to keep your friends up to date, and came to the Commission and Board meetings. Thank you for supporting our students and JPS. Now take the next step. Email Governor Bryant to tell him not to accept this takeover.

Thank you,
Pam Shaw, #OurJPS

Categories Democracy, Education Reform, Mississippi
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