I didn't write about this when the results were announced last week, but we now have another year's worth of data from the NAEP's Trial Urban District Assessment, a measure of academic progress in big-city school districts. So how are our urban kids doing? Bob Somerby summarizes the results from 2003 through 2011:
Fourth grade math: According to those data, black fourth-graders gained eight points
Akiba Solomon hits back at Forbes Magazine writer who wrote racist piece “If I Were a Poor Black Kid.”
Colorlines 12/14/2011
In a reaction to President Obama’s big, pragmatic, race-free economic inequality speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, “Forbes” tech writer Gene Marks crafted a recklessly condescending column called “If I Were a Poor Black Kid.” In just two days, this white, middle aged keyboard monkey madness has garnered 518 comments on the site and God knows how many page views. It’s officially Internet catnip.
Now Marks, who in his bio describes himself as “a short, balding and mediocre certified public accountant,” starts off well enough:
The President’s speech got me thinking. My kids are no smarter than similar kids their age from the inner city.
The left-leaning political blog Think Progressrecently reported on a comment from a top-executive with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that some children eating rat poison is "an acceptable risk." Thus, there is no justification for the government to regulate these kinds of products. For ALEC, the risk is just the cost of doing business and it's really up to the parents to do the actual cost-benefit analysis; that is, don't use poison and endure a rat infestation on the one hand or on the other kill the rats, but potentially poison your child in the process. Nice.
I bring up this story on ALEC half in earnest and half in jest. I'm probably over-simplifying the rat poison quote, and perhaps this is just how people in business speak. Although, it does not diminish the puerile nature of a comment labeling poisoned children as one of many potential "acceptable risks" in the extermination business.
In earnest, however, ALEC's political influence is very far-reaching and not to be underestimated,
As today’s City Council hearing on parent engagement wore into its third hour, parents grew agitated that they had yet to deliver their testimony.
After listening to chancellor Dennis Walcott and executive director for family and community engagement, Jesse Mojica, discuss parent engagement with council members for hours, the parents were ready to contribute, but the meeting was scheduled to end at one.
“It’s really unfair that this wasn’t mostly parent voices,” Michelle Lipkin, P.S. 199′s PTA president, said when she took the mic. “There’s a real disconnect between the definition of parent engagement for parents and the definition of parent engagement for the department of education.”
That disconnect was made clear as parents and council members agreed that the Department of Education can
When the Illinois General Assembly gave CME and Sears a massive $371 million tax gift this week, it wasn’t the first tax gift to a major corporation.
“Illinois is broke,” said Ty Fahner and the Civic Committee when they were going after public school teacher pensions.
But a study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, as reported in Progress Illinois, shows who are the real culprits and thieves. And it’s not your child’s kindergarten teacher.
For example, Baxter International and Integrys Energy Group — paid no state corporate income taxes between 2008 and 2010 while reporting combined profits totaling more than $1.7 billion for the same period.
“It seems you’ve got this parade of companies going to the governor and the
