THE SHAME OF BALTIMORE'S SCHOOLS
How the Democrats destroyed public education in Charm City.
July 31, 2019
Editors' note: It was a typical weekend in American politics. President Trump told the truth about a failed congressional Democrat who for 23 years has represented the constituents of one of America's most inhospitable cities, and the Democrats responded by doing the only thing they really know how to do: smearing Trump as a racist. “Congressman Elijah Cummings has done a very poor job for his district and the City of Baltimore,” said Trump, calling it a city that “ranks last in almost every major category.” In a report about this latest dustup, NBC News said: “It was not clear what set of statistics Trump was referencing.”
The uncertainty of the Democrat mouthpieces at NBC is somewhat understandable, since there is in fact a host of statistics that show why, as Trump also said, “no human being would want to live” in Baltimore. Perhaps the president was referencing the fact that Baltimore has the fifth highest murder rate of any city in the United States. Or maybe he had in mind the city’s astounding 22 percent poverty rate. Or perhaps he was thinking of Baltimore’s violent crime rate, which is more than 5 times higher than the national average.
Or maybe President Trump was reflecting on the multitudinous failings of the Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) system, which are laid bare in Shame of the Schools, John Perazzo's pamphlet for the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
As Perazzo points out, BCPS currently spends an astronomical $16,000 per year in taxpayer funds on each K-12 student in its jurisdiction, a figure that is more than a third higher than the national average. And what do Baltimore's children and their taxpaying parents get in return for those expenditures? A student population where a paltry 11 to 13 percent of all youngsters from fourth grade through high school are able to read or do mathematics with proficiency. As Perazzo notes in Shame of the Schools, 13 of the city's 39 public high schools had no students at all—zero! —who scored as “proficient” on a math exam administered by the state of Maryland in one recent school year. Still more amazingly, six Baltimore schools did not have even a single student who tested as “proficient” in either math or English.
One area where the Baltimore school system ranks quite high, however, is in the number of personnel who earn six-figure incomes. Indeed, there are thousands of individuals affiliated with BCPS—mostly consultants, contractors, and administrators—who are paid in excess of $100,000 per year.
Shame of the Schools demonstrates that President Trump’s remarks about Baltimore were right on target. And thatis why the Democrats are so angry.
Below is the chapter about the Baltimore public school system, from Shame of the Schools. [To order the pamphlet: CLICK HERE.]
* * *
In the post-Civil War era, Baltimore, which had been founded in 1729, became an industrial giant. By the 1880s, it was the world’s largest supplier of oysters, America’s leader in canned fruits and vegetables, and the nation's top importer of guano, a key ingredient in the fertilizer that became vital to the productivity of the farms along the Chesapeake Bay during that era. As of 1880, Baltimore was home to 27 factories that together produced some 280,000 tons of fertilizer each year. From 1850-1900, the city's population tripled, from 169,000 to 509,000. And between 1881 and 1895, the number of corporations based in Baltimore grew from 39 to more than 200.[1]
By the turn of the 20th century, Baltimore's economic and business environment was thriving as never before. BaltimoreCity.gov describes what life in the city was like at that time: “Hundreds of passenger trains were funneled through its five railroad stations; 13 trust companies controlled large areas of Baltimore manufacturing; 21 national banks and 9 local banks controlled Baltimore’s financial interests; 13 steamship companies were engaged in coastal trading; and 6 steamship companies connected Baltimore to foreign ports.” Moreover, the city was one of the world's leading manufacturers of chrome, copper, and steel products. It also became the world’s largest producer of umbrellas, and a major center of garment manufacturing.[2]
As word of the abundant employment opportunities in Baltimore spread far-and-wide, large numbers of jobless rural southerners migrated there to find work. In large part because of this, the city's population grew from 558,500 to nearly 734,000 between 1910-20. This trend continued through the World War II era, when various types of Baltimore factories were refitted to produce whatever items the war effort required—e.g., tanks, jeeps, airplanes, and superfortress bombers.[3]
In the 1950s, Baltimore was home to a host of thriving industries—particularly manufacturing and shipping—which created some three-fourths of all the jobs held by people in its metropolitan region.[4] The city's residents had a median income that was 7% higher than the national median; the percentage of Baltimore families earning middle-class wages was about one-fifth higher than in the U.S. as a whole; and the proportion of Baltimoreans living in poverty was roughly one-fifth lower than the corresponding national figure.[5]
Throughout these decades of prosperity, Baltimore's political leadership shifted back-and-forth between Democrats and Republicans. Of the 16 men who served as mayor between 1895 and 1967, nine were Democrats and seven were Republicans.
But in 1967, control of Baltimore's government was taken over by Thomas D'Alesandro, the first of a series of eight Democratic mayors who have continually held power, without interruption, ever since. In those more than five decades, Baltimore’s industry and productivity have disappeared, while poverty and crime have become its growth industries. The city’s residents today have a median household income that is roughly 40% below Maryland's state average, and a 21.9% poverty rate that is 1.7 times the national average.[6] Meanwhile, the violent crime rate in Baltimore is currently 4.6 times higher than the national average—a figure that includes astronomical rates of murder (10 times the national average) and robbery (8 times the national average).[7]
During this Democrat-dominated epoch, Baltimore has also developed one of the worst public school systems in American history, as reflected by the fact that students throughout the city consistently register National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores that rank among the nation's lowest. In 2015, for example, NAEP results showed that only 11% of Baltimore's fourth-graders and 13% of its eighth-graders were able to read with proficiency, whereas the corresponding national figures were 35% and 32%, respectively.[8] In math, the proficiency rate for Baltimore's fourth- and eighth-graders alike was 12%, while the national rates were 39% for fourth graders and 32% for eight graders.[9]
The situation is no better at the high-school level. According to a 2017 report by investigative journalist Chris Papst of Project Baltimore, a long-term study of public education in Maryland, the reading proficiency rate among Baltimore High School graduates is about 11%, while their math proficiency is near 12%.[10] The same study found that in 2016, fully 13 of the city's 39 public high schools had no students at all—zero—who were “proficient” in math, while another 6 schools had student bodies where only 1% of all pupils tested as “proficient” in math. To state the foregoing facts in raw numbers, a mere 14 of the 3,804 students who were tested in these 19 schoolsdisplayed mathematical proficiency. Moreover, six Baltimore schools had zero students who tested as “proficient” in either the math or English exam administered by the state.[11]
Notwithstanding these abysmal competency scores, the Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) system churns out high-school graduates at a fairly brisk pace. Roughly 70% of its students earn a diploma, although they are largely illiterate and unable to perform even basic mathematical tasks. For instance, at Frederick Douglass High School, which boasted an 87% graduation rate, only 1 of the 185 students who in 2016 were tested in math, registered a score high enough to qualify as “proficient” in that subject. Critics have pointed out the obvious: that Baltimore schools distribute worthless diplomas to deflect from the fact that teachers don’t teach and students don’t learn.[12]
One of the major underlying causes of this unpleasant reality was made evident in a May 2017 Fox News reportexploring the reasons why the high-school graduation rate for BCPS students had increased dramatically, from 61% to nearly 71%, between 2010 and 2017. “In Maryland,” Fox explained, “there are two ways to graduate. The traditional way of earning credits and passing tests, or the Bridge Plan. Bridge started in 2007, and according to the Department of Education, it was intended for students with disabilities, test anxiety and English Language Learners. It’s not a test, but rather a project that students complete to get a diploma.”[13]
Whereas in 2009, about 20% of Baltimore City High School graduates earned their diplomas via the Bridge Plan, by 2015 that figure had risen to 37%⸺nearly 4 times higher than the statewide average. One Baltimore school, the Renaissance Academy, currently graduates 73% of its students through Bridge, a figure that has grown more than fourfold since 2014. Former Baltimore City Council member Carl Stokes, who now serves as CEO of the Banneker Blake Charter School (in Baltimore), says that the Bridge program was originally “intended for a limited number of students” but has now become essentially a way “to inflate the graduation rates.” “What the school system is telling us,” Stokes adds, “is that they [the schools] are doing a very, very poor job of educating students, academically. And [the students] are not prepared to get their diploma the standard way.”[14]
In a September 2017 op-ed piece, black intellectual Armstrong Williams writes:
By the turn of the 20th century, Baltimore's economic and business environment was thriving as never before. BaltimoreCity.gov describes what life in the city was like at that time: “Hundreds of passenger trains were funneled through its five railroad stations; 13 trust companies controlled large areas of Baltimore manufacturing; 21 national banks and 9 local banks controlled Baltimore’s financial interests; 13 steamship companies were engaged in coastal trading; and 6 steamship companies connected Baltimore to foreign ports.” Moreover, the city was one of the world's leading manufacturers of chrome, copper, and steel products. It also became the world’s largest producer of umbrellas, and a major center of garment manufacturing.[2]
As word of the abundant employment opportunities in Baltimore spread far-and-wide, large numbers of jobless rural southerners migrated there to find work. In large part because of this, the city's population grew from 558,500 to nearly 734,000 between 1910-20. This trend continued through the World War II era, when various types of Baltimore factories were refitted to produce whatever items the war effort required—e.g., tanks, jeeps, airplanes, and superfortress bombers.[3]
In the 1950s, Baltimore was home to a host of thriving industries—particularly manufacturing and shipping—which created some three-fourths of all the jobs held by people in its metropolitan region.[4] The city's residents had a median income that was 7% higher than the national median; the percentage of Baltimore families earning middle-class wages was about one-fifth higher than in the U.S. as a whole; and the proportion of Baltimoreans living in poverty was roughly one-fifth lower than the corresponding national figure.[5]
Throughout these decades of prosperity, Baltimore's political leadership shifted back-and-forth between Democrats and Republicans. Of the 16 men who served as mayor between 1895 and 1967, nine were Democrats and seven were Republicans.
But in 1967, control of Baltimore's government was taken over by Thomas D'Alesandro, the first of a series of eight Democratic mayors who have continually held power, without interruption, ever since. In those more than five decades, Baltimore’s industry and productivity have disappeared, while poverty and crime have become its growth industries. The city’s residents today have a median household income that is roughly 40% below Maryland's state average, and a 21.9% poverty rate that is 1.7 times the national average.[6] Meanwhile, the violent crime rate in Baltimore is currently 4.6 times higher than the national average—a figure that includes astronomical rates of murder (10 times the national average) and robbery (8 times the national average).[7]
During this Democrat-dominated epoch, Baltimore has also developed one of the worst public school systems in American history, as reflected by the fact that students throughout the city consistently register National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores that rank among the nation's lowest. In 2015, for example, NAEP results showed that only 11% of Baltimore's fourth-graders and 13% of its eighth-graders were able to read with proficiency, whereas the corresponding national figures were 35% and 32%, respectively.[8] In math, the proficiency rate for Baltimore's fourth- and eighth-graders alike was 12%, while the national rates were 39% for fourth graders and 32% for eight graders.[9]
The situation is no better at the high-school level. According to a 2017 report by investigative journalist Chris Papst of Project Baltimore, a long-term study of public education in Maryland, the reading proficiency rate among Baltimore High School graduates is about 11%, while their math proficiency is near 12%.[10] The same study found that in 2016, fully 13 of the city's 39 public high schools had no students at all—zero—who were “proficient” in math, while another 6 schools had student bodies where only 1% of all pupils tested as “proficient” in math. To state the foregoing facts in raw numbers, a mere 14 of the 3,804 students who were tested in these 19 schoolsdisplayed mathematical proficiency. Moreover, six Baltimore schools had zero students who tested as “proficient” in either the math or English exam administered by the state.[11]
Notwithstanding these abysmal competency scores, the Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) system churns out high-school graduates at a fairly brisk pace. Roughly 70% of its students earn a diploma, although they are largely illiterate and unable to perform even basic mathematical tasks. For instance, at Frederick Douglass High School, which boasted an 87% graduation rate, only 1 of the 185 students who in 2016 were tested in math, registered a score high enough to qualify as “proficient” in that subject. Critics have pointed out the obvious: that Baltimore schools distribute worthless diplomas to deflect from the fact that teachers don’t teach and students don’t learn.[12]
One of the major underlying causes of this unpleasant reality was made evident in a May 2017 Fox News reportexploring the reasons why the high-school graduation rate for BCPS students had increased dramatically, from 61% to nearly 71%, between 2010 and 2017. “In Maryland,” Fox explained, “there are two ways to graduate. The traditional way of earning credits and passing tests, or the Bridge Plan. Bridge started in 2007, and according to the Department of Education, it was intended for students with disabilities, test anxiety and English Language Learners. It’s not a test, but rather a project that students complete to get a diploma.”[13]
Whereas in 2009, about 20% of Baltimore City High School graduates earned their diplomas via the Bridge Plan, by 2015 that figure had risen to 37%⸺nearly 4 times higher than the statewide average. One Baltimore school, the Renaissance Academy, currently graduates 73% of its students through Bridge, a figure that has grown more than fourfold since 2014. Former Baltimore City Council member Carl Stokes, who now serves as CEO of the Banneker Blake Charter School (in Baltimore), says that the Bridge program was originally “intended for a limited number of students” but has now become essentially a way “to inflate the graduation rates.” “What the school system is telling us,” Stokes adds, “is that they [the schools] are doing a very, very poor job of educating students, academically. And [the students] are not prepared to get their diploma the standard way.”[14]
In a September 2017 op-ed piece, black intellectual Armstrong Williams writes:
“Individuals and firms that service the Baltimore school system are making off with literally billions of taxpayer dollars with nothing to show for it. In any for-profit corporation, dismal results such as these would have caused it to go bankrupt long ago, pushed out of the market by companies that could better serve the consumer.... But in the tortured logic of Baltimore’s political bureaucracy, failure is incentivized. It is at best a massive fraud committed against students who are cheated out of a future, and taxpayers whose hard-earned money is being wasted. At worst, Baltimore’s performance is a genocidal crime against generations of children who are then turned out into the streets to face a world of crime, drugs, prison and death that has resulted in a murder rate of over 300 per year. The buck has to stop somewhere. Cutting off the flow of unaccounted tax dollars to an underperforming, bloated school system that is cynically betraying children should be seriously considered.”[15]
No intellectually honest assessment of BCPS's pitiful track record could attribute that poor record to a lack of funding. The city's public school system currently spends, on average, about $16,000 per year in taxpayer funds on each K-12 student in its jurisdiction.[16] This figure is about 34% higher than the $11,984 average for elementary and secondary public school systems across the United States.[17]
Much of BCPS's spending goes toward the salaries and benefits of far greater numbers of bureaucrats than a school system of that size actually requires. Though Baltimore's population has declined from 939,000 in 1960 to 621,000 today,[18] and its public school enrollment figures have dwindled at a similar pace, there are still thousands of BCPS-affiliated individuals—mostly consultants, contractors, and administrators—who are paid in excess of $100,000 per year.[19] For instance, interim superintendent Verletta White, who was installed by the Baltimore County Board of Education in May 2017, not only rakes in $265,000 in salary each year, but is also given an additional budget for travel costs and a vehicle, as well as a $450 monthly stipend for “communication and technology” expenses.[20] In the words of Armstrong Williams, “The [Baltimore] school system, it seems, has become a platform for political patronage, and rewarding allies of the city’s political class. How else could the school system’s budget be so saddled with bureaucracy and blight?”[21]
Notes:
Much of BCPS's spending goes toward the salaries and benefits of far greater numbers of bureaucrats than a school system of that size actually requires. Though Baltimore's population has declined from 939,000 in 1960 to 621,000 today,[18] and its public school enrollment figures have dwindled at a similar pace, there are still thousands of BCPS-affiliated individuals—mostly consultants, contractors, and administrators—who are paid in excess of $100,000 per year.[19] For instance, interim superintendent Verletta White, who was installed by the Baltimore County Board of Education in May 2017, not only rakes in $265,000 in salary each year, but is also given an additional budget for travel costs and a vehicle, as well as a $450 monthly stipend for “communication and technology” expenses.[20] In the words of Armstrong Williams, “The [Baltimore] school system, it seems, has become a platform for political patronage, and rewarding allies of the city’s political class. How else could the school system’s budget be so saddled with bureaucracy and blight?”[21]
Notes:
[1] http://www.baltimorecity.gov/sites/default/files/5_History.pdf
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] http://www.nathanielturner.com/robertmooreand1199union3.htm
[5] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903480904576510794280560566; https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/blame-taxes-baltimores-rot
[6] http://www.city-data.com/city/Baltimore-Maryland.html
[7] http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Baltimore-Maryland.html
[8] https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2015/pdf/2016048xm4.pdf; https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2015/pdf/2016048xm8.pdf
[9] https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2015/pdf/2016049xm4.pdf; https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2015/pdf/2016049xm8.pdf
[10] http://thehill.com/opinion/education/350315-baltimores-failing-schools-are-a-tragedy-of-criminal-proportions; http://weartv.com/news/local/project-baltimore-investigation-into-school-system
[11] https://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/11/09/alarming-number-of-baltimore-high-schools-had-zero-students-proficient-in-math-study-shows; http://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/13-baltimore-city-high-schools-zero-students-proficient-in-math; http://weartv.com/news/local/project-baltimore-investigating-public-schools
[12] http://thehill.com/opinion/education/350315-baltimores-failing-schools-are-a-tragedy-of-criminal-proportions; https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2017/05/29/yikes-these-five-baltimore-schools-dont-have-a-single-student-proficient-in-math-and-english-n2332719
[13] http://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/graduation-rates-for-baltimore-city-schools-a-look-behind-the-numbers
[14] Ibid.
[15] http://thehill.com/opinion/education/350315-baltimores-failing-schools-are-a-tragedy-of-criminal-proportions
[16] Ibid.
[17] http://www.nea.org/2017-rankings-and-estimates
[18] http://population.us/county/md/baltimore-city/
[19] http://thehill.com/opinion/education/350315-baltimores-failing-schools-are-a-tragedy-of-criminal-proportions
[20] https://ballotpedia.org/Baltimore_County_Public_Schools,_Maryland
[21] http://thehill.com/opinion/education/350315-baltimores-failing-schools-are-a-tragedy-of-criminal-proportions
Pew Research: Vast Majority of Illegals,
4-in-9 Legal Immigrants, Not English Proficient
The vast
majority of illegal aliens and a sizeable portion of legal immigrants living in
the United States are not proficient in the English language, a survey finds.
“We would
benefit greatly if budgets were spent on minds instead of mines”
30,000 march for public education in North and South Carolina
Marchers in Raleigh, North Carolina
Laureen and Denise, a teacher and a custodian from nearby
Durham, North Carolina
Mr. Grayson and Mr. Noteboom
Bonita a retired teacher
Immigration Is the Elephant in the Room in L.A. School Strike
https://www.cis.org/Camarota/Immigration-Elephant-Room-LA-School-Strike?utm_source=E-mail+Updates&utm_campaign=7503f20bde-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_08_27_04_17_COPY_01&utm_m
Pollak: Educating Illegal Aliens and Their Children Costs L.A.
Schools Hundreds of Millions Per Year
Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty
The ongoing strike by the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) union
against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is about teacher pay,
classroom size, support staff, and especially charter schools, which the union
says take money away from the district.
CALIFORNIA and the RISE OF THE LA RAZA MEXICAN
FASCIST WELFARE STATE
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/08/they-invading-horde-waving-their.html
Least-Educated
State: California No. 1 in Percentage of Residents 25 and Older Who Never
Finished 9th Grade; No. 50 in High School Graduates
Is California the next Detroit?
Unique
oblivion
Detroit
One-party rule
No longer
golden
Pew Research: Vast Majority of Illegals,
4-in-9 Legal Immigrants, Not English Proficient
Associated
Press
JOHN BINDER
28 May 2019539
2:28
The vast
majority of illegal aliens and a sizeable portion of legal immigrants living in
the United States are not proficient in the English language, a survey finds.
A Pew Research Center study finds that an
overwhelming majority of the 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the U.S.
do not define themselves as being proficient in English. Despite a slight
uptick in the number of illegal aliens who claim they are English proficient,
still only about 34 percent said they are proficient in English.
Likewise, only about 57 percent of legal immigrants — that is,
legal foreign-born residents whom the federal government has admitted to the
country — are proficient in English, according to the Pew Research study.
Illegal aliens arriving to the U.S. from Mexico, Northern
Triangle countries, and other parts of Latin America have exceptionally low
English proficiency rates. For example, only about 25 percent of illegal aliens
from Mexico said they were English proficient.
Similarly, only 22 percent of illegal aliens from the Northern
Triangle said they were proficient in English, as well a minority of 43 percent
of illegal aliens from other Latin American countries.
Overall, Pew Research estimates that only about 3.4 million
illegal aliens of the entire illegal alien population said they were English
proficient.
As Breitbart News has chronicled, foreign language-speakers have
increasingly made up the U.S. population, forcing Americans to adapt in their
day-to-day lives and work environment to non-English atmospheres.
For example, nearly half of all residents in the country’s
biggest cities speak a foreign language at home, according to research by the Center for
Immigration Studies.
Every year, a new flow of illegal aliens either cross the
U.S.-Mexico border or overstay their visas and compete against the majority of
working and middle class Americans for oftentimes entry-level and generally
lower wage jobs. Americans are not only subjected to this illegal labor market
competition but also must compete against an additional 1.2 million legal
immigrants who are admitted to the U.S. annually.
“We would
benefit greatly if budgets were spent on minds instead of mines”
30,000 march for public education in North and South Carolina
Tens of thousands of educators and their supporters marched in
Raleigh, North Carolina and Columbia, South Carolina yesterday to protest low
wages and abysmal public-school funding in the two states. North Carolina
educators have seen a decline of 9.4 percent in real wages since 2009, and the
state ranks 39th in the nation in per pupil funding. South Carolina ranks 38th
in teacher pay and 31st in funding.
Organizers estimated that more than 20,000 marched in North
Carolina and 10,000 in South Carolina. So many teachers, counselors, school bus
drivers and other school support staff in North Carolina called off Wednesday
that classes were cancelled for more than 850,000 of the state’s 1.5 million
public school students.
Inspired by teachers in the neighboring state and organized on
social media in less than two weeks, the South Carolina protests, one of the
largest in the state capital in recent memory, forced seven school districts to
cancel classes due to a lack of substitute teachers.
The mass protests in the Carolinas are part of a continuing wave
of teacher struggles that began last year with wildcat strikes in West Virginia
and continued with walkouts in Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, and Denver
this year. More than a 100 charter school teachers walked out of four schools
in Chicago yesterday, and teachers in the California capital of Sacramento are
set to carry out a one-day strike on May 22.
US educators are fighting austerity and inequality along with
their counterparts around the world. Thousands of striking teachers in Honduras
have gone on a national strike along with doctors to oppose government measures
that could lead to mass layoffs. Last week, contract teachers in the North
African country of Morocco, who are fighting for permanent jobs, protested in
the capital city of Rabat and were attacked with water cannon and batons. Over
the last year, teacher strikes have spread across Africa, Asia, Europe and
North America.
A sea of red shirts covered the capitol district in Raleigh on
May Day. Educators carried homemade signs with their demands, including for
improved pay, funding for teachers to complete master’s programs, increases in
Medicaid funding to help low-income students and increased hiring and pay for
support staff, including librarians, psychologists, social workers, counselors,
nurses and other health professionals.
In South Carolina, teachers demanded a 10 percent raise, a halt
to threats against teachers for making public policy statements and the hiring
of more mental health counselors.
Shannon has been teaching elementary school for eleven years in
Robeson County, one of the poorest areas in North Carolina, with a child
poverty rate above 70 percent. The county seat of Lumberton flooded badly in
both 2016 and 2018 when hurricanes overwhelmed poorly
maintained infrastructure .
Describing the effect of widespread poverty on her students,
Shannon said, “Many of our students come to school hungry, lacking sleep,
lacking [school] supplies, and it’s not that they leave them at home. They
literally do not have them.” She explained that teachers regularly pay out of
their own pockets to buy classroom supplies to “make sure my classroom is
funded and that my kids have the supplies they need.”
A teacher from the Raleigh area, Mr. Grayson, said he was
marching because “we wanted to be a part of the increasing voice in general for
collective bargaining and for rights of workers to have a voice in their
legislature.” He acknowledged that if he was a “betting man,” he would say the
legislature would continue to ignore teachers, but “there is strength in
numbers and as many people as possible are needed for our voices to be heard.”
Asked what changes needed to happen, Grayson said, “We need increased
spending within the school system, not necessarily per teacher, though that
would be nice. But I think a major focus should simply be to provide more
teachers, to be more equitable in how budgets are spent, more towards education
and less toward militaristic means. We would benefit greatly if budgets were
spent on minds instead of mines.”
Teachers have received widespread public support in North
Carolina, with a poll from Public Policy Polling showing 71 percent in favor of
the statewide protests.
The militant mood of the demonstrators contrasted sharply with
the bankrupt policy advanced by the North Carolina Association of Educators,
whose leaders like president Mark Jewell urged teachers to appeal to the
Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature to hear their demands.
Democratic Governor Roy Cooper was brought onto the stage to issue empty
platitudes.
After state legislators ignored the demands of teachers in a
mass rally of 20,000 last May, the NCAE called for teachers to campaign for the
election of Democrats to end the Republican super-majority in the General
Assembly. Cooper and the Democrats, like their counterparts across the country,
have collaborated with the Republicans to starve public schools of funding
while providing an endless flow of tax cuts to big business and the wealthy.
On the day before the march, the state legislature proposed a
budget with meager pay raises—ranging from 10 percent for school principals, to
4.6 percent for teachers and just one percent for supports staff. These
insulting pay raises, which will no doubt be funded through the implementation
of regressive taxes or cuts to other vitally needed social program, will do
little to make up for the loss of real income over the last decade or to stop
the exodus of teachers from the state.
A WSWS Teacher
Newsletter campaign team distributed 1,500 copies of the statement “The
teachers’ revolt and the fight for social equality.” The statement called for
educators to draw the lessons of the strikes of the last year, which were
betrayed by the teacher unions, and build new organizations of struggle,
independent of the unions and both big business parties.
The statement concludes:
“A fundamental change in society’s priorities will not be
accomplished by appealing to the powers-that-be and their representatives in
the Democratic and Republican parties to increase their taxes and create a more
humane capitalism.
“The working class must build a powerful political movement
against both corporate-controlled parties to fight for a workers’ government
and the socialist reorganization of economic and political life. This will
include the expropriation of the ill-gotten fortunes of the rich, a vast
redistribution of the wealth, and an infusion of resources to raise the
material and cultural level of the entire population.”
Immigration Is the Elephant in the Room in L.A. School Strike
https://www.cis.org/Camarota/Immigration-Elephant-Room-LA-School-Strike?utm_source=E-mail+Updates&utm_campaign=7503f20bde-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_08_27_04_17_COPY_01&utm_m
By Steven A. Camarota on January 25, 2019
The recently
settled teachers' strike in the Los Angeles Unified School district was a
bitter dispute about resources, with class size and lack of staff support
taking center stage. The tables below show that immigration's impact on the
school system is enormous. Immigration has added large numbers of students to
the county, but at the same time a very large share of both legal and illegal
immigrants have modest levels of education and almost certainly pay less in
taxes than natives who have higher levels of education and incomes. Immigration
has also added significantly to the number of public-school students in the
county who live in poverty and speak a language other than English at home.
Overall enrollment has not increased in the district in recent years, but
immigration has reduced the proportion of students whose families pay
sufficient taxes to cover education costs, creating the ongoing strains on the
district budget.
Although it
is not possible to use Census Bureau data to look at only residents of L.A.
Unified, it is possible to examine Los Angeles County to gain insight into
what's happening. We identify legal and illegal immigrants based on the
methodology used in this
report. The data
comes from the public-use files of the Census Bureau's 2012 to 2016 American
Community Survey.
Among the
findings for L.A. County:
·
Public-school
students from immigrant-headed households comprise 58 percent of public-school
students in Los Angeles County (Table 2).
·
Of
all students in the county, 22 percent are from illegal-headed households and
36 percent are from legal immigrant households (Table 2).
·
The
poverty rate for students from both legal and illegal immigrant households is
more than 50 percent higher than that of those from native-headed households
(Table 1).
·
Of
students in poverty, 70 percent are from immigrant households — 28 percent from
illegal households and 42 percent from legal households (Table 2).
·
Of
students who speak a language other than English at home, 82 percent are from
immigrant households — 35 percent from illegal households and 47 percent from
legal households (Table 2).
·
47
percent of illegal-immigrant-headed households are headed by a person who did
not graduate high school; the figure is 30 percent for legal-immigrant-headed
households. This compares to 7 percent of native-headed households (Table 3).
·
The
average income of illegal-immigrant-headed households is only 58 percent that
of native-headed households; for legal-immigrant-headed households it is 79
percent of native-headed households (Table 4).
·
Illegal-immigrant-headed
households have three times as many students in public school on average as
native-headed households; for legal-immigrant-headed households it is 50
percent higher. (Table 4).
·
Illegal
immigrants (ages 25-64) are more likely to hold a job (76 percent) than natives
(74 percent). The rate for legal immigrants is somewhat lower at 70 percent
(Table 5).
Pollak: Educating Illegal Aliens and Their Children Costs L.A.
Schools Hundreds of Millions Per Year
18 Jan 2019164
3:03
The ongoing strike by the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) union
against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is about teacher pay,
classroom size, support staff, and especially charter schools, which the union
says take money away from the district.
Left
unspoken, however, is the cost of educating illegal aliens, and their children
— which could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars per year, if not
billions, experts say.
Steven
A. Camarota, director of research, at the Center for Immigration Studies, told
Breitbart News on Friday that “between one-fifth and one-fourth of the students
in LAUSD are the children of illegal immigrants — though most of those were
born in the U.S.” He said that a smaller percentage of the students (“in the
single digits”) are illegal immigrants themselves.
With
roughly 700,000 students in the
district, at a cost of over $13,000 per student, that means
the district could be spending about $1.8 billion annually on educating the
children of illegal immigrants. The total annual expenses for the LAUSD in
2017-2018 amounted to $7.52 billion.
The
Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) put the cost of educating the
children of illegal aliens statewide at over $12 billion in a 2014 study. A
significant proportion of those students are served by the LAUSD.
Twenty
years before, with a much lower population of illegal aliens, the U.S. General
Accounting Office — in a study prepared for then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
estimated that California spent $1.6 billion on educating the children of
illegal aliens. The cost has increased almost tenfold as the “undocumented”
population has grown.
The
exact numbers are elusive, but even a conservative estimate would put the costs
of educating the children of illegal aliens in the LAUSD in the same ballpark
as the costs of charter schools, which unions complain cost
the district some $600 million per year in lost funding.
The
U.S. Supreme Court held in Plyler v. Doe (1982)
that students could not be denied a free public education on the basis of their
immigration status.
However,
the continued arrival of illegal aliens has arguably strained the public
education system — and will continue to do so unless the country’s borders are
secured.
Yet
no one in L.A. seems to be discussing the problem.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is
a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the
co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story
of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
CALIFORNIA and the RISE OF THE LA RAZA MEXICAN
FASCIST WELFARE STATE
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/08/they-invading-horde-waving-their.html
Accounting for these differences reveals that California's
real poverty rate is 20.6 percent – the highest in
America, and nearly twice the national average of 12.7 percent.
"The public schools indoctrinate their young
charges to hate this country and the rule of law. Illegal aliens
continue overwhelming the state, draining California’s already depleted
public services while endangering our lives, the rule of law, and public
safety for all citizens."
Least-Educated
State: California No. 1 in Percentage of Residents 25 and Older Who Never
Finished 9th Grade; No. 50 in High School Graduates
California Gov.
Jerry Brown and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) outside the U.S.
Capitol, March 22, 2017. (Getty Images/Alex Wong)
(CNSNews.com)
- California ranks No. 1 among the 50 states for the percentage of its
residents 25 and older who have never completed ninth grade and 50th for the
percentage who have graduated from high school, according
to new data from the Census Bureau.
Texas
ranks No. 2 for the percentage of its residents 25 and older who have never
completed ninth grade and 49th for the percentage who have graduated from high
school.
9.7
percent of California residents 25 and older, the
Census Bureau says,
never completed ninth grade. Only 82.5 percent graduated from high school.
8.7
percent of Texas
residents 25 and older never completed ninth grade, and only 82.8 percent
graduated from high school.
California
and Texas—while having the highest percentages of residents 25 and older who
never finished ninth grade and the lowest percentages who graduated from high
school—are the nation’s two most populous states.
In
fact, the 2,510,370 California residents 25 and older who, according to the
Census Bureau, never finished ninth grade outnumber
the entire populations of 15 other states.
In
California, children are required to attend school from six years of age until
they are 18. “California’s compulsory education laws require children between
six and eighteen years of age to attend school, with a limited number of
exceptions,” says
the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, an agency of the California
state government. (The National
Center for Education Statistics also indicates that children in California
are compelled by law to attend school from 6 to 18 years of age.)
Massachusetts
ranks No. 1 for the percentage of its residents 25 and older—42.1 percent--who
have earned at least a bachelor’s degree.
These
rankings are based on data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 5-year
estimates, which were released this month.
In
the survey, the
Census Bureau asks respondents to specify the level of educational attainment for each
individual in their household. The question is: “What is the highest degree or
level of school this person has COMPLETED. Mark (X) ONE box. If currently
enrolled, mark the previous grade or highest degree received.”
The
survey form then offers the respondent multiple options ranging from “no
schooling completed” to “professional degree” or “doctorate degree.” If an
individual has not earned a high school degree, the respondent is asked to
specify the highest grade the individual actually completed—ranging from
“nursery school” through “12th grade—NO DIPLOMA.”
The
Census Bureau’s American Community Survey queries a random sample of more than
3.5 million U.S. households each year and publishes a one-year estimate for each
year. The five-year estimate, the bureau says, “is a weighted average of the
five one-year estimates.” The newly released five-year estimates are for the
period from 2013 through 2017.
Nationwide,
5.4 percent of residents 25 and older have never finished ninth grade,
according to the latest five-year estimates.
Ten
states exceeded the nationwide level of residents 25 and older who have never
finished ninth grade. These include: California (9.7 percent), Texas (8.7
percent), New York (6.5 percent), New Mexico (6.5 percent), Kentucky (6.1
percent), Nevada (5.9 percent), Arizona (5.9 percent), Mississippi (5.6
percent), Rhode Island (5.5 percent), and Louisiana (5.4 percent).
Wyoming—with
1.8 percent—had nation’s smallest percentage of residents 25 and older who
never finished ninth grade.
In
seventeen states, the percentage of residents 25 and older who at least
graduated from high school was less than the nationwide percentage of 87.3
percent.
These
seventeen states included: California (82.5 percent), Texas (82.8 percent),
Mississippi (83.4 percent), Louisiana (84.3 percent), New Mexico (85 percent),
Kentucky (85.2 percent), Alabama (85.3 percent), Arkansas (85.6 percent),
Nevada (85.8 percent), West Virginia (85.9 percent), New York (86.1 percent),
Georgia (86.3 percent), Tennessee (86.5 percent), South Carolina (86.5
percent), Arizona (86.5 percent), North Carolina (86.9 percent), and Rhode
Island (87.3 percent).
Nationwide,
30.9 percent of residents 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
In
nineteen states, the percentage with a bachelor’s degree or higher exceeds the
national percentage. These nineteen states include both No. 14 California
(32.6) and No. 9 New York (35.3), which respectively ranked No.1 and No. 3 for
the percentage of residents 25 and older who never finished ninth grade.
The
ten states with the highest percentage of residents 25 and older who earned a
bachelor’s degree or higher are: Massachusetts (42.1 percent), Colorado (39.4
percent), Maryland (39 percent), Connecticut (38.4 percent), New Jersey (38.1
percent), Virginia (37.6 percent), Vermont (36.8 percent), New Hampshire (36
percent), New York (35.3 percent), and Minnesota (34.8 percent).
West
Virginia—at 19.9 percent—has the lowest percentage of residents with a
bachelor’s degree or higher.
In
another seven states, the percentage of residents who have a bachelor’s degree
or higher is less than 25 percent. They are: Mississippi (21.3 percent),
Arkansas (22 percent), Kentucky (23.2 percent), Louisiana (23.4 percent),
Nevada (23.7 percent), Alabama (24.5 percent) and Oklahoma (24.8 percent).
In California, according
to the Census Bureau’s five-year estimates, the resident population 25 and older was 25,950,818. Of those
individuals, 2,510,370—or 9.7 percent--never completed ninth grade.
Another 2,033,160 California
residents 25 and older completed the ninth, tenth, eleventh or twelfth
grade—but did not earn a high school diploma. Thus, a total of 4,543,530
California residents 25 and older—or a nation-leading 17.5 percent--have never
graduated from high school.
Those 2,510,370 individuals 25
and older in California who never finished 9th grade outnumber the entire
populations of 15 other states, according
to the Census Bureau’s latest population estimates. These include: Alaska (737,438), Delaware (967,171), Hawaii
(1,420,491), Idaho (1,754,208), Maine (1,338,404), Montana (1,062,305), Nebraska
(1,929,268), New Hampshire (1,356,458), New Mexico (2,095,428), North Dakota
(760,077), Rhode Island (1,057,315), South Dakota (882,235), Vermont (626,299),
West Virginia (1,805,832), and Wyoming (577,737).
In Texas, the
resident population 25 and older was 17,454,431. Of those individuals, 1,513,995—or 8.7 percent—never completed
ninth grade. That outnumbers the populations of 11 states.
Is California the next Detroit?
Most Californians live within about 50 miles of its majestic
coastline — for good reason. The California coastline is blessed with arguably
the most desirable climate on Earth, magnificent beaches, a backdrop of
snow-capped mountains and natural harbors in San Diego, Long Beach and San
Francisco. There is no mystery why California’s population and economy boomed
after the Second World War.
The Golden State was aptly named. Its Gold Rush of 1849 was
followed a century later by massive growth in the 1950s and 60s. Education in
California became the envy of the world. Stanford became the Harvard of the
West. A college education at the University of California and California State
University systems was inexpensive. The Community College system that fed its
universities was ostensibly free.
California’s public school system led the nation in innovation and
almost all of its classrooms were new. The highway system that moved
California’s automobile-driven commerce eliminated the need for public
transportation systems like New York and Chicago. The fertile soil of the
Central Valley became the breadbasket of the world.
The next golden wave in the 1980s grew from former orchards south
of San Francisco known as Silicon Valley. Intel and other companies led the
world’s computer and software revolution. In the 1990s, the dot-com revolution
brought immense wealth to more Californians. Its innovators, Google, Apple and
others, ushered in the Internet Era. The 2000s brought the greatest housing and
mortgage boom in the nation’s history, with innovation centered in Orange
County. California was truly the Golden State.
Why then would the author have the temerity to ask, “When did Californians
become Stupid?” And: Is California the next Detroit?
Unique
oblivion
Californians, due to their golden history, live in unique oblivion.
When the Tea Party movement caused a political tsunami that swept more than 60
incumbents from political office in 2010, the wave petered out at California’s
state line. There was no effect on the 2010 election that saw Democrats take
every elected office in the state.
California voters rejected Meg Whitman, the billionaire founder of
Ebay, in favor of Jerry Brown. Gov. Brown signed into law a “high-speed rail”
bill that will spend $6 billion (the state does not have) to build a train
between Fresno and Bakersfield — not Los Angeles and San Francisco, as
promised. There was little outcry.
California has a $16 billion deficit that no one seems to notice.
Brown’s budget “assumes” that California voters will pass massive tax increases
on themselves. If they do not, the 2013 deficit becomes a mind-numbing $20
billion. The budget, mandated to balance by the Calfornia Constitution, has
been billions in the red for 10 straight years. How could Californians re-elect
the same politicians year after year that produce budgets with multi-billion
dollar deficits?
To protect the endangered Delta Smelt, a fish known better as bait,
water has been diverted from the Central Valley to the Pacific Ocean. Orchards
in the Central Valley have been allowed to wither and die, resulting in
unemployment in the Central Valley as high as 40 percent. Imagine Californians
living in what was the breadbasket of American now living on food stamps.
California voters rejected Republican Carly Fiorina for U.S. Senator in 2010.
She ran Hewlett Packard. Instead, they re-elected Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer
,who vowed to protect the Delta Smelt at the expense of the Central Valley.
California has 519 state agencies, like the state Blueberry
Commission, that pay each of their commissioners more than $100,000 per year.
State politicians, when asked to make cuts, fire teachers and fire fighters to
inflict maximum pain on its citizens, while leaving these patronage commissions
intact. State politicians have elevator operators in the state capital to push
the buttons for them. Their solution for the overcrowding of the state’s
prisons is to release inmates or transfer them to local facilities in already
bankrupt cities. Yet, they are re-elected by California voters in numbers
consistently higher than the old Soviet Politburo.
California’s public education system, once the envy of the world,
now ranks 49th in the nation. Its business climate, according to 650 CEOs
measured by Chief Executive Magazine, ranked dead last. Apple will take 3,600
new jobs to Austin, Tex. at its $280,000,000 new facility. Texas ranked first
in the same survey.
California unemployment is consistently higher than 10 percent of
its workforce, but it’s under-employed, according to a Gallup poll, is 20
percent. There are few jobs for college students who graduate with as much as
$100,000 in student loans. Despite the overwhelming evidence that bad public
policy is chasing away jobs, the same state politicians are sent back to
Sacramento every two years.
In the last two months, three California cities have declared
bankruptcy. Compton is next. More will follow. Some cities will simply cease to
exist due to $500 million in unfunded pension obligations they simply cannot
meet.
The unfunded pension obligations, now swamping California cities,
were approved by these same politicians whose re-elections are financed by the
unions they serve. Nine years ago, outraged Californians recalled Gov. Gray
Davis from office for excessive spending and crony capitalism. Nothing has
changed a decade later. Its residents believe the golden state will be golden
forever. It may not be the case.
Detroit
History has an unpleasant precedent known as Detroit. In the 1950s,
Detroit was a major American city with a dynamic labor force built on the
manufacturing miracle that won World War II. Its factories quickly converted
tanks, planes and artillery shells into trucks, automobiles and refrigerators that
baby boom families demanded. Everyone had a good paying job. Detroit Iron had
no competition. Its burgeoning middle class was the model of the world with
excellent public schools and universities. It was the 4th largest city in
America with 2 million inhabitants, with the world’s most dominant industry —
the automobile.
Detroit in 2012 is a shadow of that once great metropolis. Its
population has shrunk to 714,000. There are 200,000 abandoned buildings in the derelict city. The
average price of a home has fallen to $5,700, unthinkable in California terms.
Unemployment stands at 28.9 percent. It has a $300 million deficit. Its public
education system, in receivership, is a disgrace, producing more inmates than
graduates. The jobs have long ago abandoned Detroit for places like South
Carolina and Alabama, far hungrier than Detroit’s leaders who believed the
gravy train would never end.
In 2006, the teacher’s union forced the politicians to reject a
$200 million offer from a Detroit philanthropist to build 15 new charter
schools. The mayor has proposed razing 40 square miles of the 138 square miles
of this once great American city, returning it to farmland. Even such a
draconian plan may not be enough to save the city from itself.
If a hurricane hit Detroit, more of us would know of this tragedy
in our midst, but this fate was man-made and not wrought by nature. Detroit has
had one party rule for more than 50 years. Louis C. Miriani served from
September 12, 1957 to January 2, 1962 as Detroit’s last Republican mayor. Since
that time, the Democrats have ruled the Motor City.
John Dingell, Democrat congressman for the 15th District outside Detroit,
has served since 1956. His father was the congressman there from 1930 to 1956.
Despite the disastrous decline of their city, Detroit voters send him back to
Congress every two years.
One-party rule
Similarly, California now has one-party rule. The Democrats of California
did not need a single Republican vote to pass their budget. They now own the
Golden State’s fate. The politicians’ plan to address the nation’s largest
deficit is to raise taxes instead of cutting spending. If the Proposition 30
tax increase passes, the deficit would drop from $20 billion to a mere $12
billion.
Democrats have done nothing to cure the systemic problems of a
bloated bureaucracy. Brown, referring to the state’s highway system, once said,
“If we do not build it, they will not come.” Caltrans stopped building highways
under Brown, but the people kept coming. Now 37 million Californians are locked
in traffic jams each day.
Brown was rewarded for such prescience with re-election as
Governor. California’s egotistical politicians passed AB 32, the Global Warming
Solutions Act in 2006. Dan Sperling, an appointee to the California Air
Resources Board, and a professor of engineering and environmental science at UC
Davis, is the lead advocate on the board for a “low carbon fuel standard.” The
powerful state agency charged with implementing AB 32 and other climate control
measures claims the low carbon fuel standard will “only” raise gasoline prices
$.30 gallon in 2013. But The California Political Review reported
implementation of these the policies will raise prices by $1.00 per gallon.
Detroit was once the most prosperous manufacturing city in the
world. Will California follow Detroit down a tragic path to ruin? In
1950, no one fathomed the Detroit of 2010. In 1970, when foreign imports
started to make a foothold, the unions and their bought and paid for
politicians resisted any change.
In the 1990’s, as manufacturers fled to Alabama and South Carolina,
the unions and their political lackeys held firm even as good jobs slipped
away. No one in Detroit envisioned their future, even as schools declined, the
jobs withered and the once proud city deteriorated in front of their own eyes.
No longer
golden
California was once the Golden State. Today, it is no longer so
golden. Its schools are in decline. Its business climate is equally dismal. Its
cities are facing economic ruin, with exploding pension obligations and a
declining tax base. Housing prices have fallen 30 to 60 percent across the
state, evaporating trillions of dollars of equity. Unemployment remains
stubbornly high and under-employment is rife. The Central Valley is in a
depression, with 40 percent unemployment. Do our politicians need any more
signs?
Brown’s budget will first slash money to schools and raise tuition
on its students, while leaving all 519 state agencies intact. He apparently
will protect political patronage at all costs. Jobs, and job creators, are
fleeing the state. Intel, Apple, Google and others are expanding out of the
state. The best and brightest minds are leaving for Texas and North Carolina.
The signs are everywhere. State revenues are declining during many years.
Meanwhile, the voters sleep and blindly send the same cast of misfits back to
Sacramento each year — just as Detroit did before them.
The beaches are still beautiful. The mountains are still snow
capped and the climate is still the envy of the world. Detroit never had that.
But will California’s physical attributes be enough? If the people of
California want to glimpse their future, they need look no farther than once
proud City of Detroit. It can happen here.
Robert J Cristiano, Ph.D., is
the Real Estate Professional in Residence at Chapman University in Orange,
Calif. and a Senior Fellow at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco.
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