I remember how it was -- JR
Monday, May 29, 2023
School Choice Success for Nebraska - Great for All Students
Just a decade ago, there were only a couple dozen states in the U.S. with school choice programs. This week, Nebraska has made history as the 50th state in the nation to pass a school choice bill — a monumental win for families in the Cornhusker State.
This passage is not only a major victory for the school choice movement in Nebraska; it is also a testament to the advancement of educational freedom and opportunities nationwide for all children, regardless of color, race, or economic status.
Nebraska’s LB753, the Opportunity Scholarship Act, which just passed with a supermajority from the Unicameral Legislature, establishes a tax-credit scholarship that will help more than ten thousand students attend a non-public school of their choice. Scholarships will average around $9,000 per student, depending on the needs of the family and tuition costs.
The Opportunity Scholarships Act will give first priority to students living in poverty, students with exceptional needs, those who experienced bullying, are in the foster system or are in military families, and children denied enrollment into another public school.
With the goal of empowering families, passing school choice in Nebraska was the right thing to do. As a Hispanic education advocate, I am fighting for my community to overcome inequality in education. A high-quality education is one of the only paths to success for children living in poverty.
A quality K-12 education is a path to economic progress and opportunity, preparing students for college and successful careers, and school choice will always be part of the solution since the traditional system of education will never fit all the individual needs of students and families.
While Nebraskans take pride in their public schools, public schools are not always the answer for every child. Students of color will particularly benefit from finally having access to more educational options.
Nowhere is that fact more clear than within the Latino community. However, according to the latest National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) scores, the disparities between racial and socioeconomic subgroups continue to exist, and although they have fluctuated over the years, these disparities are not diminishing.
The achievement gaps in math and reading in Nebraska are wider than the national average, particularly for Hispanic and African American students. This is important as Latino students encompass the fastest-growing student population in the state, and they had an average score that was 24 points lower than that of white students.
Empirical data reflects that many students of color are academically suffering from a public education system that has been failing them for years. But there is reason to hope that these gaps will start closing through school choice. Evidence from other states, especially Florida, suggest that school choice can help close racial achievement gaps.
Families seek school choice for a variety of reasons. According to the 2022 Schooling in America Survey, among the top five priorities of education from parents include academic quality or reputation, safe environment, location, disciplinary policies and class size. Additionally, in my experience working with Latino families, they want to feel supported by their school, have the ability to exit a school due to bullying or more severe cases of violence, and also want to choose a school because it satisfies their views and ideas of what constitutes a decent education.
But test scores don’t always tell the whole story. School choice has already impacted students in Nebraska like Jayleesha Cooper and Brandon Villanueva Sanchez— both outstanding students of color from the Cornhusker State, whose parents did not give up until they were able to provide them with a quality K-12 education. Jayleesha and Brandon attribute their success to school choice and the sacrifices their parents made for their education.
Stories like these are perpetual in my community. Educational choice empowers underprivileged families to close achievement disparities and beat the odds of poverty. School choice gives access to the promise of the American Dream.
I understand the struggle that my community endures. As a first-generation Chilean-American, I grew up in the traditional public school system, overwhelmed by large classrooms and relentless bullying. I came to the United States seeking opportunity, and I knew that opportunity was only possible with a quality education.
The passage of this legislation will give educational opportunities for students who would not have it otherwise. It means legislators are finally listening to the parents and families who only want to give their children the best opportunities at success. It is truly a great day for Nebraska families.
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Biden’s Message to Black College Graduates: You’re Victims, Not Leaders
Terris Todd
I sat in the crowd with thousands of beautiful families waiting to hear a message of inspiration, hope, and a brighter future like I would expect to hear at any commencement speech in America. Instead, sitting in the audience at the historically black Howard University, the graduates, their families, and I heard a message from the president of the United States laced with divisive rhetoric and political narratives that cast a dark shadow over our country.
Such an appalling, politically driven speech will no doubt leave many of the graduates in fear of certain of their fellow Americans and hopeless about the possibilities for their future in this country.
Howard University has been known for many years as a leader in STEM, or science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, as well as a home to many notable alumni who have impacted our nation and the world.
The National Science Foundation has ranked Howard University as the top producer of African American undergraduates who later go on to earn their science and engineering doctoral degrees.
One would have to wonder why President Joe Biden chose this institution with its reputation for excellence and chose such a happy and historic moment for these graduates to inform them that “the most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy. I’m not just saying this because I’m at a black HBCU, I say it wherever I go.”
Well, Mr. President, that’s the problem.
Black Americans, like many other groups throughout our nation, understand that politicians for decades have come to their neighborhoods and their events to pander and fearmonger them into the trance of victimhood. These politicians feel compelled to do it even when those whom they are trying to make victims are surrounded by countless examples of triumph and perseverance—like their fellow graduates at Howard’s graduation ceremony.
If we were to ask black Americans what they believe are the greatest threats to their livelihood and their local communities, I can guarantee you they would not say that white supremacy was at the top of their list.
So, let’s move past the political talking points and speeches filled with trigger words that seek to control the emotional state of black Americans. We have heard it all and seen it all.
What we should have heard from the president of the United States was how the graduates who were earning their degrees in business or accounting that day, for example, should help our federal government get a handle on its outrageous debt and its unsustainable spending habits with Americans’ tax dollars.
My colleague, Rachel Greszler, wrote a piece describing how government’s freewheeling federal spending will do real harm to people like these graduates and their future children. She asked, “How could over $230,000 of total government debt per household—debt that must eventually be repaid—not burden younger and future generations?”
Many of the families who attended Howard’s graduation feel the pain of the nation’s current economic crisis firsthand, and dealing with inflation on a daily basis has made it extremely challenging for them to just survive.
Unfortunately, several others in the audience might not understand how the government’s overspending and lack of accountability have caused much of the pain their families feel.
What about a message from the president to the students who were earning their degrees in some form of medicine or health care-related field?
With a community, a nation, and a world suddenly stricken by a pandemic that took the lives of over a million people in the U.S. alone—on top of so many other diseases and conditions already plaguing our nation—it seems more fitting for a president to provide inspiration and encouragement to these students to take the lead on finding the cures to preserve human life.
But of course, the game of politics prevails, even during an event when politics matters the least.
At a time when the president should have inspired and motivated, he attempted to polarize and divide this nation even further. The students and their families deserved much better than the message they got that day.
But I have hope that the students graduating with degrees in medicine, mathematics, the sciences, technology, and other critical fields will be the very people who help to bring Americans together as they use their professions to advance the nation and create a better world for all of us.
Congratulations to the graduates and their families.
I pray that your journey into fulfilling careers and throughout life is one that we can all be very proud of.
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Maine School Board Asks Church What It Believes About Marriage, Abortion, Gender Before Denying Lease
A Maine church that outgrew its meeting space applied with the local school board to lease space at a high school for worship services, but the school board appeared to apply a religious test to the church and negotiations fell through. Now, the church is suing.
“Public institutions that seek to lease their facilities for revenue should not be able to discriminate based on religious or political conviction,” Mariah Gondeiro, vice president and legal counsel of Advocates for Faith & Freedom, the law firm representing the church, said in a press release exclusively provided first to The Daily Signal.
Gondeiro is representing The Pines Church in Bangor, Maine, which sued the Hermon School Committee Tuesday. The Pines Church aimed to move to Hermon, Maine, because many church members live there. Yet Hermon had no rental spaces available, and it appeared that meeting at the high school represented the best option.
According to the complaint, organizations seeking short-term leases must work with the principal of the school and complete a facilities request form—a form that does not include any questions about the organization’s beliefs. Many organizations currently rent Hermon High School space, including Black Bear Basketball, Hermon Recreation, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, and various baseball groups. The church had even offered to pay $1,000 per month, $400 over the original price, as a sign that it would invest in the community.
Yet, when the church filed the request form, Superintendent Micah Grant and a member of the Hermon school board asked pointed questions about the church’s positions on “issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Chris McLaughlin, a school board member who includes personal pronouns in his signature, wrote that he “wanted to get a better sense of how The Pines Church approaches issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion and around their messaging around some key issues relevant to marginalized communities.”
He asked, “Is The Pines Church receptive of same-sex marriages? Do they consider marriage only to be between 1 man and 1 woman?”
He also requested information on the church’s positions on “access to safe and affordable abortion,” “access to gender-affirming medical care,” “conversion therapy for LGBTQIA+ individuals (youth and adults),” and “inclusive sexual education and access to birth control for youth.”
The lawsuit states that “the implications of the [board’s] questions are clear; unless [The Pines Church] affirms [Hermon School Department’s] religious and political beliefs, the [board] will not support [the church’s] lease proposal.”
The committee rejected Pastor Matt Gioia’s proposal to lease the high school for either six months or one year because of its religious beliefs on abortion, sexual orientation, “gender reassignment,” “conversion therapy,” and marriage, according to the lawsuit. The committee voted to allow the church to rent school facilities on a month-to-month basis after the pastor had told the committee that a month-to-month lease would not work.
“A month-to-month lease is not feasible for the church because it makes it impossible to plan and budget and allows [the school board] to terminate the lease on short notice, leaving the church with nowhere to go,” the suit explains.
The lawsuit alleges that the school board’s questions reflected “an improper motive on behalf of [the school district] to exclude traditional viewpoints on these issues from use of the school facilities.”
The church claims that the school board’s move “sends the message to houses of worship and other religious entities that organizations that maintain traditional historically orthodox biblical beliefs about human sexuality are second-class institutions, outsiders, and not full members of the Hermon community.”
Conservative Christians who follow the Bible define marriage as between one man and one woman, defend unborn life in the womb, and affirm that God created humans male and female, not transgender. Yet a growing social movement does not just reject these ideas but brands them hateful.
The church claims the school board violated its rights under the First Amendment, under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, and under Maine’s public accommodations laws. The lawsuit asks the court to order the school board to award the church either a six-month or a yearlong lease, along with compensatory damages.
“The Hermon School Committee has a history of leasing their properties to secular organizations without persecution,” Gondeiro, the legal counsel, said. “We are advocating for fair and equitable treatment under the law, and The Pines Church was denied that opportunity by the Hermon School Committee.”
“We are understandably disappointed with the process in which we had to go through, but we are not discouraged,” Gioia said in a statement first provided to The Daily Signal. “We have seen the Lord move through our church and grow our community so much since our founding. We are hopeful that we will be able to continue our worship and fellowship without discrimination.”
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My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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