Archives for category: North Carolina
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Know Your Multi-Millionaire “Reformers”: Art Pope

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2016 //
7

Art Pope is a major political figure in North Carolina. I don’t know whether he is a billionaire or only a multi-millionaire. Jane Mayer wrote in the New Yorker a few years ago that he bought the state of North Carolina.

 

Art Pope made his fortune by owning a large chain of discount variety stores around the state. He is a libertarian to the extreme. He used his political contributions to help Tea Party Republicans defeat moderate Republicans. His investments in political campaigns paid off big time in 2010, when his faction won control of the state legislature. Then in 2012, a Republican was elected governor, and for the first time in a century or more, North Carolina had an all-Republican leadership, free to impose its will.

 

Governor McCrory appointed Art Pope as state budget director, giving him the power to implement his extreme ideology. (In Pope’s only try for elected office, he failed.) On Pope’s watch, the state legislature enacted charters, cyber charters, and vouchers. And cut the public schools’ budget. And reduced environmental regulations. And did whatever they could think of to reduce government and give corporations free reign. ALEC must point to North Carolina as its model state.

 

The best source of information on the damage wrought by these modern-day vandals is NC Policy Watch’s Altered State: How Five Years of Conservative Rule Have Redefined North Carolina, which sums up the depredations of the past five years.

 

Pope funded the extremely conservative libertarian Locke Institute, which acts as an advocacy group for his ideology. One of the directors of the Locke Institute started his own charter chain (he is not an educator) and has made millions of dollars on leases.

 

Know who owns your state.

Categories ALEC, Billionaires, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, North Carolina

NC Legislator Ridicules PayPal Protest Against HB2

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2016 //
3

The Speaker Pro Tem of the North Carolina House of Representatives scoffs at Paypal’s objection to HB2, the bill that permits discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, along with a host of other obnoxious provisions that hurt workers.

 

PayPal had planned to situate its global operations in Charlotte, which would have created 400 new jobs. But when the legislature passed HB2, permitting discrimination against LGBT individuals and forbidding localities from passing ordinances to prohibit such discrimination, PayPal canceled its plans, and over 130 national corporations said they would stop doing business in North Carolina. Bruce Springsteen canceled a scheduled concert.

 

Legislator Paul Stam responded with a retort to PayPal that you can see in the link.

 

I wonder if Representative Stam has the same advice for Deutsche Bank, which has also decided not to expand its operations in North Carolina due to HB2. 

Categories Education Reform, North Carolina

North Carolina: The Child Who Frightened the Legislature

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2016 //
19

This video tells the story of Hunter Schaefer. Hunter and family members spoke at Trinity School in New York City, where this was recently filmed. Her father is a Presbyterian minister. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is a teenager. She is transgender. Her parents and sister talk in the video about how they came to understand and appreciate Hunter.

 

Because of Hunter and other students like her, the North Carolina legislature convened a special session. They passed a bill that was supposedly against discrimination, but whose real purpose was to ensure that the people of the state are allowed to discriminate against Hunter and others like her. Although she is a girl, she may be compelled to use the boys’ bathroom. She may be discriminated against or denied access to public accommodations.

 

Will every public restroom have a monitor to check genitals? That’s one way to increase employment in the state.

 

The legislature is afraid of her and the very small number of people in the state like her. That’s why it passed the most restrictive state legislation in the nation, to ensure that she doesn’t have equal rights.

 

Watch the video.

 

What do you think?

Categories North Carolina

North Carolina: Thousands of Job Openings in Public Sector for Genital Monitors

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2016 //
29

The office of Governor Pat McCrory has announced that the State of North Carolina will hire thousands of new public workers to serve as genital monitors at public bathrooms.

 

Wherever there is a public restroom, such as in airports or any other public facilities, every one of them will have a monitor to make sure that the women’s restroom is used only by women with the right genitals and men with the right genitals.

 

The technology industry is working to develop a technological fix for this problem, such as a camera in every bathroom stall, aimed between the waist and the knees, so that a single monitor can observe genitals in more than one restroom.

 

This will require substantial new funding to implement HB2.

Categories North Carolina

Hoax: Rightwing Group in North Carolina Claims that Support for Vouchers is Bipartisan

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2016 //
21

There is a group called “Civitas” in North Carolina that parrots the Tea Party line about everything.

 

In its current issue, it claims that Republicans and Democrats alike favor “education savings accounts,” which is a euphemism for vouchers. 

 

If you go to its home page, you will see that Civitas is a very conservative organization that approves everything the far-right legislature has done.

 

Question: Why do Republicans and libertarians insist on using euphemisms for vouchers? Why do they call them “education savings accounts,” or “education tax credits,” or “opportunity scholarships”?

 

Calling a voucher something else is part of the “reform” deception. Why don’t they ask the public how they feel about using public dollars to fund religious schools? How do they feel about spending tax dollars on Christian schools, Jewish schools, Catholic schools, and Muslim schools?

 

Instead, they deceive people in polls by presenting a benign question: how do  you feel about saving for education with tax-free dollars? how do you feel about “scholarships” for poor children trapped in failing schools?

 

Honesty and candor would be nice for a change.

Categories Hoax, North Carolina, Vouchers

Stuart Egan: Why NPE Must Come to North Carolina

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2016 //
7

Stuart Egan has posted several times on this blog, expressing his concern for students, teachers, and public education in North Carolina. He is a National Board Certified high school teacher.

 

 

He writes:

 

 

Dr. Ravitch,

 
As a North Carolinian, it is hard to express the absolute disappointment, anger, and shame that I (and countless others) feel about the shadowy special session that our General Assembly held this past week and the passing of House Bill 2, the single most discriminatory piece of legislation in recent memory.
It is totally understandable that many corporations and companies have called for a boycott in doing business in North Carolina. The list grows by the minute. And it is right for them to do that.

 
But I beg that NPE does not cancel the 2016 conference in Raleigh for many reasons because NPE is not doing business, it is providing a service to people in need.
As educators, teachers, activists, and advocates, we have a duty to our students and our communities. We go straight to the source of the very obstacles that stand in the way of our students and public schools succeeding. And we have a very large and visible obstacle here – government “regression” and overreach of partisan politics into the lives of the very students and parents we serve.

 
NPE and public schools are not in a profit-driven business; we are a people-centered service. I do not see the people we are and the people we claim to be even thinking about not coming to Raleigh at this time. North Carolinians and all of the country need to see how people invested in our public school kids can come together to support others and help to overturn oppressive legislation to improve the lives for all of our students.

 
What happened in North Carolina this week was a regressive minority trying to take control of all the local municipalities. It sounds a lot like a few regressive “rephonies” trying to privatize something that belongs to the people, public education. We need to stand up to them in the very place where the battle is happening. We have been doing that already with the Opt-Out movement in New York, the charter school battle in Ohio, and the PARCC testing on Pennsylvania. We have not been doing that from afar. We have been going straight to those places to show support, offer encouragement, and invest in our fellow people.

 
North Carolina has 100 counties, each with a county public school system. According to the Labor and Economic Analysis Division of the NC Dept. of Commerce, the public schools are at least the second-largest employers in nearly 90 of them—and the largest employer, period, in 66. That means teachers represent a base for most communities, the public school system. And they are strong in numbers. Now add to that the number of students who attend those schools. Now imagine the number of parents and guardians and family members who support those local public schools. Now imagine the businesses that help support those schools. Now imagine your own state.

 
They all could use the help of NPE and those who align with them.

 
I have been at Moral Mondays led by the Rev. William Barber, who is a keynote speaker for the NPE Conference and the president of the NC NAACP. I have seen him stand on the very ground he was defending in Raleigh and look at his opponents straight in the eyes and tell them that their actions were not in the best interests of the people. He is being heard; therefore, we can be heard. He is standing with us.

 
We need to do the same for our public schools. We have a chance to stand with others. The overwhelming majority of people in this state do not agree with this bill and its implications. It is simply shadowy politics in an election year being exercised to give a fearful minority a false sense of security.

 
You, Dr. Ravitch, said in an early invitation to NPE 2016 on your blog,

 

 

“We chose Raleigh to highlight the tremendous activist movement that is flourishing in North Carolina. No one exemplifies that movement better than the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, who will be the conference keynote speaker. Rev. Barber is the current president of the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, the National NAACP chair of the Legislative Political Action Committee, and the founder of Moral Mondays.”

 

The Moral Monday protests transformed North Carolina politics in 2013, building a multiracial, multi-issue movement centered around social justice such as the South hadn’t seen since the 1960s. “We have come to say to the extremists, who ignore the common good and have chosen the low road, your actions have worked in reverse,” said Reverend William Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP and the leader of the Moral Monday movement, in his boisterous keynote speech. “You may have thought you were going to discourage us, but instead you have encouraged us. The more you push us back, the more we will fight to go forward. The more you try to oppress us, the more you will inspire us.”

Those very words ring even more true now in the wake of what has happened in North Carolina this past week.

 
For NPE to cancel its conference this April in Raleigh would be counterproductive to what we as a group stand for. Industries can choose not to do business as a statement and hit a locality through its wallet. But this is about people, and when people are in need we go to them and see what we can do to help.

 
Come to North Carolina.

 
We need you more than ever.

 

Stuart Egan, NBCT
Teacher
West Forsyth High School

 

PLEASE JOIN US IN RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA!

Categories Network for Public Education, North Carolina

Town Board of Carrboro, N.C., Calls for Repeal of HB2

By dianeravitch
March 29, 2016 //
2

You will love the photograph of the Board of Aldermen of the town of Carrboro, North Carolina. The mayor and the entire board passed a resolution calling on the legislature to repeal HB2, which discriminates against Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, and Bisexual People.

 

 

Here is their resolution:

 

 

MOTION WAS MADE BY ALDERMAN SEILS, SECONDED BY ALDERMAN HAVEN-O’DONNELL, TO APPROVE THE FOLLOWING RESOLUTION:

 

A RESOLUTION AFFIRMING THE DIGNITY OF LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND
TRANSGENDER PEOPLE AND CALLING FOR THE REPEAL OF
SESSION LAW 2016-3/HOUSE BILL 2

 

 

WHEREAS, on February 22, 2016, the Charlotte City Council demonstrated admirable leadership by approving a local ordinance that adds marital status, familial status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression to its list of categories protected from discrimination in city contracting and public accommodations; and
WHEREAS, on March 23, 2016, in response to the Charlotte ordinance, the North Carolina General Assembly in special session ratified, and Governor Pat McCrory signed, House Bill 2 (Session Law 2016-3), the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act; and
WHEREAS, House Bill 2 appears to repeal the Charlotte ordinance by establishing new statewide standards for what constitutes discriminatory practice in employment and public accommodations; and by establishing new statewide requirements for bathrooms and changing facilities in all public agencies, including schools; and
WHEREAS, the omission of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and other categories from the statewide list of categories protected from discrimination means that not only do protections on these bases appear to be unavailable under state law, but further, that local governments appear to be preempted from offering these protections to their residents; and
WHEREAS, the legislation also appears to eliminate the right of any person to bring a civil action in a North Carolina court for a claim of discrimination in employment or public accommodations on account of race, religion, color, national origin, age, or biological sex (as well as handicap for employment only); and
WHEREAS, by enacting House Bill 2, our state’s political leaders have once again taken extreme measures to attempt to diminish the legislative authority of local governments, and have once again used the laws of the State of North Carolina to codify discrimination and division rather than to advance the rights and dignity of North Carolinians; and
WHEREAS, the legislation, its brief twelve-hour legislative history, and lawmakers’ public statements clearly demonstrate a discriminatory intent; a lack of knowledge and understanding of the experiences of transgender people; and a lack of respect for the dignity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people on the part of the General Assembly and Governor McCrory; and
WHEREAS, the legislation is inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, which provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction “the equal protection of the laws” (US Const amend XIV, § 1); and the legislation is mean-spirited and “born of animosity toward the class of persons affected” (Romer v Evans, 517 US 620 [1996]); and
WHEREAS, the General Assembly expended an estimated $42,000 to hold an urgent special session to enact House Bill 2, meanwhile neglecting to act with urgency to address real challenges facing the people of North Carolina: the state’s 18% poverty rate (including 25% of children and 27% of African Americans); expansion of the Medicaid program and access to high-quality health care for all; funding for public education, including historically black colleges and universities; protection of the natural environment; mitigation of and adaptation to the effects of global climate change; and job opportunities and fair and living wages for all workers; and
WHEREAS, Carrboro is a community dedicated to the principles of equality, nondiscrimination, and full inclusion and engagement by any resident in the civil rights, benefits, and privileges of all residents; and
WHEREAS, Carrboro has a proud history of advancing the rights of LGBT North Carolinians, including being the first municipality in the state to create a domestic partner registry and to extend eligibility for employment benefits to same-sex partners of Town employees; being the first to elect a gay mayor and, later, the first to elect a lesbian mayor; among the first to support civil marriage for same-sex couples and inclusion of LGBT families in comprehensive immigration reform; and one of several municipalities and counties to oppose the General Assembly’s discriminatory and arguably unconstitutional Senate Bill 2 (Session Law 2015-75).

 
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT

 

RESOLVED:

 
SECTION 1. The Board of Aldermen reaffirms its support for protecting and advancing the constitutional rights and equitable treatment of all residents and its opposition to discrimination, prejudice, homophobia, and transphobia.
SECTION 2. The Board of Aldermen applauds the people of Charlotte and the members of the Charlotte City Council for their historic achievement, and particularly for their courageous leadership in standing for dignity and equality in North Carolina’s largest city.
SECTION 3. The Board of Aldermen extends gratitude to the Orange County Board of Commissioners, which approved a resolution in support of the Charlotte nondiscrimination ordinance on March 22, 2016.
SECTION 4. The Board of Aldermen urges the North Carolina General Assembly to repeal House Bill 2 at the earliest opportunity. Meanwhile, the Board will look to the court system for remedy, seeking opportunities to partner with other local jurisdictions and advocacy organizations in taking appropriate legal action against this unconstitutional legislation; to adopt appropriate local ordinances to advance the cause of equal protection; and to encourage other local governments to exercise their legislative authority to promote equal protection and nondiscrimination.
SECTION 5. The Board of Aldermen encourages all businesses providing public accommodations in Carrboro and throughout North Carolina to demonstrate their support for the dignity of all people by openly welcoming LGBT people to their places of business, and by providing gender-nonspecific bathroom facilities for their customers and employees wherever practicable.
SECTION 6. The Board of Aldermen encourages all municipalities, counties, and boards of education in North Carolina to adopt similar resolutions at a special meeting or at their next regular meeting calling for the repeal of House Bill 2; and to use this resolution as a model from which to craft their own resolutions, or to use a more succinct version available by email from the Office of the Mayor at llavelle@townofcarrboro.org.
SECTION 7. The Board of Aldermen asks the town manager and staff to raise the Town’s rainbow pride flags on Monday, March 28, in a demonstration of the Town’s solidarity with LGBT North Carolinians and visitors.
SECTION 8. The Board of Aldermen asks the town clerk to send copies of this resolution to the members of the Orange County delegation to the General Assembly, the chair of the Orange County Board of Commissioners, and the mayors of the Town of Chapel Hill, the Town of Hillsborough, and the City of Charlotte.

 
This the 26th day of March, 2016.

 
VOTE: AFFIRMATIVE: SIX (CHANEY, HAVEN-O’DONNELL, JOHNSON, LAVELLE, SLADE, SEILS); ABSENT: ONE (GIST).

 

 

Categories North Carolina, Resistance

North Carolina Teacher: We Need Your Help!

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2016 //
9

The following comment was posted on the blog on Saturday. I won’t add the teacher’s name but you can find it if you search the comments.

 

 

She writes:

 

“As a public school teacher working and fighting for the #SchoolsOurStudentsDeserve, I can understand the conflict about coming to NC. As much as I’d like for NC to not gain one cent from NPE, I also know how much the educators and public school supporters here need support. Not just through emails, blog posts, and social media, but they need to see people, real people, showing up to stand against the regressive, dangerous rhetoric and laws being used in our General Assembly and Governor’s office. I would rather NPE come and everyone in attendance participate in a mass action on our state house or in the streets of Raleigh to show that we ALL stand together against any injustice, to show that we see how ALL of our lives are interconnected, and that if just one student, teacher, parent, or citizen is discriminated against, then we will ALL fight back for those people. Public schools can be a great equalizer, if we also find ways to make our community equitable for students and families when they leave the school door. Come to North Carolina, NPE, and bring your strong spirits, your inspiring words, and maybe even your marching shoes. And if you are worried about supporting this unjust legislature, I’m sure we can gather a list of businesses that have come out with statements against the hateful HB2 so that you know who deserves your presence and your patronization.”

 

Categories Education Reform, Network for Public Education, North Carolina, Resistance

North Carolina NAAP Denounces Anti-Gay Legislation

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2016 //
17

A statement by the North Carolina NAACP:

 

The North Carolina NAACP Stands Against the Hypocrisy and Immorality of the NC General Assembly Made Clear By the Passage of HB2

 
The constitutional rights of North Carolinians to equal protection under the law in the state and federal constitutions are under attack.

 

An estimated 7 people die preventable deaths daily in North Carolina, including veterans, healthcare workers and other working poor people, because the NC General Assembly did not pass Medicaid Expansion under the Affordable Care Act.

 

Tens of thousands of voters have been disenfranchised or burdened by voter suppression laws and the inconsistent implementation of them across the state.

 

Hundreds of thousands of working poor North Carolinians are locked into poverty by a minimum wage that doesn’t allow them to feed their families and care for their loved ones.

 

Despite our cries for justice and mercy, the NC General Assembly has never called a Special Session to accept Medicaid Expansion. They have never called a Special Session to undue the voter suppression laws. They have never called a Special Session to pass a minimum wage increase and restore the Earned Income Tax Credit.

 

North Carolinians face real threats to our constitutional rights and lives. Instead of addressing these real needs, the NC General Assembly, under the extreme leadership of Speaker Tim Moore and Senate Leader Phil Berger, called a Special Session to overturn non-discrimination protections across the state in House Bill 2. Now the Governor had signed the worst anti gay bill in the country.

 

House Bill 2 passed and signed prevents local governments from passing ANY nondiscrimination policy that provides protections for lesbian, gay, and transgender people. HB 2 also gives Raleigh lawmakers unprecedented control over local governments by pre-empting local employment ordinances governing wages, benefits, employee protections and leave policies.

 

The North Carolina NAACP and the Forward Together Moral Movement demand equal protection under the law for all. Any bill that undermines the constitutional right of one group hurts us all. HB 2 is extreme and immoral.

Categories Inequality, Injustice, North Carolina

North Carolina: Legislature Approves Bill Allowing Discrimination against LGBT People

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2016 //
14

It is hard to know what the North Carolina legislature will do next in its quest to turn back the clock at least 50 years. Or maybe to the 1920s, prior to the New Deal efforts to help people who were poor. None of that liberal stuff anymore in North Carolina!

 

This article in NC Policy Watch sums up the backward steps of the current special session, just concluded. It refers to the legislature’s “shameful legacy.”

 

 

The defining moment of the absurd special legislative session held this week in Raleigh had nothing to do with the common sense decision by the Charlotte City Council to allow transgender people to use the public restroom that corresponds to their sexual identity—the way many other local governments and private companies do.

 

And it had nothing to do with the anti-worker provisions of the secretly crafted legislation that forbids cities from requiring companies that contract with local governments to pay decent wages—as damaging as those provisions are to workers and the economy.

 

And it wasn’t even about a provision debated on the House floor that takes away the right of workers who are fired simply because they are African-American or Jewish or female to sue under state law—as shocking as that provision is, joining North Carolina with Mississippi as the only places where workers cannot sue in state court for being fired people for their race, religion, color, national origin, age, sex or disability.

 

No, the defining moment in what has to be one of the most offensive special legislative sessions in North Carolina history came in the House on amendment proposed by Rep. Grier Martin that would have broadened the state’s nondiscrimination law to include military status, sexual orientation and gender identity.

 

Martin’s proposal came after bill sponsor Rep. Dan Bishop boasted that the legislation, unveiled minutes before it was debated in a House committee, would establish a statewide nondiscrimination law that protects people in employment and public accommodations based on their race, religion, color, national origin, age, biological sex or disability.

 

Biological sex was added to make sure transgender people were not protected.

 

The ordinance passed by the Charlotte City Council also included protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity, in addition to the bathroom provision that was the subject of some of the worst demagoguery and fear-mongering to ever come out of the Legislative Building–and that’s quite a high bar to clear.

 

Bishop’s bill voids Charlotte’s protection of LGBT people from discrimination and prohibits any other local governments from protecting them either. That didn’t deter Bishop from repeatedly bellowing about what he called the historic statewide nondiscrimination standard the legislation established….

 

What the vote means is that the majority of the state House affirmatively decided that is ok for companies to fire people who are gay simply because they are gay—in Charlotte and everywhere else in North Carolina.

 

They voted to allow hotels to refuse rooms to same-sex couples and let taxis refuse rides to transgender men and women. The majority of the House voted to give restaurants permission to refuse to serve a gay man and allow theaters to refuse to seat him based on his sexual orientation.

 

What is amazing is how quickly North Carolina went from being recognized the most progressive state in the South to the most regressive. The slide began in 2010, with the election of a Tea Party legislature, and accelerated with the election of Pat McCrory as governor in 2012.

 

To learn more about the political regress of North Carolina, read NC Policy Watch’s Altered State: How Five Years of Conservative Rule Have Redefined North Carolina, which documents disinvestment in the public sector, starving the public schools and public higher education, the advance of privatization, and other consequences of the conservative takeover since 2010.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories North Carolina
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