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Fort Worth: Voters Narrowly Pass Largest School Bond Issue in the Nation

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2021 //
6

Fort Worth Independent School District mounted a campaign to pass a $1.2 billion bond issue, the largest in the nation, and it passed by 57 votes, out of nearly 25,000 cast.

The successful campaign reflected the needs of the public schools and the hard work of parents and the chair of the campaign, Dr. Charles Foster Johnson of Pastors for Texas Children.

a The new money will be used to renovate the district’s middle schools, some built 70 years ago, to build a new elementary school, and to renovate others.

Dr. Johnson and his fellow clergy worked closely with parents to win support for the bond issue, as this article by Dr. Johnson shows.

Dr. Johnson wrote:

As the pandemic worsened, teachers went the extra mile, checking on the health and safety of children and often providing for students’ needs out of their own pockets. Fort Worth professional educators served as angels of mercy, especially for our poorest, most vulnerable children. Eighty-six percent of students in the district are economically disadvantaged. For many, their lifeline is their neighborhood public school.…

The package is the result of years of detailed planning and careful community input. An advisory committee of educators, parents and business leaders spent more than five years assessing our facility needs. Our elected school board held thoughtful, thorough deliberations.

This thorough due diligence is one reason why the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce all endorse this bond.

Why now? With bond rates at historic lows, Fort Worth can save millions of dollars by improving our children’s neighborhood schools now instead of waiting. Furthermore, this bond will not result in a property tax rate increase for homeowners and businesses. It is imperative that we provide our educators with the tools and facilities they need to best prepare the next generation of community leaders. The bond package will help our hard-working teachers across the district continue to provide quality programs at every grade level. This includes improving every part of the district with additional classroom space, renovations to aging middle schools, and a new elementary school.

The improvements funded by the bond issue will help the public schools fend off the aggressive invasion of new charter schools, which are favored by Governor Gregg Abbott.

Read more at: https://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/other-voices/article255103397.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Funding, Support for public schools, Texas

Texas: Federal Judge Throws Out Governor Abbott’s Ban on Mask Mandates

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2021 //
18

Governor Gregg Abbott, like some other Republican governors, banned mask mandates, preventing school districts from exercising local control about how best to protect their students. A federal judge ruled that Abbott’s ban violates the rights of students with disabilities and cannot be imposed on any district. This is good news for parents who want to protect their children against a deadly virus.

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates in Texas schools violates the rights of students with disabilities, clearing the path for districts in the state to issue their own rules for face coverings, a decision that could affect more than 5 million students.

The ruling comes after months of politicized disputes over measures at the state level opposing mask-wearing policies that had been intended to prevent the spread of Covid.

The lawsuit, which sought to overturn the mandate, was filed on behalf of several families of students with disabilities and the organization Disability Rights Texas.

They stated that the defendants — the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton; the commissioner of the Texas Education Agency, Mike Morath; and the Texas Education Agency — had put students with disabilities at risk through their complete erasure of mask mandates.

The governor and some other state officials have maintained that protecting against the virus is a matter of personal responsibility.

Judge Lee Yeakel, who made the ruling in the suit filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, determined that the order from the governor violated the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act because it put children with disabilities at risk.

The ruling also prohibits Mr. Paxton from enforcing the order by Mr. Abbott, who has repeatedly opposed Covid-related mandates.

There are eight other states that have banned mask mandates—Florida, Arizona, Montana, Iowa, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Dakota.

Categories Health, Texas

Texas: IDEA Public Schools Have Run Amuck, and No Excuses Exist for the State’s Unyielding Support

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2021 //
15

You may remember IDEA as a free-spending charter chain in Texas. A few years ago, IDEA got negative publicity when its board of directors decided to lease a private jet at a cost of $x million per year. Then we learned that the schools had paid for box seats for the San Antonio Spurs basketball games. When the CEO departed, he received a $1 million golden parachute. These are not customary expenditures for a “public” school. These are the actions of a private corporation. Betsy DeVos dropped more than $200 million in federal funds on the IDEA chain, to enable it to expand.

William Gumbert, an independent researcher in Texas, took a deep dive into the metrics of the IDEA chain. After you read his report, you will wonder why the state of Texas and the federal government encouraged the chain to expand.

Gumbert writes:

Introduction: Federal and state elected officials, privately funded public policy organizations, and private foundations are financially supporting education reforms to undermine locally governed, community-based school districts. With promises of a “college preparatory” or “classical” education, the expansion of taxpayer-funded charter schools in local communities is the primary reform vehicle. IDEA Public Schools (“IDEA”) is the fastest growing and most prominent charter school network in Texas. National and regional promotions claim IDEA’s “Tuition-Free,” “No Excuses,” college-preparatory education model is revolutionizing education for low-income students and eliminating the opportunity gap. IDEA’s co- founder agrees by saying: “But no matter your zip code, you have access to a tuition-free public school, and I believe that will be the solution to every problem in America.”

With promotions of expert teachers and more of them, IDEA promises to prepare low-income students for success to and through college. As evidence, IDEA promotes that “100% of Graduates Have Been Accepted to their College of Choice for 15 Consecutive Years.” For education reformers, IDEA is validation that “when the adults in the system get it right, students can do remarkable things.”

Unfortunately, recent findings reveal a story that is not representative of serving low-income families. IDEA’s story consists of private jets, chauffeured cars, a luxury Bed & Breakfast resort, misuse of public funds, high-priced advertising, misrepresentations, low instructional expenditures, low teacher experience, high “Student to Teacher Ratios,” and without offering career or technical training, IDEA graduates underperform in college. IDEA’s story is validation that locally governed school districts continue to provide higher quality educational attributes and better prepare students for success. IDEA’s story is also validation that TEA lacks the institutional controls to oversee charters and serves as another example of what happens when the state and private interests dictate the public education system in local communities.

Ernest Hemingway said, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” Elected officials, education reformers, and families trusted IDEA Public Schools. Regrettably, IDEA has run amuck and “No Excuses” exist for the unyielding support of the state and private interests. It’s your schools, children, families, tax dollars, and communities!

The Promotion and Growth of IDEA – Private Foundations: After three years of classroom experience with Teach for America and at the age of 24, Tom Torkelson and JoAnn Gama founded the IDEA Public Schools charter network to revolutionize the education for low-income families. Since its founding, IDEA’s education model was propelled by private interests, including the Walton Family Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Ewing Halsell Foundation, KLE Foundation, and the George Brackenridge Foundation. Collectively, these organizations give contingent donations to open campuses in targeted communities, implement specific curriculum, and expand enrollment. Although IDEA no longer specifies the details of its donors, prior communications reveal that IDEA was the beneficiary of over $150 million of private donations to expand in various regions of Texas.
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Private Financial Support to Expand IDEA “Public” Schools

In 2008, IDEA had produced 56 high school graduates and no graduate had earned a college degree. But that did not prevent private foundations from strategically publicizing IDEA’s education model to further the charter movement. In 2009, Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America (“TFA”), named Torkelson as “100 of the most influential global citizens” in TIME magazine. Coincidentally, TFA receives funding from the Walton Family Foundation, which has donated over $160 million, and other private foundations supporting charter expansion. Torkelson also received the Peter Jennings Award for Civic Leadership in 2009, another award annually provided by TFA. In 2016, IDEA was named the top charter school system in the country by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, also funded by the Walton Family Foundation and other private foundations. In 2018, IDEA’s Torkelson and Gama were inducted into the National Charter School Hall of Fame.

State: At the state level, the appointed Commissioner of Education supports IDEA’s education reform model by unilaterally approving the opening of over 90 new campuses in the last decade to increase IDEA’s enrollment by 889%. To support the construction of new campuses, the state is guaranteeing the repayment of IDEA’s $988 million long-term, non-voter approved bonds through the Texas Permanent School Fund Bond Guarantee Program. The Texas legislature contributions include providing IDEA with $693 million of taxpayer funding in the current year and total taxpayer funding of $3.5 billion since 2010/11. With funding for public education limited, IDEA’s taxpayer funding is at the expense of locally governed school districts.

IDEA Public Schools: It should not be a surprise that IDEA is also its biggest advocate, thanks to an annual $7.3 million Advertising Budget. To build a perception as an education pioneer, IDEA’s full-time promotional staff is directed to: “work with public relation partners to produce positive news stories, promote school leaders as subject matter experts, and build relationships with elected officials.” IDEA also runs prime-time commercials during the Super Bowl and World Series to promote its image and maximize its exposure.


IDEA Public Schools – Historical Enrollment

IDEA Public Schools Has Run Amuck and No Excuses Exist for the State’s Unyielding Support (November 3, 2021) (3)Download

Download the pdf here.

Categories Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Funding, Texas

Texas: The Smell of Burning Books is in the Air

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2021 //
49

The heated debate over “critical race theory,” “indoctrination” and “socialism” in the schools, and attacks on teachers for teaching books like Beloved has unleashed the native fascism that usually hides under a rock.

We saw it in Virginia, where the Republican winner in the election played on these issues in his campaign and vowed that he would pass a law to allow parents to opt their children out of reading stuff that made them “uncomfortable.”

A Texas legislator aims to be on the front lines of book banning. Rep. Matt Krause assembled a list of 850 books that he thinks should be removed from the schools. The books must go “because they might cause students to feel “discomfort.”The list is heavily weighted towards titles about gender, sexuality, racism, and other topics that he thinks should not be taught or read about in school. He probably would ban them for college too if he could.

My guess is that these books were chosen simply by their title, not because Rep. Krause read them.

Here is the list of 850 books that he wants to eliminate from the schools. Krause has no idea whether any of them are taught in the schools.

In the age of the Internet, when teens can see anything and everything mentioned in these books, this crude censorship is ridiculous.

I can’t tell whether the odor in the air is the burning of books or is the stench of McCarthyism.

What do you think?

Categories Democracy, Education Reform, Ignorance, Racism, Texas

Texas: Insanity Erupts at School Board Meetings Over Critical Race Theory

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2021 //
40

Under the combined influence of Donald Trump and Governor Gregg Abbott, a considerable number of Texas parents have become convinced that their public schools have become hotbeds of Marxism and malignant “critical race theory.” Any discussion of racism is interpreted to mean CRT. Opponents of CRT oppose any recognition of racism in the past or present. This story in The Texas Monthly documents the mass hysteria now sweeping the Republican Party.

It describes a meeting in one of the state’s most successful schools: high test scores, high graduation rates, high college acceptance rates, award-wining teams. Yet the parents are furious because the school hired a diversity consultant from Teachers College, Columbia University!

About 99 percent of the 2021 senior class at Westlake High School was accepted to college, superintendent Tom Leonard tells the audience at the June 22 meeting of Eanes’s board, recapping another year of high achievement. The robotics team won a state championship, he adds, which could improve the school’s third-place standing in the Lone Star Cup, awarded to the state’s winningest schools. Westlake also won a state football championship, and the boys’ golf team won state too, as it has four years running. By the standards of Texas public schools, Eanes is an idyll.

Soon after Leonard stops speaking, however, loud yelling commences, and it continues for the better part of an hour. According to most of the 38 people who have come to give public testimony, the district’s schools have become beholden to “post-Marxist critical theory,” as one speaker puts it—“an updated version of Marxism focusing on differences between people.” The school board, says another, has opened the doors of Eanes to “antifa and BLM,” forces that “salivate after war” and “burn down” communities.

On the agenda today are two items that might seem unlikely reasons to go to battle. One is the contract of Mark Gooden, a professor at the Teachers College at Columbia University, in New York City, and, since 2020, the diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant for Eanes. The second is a rewrite of the district’s mission statement. After workshopping the document for more than a year, the board had settled on “Unite. Empower. Inspire . . . Every Person, Every Day.”

The angry parents are certain that these two items are evidence that the district has become “woke,” even anti-white.”

Mass madness.

Categories Insane, Parents, Racism, Texas

Texas: Teachers Told to Teach “Opposing Views” of Holocaust and Slavery

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2021 //
93

As part of the Republican effort to eliminate teaching about slavery, racism, and other injustices, the state has banned “critical race theory” and requires teaching “both sides” of controversies.

In the Carroll Independent School District, teachers were told that if they teach about the Holocaust in Europe, they must teach “the other side.” Understandably, teachers were confused. Are they supposed to give equal time to the genocide of millions of men, women, and children, and those who say that the genocide never occurred? When they teach about slavery, must they give equal time to the atrocities of enslavement and to apologists who say that slavery was benign?

Teachers in a Texas city have been told that if they have a book on the Holocaust in their classroom, they should also have one that offers an “opposite” view.

A school head’s instruction to staff in Southlake, which is 26 miles northwest of Dallas, was secretly captured on an audio recording obtained by NBC News.

Gina Peddy, executive director of the Carroll Independent School District, spoke during a training session on what books teachers can keep in classroom libraries.

It came four days after the Carroll school board, in response to a parent’s complaint, voted to reprimand a teacher who had an anti-racism book in her classroom.

In the recording, Ms. Peddy told staff to “remember the concepts” of a new state law that requires teachers to present different points of view when discussing “widely debated and currently controversial” topics.

Referring specifically to the Nazi genocide of six million Jews in wartime, he said: “And make sure if you have a book on the holocaust that you have one that has an opposite, that has other perspectives. “

In response, a teacher said, “How do you oppose the Holocaust?”

Mrs. Peddy told them, “Trust me. That has come up.”

Speaking later, a teacher from Carroll told NBC News: “Teachers literally fear that we will be punished for having books in our classes.

“There are no children’s books that show the ‘opposite perspective’ of the Holocaust or the ‘opposite perspective’ of slavery.

“Are we supposed to get rid of all the books on those topics?”

Another teacher hung caution tape in front of books in a classroom after the new guidelines were distributed.

In a statement issued following Ms. Peddy’s comments, Carroll’s spokeswoman Karen Fitzgerald said the district was trying to help teachers comply with the new state law and an updated version that will take effect in December.

Subsequently, the district superintendent publicly apologized.

As the Superintendent, I express my sincere apology regarding the online article and news story. During the conversations with teachers, comments made were in no way to convey the Holocaust was anything less than a terrible event in history.

This statement does not explain how Texas teachers can teach both sides of every issue. There is no doubt that the purpose of the law is to make teachers fearful of teaching anything about racism or any other atrocities that are matters of fact.

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Fraud, Freedom of Speech, History, Texas

Texas: The District Needed Funding for More Schools. Instead, the Commissioner Opened More Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2021 //
9

Enrollments in the Cleveland Independent School District in Texas was growing rapidly. Voters passed bond issues, but it wasn’t enough. The superindent turned to the state for help. Sadly, Governor Gregg Abbott and his hand-picked State Commissioner Mike Morath are obsessed with charters, despite the fact that their academic results are below those of public schools.

Here is the sad story of Abbott and Morath’s devotion to charter expansion.

TEXAS MONTHLY BREAKS STORY ON FAST-TRACK CHARTER EXPANSION IN EAST TEXAS
Texas Monthly, October 6, 2021

Texas Monthly writer Bekah McNeel breaks the story of how Commissioner Morath fast-tracked the approval of five new International Leadership of Texas (ILT) charter schools in Cleveland ISD within only three business days, skirting TEA’s own rules and process, and despite concerns raised by 12 area Superintendents whose districts will be affected.

The Superintendents co-signed a letter to the Commissioner that questioned ILT’s track record, especially with low-income students who are English Learners, and TEA’s rapid approval of the amendment application without input from the affected school districts.

The article also reinforces the concerns that local communities and school districts have been raising for years: The Commissioner ignores the impact of new charter campuses on local school districts and communities when he approves an unlimited number of new charter campuses without public notice or opportunities for input from the public.

The article is attached.
Link: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-charter-school-expansion-cleveland/

Key Excerpts:

  • Instead of offering funding and flexibility to the public schools…the state fast-tracked the expansion of charter schools that aren’t held to the same standards of community accountability or required to find a seat for every student regardless of ability or disciplinary status.
  • Public school advocates worry that the process circumvents public accountability. Charter growth is driven by decisions made in Austin and charter network headquarters, not by the communities where those schools will be located or their elected school boards.
  • Kevin Brown, the executive director of the Texas Association of School Administrators, said that when decisions are made in a public school district about anything from curriculum to adding new schools, democratically elected boards create a conduit for parents and community members to offer their views. Charters, by contrast, whose appointed boards often do not live in the cities and towns whose students they serve, do not need a community’s approval to open a new school next door. “To a local community, it often feels like an invasion from outsiders,” Brown said.
  • On that same day, Conger and ILTexas chief financial officer James Dworkin broke the good news of their expansion on a call with investment managers. “If somebody’s looking for ‘where’s the local school?’ they’ll be pointed to an ILTexas school,” Dworkin said. “That is a change to the charter industry as I’ve seen it in my time here, and I’m proud to be part of ILTexas leading the way.”
  • In response to concerns that ILT is allowed to expand under state rules even though it currently has 2 F rated campuses and 6 D rated campuses out of a total of 32 campuses, State Board of Education member Pat Hardy from Fort Worth responded, as Texas Monthly wrote: “Hardy accepted that the policy allowed expansion, but pushed back: ‘I really think that any charter school that has an F should not have the privilege to expand.’ Morath advised her, politely, to take up the issue with the Legislature.”
  • For the record:
  • 884 new charter campuses have been approved between 2010 – 2021 in Texas through charter expansion amendments approved solely by the Commissioner of Education.
  • 586 new charter campuses have been approved since 2015.
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Competition, Education Industry, Texas

John Tanner: Why Do Politicians Cling to Failed Education Policies?

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2021 //
21

John Tanner is a blogger in San Antonio. In this post, he asks a question that I have asked myself many times: Why do ”reformers” and politicians keep funding failure? Why do they demand more charters and vouchers when neither has matched their claims, neither has closed achievement gaps or dramatically higher scores (except when they cherrypick their students)?

Tanner asks the question about test-based accountability, which Texas has embraced for decades.

He begins:

It is inexplicable to me how the failed policies of test-based accountability continue to be championed as if they have worked in the past and will continue to work into the future. The position of those espousing the effectiveness of test-based accountability can only be valid if at some point in the past all schools were essentially equal, and then good or bad educators created the disparities between what are now labeled “good” and “bad” schools. Then, the current accountability systems might reflect the efforts of those educators and the judgments would be warranted.

Of course, that is a joke. Schools never started at a level playing field. The first time anyone administered a standardized test to the universe of students in America what it showed were the effects of an inequitable society as well as the size and scope of a problem. But it was much easier for Americans to ignore the problem and instead declare that poor children were just dumber than rich children and that the cause of that was the educators in their lives. Pretending that at some point everything had been equal and then it just so happened that all the bad educators migrated towards the bad schools now serving poor children was easier than admitting the truth—that we were a society rooted in inequity and that our approach to schooling reflected that fact.

Reality is a good bit different than the test-based accountability crew would have you believe. The Coleman report pointed out way back in the 1960s that an effective, research-based approach to creating a great educational system for all students required two major policy efforts: address the ravages of generational poverty and make teaching into a position as revered as medicine and the law. So far, more than half a decade later, we are 0/2.

Now, instead, we look askance at the schools that serve students who are the victims of generational poverty and who are as a result behind their wealthier peers. We pretend that what we are seeing in these schools is not the consequences of ignoring Coleman, but of laziness and incompetence on the part of the educators in them.

And because test scores of the types used by states are designed to order students from the furthest below to the furthest above average within a content area as of a certain date (that’s a mouthful—sorry), they make for a beautiful tool for confirming the bias that schools serving poorer children became bad because of bad teachers that just need to try harder. That denies the reality that student exposure to academic content occurs in two places: inside and outside school, and that exposure differs a great deal as a direct result of generational poverty. Make no mistake—schools and teachers matter, as they will account for about 1/3 of the difference in test scores between students (and could account for more with the right supports that do not now exist). But what happens outside of a school will account for almost 2/3 of the difference. Any judgment based on a test score that fails to acknowledge that very real fact is unethical and needs to be dismissed as specious.

Read on. He nails the failure of test-based accountability.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Fraud, Poverty, Standardized Testing, Texas

Public Health Specialist: The Ban on Abortion in Texas

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2021 //
26

A friend who works in a government health agency sent me the following thoughts about the Texas abortion ban. The bill does not permit abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, which amounts to a ban since very few women know they are pregnant at that time. Citizens are offered a bounty of $10,000 for identifying any woman who obtained an abortion or who helped her get an abortion. The author requested anonymity.

She writes:

You have probably already read a great deal about the SCOTUS decision upholding (for now) the Texas ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Below are a few notable excerpts (articles by Lithwick, Tribe, and some others are worth reading in their entirety) and, as usual, some comments.

Note that “Jane Roe,” the plaintiff in the 1973 Roe v Wade SCOTUS decision, was a Texas resident who protested the unconstitutional abortion laws in her state.

Note also Michelle Goldberg’s useful framing of the crowdsourcing of anti-abortion enforcement as yet another illustration of the Republican embrace of vigilantism. (e.g.: Jan 6 insurrection, the call for military insubordination in defiance of civilian control, celebration of Kyle Rittenhouse in WI, praise for the Texas mob that attempted to force Biden’s campaign bus off the road, violence at anti-vaccine protests, Trump’s frequent promotion of assault.)

One of my questions today has still not been answered:

Are suits possible against individuals in other states who in any way help Texas women obtain an abortion out of state, i.e., if someone outside of Texas contributes money to an organization that helps Texas women leave the state to have an abortion, can the donor be sued? By anyone?

Dahlia LIthwick asserted on Rachel Maddow’s show tonight that the answer is not clear, and that that lack of clarity and the consequent chilling, self-censoring effect it has are deliberate. I’m sure clarity will be quickly forthcoming.

Another huge question is whether there will be sufficient political agitation (mostly among women) to make reproductive rights an issue with impact in the 2022 and 2024 elections. In theory, every legislator will now have to publicly take a position, and some are already lining up on either side. Dems see it as a winning issue – finally some serious motivation for our base and greater peril for Repubs.

A few points of clarification re misleading media reports:

– The Texas law is called a “heartbeat” bill. But there is no real “heartbeat” at 6 weeks because there is no real heart. At that point, the embryo is less than ½” long and has a slight pulse of electrical activity and a tiny tube that will eventually become a heart. After all, every living cell uses electric energy, including plants. So do cell phones. The term “heartbeat” bill is another form of emotionally manipulative, right wing branding which all journalists seem to be buying into.

– SCOTUS did not “give” women the right to abortion. The Roe v Wade decision agreed, as Jane Roe’s lawyers argued, that women have a Constitutional right to abortion based on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides a “right to privacy.”

Here is what the Roe v Wade decision actually held. Note the differing terms and stipulations for each trimester:

State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, that except from criminality only a life-saving procedure on the mother’s behalf without regard to the stage of her pregnancy and other interests involved violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman’s qualified right to terminate her pregnancy. Though the State cannot override that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman’s health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a ‘compelling’ point at various stages of the woman’s approach to term. Pp. 147-164.

(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman’s attending physician. Pp. 163-164.

(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health. Pp. 163-164.

(c) For the stage subsequent to viability the State, in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother. Pp. 163-164; 164—165.

– An embryo is not an “unborn child.” An embryo is not even a fetus until week nine, and not viable outside the womb until 24-28 weeks. The Texas, Mississippi, and other laws outlawing abortion before “viability” are clearly unconstitutional.

Sen. Lindsey Graham’s “Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” introduced in 2017, 2019, and again in Jan 2021 with the co-sponsorship of 42 Republican Senators, duplicitously claims viability (and capacity for pain) at 20 weeks, counting from the date of conception/fertilization, rather than the standard obstetric calculation, which is from the first day of the woman’s last period – that is, two weeks prior to conception and easier to determine. (Muddying the water about the time of “viability” is another deceitful tactic designed to push a ban back at least to 20 weeks.) In either case, according to the Executive VP of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists:

“…in no way, shape or form is a 20-week fetus viable. There is no evidence anywhere of a 20-week fetus surviving, even with intensive medical care.”

Further, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists:

“the neural circuitry necessary to distinguish touch from painful touch does not, in fact, develop until late in the third trimester.”

– Why are we only discussing the responsibility of women and penalizing those who help them? If a fetus is a child, isn’t the father a parent, guilty of child neglect if he walks away from a pregnant partner and guilty of aiding an abortion if he knows she will seek one? And why are women expected to fight for their human rights on their own? Where is the outrage of regular men, other than the liberal TV pundits and civil rights lawyers?

As Dahlia Lithwick, points out,

“…It’s almost impossible ..not (to)..declare that the court opted to end virtually all abortion rights in Texas, in the full knowledge that they were blessing an unconstitutional and brutal piece of lawless vigilantism, because it’s only about women…..

…..a court that comes to you in the dark of night, without logic or reason, whispering soothing words about how “this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law” as it upends the constitutionality of Texas law? That is the stuff of ancient gaslighting, reserved for those moments in which Power is explaining to Women that they are just being hysterical, and to kindly lie back and enjoy it…..” 

Re suggested next steps and remedies:

– Presidential “whole government” study commissions are clearly not going to meet the urgent, desperate need for action.

– Likewise, voting rights reinstatement (in order to elect new judges and leaders who will appoint different judges) and court reform (expanding the Supreme Court and other changes) are supremely (pun intended) worthy goals, but will take years or decades to achieve. Further, Biden’s Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court is not chargedwith actually making recommendations, and Biden has not expressed support for court expansion.

– Codifying national abortion rights through Congresswoman Judy Chu’s “Women’s Health Protection Act” would face highly likely defeat in the Senate (Dem Senators Manchin and Casey are anti-choice) and, if it survived that, a challenge and likely defeat by SCOTUS, which, after all, couldn’t even wait to hear normal public arguments in the Mississippi anti-abortion case (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization), which comes before the court this fall and specifically requests the overturn of Roe.

I know there are many pro choice orgs desperate for funds at this moment, but the Center for Reproductive Rights (4-star rating) will argue the Dobbs case at SCOTUS and is a very focused and potentially impactful place to put some money:

https://reproductiverights.org/

https://reproductiverights.org/texas-abortion-ban-supreme-court-ruling-sb8/  (background and highlights from dissents.)

– 19 states have already banned abortion via telehealth using pills (despite Covid), and many are rushing to ban sending abortion pills by mail. Keep in mind that anti-abortion people, including Justice Brett Kavanaugh, consider some types of birth control to be “abortion-inducing.” As Laurence Tribe, discussing this “grotesque” Texas law, statedtoday in The Guardian, there will be many other downstream consequences:

“The prospect of hefty bounties will breed a system of profit-seeking, Soviet-style informing on friends and neighbors. These vigilantes will sue medical distributors of IUDs and morning-after pills, as well as insurance companies. These companies, in turn, will stop offering reproductive healthcare in Texas…….. if a young woman asks for money for a bus ticket, or a ride to the airport, friends and parents fearful of liability might vigorously interrogate her about her intentions. This nightmarish state of affairs burdens yet another fundamental constitutional privilege: the right to interstate travel….”

– Neighboring states are not going to offer safe haven. As of June 2021, 12 states already have anti-abortion bans ready to be “triggered” with the fall of Roe, and 15 have early gestational age abortion bans ready to go. Per the Guttmacher Institute, abortion would almost immediately be illegal or severely restricted in 22 states. At least half a dozen states (e.g., FL, AR, MS) are now considering draconian laws modeled on that of Texas. (The idea is not new: In 2014, a Pennsylvania woman was imprisoned for buying her daughter abortion drugs.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/01/texas-abortion-law-faq/  (Note the few purple states.)

In any case, as Michelle Goldberg and others have pointed out, the goal was never just overturning Roe. Despite the professed commitment to state determination of abortion laws, the right will never be satisfied with a patchwork of state laws. Their goal has always been a total, national abortion ban.

“Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Stephen Breyer, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Justice Elena Kagan. Each wrote their own dissents calling for the law to be blocked.”  

Four Justices dissented from the SCOTUS ruling re the Texas law:

In case you missed the strong dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the SCOTUS ruling:

“The Court’s order is stunning. Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.”

More from Sotomayor:

  • “In effect, the Texas Legislature has deputized the State’s citizens as bounty hunters, offering them cash prizes for civilly prosecuting their neighbors’ medical procedures.”
  • “Taken together, the Act is a breathtaking act of defiance—of the Constitution, of this Court’s precedents, and of the rights of women seeking abortions throughout Texas.”
  • “Today, the Court finally tells the Nation that it declined to act because, in short, the State’s gambit worked. … It cannot be the case that a State can evade federal judicial scrutiny by outsourcing the enforcement of unconstitutional laws to its citizenry.”

Categories Health, Texas

Texas Eliminates Accountability in Charter Schools for ELLs and SPED

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2021 //
16

Texas has gone overboard for charter schools, even though they consistently post worse results than public schools. In the state’s new plans, charter schools will not be held accountable for the performance of English-language learners or students with disabilities. That is grossly unfair to public schools but it should raise the ratings of charter schools.

A trusted friend who works for the Texas Education Agency sent this information:

The proposed Texas Charter School Performance Framework for 2020 has been posted for public comment. On page 19, in the Operations standards, “Program requirements: Special populations” and “Program requirements: Bilingual education/English as a second language populations” are marked as “N/A for 2020” instead of each counting for one point. These indicators, 3b and 3c, are struck out on page 20. There does not appear to be an explanation for these changes.
Appropriate handling of assessments is another deletion from the Operations standards on pages 23-24.
Due to the lack of academic accountability, the manual will reflect fiscal and operational indicators only, not academic indicators.

https://texreg.sos.state.tx.us/fidsreg/202103289-1.pdf

There are no academic indicators, which makes sense because there were no tests in 2020. But the state officials removed the program indicators for bilingual and special education populations from the Operations standards on which charter schools will still be rated. These indicators measure if charters meet program requirements such as employing certified teachers in these areas.

This is not the only exception made for charter schools. Those that get a D or F rating three years in a row are supposed to be closed by the state, but that accountability is seldom enforced. Indeed, the state allows failing charters to expand.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Data, Education Industry, English Language Learners, Special Education, Texas
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