Voter Suppression and Education

The letter below was shared with me by a friend.  Although we may think that voter suppression does not affect us in education, directly, think about what all the so called "reform" governors are doing to teachers and children by testing and firing and reducing budgets. Think about how the agencies supported by the governors and legislators are affecting how we teach, what we teach, and even that we teach.  Voting for the people who ultimately make the decision is important, even for the presidency. 

A Difficult Journey:  Getting a Required Photo ID

It took a major, cooperative effort of legislators, law enforcement officers and Department of Motor Vehicles officials to score a major accomplishment this week.  No, it didn’t have anything to do with crimes or laws.  I was just trying to help my 86-year-old father get a Virginia-issued photo ID so he can vote.

Dad reluctantly retired from teaching sociology at the University of South Carolina two years ago.   In his words, “We middle-aged people don’t get around as well as we used to.  So he moved to Chesapeake to be closer to his grandchildren.  When Dad got here, it was just as important to him to register to vote, as it was in 1947, when he was a 21-year-old veteran in Alabama.

So, he got settled into a retirement community, with his social security card, his SC driver’s license.    He got his voter registration with no problem.  Then came the 2012 Virginia law -- no photo ID-- no vote. No problem, he said.  “Just take me up to DMV so I can get one."  How hard could it be?

You see, Dad has never had a birth certificate.  In 1926, the mid-wife who delivered him never filed one.  My father is not alone.  Millions of Americans don’t have valid photo IDs, especially seniors.  People over 65 are more likely to lack birth certificates because they were born before recording births was standard procedure.  According to a Brennan Center study, one in five citizens over 65, about 8 million, lacks a current, government-issued ID that many states offer non-driving residents.  My dad actually had a valid driver’s license, but since it was from another state, he still had trouble.

Dad also brought his cherished army discharge papers, hailing the honors he earned serving our country during World War 2.  That usually works.  Gets respect.  Not this time.

Post 9-11. The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles said he had to have an original birth certificate or passport.  Well, Dad had a passport, somewhere.  He has traveled all over the world.  But after moving to Virginia, it was buried in boxes God knows where.  So we went online and applied for a copy of it from the State Department.   $55 and a few weeks later, Dad received it in the mail with an official seal, a signature from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a color copy of Dad’s most recent passport.   Now we thought he had everything he needed.   Wrong again.   Apparently it still didn’t prove his U.S. citizenship to the Virginia DMV.

Fortunately I know the manager of my local DMV, my local delegate, his Legislative Aide and the Special Agent in Charge of Law Enforcement Services for the DMV.  With all of their support and help, we finally got Dad a state-issued photo ID, about two months later!

I appreciate the efforts to protect homeland security.  However, at some point, shouldn’t common sense prevail?  The scary part to me is, what happens to all the other tax-paying American citizens who don’t drive, or have access to transportation, or the internet or time off work?  Would they know who to call?  Will they have a voice?

Bonita Billingsley Harris,

Daughter, Wife, Mother, Proud American in Chesapeake, VA

Stop the crazy "Dump Duncan Movement"

This dump Arne Duncan movement is crazy.  Duncan did not dream up the RTT.  In a serious conversation with him, he probably does not even recognize the inconsistencies with statements made by him or his boss.  In a serious conversation with him he probably does not recognize how bad times two RTT is compared to NCLB.  The American education system is broken and the pieces are being scattered and buried by corporate America.  Education is profitable if you own it.  The product is more profit not educated students or happy workers (teachers).  Why don’t we who claim to support students and teachers get this? Where are the unions who ought to be joining hands with the parents and Put an End to Standardized Testing (PEST) instead of tweaking and twisting something that is designed to be broken, so it can be bought lock, stock, and barrel in the name of reform.  Einstein was right about us who claim to want the best for students and the teachers who teach them, we are insane. Let’s do something different, all sing from the same page in each district, county, and state.  If Texas or Connecticut is protesting, let’s not tweet that they are protesting but start the protest with the same template wherever we are.  Do what I understand the National Rifle Association did with the “Stand Your Ground “Law, start a template movement.  All of us are wiser than individuals in the separate states.  And the fist is mightier than the separate fingers.

Comments on "The Schools Chicago's Students Deserve

I just finished reading, “The Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve, Research-based Proposals to Strengthen Elementary and Secondary Education in the Chicago Public Schools” written by  authors at the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).  It is 55 pages long if you count the eight pages of “endnotes”. It has all the teacher tools: pretty pictures, snappy post-it-notes and plenty of teacher argot. I agree that Chicago students deserve some things that are better in order to educate them, and I even agree with the authors about some of those things. However I am sorely disappointed that the sub-title implies that this is a document based on extant research and not research based on serving the CTU’s purpose, which ultimately turns out to be more money and almost a cry for some top-down intervention.  Oh, I am not so naïve as to think that researchers don’t look for documentation to support their own biases, but I looked for a few citations that provided a different viewpoint, even if the preponderance of the evidence supported CTU’s premises. The lack of opposite viewpoints detracts from the rigor of the report and leaves the field open for researchers to deconstruct the report just enough for us to question the entire report and lose sight of the fact (and it is a fact) that Chicago students do indeed need better schools.

For example, one of the “essential” needs of the students proposed by the CTU is smaller class sizes. As much as we love to hate the curmudgeons against smaller class sizes and particularly Bill Gates who wants to control and privatize all of education, two credible studies should have been examined before CTU declared “despite compelling research….  One of the studies is from Education Week.  The authors stated that “researchers agree that shrinking the number of students in a class does not automatically translate into better learning …..teachers may need to alter their teaching practices” (www.edweek.org/ew/issues/class-size, 2011). The other study was conducted by Dobbie and Freyer (2012), from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).  NBER appears to be a neutral source, although skeptic that I am, I am still trying to determine where it gets its funding.  Dobbie and Freyer put it coherently, concisely and raised more doubt about the effects of class size on achievement

We find that traditionally collected input measures- class size, per pupil expenditure, the fraction of teachers with no certification, and the fraction of teachers with an advanced degree- are not correlated with school effectiveness.  In stark contrast, we show that an index of five policies ---------explains approximately 50 percent of the variance in school effectiveness.

I omitted the five policies because it may show that I need to reevaluate some of my rants.  I want to say I unequivocally support the CTU and what I hope is a sincere desire to get the best for our students’ education.  However, perhaps we need to look at some of the literature about how to educate children of color, the majority in Chicago Public Schools.  But then again, that is not the job of a union.

What Now My Silent Friends?

I spent a lot of time figuring out what was perhaps the most important topic of the day and of course with education being attacked from every quarter, there isn't a most. The education situation is like a pipe with small holes and no amount of epoxy will close all of them so the pipe keeps leaking. However, I persist and this time I will join the crowd and talk about President Obama's Race to the Top (RTT) for higher education.
 *  Setting Responsible Tuition Policy:  Colleges have to keep their costs down, provide a quality education,
    prepare graduates for jobs to pay back their loans and enroll higher numbers of low income students. Or else!
Tall order when states are in budget crisis, jobs are non existent and low income students can't afford to go to college without federal aid that will be lowered at the institutions they attend because lower income students, particularly students of color graduate at lower rates. Huh?
*  RTT for higher education.  Colleges get rewarded if the states create "systemic reforms" and compete for
    funds that help "kids" graduate on time. And besides, RTT for schools has already worked so well that 19
    states now better educate 22 million students for less than one percent of the total education spending.
The states that received the RTT money so far needed to bribe the Teacher Unions, create (buy more standardized tests) and start talking about evaluation of teachers with tests based on standardized test scores of their students some of whom some teachers never teach! There's more to come tomorrow, but join PEST (Put an End to Standardized Testing), speak out, and read the marvelous "Letter to the President" by psychologist Robert Sternberg http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/01/30/open-letter-president-obama-his-plans-deal-tuition-increases

Status of Black Students in Illinois Universities

Of the 12 public universities in Illinois, three have reached parity( % of Black Students as in the Illinois population-14.5%)population; three have Black graduation rates above 50% in six years; One has Black tenured faculty above 8% and none has more than 3% Black faculty as a proportion to Black students.

Is this enough to make legislators, administrators, educators, and interested lay people wonder where all the money to support "so called minority initiatives" is going and what good it's doing!!

More on the Status in the next blog

The Way to Segregate Chicago Style

As far as I can tell after trying to go through the report cards Chicago Public Schools submitted to the Illinois State Board of Education, there are at this moment (January 4, at 3:15 P.M.) 21 full four year Charter high schools.  Only one has White students it reports.  Only two have more than half of their 11th graders meeting or exceeding state reading standards.  None that reported has students who score at or above the state average ACT composite (20.6).  None reports the actual teacher qualifications, but use the statistics reported by the District (42.4% White; 19.5% Black; 14.2 % Hispanic & 3.3% Asian), with average teacher salaries of $71,000, and average administrators' salaries of $111,000.  You can't blame the corporations for wanting in on some of these dollars.