Civil Rights in Education

[groovedaddy]

In a little more than a year in office, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has used his bully pulpit and a burgeoning discretionary budget to focus state governments on school reform as never before. Mr. Duncan has now promised to energize the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, which has done a poor job in recent years of enforcing federal laws that protect poor, minority and disabled students from discrimination.

If the secretary follows through, states and localities that have historically shortchanged these children — by saddling them, say, with watered-down curriculums and unqualified teachers — will be required to do better or risk losing federal education dollars.

Mr. Duncan announced his goals during a speech commemorating the 45th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” civil rights march in Selma, Ala., during which demonstrators were bludgeoned by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Mr. Duncan compared the voting rights struggle to the effort to secure educational opportunity for poor, minority and disadvantaged children.

Mr. Duncan said that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be pleased by the racial progress that the country has made but “would have been angered to see that disadvantaged students still have less-effective teachers; that they still have fewer opportunities to take rigorous college-prep courses in high school; that black, and brown, and low-income children are still languishing in aging facilities and high schools that are little more than dropout factories. He would have been downhearted that students with disabilities still do not get the educational support they need. And he would have been dismayed to learn of schools that seem to suspend and discipline only young African-American boys.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/opinion/16tue2.html?th&emc=th

[tonysam]

1. It's through the looking glass time.

Now privatization and charter schools, which would ultimately create segregation based on race and income, are now "civil rights" issues. I mean they are because who is bellyaching about civil rights now? Arne Duncan.

By the way, Ali is a Broadie. From the Ohanian website:

Russlynn Ali: The Broad Foundation moves to the White House. Selected by Pres. Barack Obama as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Ali was previously founding director Education Trust West. Before that Ali, an attorney, was employed by The Children’s Defense Fund and before that as assistant director of policy and research at the Broad Foundation, for which she was also on loan as chief of staff to the president of the Los Angeles Unified School District's Board of Education. She has served on the Review Board for The Broad Prize for Urban Education. She was a fellow of the Aspen Institute's New Schools Entrepreneurial Leaders for Public Education Fellowship.

Note her definition of "compassionate" civil rights.

Notable Remark: "Ready for work and ready for college mean the same thing."
San Diego Union, Feb. 11, 2004

Notable Remark: "We've made algebra a graduation requirement, but if we waive it away, we're waiving away good policy."— USA Today, Aug. 12, 2004

Notable Remark: is the truly compassionate path. An alternative to the exit exam ends up being a way out, an escape valve to give adults a free pass when it comes to educating high school students. – San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 7, 2006

link


These fuckers, including the Obama administration, make me fucking sick.

[Catshrink]

2. It's cynical...

it's a ruse to shut us up about the attack on schools in poverty sticken areas. It's still privatization.

[stopschoolpaddling]

3. Yes and he “would have been angered to see that"

students are still being whipped just like the slaves were and that more than 50% of these whippings take place on the backsides of black children. Shame!!! For Shame!!!

[tonysam]

4. Oh, please. Stop this nonsense. n/t

[stopschoolpaddling]

5. So you think whipping children is an acceptable practice for educators?

Or don't you believe that most of the children that are getting it are black. NC is still a heavy hitting state, perhaps the children were just modeling the behavior of their principal. In that case shouldn't they get a medal instead of suspension.

[Fire1]

6. If the people of your state were really outraged about the use of

corporal punishment, it seems that some parent group or PTA would have addressed this issue with petitions to your state legislators by now.

[tonysam]

7. It would have been outlawed by now, no question. n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. It's legal in my state but against board policy in many districts

That is an option and may be easier.

[mzteris]

8. here's the thing-

"people" in Arkansas and areas of NC that practice corporal punishment - aren't against it! The uber-fundies whose kids are in public school believe in spanking. They outnumber the ones who don't. Ergo, the school systems still practice smacking kids on the ass with a paddle.\\\

Where the states stand on corporal punishment:
Alabama--Legal
Arizona--Legal
Arkansas--Legal
Colorado--Legal
Florida--Legal
Georgia--Legal
Idaho--Legal
Indiana--Legal
Kansas--Legal
Kentucky--Legal
Louisiana--Legal
Mississippi--Legal
Missouri--Legal
North Carolina--Legal
North Dakota--Illegal
Ohio--Legal
Oklahoma--Legal

**********

TIME: Corporal Punishment in U.S. Schools
By M.J. Stephey Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009

It seems like a scene from Oliver Twist — a young pupil being beaten by a 300-lb man wielding an inch-thick wooden paddle — but according to a new report by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union, nearly a quarter of a million children were subjected to corporal punishment in public schools in the U.S. during the 2006-2007 academic year.

...Texas paddles the most students in the nation, as well as the most students with disabilities ... The total number of students, with and without disabilities, who were subjected to corporal punishment in the 2006-2007 school year was 223,190. ... Nationwide, students with disabilities receive corporal punishment at disproportionately high rates. In Tennessee, for example, students with disabilities are paddled at more than twice the rate of the general student population. ... Students with autism are particularly likely to be punished for behaviors common to their condition, stemming from difficulties with appropriate social behavior. ... Anna M., whose son with autism was physically punished repeatedly when he was seven years old, noted, "The teacher felt he was doing some stuff on purpose. If you met him, you wouldn't know he was autistic straight away. People thought we were making an excuse for him.' "

. . . On why corporal punishment is still condoned: "Educators, who face the difficult task of maintaining order in the classroom, may resort to corporal punishment because it is quick to administer, or because the school lacks resources and training for alternative methods of discipline. One teacher pointed out that corporal punishment can be considered 'cost-effective. It's free, basically. You don't have to be organized. All you need is a paddle.' Logistical or financial obstacles may prevent teachers from using other methods of discipline. One 18-year-old student who was critical of the use of corporal punishment in his rural school district stated that 'we couldn't have after school detention. There was no busing. Kids who got detention would have to find another way home.' "

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1915820,00.html#ixzz0ifRjpEju




South Carolina--Legal
Tennessee--Legal
Texas--Legal
Wyoming--Legal