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The destruction of America's public education system


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13 hours ago, miguelito said:

I mean, he could do all those things AND give teachers a raise. It would be easy. 

He's just a piece of shit.

Well sure, but I'm just hoping for anything at this point. Hey Greg, let's start with a bottle of bourbon for every teacher and stop politicizing which bathroom a kid uses at school. After that we can discuss next steps.

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25 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

And all mentions of the fact that the earth is a sphere and the law of gravity.  To be replaced by a chapter on chemtrails.

We live in the dumbest fucking timeline.

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Posted (edited)

This is probably as good a place to park this as anywhere else -- Southlake Carroll ISD is racist/anti LGBTQ.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/southlake-texas-carroll-isd-civil-rights-investigation-rcna151009

Quote

The U.S. Department of Education is seeking to negotiate with the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas, over four students’ civil rights complaints — which three education law experts say signals that the department has substantiated the students’ allegations of racist and anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

The Education Department’s civil rights enforcement arm described the next steps in its investigation in a letter Monday to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which represents the students. The development comes three years after the civil rights organization filed federal complaints on behalf of students who said Carroll officials failed to protect them from harassment.

For more on this story, watch NBC’s “Nightly News with Lester Holt” tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. CT.

The four students, all of whom have either graduated or left the district, reported to the Education Department that they had been subjected to a barrage of racist and homophobic slurs and comments during their years at Carroll. One student said he suffered retaliation after reporting racial harassment to administrators. Another said he contemplated suicide after classmates repeatedly mocked him for his sexual orientation; his family said the district failed to address the bullying.

On Monday, the Education Department notified the NAACP Legal Defense Fund that it had contacted Carroll district officials to begin negotiating a resolution agreement in the four complaints — a step the agency takes only after finding that students’ civil rights have been violated, said Katrina Feldkamp, an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Eight federal civil rights complaints have been opened against the Carroll Independent School District. Nitashia Johnson for NBC News

The Southlake school system — which became the focus of national headlines in 2021 after conservative parents rejected a sweeping plan aimed at preventing discrimination — will now have 90 days to reach an agreement with the Education Department on steps it will take to address problems identified in the student complaints, experts said.

Angela Jones, a Black mother of a former Carroll student who was among those who complained to the Education Department, said she spent years advocating for changes to protect minority students in the affluent North Texas school district. But she was rebuffed by school board members and conservative parents who accused her and others of trying to force a far-left political ideology into classrooms. Jones said she and her family felt validated by the Education Department’s finding.

“They’re saying to the district, ‘You didn’t do it on your own, so we’re going to come in and make some recommendations for you to do it differently,’” Jones said. “I hope they’ll take it seriously, and re-evaluate and negotiate.”

Angela Jones and her husband, Dr. Wendell Jones, say their children faced discrimination in Southlake's public schools. Nitashia Johnson for NBC News

Photos of the Jones children at their home in Southlake.Nitashia Johnson for NBC News

A spokesperson for the Education Department said the agency doesn’t comment on pending cases. Carroll Superintendent Lane Ledbetter and the school board’s president, Cam Bryan, did not respond to messages requesting comment.

The local debate over how to address racism in Carroll schools became a national symbol of the battles over race, gender and sexuality that have swept the country and was featured in the 2021 NBC News podcast series “Southlake.”

The town’s fight began in 2018, after a viral video of white high school students chanting the N-word spurred dozens of Carroll parents and students to come forward with stories of discrimination. After the outcry, the school board appointed a committee of volunteers, including Jones, to come up with strategies to address the problem. The result of their work, the Cultural Competence Action Plan, called for mandatory diversity training for teachers and students and changes to the student handbook explicitly prohibiting harassment on the basis of race, gender and sexual orientation, among other changes. Then came the backlash. 

After the plan was released in the summer of 2020, conservative parents and activists — outraged at what they depicted as anti-white and anti-American indoctrination — formed a political action committee called Southlake Families PAC, which promised to defeat the diversity plan and elevate “Judeo-Christian values” in the school district. They raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to support a slate of hard-line conservative candidates, launched attack ads accusing their opponents of being radical leftists and, in November 2021, won majority control of the Carroll school board.

Two weeks later, the Education Department opened its initial investigations into student complaints. The total number of civil right investigations at the district would eventually grow to eight. The status of the other four open cases is unclear.

The probes set the stage for a potential conflict between local voters who opposed the diversity plan and federal officials tasked with enforcing federal civil rights laws. Now that the Education Department has initiated the process to negotiate a resolution with the district in four of the complaints, the federal agency could end up requiring Carroll to implement some of the same types of diversity and inclusion programs that Southlake voters have rejected in landslide elections in recent years.

In a video address to the community after the investigations were announced in 2021, Ledbetter, Carroll’s superintendent, said the district would “absolutely comply” if the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) ordered changes. But some local activists have called on the district to fight back against what they see as federal overreach. They have spread unsubstantiated theories that the federal investigation was launched in retaliation against conservatives opposed to critical race theory.

U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne, a Republican whose district includes Southlake, wrote a letter in November 2021 to U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, co-signed by Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn of Texas, expressing fears that the Biden administration was “weaponizing federal resources to intimidate parents who disagree with the policies of this administration.”

In a statement four months later, an Education Department spokesperson said the agency’s work is “in no way retaliatory and OCR serves as a neutral fact-finder with any complaint.”

In the years since gaining control of the school board, members backed by Southlake Families PAC have made changes that diversity advocates say have made the district less inclusive. The board voted in 2022 to eliminate language explicitly prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender, sexual orientation and religion from the student handbook. And this week, the board adopted a resolution opposing the Biden administration’s decision to expand Title IX protections to LGBTQ students.

Carroll ISD's school board elections in Southlake, Texas, became a referendum on the district's diversity policies.James Breeden for NBC News

Ledbetter and members of the school board did not respond to a question from NBC News about whether it planned to work with the Education Department to reach a voluntary agreement.

W. Scott Lewis, managing partner at TNG, a consulting firm that advises school districts on complying with federal civil rights laws, said that if Carroll fails to reach a voluntary agreement with the Office for Civil Rights on how to address discrimination, the agency could impose changes that Carroll would have to abide by or risk losing federal funding or inviting an investigation by the Department of Justice.

Another approach that the district could take, Lewis said: Carroll could challenge the Education Department’s findings in court. “That’s not typically been very successful,” Lewis said.

Feldkamp, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney, said her clients have asked the Education Department to require Carroll to implement many of the policies that were included in the Cultural Competence Action Plan, including mandatory diversity training for students and staff members.

“We need to send a message that we will not tolerate Black and brown students being pushed out of school, that it is unacceptable for racism and homophobia to win the day and that our public schools actually are supposed to be educational institutions where all students can feel supported and can thrive,” Feldkamp said.

On Wednesday, two community activist groups that had joined the civil rights complaints — the Southlake Anti-Racism Coalition and Cultural & Racial Equity for Every Dragon — sent a letter to Carroll officials calling on the district to agree “to remedies that will address the hostile environment” and “fulfill your responsibility to protect all students.”

Raven Rolle, a 23-year-old Black Carroll graduate and Southlake Anti-Racism Coalition member, said it shouldn’t have taken federal investigations for the district to listen to current and former students like herself who’ve shared stories of harassment. 

Carroll graduate Raven Rolle said she hopes the federal civil rights investigations lead to changes to benefit future students.Courtesy Raven Rolle

“Hopefully it sets a precedent for the kids that are currently there and kids who will be there years from now that these things will never happen again, and if they do, they’ll be dealt with appropriately,” Rolle said.

Mia Mariani, a 19-year-old college student living in Pittsburgh, was among the former Carroll students notified this week that the Education Department was taking action in response to her complaint of anti-LGBTQ bullying at Carroll. 

Mariani, whose story was detailed in the “Southlake” podcast, was bombarded by a torrent of vulgar messages from classmates on social media mocking her gender identity during a social studies class in the spring of 2022. After reporting the abuse, she secretly recorded her meeting with the principal, who argued that the boys who’d harassed her “were just wanting to debate” politics.  After her parents filed a complaint over the school’s handling of the situation, senior Carroll administrators investigated and concluded that Mariani’s complaint did “not satisfy the criteria necessary to constitute bullying.”

Now it appears the Department of Education has found evidence that her rights were violated.

Mariani said she was surprised when she got the news Monday. She’s worked to move on from her experiences in Southlake, she said, but hopes her case leads to changes for current and future students.

“Any change for them,” Mariani said, “is healing for me.”

 

Edited by C-Man
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11 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

The Southlake superintendent's "response" to the "Is there racism in Southlake and in Carroll ISD?" question at 1:50 is mind-boggling even now, a few years later.

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98% voted no confidence in Miles. He also decided this week to email last year's (2023) Principal of the year to tell her she must resign. He also let go another recent Principal of the year...

I'm sure Abbott's TEA head will form a strongly worded tweet in response.

 

 

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What a horrible horrible situation. Abbott wants to not only tear down hisd, but the entire damn city 

It’s punishment for the city voting for the opposition party.
It’s not more complicated than that. Disloyalty to The Regime must be punished. This is the way; read any book on how authoritarian regimes work, and you’ll see this on about page 5.
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8 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:


What a horrible horrible situation. Abbott wants to not only tear down hisd, but the entire damn city 

How could you think otherwise?  It is why it is immoral to vote for republicans in any capacity.   A long time ago I used to think that the R/D agenda was largely towards a better future but they just disagreed on the path to get there.   Then I realized they never gave a flying fuck about our future.  

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3 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

What a horrible horrible situation. Abbott wants to not only tear down hisd, but the entire damn city 

3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

It’s punishment for the city voting for the opposition party.
It’s not more complicated than that. Disloyalty to The Regime must be punished. This is the way; read any book on how authoritarian regimes work, and you’ll see this on about page 5.

The people of Houston/Harris County could fix this if they showed up at the polls in larger numbers in November…..

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19 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

The people of Houston/Harris County could fix this if they showed up at the polls in larger numbers in November…..

How's that? Are you under the impession that Miles was elected? Becuase he was appointed after the removal of an elected democratic official. 

 

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/01/tea-houston-isd-takeover-superintendent/

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31 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

How's that? Are you under the impession that Miles was elected? Becuase he was appointed after the removal of an elected democratic official. 

 

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/01/tea-houston-isd-takeover-superintendent/

AtomHeart has been arguing for a while now that Harris County is big enough that it could flip statewide elections all by itself if turnout was higher, so that might have been what he meant but I hesitate to speak for him.

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10 minutes ago, bolverk said:

AtomHeart has been arguing for a while now that Harris County is big enough that it could flip statewide elections all by itself if turnout was higher, so that might have been what he meant but I hesitate to speak for him.

That would be an odd flex considering that according to the Texas SOS it’s basically the same as Dallas county 

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I keep reading stories, no links, about Houston area school districts having to cut staff because of budget constraints. But we were told that the new property tax laws weren't going to impact the education of our children.  That lie didn't last 1 year.

It's almost like it was the goal of one party to decimate public education so that the masses would turn towards private education which has the ability to indoctrinate kids regarding religion and their stance on cultural issues. but that couldn't be the truth, right?

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Miles' puppet quoted their efforts to improve special education.   I saw how with one of my kids.  They simply made up numbers in his progress report.  We asked them to provide evidence and they could not.   One of his SPED teachers fakes grades for him.  He has 100% and yet the dyslexia teacher can show ZERO work.   An independent auditor told me the kid watches youtube and fucks off in that class.  

They also talked about their initiatives to identify more kids with special needs and what a great job they were doing.  My other kid was not identified by the school or district for having dyslexia.  I identified it.  A fucking trained rock scientist.  

But they are doing great.   So they tell us.   

Edited by Nivek
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47 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I keep reading stories, no links, about Houston area school districts having to cut staff because of budget constraints. But we were told that the new property tax laws weren't going to impact the education of our children.  That lie didn't last 1 year.

It's almost like it was the goal of one party to decimate public education so that the masses would turn towards private education which has the ability to indoctrinate kids regarding religion and their stance on cultural issues. but that couldn't be the truth, right?

Speaking of lies, so is "budget constraints." They're doing it becuase they want to do it. 

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7 hours ago, bolverk said:

AtomHeart has been arguing for a while now that Harris County is big enough that it could flip statewide elections all by itself if turnout was higher, so that might have been what he meant but I hesitate to speak for him.

6 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

That would be an odd flex considering that according to the Texas SOS it’s basically the same as Dallas county 

Trump beat Biden in Texas by 630,000 votes.

In Harris County, in the 2020 election, there were 2.5 million registered voters, and 1.6 million voted.

This is why Abbott and Paxton want to take over everything they can in Harris County, with an emphasis on voting.

In Dallas County, in 2020, there were 1.4 million registered voters, and 915,000 voted, so not enough there by itself, and arguably Dallas is not being targeted as hard in general fuckery like Harris is.  Bexar County has about the same amount of non-voters.  Travis has 250,000 who didn’t vote.

Now if Dallas, Harris, Austin, and San Antonio all upped their voter turnout, it would not only flip the state, but do so decisively.

 

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2 minutes ago, tokamak said:

450 people were outside my zoned middle school this morning because HISD is firing the popular principal with no reason given. At this point it’s really hard to see all this as anything other than an effort to tear the district down completely. 

Tear it down, force people into private schools using school vouchers.

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One of the two principals-of-the-year that they fired

https://cw39.com/news/local/hisd-parents-protest-after-crockett-elementary-school-principal-terminated/

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 Based on comments and posts online, Crockett Elementary School’s principal, Dr. Alexis Clark was terminated days ago due to no probable cause. 

This is not the first string of concerns for the Crockett Elementary School community. Staff said that in an emergency staff meeting at the school, Dr. Clark read a script saying that she was being removed. Staff also say that higher-ups were in the room during the statement but refused to answer teacher and staff questions.

Quote

In hopes of their voices being heard, parents and staff gathered yesterday to make signs to use during the protest Monday morning. In a statement to Facebook, the Crockett Community stated “At this time, we need to come together as a community of parents and support our school. We are asking that you all keep your children home on Monday in protest of the firing.

Anger continues to rise from not just parents and students, but from lawmakers over the HISD job cuts. State Rep. Jarvis Johnson (D-Houston) has now joined several groups asking for superintendent Mike Miles to resign.

Meanwhile, the Texas legislature had billions in surplus dollars, and left education dollars (state and federal) on the table that all of these districts could use.  Firing your best principals and a lot of what appears to be random staff/teachers is not how you make up a budget shortfall.

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11 hours ago, Ted Lange said:


 

Texas tax dollars are funding charter schools in Colorado? It never occurred to me that these charter schools are part of companies that go across borders and it’s only an accounting function to move money around.

it should be a criminal act of their leaders to steal tax dollars in that manner.

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12 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Trump beat Biden in Texas by 630,000 votes.

In Harris County, in the 2020 election, there were 2.5 million registered voters, and 1.6 million voted.

This is why Abbott and Paxton want to take over everything they can in Harris County, with an emphasis on voting.

In Dallas County, in 2020, there were 1.4 million registered voters, and 915,000 voted, so not enough there by itself, and arguably Dallas is not being targeted as hard in general fuckery like Harris is.  Bexar County has about the same amount of non-voters.  Travis has 250,000 who didn’t vote.

Now if Dallas, Harris, Austin, and San Antonio all upped their voter turnout, it would not only flip the state, but do so decisively.

 

It's just weird that you single out harris county. It's a Texas wide problem. But becuase techincally there's enouh people to flip a state if 100% voted in Harris, it's a "Harris County Voter Problem." That's fucking stupid, for several reasons, but the largest reason is that there will never be 100% voter turnout. Even if we made voting MANDATORY by law, and ushered in penalties for NOT voting, there still wouldn't be 100% voter turnout. 

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20 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

And Southlake is a really important study because it shows us that modern "Christian Nationalism" and "white supremacy".....

eIxbzM.gif

 

 

Really good thread on this from earlier this morning... Author wrote a new book about the topic.  

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1790332531872546844.html

 

Edited by NWBuck
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13 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

It's just weird that you single out harris county. It's a Texas wide problem. But becuase techincally there's enouh people to flip a state if 100% voted in Harris, it's a "Harris County Voter Problem." That's fucking stupid, for several reasons, but the largest reason is that there will never be 100% voter turnout. Even if we made voting MANDATORY by law, and ushered in penalties for NOT voting, there still wouldn't be 100% voter turnout. 

Abbott has singled out HISD to be the poster child of gut the public system and setup his charter network. HISD is the front line and technically has enough voters to say stop. Abbott has also punished Harris in a personal vendetta for past 4+ years.  I don't think it's weird at all.

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9 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Abbott has singled out HISD to be the poster child of gut the public system and setup his charter network. HISD is the front line and technically has enough voters to say stop. Abbott has also punished Harris in a personal vendetta for past 4+ years.  I don't think it's weird at all.

It's weird that he frames it as Harris County's responsibility to save the rest of Texas. Becuase to overturn these changes would require, literally, a sweep of statewide offices and honestly a fuck ton of individual state representatives. It would need to be a blue wave all over Texas. But, you know, it's Harris County's problem to fix all of Texas. I looked up the voting percentages for Harris and Dallas and the state of Texas from the secretary of State. Give or take a few percentage points, Harris County votes in line with the rest of Texas at about 60% during presidential election years, and around 40% during non-presidential years. Harris County is being attacked vigorously, yes, and maybe that will galvanize voters this election year, we'll see. But at the end of the day, this isn't a uniquely Harris County Problem, it's a Texas problem. And I take some exception with framing it as "Harris County needs to fix the rest of Texas so it can fix HISD" when 1) the expectaiton for 90-100% turnout is wildly unrealistic to the point of absurdity to make this happen and 2) it lets the rest of Texas off the hook. Don't worry, Abbott is going to fuck everyone else too, but lets frame it as a Harris County problem.  

Edited by SydneyCarton
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1 minute ago, SydneyCarton said:

It's weird that he frames it as Harris County's responsibility to save the rest of Texas. Becuase to overturn these changes would require, literally, a sweep of statewide offices and honestly a fuck ton of individual state representatives. It would need to be a blue wave all over Texas. But, you know, it's Harris County's problem to fix all of Texas. I looked up the voting percentages for Harris and Dallas and the state of Texas from the secretary of State. Give or take a few percentage points, Harris County votes in line with the rest of Texas at about 60% during presidential election years, and around 40% during non-presidential years. Harris County is being attacked vigorously, yes, and maybe that will galvanize voters this election year, we'll see. But at the end of the day, this isn't a uniquely Harris County Problem, it's a Texas problem. And I take some exception with framing it as "Harris County needs to fix the rest of Texas so it can fix HISD" when 1) the expectaiton for 90-100% turnout is wildly unrealistic to the point of absurdity to make this happen and 2) it lets the rest of Texas off the hook. Don't worry, Abbot is going to fuck everyone else too, but lets frame it as a Harris County problem.  

You are being a tad touchy. It's not like AB said the Houston Rockets should eat a bag of dicks. He is pointing out the fact that Harris county is the biggest dog voting wise in the state and it's a major reason Harris county has been targeted. AB made it a point that the big 4 cities combined could make a difference with higher turnout.

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2 minutes ago, F250 said:

You are being a tad touchy. It's not like AB said the Houston Rockets should eat a bag of dicks. He is pointing out the fact that Harris county is the biggest dog voting wise in the state and it's a major reason Harris county has been targeted. AB made it a point that the big 4 cities combined could make a difference with higher turnout.

200w.gif

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48 minutes ago, F250 said:

You are being a tad touchy. It's not like AB said the Houston Rockets should eat a bag of dicks. He is pointing out the fact that Harris county is the biggest dog voting wise in the state and it's a major reason Harris county has been targeted. AB made it a point that the big 4 cities combined could make a difference with higher turnout.

[Laughs in voter suppression]

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1 hour ago, F250 said:

You are being a tad touchy. It's not like AB said the Houston Rockets should eat a bag of dicks. He is pointing out the fact that Harris county is the biggest dog voting wise in the state and it's a major reason Harris county has been targeted. AB made it a point that the big 4 cities combined could make a difference with higher turnout.

It's the same energy as when YGIFS suggests all the Democrats need to do is vote for other Republicans in primaries to get Ted Cruz etc. out of office.

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