I remember how it was -- JR
Monday, November 16, 2020
Should Blacks Support Destruction of Charter Schools?
Walter E. Williams
The academic achievement gap between black and white students has proven resistant to most educational policy changes. Some say that educational expenditures explain the gap, but is that true? Look at educational per pupil expenditures: Baltimore city ranks fifth in the U.S. for per pupil spending at $15,793. The Detroit Public Schools Community District spends more per student than all but eight of the nation's 100 largest school districts, or $14,259. New York City spends $26,588 per pupil, and Washington, D.C., spends $21,974. There appears to be little relationship between educational expenditures and academic achievement.
The Nation's Report Card for 2017 showed the following reading scores for fourth-graders in New York state's public schools: Thirty-two percent scored below basic, with 32% scoring basic, 27% scoring proficient and 9% scoring advanced. When it came to black fourth-graders in the state, 19% scored proficient, and 3% scored advanced.
But what about the performance of students in charter schools? In his recent book, "Charter Schools and Their Enemies," Dr. Thomas Sowell compared 2016-17 scores on the New York state ELA test. Thirty percent of Brooklyn's William Floyd public elementary school third-graders scored well below proficient in English and language arts, but at a Success Academy charter school in the same building, only one did. At William Floyd, 36% of students were below proficient, with 24% being proficient and none being above proficient. By contrast, at Success Academy, only 17% of third-graders were below proficient, with 70% being proficient and 11% being above proficient. Among Success Academy's fourth-graders, 51% and 43%, respectively, scored proficient and above proficient, while their William Floyd counterparts scored 23% and 6%, respectively. It's worthwhile stressing that William Floyd and this Success Academy location have the same address.
Similar high performance can be found in the Manhattan charter school KIPP Infinity Middle School among its sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders when compared with that of students at New Design Middle School, a public school at the same location. Liberals believe integration is a necessary condition for black academic excellence. Public charter schools such as those mentioned above belie that vision. Sowell points out that only 39% of students in all New York state schools who were recently tested scored at the "proficient" level in math, but 100% of the students at the Crown Heights Success Academy tested proficient. Blacks and Hispanics constitute 90% of the students in that Success Academy.
In April 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported that 57% of black and 54% of Hispanic charter school students passed the statewide ELA compared to 52% of white students statewide. On the state math test, 59% of black students and 57% of Hispanics at city charter schools passed as opposed to 54% of white students statewide.
There's little question that many charter schools provide superior educational opportunities for black youngsters. Here is my question: Why do black people, as a group, accept the attack on charter schools?
John Liu, a Democratic state senator from Queens, said New York City should "get rid of" large charter school networks. State Sen. Julia Salazar, D-Brooklyn, said, "I'm not interested in privatizing our public schools." New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio explicitly campaigned against charter schools saying: "I am angry about the privatizers. I am sick and tired of these efforts to privatize a precious thing we need -- public education. The New York Times article went on to say, "Over 100,000 students in hundreds of the city's charter schools are doing well on state tests, and tens of thousands of children are on waiting lists for spots."
One would think that black politicians and civil rights organizations would support charter schools. The success of many charter schools is unwelcome news to traditional public school officials and teachers' unions. To the contrary, they want to saddle charter schools with the same procedures that make so many public schools a failure. For example, the NAACP demands that charter schools "cease expelling students that public schools have a duty to educate." It wants charter schools to "cease to perpetuate de facto segregation of the highest performing children from those whose aspirations may be high but whose talents are not yet as obvious." Most importantly, it wants charter schools to come under the control of teachers' unions.
College Prez Bails out Student Rioters Amid Nationwide Election Protests, Riots, and Vandalism
Macala College president Suzanne Rivera offered bail money to students arrested while protesting the presidential election.
The college president said she wanted to be sure the students knew they had the support of the school. “I would defend free speech for our conservative students as vigorously as for our liberal students,” Rivera said, Fox News reports.
Macala is located near Minneapolis, where mobs engaged in rioting, looting, and arson for months after the death of George Floyd in May. Violence subsided only after the state government called in more than 4,100 National Guard troops, FOX 9 reports.
A post-election, anti-Trump riot in Minneapolis resulted in the arrest of more than 600 people after the mob marched, shouted, and blocked cars while shutting down a major interstate highway. On election night, before results were reported, protesters were setting off fireworks, throwing street signs and garbage into the streets, and spray-painting businesses, Newsmax reports.
In addition to Minneapolis, several other cities have experienced post-election riots. In New York city, 25 people were arrested. Police, in riot gear, stood guard while protestors screamed at them and spat in their faces, FOX News reports. Rioters damaged commercial buildings and set fires. Items confiscated included a stun gun, fireworks, a hammer, knives, and flammable liquid.
“Who brings a knife and a hammer and a flammable liquid to in fact start fires to a peaceful protest?” New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said in a news conference on Thursday.
The governor of Oregon called in the National Guard after police reported “widespread violence and riots” in Portland, Forbes reports. Portland has had continuous violence, vandalism, and unrest since the initial Floyd protests. Rioters and vandals once again targeted local businesses, smashing storefront windows. Independent reporter Andy Ngo shared a photo of a sign carried by the Portland rioters that said, “We Don’t Want Biden—We Want Revenge” and bore a picture of a semiautomatic rifle.
In Seattle, rioters lit a Trump flag on fire while shouting, “F— Donald Trump,” the New York Post reports. Protesters told ABC News they were trying to make sure Black Lives Matter and other racial-justice issues stay in the spotlight. Protesters carried signs expressing support for Black Lives Matters, and some had signs reading, “Stop Trump’s Racist Voter Suppression.”
One of the protesters was arrested after driving a truck through a line of police officers on bikes. In total, about a dozen people were arrested in Seattle.
In Washington, D.C., a mob dressed in black and carrying black umbrellas marched with a sign that said, “Burn Down the American Plantation,” the Washington Examiner reports. Marchers shouted, “If we don’t get it, burn it down,” while burning the American flag and setting off fireworks.
In Philadelphia, two men from Virginia were arrested with shotguns near the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where votes were being counted. Police discovered an AK-47 in their vehicle, FOX News reports.
The violence and mob activity in American cities is about far more than just political protesting and expression of free speech; it is about destroying everything and “starting at zero,” columnist Victor Davis Hanson writes for Townhall.
“The point of the mob is to wipe out what it cannot create,” Hanson writes. “It topples what it can neither match nor even comprehend. It would erode the very system that ensures it singular freedom, leisure and historic affluence.
“The brand of the anarchist is not logic but envy-driven power: to take it, to keep it, and to use it against purported enemies—which would otherwise be impossible in times of calm or through the ballot box,” Hanson writes.
NY Gov. Cuomo Explains Why Schools Are Closing Even Though They Don't Spread COVID
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Friday acknowledged that school districts in New York City will close on Monday because of high community spread even though they aren't the driving force behind the Big Apple's Wuhan coronavirus infection rate.
"Are schools going to close Monday if we top three percent?" MSNBC host Katy Tur asked. "Yup," he replied flatly.
According to Cuomo, his office set parameters for schools being open or closed and then local governments set their own guidelines with individual school districts.
"New York City set three percent as the agreement. If the number goes over three percent – and, by the way, [three percent] is very low, almost 80 percent of the states are above three percent, three percent is a low number – but, if it goes over three percent, schools will close," he explained. "The question then will be how quickly can we reopen them?
"We've learned a lot over the past few months. We do a tremendous amount of testing in the schools and what we've learned, Katy, is we're not seeing spread in the schools. You see a very low percentage of positivity in the schools so even though you have a jurisdiction that may be at three percent that doesn't mean the schools are what's spreading it," the governor explained. "We have to take that into consideration and that will facilitate a reopening.
The puzzled MSNBC host asked what we're all wondering: if schools aren't the force behind community spread, why close them? Cuomo said it's because the three percent community spread is the threshold school districts, local governments, teachers' unions and parents came to when the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic first hit earlier this year.
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