Welcome to South Carolina: A State of Denial – radical eyes for equity

Welcome to South Carolina: A State of Denial – radical eyes for equity

Welcome to South Carolina: A State of Denial

In the United States of America, the stated law of the land is “innocent until proven guilty.”

However, police in the U.S. shoot and kill about 1000 people a year, denying them due process, acting as judge, jury, and executioner instead of the claimed role of “protect and serve.”

The U.S. is experiencing a mild reckoning, specifically linked to the killing of George Floyd but broadly connected to how policing and the legal system continue to be racially inequitable—or as many conservatives and the media refuse to state, racist.

A vocal and likely substantial portion of the U.S.—mostly white and often white men with power—have decided that naming racism is more harmful and offensive than actual racism.

Police killing citizens must also be put in the context that the U.S. stands out among peer nations in terms of gun violence.

It is mid-2021, and the world is suffering more than a year in a global pandemic.

It is mid-2021, and the guilty verdict of Minneapolis police Officer Derek CONTINUE READING: Welcome to South Carolina: A State of Denial – radical eyes for equity

CURMUDGUCATION: SC: Lawsuit Looks For Public Dollar Pay Day For Catholic Schools

CURMUDGUCATION: SC: Lawsuit Looks For Public Dollar Pay Day For Catholic Schools

SC: Lawsuit Looks For Public Dollar Pay Day For Catholic Schools

In South Carolina, a lawsuit filed this week seeks to obliterate the wall between church and state.

Like most such lawsuits, the federal lawsuit has been a advocacy group that specializes in such things-- you may remember the Liberty Justice Center as the folks who won the Janus case, which either was an attack on unions wrapped in the First Amendment. 

As with most such cases, the advocacy group needed to find themselves some plaintiffs to attach the case to. What's striking this time is that the plaintiffs are not some group of regular citizens-- the lawsuit-- Bishop of Charleston v. Adams  has been filed on behalf of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston, plus a group of independent colleges.

The federal suit follows the South Carolina Supreme Court's rejection of Governor Henry McMaster's attempt to use CARES pandemic relief funds for private schools.

That court found the desire to hand public funds to private schools unconstitutional. So the solution is obvious--sue to have the state's constitution rewritten.

The case has a target perfect for PR purposes--the Blaine Amendment. In 1875, President Grant proposed, and Congressman James G. Blaine officially launched, a move to add a constitutional CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: SC: Lawsuit Looks For Public Dollar Pay Day For Catholic Schools

South Carolina Republicans Seek to Politicize History – radical eyes for equity

South Carolina Republicans Seek to Politicize History – radical eyes for equity

South Carolina Republicans Seek to Politicize History

For over 40 years, George Graham Vest served first as a Missouri state Representative, next as a state Senator in the Confederacy, and finally as a U.S. Senator for Missouri from 1879 to 1903.

In a speech from August 21, 1891, Vest included a claim about history that has been echoed by many: “In all revolutions the vanquished are the ones who are guilty of treason, even by the historians, for history is written by the victors and framed according to the prejudices and bias existing on their side.”

Considering Vest’s complicated relationship with the state and country that he served, we should keep in mind that his comment represents something many people misunderstand about history: All history is biased, and history is created by whoever is telling the story.

Often associated with Winston Churchill, the adage “history is written by the victors” seems to repeat itself in times of great upheaval.

One of our most recent moments of political conflict was the siege on the U.S. Capitol in early January 2021. Less dramatic but more significant, that was CONTINUE READING: South Carolina Republicans Seek to Politicize History – radical eyes for equity

Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement – radical eyes for equity

Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement – radical eyes for equity

Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement

SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement (link coming; original with hyperlinks below)

South Carolina is poised with Bill 3613 to continue the historical failures of addressing reading in South Carolina through micromanaging legislation that has not resulted in improving home, community, individual equity or learning outcomes for students living in poverty, Black students, Emergent Bilinguals, or students with special needs.

Currently, I am in year 37 of teaching in SC, serving as a high school English teacher at Woodruff High for 18 years before moving to teacher education at Furman University for the past 19 years. I entered education in SC in 1984, the first days of the accountability movement in our state.

Despite political leaders changing standards and high-stakes testing multiple times over the past four decades, political and public perception remains convinced our schools are failing, and that our students are, specifically, failing to learn to read.

Read To Succeed, which Bill 3613 seeks to amend, was a serious mistake at its inception since it misreads both how students learn to read and how best to teach reading. Reading growth is not simple, and test scores are a stronger CONTINUE READING: Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement – radical eyes for equity

Open Letter to SC House and Senate Concerning Bill 3613 – radical eyes for equity

Open Letter to SC House and Senate Concerning Bill 3613 – radical eyes for equity

Open Letter to SC House and Senate Concerning Bill 3613

I am contacting you with an urgent caution about Bill 3613 and the historical failures of addressing reading in South Carolina through micromanaging legislation that has not resulted in improving home, community, individual equity or learning outcomes for students living in poverty, Black students, Emergent Bilinguals, or students with special needs.

Currently, I am in year 37 of being an educator in SC, serving as a high school English teacher at Woodruff High for 18 years before moving to teacher education at Furman University for the past 19 years. I entered education in SC in 1984, the first days of the accountability movement in our state.

Despite changing standards and high-stakes testing multiple times over the past four decades, political and public perception remains convinced our schools are failing, and that our students are, specifically, failing in reading achievement.

Read To Succeed was a serious mistake at its inception since it misreads both how students learn to read and how best to teach reading. Reading growth is not simple, and test scores are a stronger measure of poverty and social inequities than the state of student learning or the quality of teaching.

Bill 3613 is making the same mistake political leaders have been making since the 1980s, tinkering with prescriptive legislation aimed at our students and CONTINUE READING: Open Letter to SC House and Senate Concerning Bill 3613 – radical eyes for equity

Report from South Carolina: Rasheem and LaRonda | Diane Ravitch's blog

Report from South Carolina: Rasheem and LaRonda | Diane Ravitch's blog

Report from South Carolina: Rasheem and LaRonda

Arnold and Carol Hillman were educators in Pennsylvania. They retired to South Carolina and, instead of golfing and relaxing, they became involved with rural public schools. They created clubs for high school boys and girls and helped steer their kids towards college. I wrote about their work with students in rural schools several times. See here. Arnold wrote me recently to tell me about the devastating impact of the pandemic on rural students, and I asked him to write it up for the blog. He wrote the section about Rasheem, and Carol wrote about LaRonda.

They wrote:

Rasheem and LaRonda are two students in a rural South Carolina county. A review of county statistics will show that the county is 700 square miles. It is one of the poorest counties in the state. Over the past five years, the education system has declined in quality. The ACT scores have descended 15.8%. Even the state’s average ACT scores have gone down from 18.6 to 18.1. 

When you travel around the county, you are struck by the endless roads that seem to include only a forested area on both sides and a town or two with some stores and maybe a gas station. You must travel to the county seat to go shopping at a supermarket or travel to the other urban center at the bottom of the county.

Choices in any aspect of normal life are limited. There is CONTINUE READING: Report from South Carolina: Rasheem and LaRonda | Diane Ravitch's blog

South Carolina: Supreme Court Strikes Down Voucher Plan! | Diane Ravitch's blog

South Carolina: Supreme Court Strikes Down Voucher Plan! | Diane Ravitch's blog

South Carolina: Supreme Court Strikes Down Voucher Plan!

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster thought he could use some of the state’s CARES Act money to create a voucher program.

The Supreme Court of South Carolina just struck down his illegal scheme to divert money from public schools to private and religious schools.

From TheState.com:

Public money cannot be spent on South Carolina’s private schools, the S.C. Supreme Court ruled late Wednesday afternoon.

The unanimous 5-0 decision was a high-profile defeat for Gov. Henry McMaster, who earlier this year announced he was designating $32 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds to go to pay one-time tuition grants of up to $6,500 per student for about 5,000 private school K-12 students across the state.

“We hold the Governor’s decision constitutes the use of public funds for the direct benefit of private educational institutions within the meaning of, and prohibited by, Article XI, Section 4 of the South Carolina Constitution,” CONTINUE READING: South Carolina: Supreme Court Strikes Down Voucher Plan! | Diane Ravitch's blog

You’re on Your Own (But You Don’t Have to Be) – radical eyes for equity

You’re on Your Own (But You Don’t Have to Be) – radical eyes for equity

You’re on Your Own (But You Don’t Have to Be)

During the recent U.S. Senate debate in South Carolina, Jaime Harrison and Lindsey Graham seemed determined to one-up each other about their overcoming hardships in their lives.

Harrison, as a Black South Carolinian, sounded quite similar, in fact, to Republican senator Tim Scott—both sending strong messages about rugged individualism that can easily be viewed by those denying racism as proof anyone can make it in the U.S. with enough grit and the right mindset.

The U.S. has long loved rags-to-riches stories, ignoring both that these stories are compelling because they are incredibly rare and that these stories are often lies.

Rugged individualism is not just an idealistic mythology, but a deforming lie that helps mask that most success in the U.S. comes from privileges and connections linked to family wealth, race, and gender; wealth begets wealth just as privilege begets privilege.

Bootstrapping myths have existed nearly as long as the U.S., and seem grounded in a belief that without these stories to incentivize people, the country would crumble due to inherent human laziness.

Certainly the real and mythologized stories of the U.S. are mostly about exceptional individuals (almost all white men) and the power of competition CONTINUE READING: You’re on Your Own (But You Don’t Have to Be) – radical eyes for equity