Wisconsin Voter ID Law Struck Down by Court

Wednesday, March 14, 2012 by Common Dreams
A Wisconsin law that requires voters present a photo ID when voting, was struck down by a Wisconsin Court today. Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess ruled that the law, signed by Walker in May of 2011, violated the Constitution.

"Without question, where it exists, voter fraud corrupts elections and undermines our form of government," wrote Niess in his decision. "The legislature and governor may certainly take aggressive action to prevent its occurrence. But voter fraud is no more poisonous to our democracy than voter suppression. Indeed, they are two heads on the monster."

Gov. Scott Walker said he would appeal the decision and vowed to continue to fight for a photo ID requirement in the voting booth.

* * *

From the Huffington Post.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed the voter ID bill into law in May, calling it a "common sense reform" that would "go a long way to protecting the integrity of elections in Wisconsin." 

"It’s a shame activist Dane County judges continue to stand in the way of common sense," said Cullen Werwie, a spokesman for Walker. "We are confident the state will prevail in its plan to implement photo ID." 

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen (R) said he plans to appeal the decision. 

"In its rush to enact a Voter ID law, the Wisconsin Legislature failed to pay attention to the Wisconsin Constitution. Luckily, the League of Women Voters had the courage to stand up and defend the fundamental right to vote that our constitution guarantees," said Pines. "The proponents of Voter ID assert that it is meant to prevent fraud. We all know the truth: it is designed to suppress voting by poor people and students. Now, in Wisconsin, that will not happen." 

This is the second time in two days that such a law was struck down. Yesterday, a similar law in Texas was blocked by the Justice Department. Activists are hailing the curbing of these laws as a victory for minority communities that, many argue, would be disproportionately impacted by this kind of legislation.

Corporate Education Reform Has Turned Kids into Commodities

Monday, December 26, 2011 by Miami Herald

by Fred Grimm 

 

Compared to modern school kids, I was a downright worthless student.

I don’t mean worthless as a pejorative. (My father would have used a more colorful term to characterize my scholarly pursuits.) But worthless as a commodity. Us kids at Montrose Elementary School weren’t making anyone rich. Not like today’s pupils, particularly those in Florida, who’ve become valuable cogs in a burgeoning industry.

Such precious little dummies, these wayward students. Their benighted ways in the classroom have given rise to a recession-proof enterprise. To a no-lose sort of capitalism.

Educational entrepreneurs (some backed by Wall Street hedge funds who know a sure thing when they see it) have figured out how to make millions without the usual risks of the marketplace, drilling for profits in the ever lucrative field of school reform.

No Child Left Behind, President Bush’s 2001 education reform package, since embraced by President Obama, may have forced needed attention onto failing schools, but the law also created an extraordinary new industry funded exclusively with public money.

The NCLB mandate for standardized tests requires the nation’s public schools to administer some 50 million tests annually, costing some $700 million a year, most of that money going to corporations that create and publish the tests, score the results and provide “interpretive, descriptive, and diagnostic reports.” Since I was a school boy, testing costs have risen by 3,000 percent. And so too has the opportunity to make a buck.

Requirements to provide free tutors for faltering students set off another frenzy among education entrepreneurs, wanting a chunk of the $900 million a year the federal government provides for extra help. This sort of business opportunity led to an interesting lead paragraph in a New York Times story: “Tutoring companies, rushing to tap into money available under the federal No Child Left Behind law, offered New York City principals thousands of dollars for school projects, doled out gift certificates to students and hired several workers with criminal backgrounds.”

The school system’s chief investigator, Richard Condon “described a climate of intense competition for the federal money as companies wooed both principals, who control access to space within their buildings for the after-school tutoring sessions, and prospective students, whose participation is directly linked to the companies’ gains.”

Perhaps, the tutoring companies were just caught up in an altruistic fervor for school reform.

The charter school movement set off another entrepreneurial frenzy, particularly in Florida, which now has 519 charters, 200 of them in Broward and Miami-Dade. Maybe charters and parental choice make for better overall education. I don’t know. There’s conflicting data.

Certainly, many do a passable job with their students, though it’s tough to tell whether they offer a superior brand of education compared to traditional public schools.

Maybe charter operators are just savvy marketers, who know how to avoid difficult students who could bring down the overall test scores and damage the school brand. The Herald’s series on the charter movement last week revealed some discomfiting statistics indicating some of the more successful charters in Miami-Dade indulge in clever cherry picking.

But the long range effect of luring away high achievers from traditional schools would result in something quite the opposite from the original goals of the Bush school reforms. The kids left behind by No Child Left Behind would be the very children, most of them poor, that the reforms were supposed to rescue.

“When you’ve siphoned away all the successful kids, only poor kids will go to public schools,” warned Diane Ravitch, a longtime voice for reform and a chronicler of failed reforms (which you might have guessed from the title of her most recent book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education). She said public schools, if the charter system isn’t fixed, will evolve into repositories for the unwanted, where we train poor kids to take the big test. Not to learn.

The Miami Herald’s series, Cashing In On Kids, by Kathleen McGrory and Scott Hiaasen, charted how so much public money going into these nominally non-profit ventures finds its way into the accounts of for-profit management companies. And how the operators of the management companies often double as the charter school’s landlords. Sometimes you’re not sure whether to call these people educators or real estate profiteers.

Ravitch said that even in states that outlaw for-profit management companies, the supposedly non-profit charter school operators hire for-profit subcontractors. “People have figured out that this is a great entrepreneurial opportunity.” She confessed to a “visceral dislike” of for-profit corporations running public-funded schools. “I worry that their first obligation is to the shareholders, not to students.”

But if you’re bothered by the money grubbing ways of the education reform movement, too bad. They’ve got money (thanks to NCLB) to write campaign contributions. They’ve got money to hire lobbyists. They’ve got the political juice. And you don’t.

Online education offers the next big cache of public millions available to the education industry. (We’re already supposed to believe that Florida kids can undergo the rigors of a physical education class through an online course.) So what if online students don’t learn much without a teacher there to keep them from slipping over to Facebook? Stay-at-home kids are the hot, new commodity on the education market. No rent. No heating bills. No janitorial staff. No zoning controversies. No fights in the hallways. Lots of money for software and computer-ready courses and online charter schools with plenty left over to keep the stockholders happy.

The education reform industrial complex regards virtual students, sitting at home in their underwear, as a business opportunities. Call it dollars for dullards.

Who Wins, Who Loses in the Debt Deal...

George Zornick - The Nation

August 1, 2011  

Congress might pass a debt deal this week that would raise the debt ceiling into 2013 and reduce government spending by $2.5 trillion. After all the debate over who would be affected—or not—what does the final policy scoreboard say?

In short, it’s a rout of the lower and middle classes by the wealthiest Americans. Since the deal relies entirely on spending cuts with no revenues—don’t believe the White House spin that revenues are possible, because that would require Republicans to suddenly desire them—the wealthy escape any sacrifice since very few of them rely on the government services that will be cut.

Rather, as Brookings Institution senior fellow William G. Gale writes, “Low- and middle-class households have seen stagnating or declining earnings over the past few decades, and they have been hit hard in the Great Recession by the housing market collapse and the job market collapse. Now, they are being asked to shoulder—via spending reductions—all of the fiscal reduction agreed to so far.” (Yes, that Brookings Institution).

How specific cuts will be determined, and who exactly is affected, is still hard to know. The deal truly “kicks the can down the road,” in the overused Washington parlance. The $917 billion in “immediate” cuts are not really immediate, nor enumerated. Federal spending will operate under caps over the next ten years equal to $917 billion less than what was projected, but the exact areas of reduction are unknown and obviously depend quite a bit on political outcomes. The caps are relatively modest until 2013, and a Republican Congress with a budget proposal from President Rick Perry would make much a different decision about where to cut than would Obama, Pelosi and Reid.

Then, $1.5 trillion in additional cuts will be determined by a so-called super committee of six Democrats and six Republicans. Entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are subject to “across-the-board” cuts here, and if no agreement is reached by November 23, a “trigger” will be pulled, with the gun aimed squarely at senior citizens and the Pentagon.

So there are a lot of permutations for these cuts—but make no mistake about who is exposed, and who isn’t. Cuts are guaranteed, revenue is not. Here’s a quick rundown of the larger bill:

Who is exposed:

Veterans: Almost half of the first round of cuts will come from “security spending,” which includes the Pentagon budget but also the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and notably veterans benefits and compensation. The White House assured veterans they won’t be harmed if the trigger is pulled, but did not assure them they are safe from any of the preceding cuts. More than 2.2 million veterans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since September 11, 2001, many of whom have been seriously injured and require extensive care. The Disabled Veterans of America already has said it is “anxious” to see how these spending cuts are assembled.

Students: Graduate students would be the hardest hit, as the bill proposes an elimination of the interest subsidy on federal student loans for “almost all” of them. This means that beginning July 1, 2012, grad students will be responsible for the interest on their loans while in school and during any subsequent deferment period. Also, while the federal government currently offers subsidies for on-time payments in order to promote responsible pay-backs, they will be eliminated under the debt ceiling deal. Also, education accounts for the largest share of non-defense discretionary spending. It’s nearly inconceivable that budget-cutters won’t target that juicy budget line in making their cuts.

Seniors: As noted, Medicare is subject to across-the-board cuts in the super-committee, and if the trigger is pulled, provider payments will be slashed—though only up to 2 percent. The makeup of the super-committee and outside-the-Beltway campaigns to protect Medicare will determine a lot about the degree of cuts, but remember that inside the Beltway, the “left” side of the debate has been defined by President Obama and the Gang of Six as raising the eligibility age to 67 and/or $500 billion in cuts. So this probably won’t end well.

The poor: Again, Medicaid will be subject to cuts by the super-committee. The Republican position, articulated in the Ryan budget, is a devastating 35 percent reduction in the next ten years, even as health costs rise. (However, Medicaid is protected from any cuts if the trigger should go off). Beyond that, federal housing assistance is the fourth largest slice of non-defense discretionary spending and is thus a likely target for cuts.

The unemployed: Unlike what happened during the December showdown over the Bush tax cuts, the White House was unable (or unwilling) to secure any extension of help for the jobless. That December extension will expire at the end of this year, and this was one of the last best shots to make sure that 3.8 million people won’t lose their benefits at that point.

Who’s protected:

The wealthy: Up until very recently, Obama and most Democrats were demanding that wealthy Americans pony up for some deficit reduction. The demands were admittedly narrow, and focused on itemized deductions on people who owned private jets or multiple homes—but both groups are exempted from sacrifice under the current deal. The super-committee could theoretically approve tax increases, including ending those loopholes, but House Speaker John Boehner has already sworn  that won’t happen, and it’s tough not to believe that. If the Republicans on the committee refuse to back down on revenues, as they have in every recent negotiation, Democrats on the committee will be facing Medicare-slashing trigger unless they acquiesce—as they have in every recent negotiation.

Wall Street tycoons: In his budget proposal earlier this year, Obama recommended taxing the profit share of private equity managers, venture capitalists and other Wall Street high-rollers at the ordinary personal income tax rate, instead of at the smaller capital gains rate. No such deal was struck under the current bill, so these mega-rich traders won’t spend a penny reducing the deficit—again, unless Boehner undergoes a religious experience and appoints pro-tax, anti–Wall Street Republicans to the super-committee. (He’d have to spend a long time looking first).

Oil and gas companies: Obama repeatedly demanded that oil and gas companies lose their tax breaks, since they are raking in record profits and enjoy many deductions and subsidies in the tax code. “If we choose to keep a tax break for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of millions of dollars, that means we’ve got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship [and] that means we’ve got to stop funding grants for medical research,” Obama said in June. Since those tax breaks were preserved, in hindsight that soundbite was of a prediction than a warning.  

U.S. schools: grooming students for a surveillance state

August 28, 2010 by Dissent

Schools are increasingly invading student privacy both in school and outside of school. Are schools grooming youth to passively accept a surveillance state where they have no expectation of privacy anywhere? A PogoWasRight.org commentary.

The increasing use of student surveillance and intrusion of school districts into students’ extra-curricular conduct should alarm us all. Whether it is a district surveilling students in their bedrooms via webcam, conducting random drug or locker searches, strip-searching students, lowering the standard for searching students to “reasonable suspicion” from “probable cause,” disciplining students for conduct outside of school hours, searching their cellphones and text messages, or allegedly forcing them to undergo pregnancy testing, student privacy is under increasing threat.

The other day I mentioned a Connecticut school district that wanted to require students to carry an ID card with an RFID chip so that they could track their location. The surveillance capability included locating the student if they were off school premises and in town. Today, I came across another news story from earlier this month that also involves tracking students. KTVU in California reported that the Contra Costa County School District began introducing a tracking system for preschool students that would alert staff when a student leaves school premises. In order to accomplish that, students will reportedly be required to wear a jersey that contains the RFID tag that uses Wi-Fi to send signals to sensors located throughout the school.

I realize that some might argue that these are just little pre-schoolers and of course, we want to protect their safety, etc., but keep in mind that one of the major justifications for the program is to save staff time in terms of having to manually record attendance, etc. In exchange for that time and cost-saving, what price do we pay psychologically as a society? It strikes me that schools are grooming our youth to simply accept being tracked and monitored wherever they go and that anything they do, anywhere, can be used against them in school or elsewhere.

Is this really how we want to raise our children? To be sheep who accept being tracked and who have little sense of privacy or entitlement to privacy?

A study released last year by Fordham Law’s Center on Law and Information Privacy found that the education sector was not doing enough to protect the privacy of student information. It did not, however, look at the question of whether schools were actually invading student privacy and systematically eroding student privacy rights and autonomy. It’s time for a national dialogue about student privacy, while there are still some remnants of it left.

Criminalizing First-Graders

Arrested and Handcuffed for Tantrums
By CHRISTOPHER BRAUCHLI

If you’re going to be six years old at some point in your life (and most of my readers have probably moved beyond that point) it is important to (a) carefully select where you choose to live and (b) behave. This is all brought to mind by a recent mailing from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describing a lawsuit it has filed on behalf of a 6-year old called J.W.

J.W. attends the Sarah T. Reed Elementary School in New Orleans, is four feet tall and weighs 60 pounds. He is not unfailingly polite. Indeed, on two occasions in May he was downright rude. On the first occasion he talked back to a teacher. Realizing that such activity could lead to a full-scale insurrection by 6-year olds if permitted to go unpunished, J.W. was arrested, handcuffed and shackled to a chair. (Nothing was stuffed in his mouth so he could, in theory at least, have continued talking back.) J.W. did not learn from this episode. In less than a week, he was involved in an argument with another 6-year old over who could sit in a given chair in the lunchroom. J.W. was on the losing side of that argument and was once again handcuffed and shackled to a chair.

The effect on J.W. has not been what school officials had hoped. Being trained educators they had been taught that using those techniques on six-year olds would not only help the 6-year olds see the errors of their ways but would eliminate the need for water boarding or other forms of discipline when the children were older. They were wrong. His parents say that he is now afraid of school, the police and teachers and is completely withdrawn. School officials explained that the arrest and restraints imposed were required under school rules. The educators may have help in changing the rules. The Southern Poverty Law Center, has filed a class action lawsuit alleging that the school principal and other officials had “provided a clear directive to all employees. . . that students were to be arrested and handcuffed if they failed to comply with school rules.” There’s no way of knowing how that suit will turn out but thanks to the behavior of a student and school officials in a school in Dade County, Florida, we may have a clue.

Isiah Allen got in trouble on October 20,2004. Isiah was six years old, three feet five inches tall and weighed fifty-three pounds. He allegedly behaved disruptively in class and was taken to the principal’s office for misbehaving. Instead of standing contritely he had a tantrum and consequently was locked in the principal’s office. While alone he smashed a picture frame. Upon hearing the glass break the adults re-entered the room and found Isiah standing motionless in a corner holding a piece of broken glass. When the police arrived he was still standing there. Unresponsive to the police officer’s ministrations it was finally decided the best way to handle the situation was to taser Isiah. He was, according to the complaint that was filed in the court case, tasered with 50,000 volts and handcuffed while vomiting. The taserers were sued and in due course the case got to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals that concluded that if the alleged facts were proved “the unlawfulness of the conduct was readily apparent to an official in the shoes of these officers.” (There is no report of what happened when the case went back to the trial court.) Our final example of how tough it is to be a six-year old is again brought to us courtesy of Florida. The child in this case, Haley Shalansky, was neither tasered nor shackled.

Haley was a 6-years old student at Parkway Elementary in Port St. Lucie, Florida weighing only 37 pounds. According to the sheriff’s officer Haley was asked to do something by her teacher, became upset and stormed out of the classroom. Her behavior was a ticket to the principal’s office where she had a tantrum and, according to the sheriff’s incident report: “kicked the wall, went over to the desk and threw the calculator, electric pencil sharpener, telephone, container of writing utensils and other objects across the desk.” She was handcuffed and taken away in a police car.

The next day she again had a tantrum in class but this time was taken away and committed to a mental health facility. The school says the parents have missed many scheduled meetings to discuss Haley’s behavioral problems. The lesson for the parents is obvious. If you miss enough meetings with school officials when summoned, your child may end up in a mental health facility.

Describing its reason for getting involved in J.W.’s case SPLC explains that: “All across the nation, schools have adopted draconian ‘zero-tolerance policies that treat children like criminals and turn schools into prison-like environments.” Based on the foregoing, it is hard to argue with that conclusion.

More fallout from the Texas Board of Education & textbooks

Texas Says Hip Hop is Not a Significant Cultural Movement

By TOLO OLORUNDA

They don’t know who we be
They don’t know who we be

—DMX, “Who We Be,” The Great Depression (2001).

[O]nly a small percentage of people … have a genuine concern for Hip-Hop.

—Chuck D, Fight the Power: Rap, Race, and Reality

It’s been 30 full years since the cultural force known today as Hip-Hop mushroomed out of the ghettoes of South Bronx and spread over the surface of the earth, but nobody could have claimed, back then, to foresee the journeys Hip-Hop would take or the magnitude of a legacy it would build through those journeys. It was simply impossible for a gang of hopeless, crime-prone Black and Brown saps to set off a cultural explosion that in little over two decades boasted a multi-billion dollar empire. It’s easy today to look back and reminisce with great pleasure (and displeasure), but the founding fathers and mothers of Hip-Hop had no idea what trail they were blazing would one day make many multi millionaires or create such intense international dialogue and debate.

More importantly, they couldn’t foretell, even through all the struggle and strife that produced this remarkable phenomenon, that very few would have the courtesy—nay, the human decency—to acknowledge its place and time in history as a moving mass of artistic genius. Last Friday, the Texas Board of Education cast its lot amongst those unconvinced Hip-Hop deserves the light of public recognition.

In a controversial—really whitewashed—draft of the state’s high school social studies curriculum, Hip-Hop as a significant cultural contribution failed to meet the mark, as conservatives struck out, on multiple counts, attempts to add Hip-Hop to the list of noteworthy cultural creations in American history. “Experts had recommended students study the impact of cultural movements in art, music and literature, such as Tin Pan Alley, the Beat Generation, rock and roll, the Chicano Mural Movement, country-western music and hip-hop,” reported The Houston Chronicle. “The board's seven social conservatives, joined by Geraldine ‘Tincy’ Miller, R-Dallas, considered some of the hip-hop lyrics offensive and voted to eliminate hip- hop as an option for students to consider.”

Hip-Hop, however, made some good friends at the party, as Thomas Jefferson, the word “democratic,” and references to religious tolerance also fell under the red inks of the Republican and conservative members on the board whose sense of history stands somewhere between the pages of McCarthyism and Reaganomics. Texas students, if this measure is finalized in May, would learn some strange stuff of their country and world. They would learn that Hispanics hardly count as having any social relevance in American history—and neither do just about all non-White people. They would learn that their country is God-given and can do no wrong—and never has. They would learn that if not for conscionable and courageous conservatives, Black people might still be hanging half-burnt from trees and denied suffrage. They would learn that the Black Panther Party was a violent and fascistic mob with eyes cocked at social destruction. And, of course, they would learn next to nothing of the global force for political and social advocacy that is Hip-Hop. In short, they would learn White History to an H.

… Man, this history don't acknowledge us

We were scholars long before colleges

This notion that all Hip-Hop artists wallow in the wasteland of gutter talk certainly brings to bear baggage of the past. From the early ‘90s on, political leaders lived high off the curiosity Hip-Hop aroused in society. From congressional hearings to TV panels to newspaper columns, the fix was in—Hip-Hop dominated the national dialogue. Everyone had a say and couldn’t remain tight-lipped long enough to ponder its accuracy. What is Hip-Hop? When was Hip-Hop conceived? Why is Hip-Hop relevant? Why do White kids love Hip-Hop so much? Very few could answer; but far more wanted to—and did—weigh in.

Commentators and critics divvied up Hip-Hop into categories—“Gangsta,” “Commercial,” “Mainstream,” “Underground,” “Good,” “Bad.” But the scale showed it bias—public figures shamed “Gangsta” and “Commercial” Hip-Hop for exploiting social maladies and repackaging trauma and glamorizing violence and fetishizing fatalism. Black activists invited TV cameras to special sessions where stock of Hip-Hop CDs cracked under their trampling boots and the crushing tires of farm tractors. Still, very few voices of conscience made headway as the debates ratcheted.

And though even fewer flew to the defense of this great contribution to society—contribution without which a whole generation might have lacked meaning—the full swath and broad bath of Hip-Hop still remains unknown to most, especially those quick to mouth off about how bad and despicable and vile and endangering Rap lyrics are. And the reason why lacks no mystery—for a generation raised on the terror of Reagonomics and brought to life in an age where their humanities had dollar signs written all over, the pent-up rage that found refuge through the mic didn’t do well to please authority figures.

And for all the attacks lobbed at Hip-Hop through time, most evident has been the belief that Hip-Hop artists have no leg to stand on in attacking society for the problems they believe it created for those they represent—those torn apart by racism and classism. You lack the credentials, society is quick to fire back. Your concerns are as valuable as a toad’s croak. But Hip-Hop artists have remained effervescent in demanding dignity from this society, refusing to let the bellicose barrage take hold and stomp out their message or mission. Through all the storms and static, they still find this their responsibility—to hold the feet of the rich and powerful to the fire, and to speak loud for the oppressed and underserved.

Perhaps this very fact—that Hip-Hop at its best lifts the voices of the unloved and rejected, of the displaced and dispossessed—is what makes the culture so threatening and so scrutiny-served, and this is what must be kept from the hearts of schoolchildren even as they listen to Hip-Hop artists, some of whom, it should be admitted, stray far away from any forms of advocacy for the meek and muted, the weak and wasted—the wretched of the earth, to invoke Franz Fanon.

Grace Wiggins, executive director of United Sisters, an E-mentoring program focused on females ages 14-18, says she “can understand the disdain for the music,” as modern forms of Hip-Hop have largely failed to “demonstrate the qualities it once had—so I think we have the leaders in Hip-Hop to thank for taking away the significance of Hip-Hop and not having it taught as a part of history.” Hip-Hop since its inception, Wiggins contends, has morphed from an ant-sized social service agent to a “giant hungry only for the top of the charts and skilled in leading our children into believing that there are no consequences for our actions—only rewards.”

Wiggins also manages a listenership campaign, Listen 2the Lyrics, through which United Sisters hosts “After School Listening Sessions” to empower young female Hip-Hop fans in putting what they hear in critical perspectives. She says the Texas ruling only pumps up the volume why initiatives like Listen 2the Lyrics matter: “This decision only further makes our project relevant to our community and society, as Hip-Hop is no longer just influencing minds in the city—it has made it across seas and has become multicultural and a language that the youth listen to and understand.”

Prolific author and scholar Tricia Rose, PhD, insists the decision “represents a specific attack on Hip-Hop, one that has been going on since its inception,” but also “reflects a general ignorance about, marginalization of, and hostile disregard for, the contributions of African-Americans—intellectual, political, social and culture—to the United States.”

And such undervaluing, Rose warns, “is a terrible mis-education of our youth about the complex ways that new cultural expressions come into being.” Hip-Hop’s reach extends beyond beats and rhymes, she adds. It has “empowered and inspired people around the world for over 30 years. To rob young U.S. citizens of their knowledge about this art form is an educational disservice and a sign that there is still a whole lot of work to be done when it comes to educating people about African-American culture.”

Rose, whose acclaimed work on Hip-Hop culture and music includes books like Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America and The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop—and Why It Matters, can bear witness to “disregard, disinterest and evasion” of Hip-Hop within the academy. Hip-Hop theory often takes flesh in forms of “fun scholarship,” many detractors scowl. But at stake is the “general incapacity to properly understand, interpret and appreciate the creative and intellectual contributions” Black people have produced on these shores. “Let’s not forget,” Rose reminds, “that Jazz, Blues and other musical forms continue to remain marginal in music departments and in school curriculums generally.”

“Even more importantly,” she says, “all black cultural forms suffer from misunderstanding because the larger cultural contexts out of which they come are not studied and thus we create uneducated cultural consumers.” If students learned early on the value and virtue of Hip-Hop, and understood the responsibility to consume critically, it would set their feet firmly forever because, as Rose point out, “I find that once you know something, you can’t un-know it.”

But perhaps the Texas Board of Education has a few lessons to teach the Hip-Hop community, amongst which must be that an uneducated mind is a terrible thing to flaunt.

***

Texas BOE Throws Thomas Jefferson Down the Memory Hole
US NEWS | Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 9:06:34 am PST

In Texas, the State Board of Education, packed with Republican creationists and “social conservatives” by Governor Rick Perry, voted to take Texas schoolchildren back into the Dark Ages.

Kids in Texas public schools will no longer be taught about one of the greatest political philosophers in American history, Thomas Jefferson. That’s right. They removed Thomas Jefferson from the curriculum — replacing him with religious right icon John Calvin. There’s no mystery about why they did this, either; among the founding fathers, Jefferson was one of the strongest advocates for the separation of church and state, and that’s exactly what these cretins are trying to reverse.

And the removal of Jefferson is not all, not by a long shot. Also thrown down the memory hole: the Enlightenment, (which was the nexus of the age of science--jp)

What’s going on in Texas is a genuine outrage; a frightening example of what happens when religious fanatics get into positions of power.

Texas Freedom Network live-blogged the hearings, in horror: Blogging the Social Studies Debate IV.

The latest update:

12:38 – Let the word go out here: The Texas State Board of Education today refused to require that students learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from promoting one religion over all others. They voted to lie to students by omission.