ACLU sues to stop new Nev. School vouchers

Edd Doerr (arlinc.org) notes the Washington Post, article, Aug 28. “ACLU sues to stop new Nev. School vouchers,” by Emma Brown. Here is the comment Edd posted on line  ----

Nevada's Republican-rammed-through school voucher plan clearly violates Article XI, Sections 2, 9 and 10 of the state constitution. If the legislature had done the honorable thing and tried to amend the constitution, the amendment would have been rejected by the voters. How do we know? Because the neighboring states of California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah and Colorado have had twelve referendum elections in which vouchers or similar schemes to divert public funds to private schools were rejected by an average margin of 64% to 36%. Nevada voters would surely follow suit.

And the annual PDK/Gallup education poll released on August 23 showed opposition to vouchers at 57% to 31%.

Nevada's GOP lawmakers thumbed their noses at the state constitution, at the voters, at the public schools that serve 95% of the state's kids, and at the religious liberty of the state's citizens, their right not to be forced by government to support religious institutions. 

See ACLU site for more.

School Choice Works, Privatization Won't

by Jack Markell

forwarded by Edd Doerr from   Education Week

With the next presidential campaign getting under way, pundits have quickly focused more on the horse race than on where the candidates stand on important issues like improving public education.

One area that deserves far more attention is the array of proposals to divert public spending on education into private school vouchers or "education savings accounts" that can be used for private and parochial schools, home schooling, and other programs that aren't part of the public education system.

These policies, already enacted in several states and proposed in several more, are a reminder that privatization is not a ready-made solution for every government problem.

Here's why these programs don't produce results for our students.

Everyone agrees that solid academics are the foundation for career and college readiness. Yet, according to a review by the Center on Education Policy, numerous studies have concluded that vouchers, the prime example of privatization, "don't have a strong effect on students' academic achievement." If voucher programs are motivated by a desire to improve educational outcomes for our young people, and not simply to divert public spending to private education, then their unsettled and uneven history does not support continuing them.

—Nip Rogers for Education Week

Compounding this problem is that the private and parochial schools that receive tax dollars are, in many cases, not accountable for providing a quality education to young people, particularly those most at risk of falling behind.

In the public school system, states are required to establish baseline expectations of accountability through standards and testing. Although hardly beloved, standardized-test scores are the most effective method we have to identify which students need our help, which is why civil rights groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the United Negro College Fund have been among the most vocal advocates for statewide assessments. They know it is most often poor, minority students—those who most need our help—who most often don't receive the education they need. When we don't provide a valid way to measure students' achievement and hold educators and schools accountable for their academic growth, those students are too easily forgotten.

Children in home, parochial, and private schools aren't required to take state assessments. State officials can't track these students' growth to make sure they don't fall behind. Private school teachers and home-schooling parents aren't required to teach to the state's educational standards; and they don't have to be rigorously licensed or certified like public school educators.

Voucher systems also divert millions of taxpayer dollars out of our public schools. While we should respect and encourage parental engagement and choice of schools—including private, parochial, and home schools—for their children, it is not acceptable to divert limited public education funding at the cost of the public schools that serve our communities.

Public funding for these voucher programs also presents significant policy issues because so many schools affected include a religious component in their curriculum. In general, the government should not be in the business of funding programs or institutions that promote one religion over all others.

But being against vouchers for these reasons isn't enough. Political leaders have a responsibility to articulate a clear vision for what an improved public school system looks like.

That means using parent choice among traditional, charter, and magnet schools to foster innovative instruction, and hold public schools accountable for giving students the best opportunities possible.

It means demanding more rigorous college and career standards like the common core.

It means providing better support for our teachers, including training them to use data about student achievement effectively, and evaluating them appropriately.

It means more dual-enrollment and Advanced Placement courses to challenge students and reduce the cost of college.

It means investing in high-quality early-childhood programs so all kids enter kindergarten ready to learn.

And it means recognizing that too many of our students arrive at school hungry and from traumatic family situations. Serving these children effectively requires different types of training and community resources.

I agree with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush that policymakers should be "more daring" when it comes to education policy. But that must mean pushing the public school system to improve, not following the suggestions of a number of candidates for president and state lawmakers who would use taxpayer money on unaccountable programs that ultimately cut funding from public schools.

Jack Markell, a Democrat, is in his second term as the governor of Delaware. He is a former chair of the National Governors Association and was a co-chair of the initiative that established the Common Core State Standards.

What’s More Reactionary than Defense of Marriage? A State Bill for Defense of Religion.

By Gary Berg-Cross

The idea that States are Laboratories of democracy is a phrase popularized by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis to describe how a "state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."   It’s a popular conservative thought with their dislike of Federal experiments such as run (successfully?) by FDR.

And there is something good to a federated approach to governmental experimentation at ALL levels.  Which means that “experiments” can go wrong at any of the levels. The Defense of Marriage Act, enacted in 1996 with reactive insecurity, still allows the federal Government to recognize only opposite-sex marriages. But here there have been correctives at the state level & the 8 federal courts have argued that Section 3 of DOMA marriage is only between a man and a woman) is unconstitutional. According to a poll by the Washington Post/ABC News, the % of Americans opposeing marriage equality is down to 36%. Still many Religion's official position is to oppose gay marriage (The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life).

Unfortunately at the state level we are seeing what seems like bone headed, defiant experiments less a lab than a bazaar of oddities. Gun security is one of them that offers special silliness. Consider this from Ralph Shortey (R-Oklahoma City) who argued that everyone should carry a gun everywhere at all times. In response the state legislature moved to address the danger posed to unarmed civilians from... poultry. Here is Ralph Shortey (R-Oklahoma City) arguing in support of the measure during committee discussions. Shortey started by arguing that he shouldn't be required to pay fees and get a license to carry a weapon. How he justified that knocks me out: 

 

 "I was in oil and gas," Shortey said. "I was out on a lease at one time and I got attacked by a turkey. Wait until you get attacked by a turkey. You will know the fear that a turkey can invoke in a person. And so I beat it with a club. That was all I could do...I wish that I had a gun with me. And I started carrying a gun in my truck after that without a license because I didn't want to get attacked by a mountain lion. Turkeys are bad enough."     This Week in the Laboratories of Democracy By Charles P. Pierce

Actually this has nothing on small town Nelson Georgia whose City Council, perhaps frightened by the mere possibility of falling under proposed gun safety rules, defiantly & reactively passed a new law that says residents must own a gun. If you want to hear some of the mind numbing reasoning on this you can hare Nelson, Georgia Residents Debate their New Law Mandating Forced Ownership of Firearms.

Fundamentalist religion usually finds a way to come up with some dandy local experiments, often minus the democratic lab mentality and with reactionary fervor. As the Huffington Post reported Republican North Carolina state legislators recently proposed allowing an official state religion in a measure that would declare the state exempt from the Constitution and court rulings. It’s all the ACLU’s fault. These NC pols have a habit of praying to Jesus Christ before meetings so the ACLU sued them.   You know it’s that bleeding-heart liberal (Federal) law about separation of church and state. So 2  North Carolina Republican legislators, Carl Ford and Harry Warren  aided by nine others, introduced what they called a Defense of Religion resolution.

 

They arguing the state is sovereign & can make its own laws regarding the establishment of religion, and the federal government and courts have no authority to decide what is constitutional.   Yes birth control in legal, one may regulate guns and there is a separation of church and state….But to some you can nullify any of these.  So much for a federated government when your are exempted from the establishment clause under the First Amendment.

Happily the Republican NC House speaker, Thom Tillis, killed the bill and ended this chapter of Frankenstein monster experiments in another purple state. States are more laboratories for emotional, reactionary assaults on intellect than exercises in critical thinking. It's part of the defiance of people with some ignorant degree of surety and energized by parading their bazaar of the weird in front of their fans.

 

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Neslon gun law: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/02/17567999-georgia-town-passes-law-requiring-citizens-to-own-guns-and-ammo?lite

 

NC Religion:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/03/establishing-a-state-religion-a-proposed-bill-in-north-carolina-would-do-just-that/

 

 

Talking about People's Rights

By Gary Berg-Cross

The Rand Paul (PR) filibuster was music to some people’s ears, but for many reasons not everyone had that reaction. To some, like The New American the nearly 13-hour filibuster on the Senate floor was a politically organizing milestone and conservative rallying point:

 “a stroke of political genius that still has not yet been fully appreciated….Those who compose the base of the GOP lost much of their morale during George W. Bush’s second term. When the Democrats took back the Congress in 2006 and Barack Obama won the presidency two years later, it all but vanished. Spirits began to stir once more during the midterm elections of 2010, it is true, but since then, they’ve again been reduced to dust and ashes. Anyone who doubts this need only consider that some four million self-identified Republicans refused to vote for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan back in November.”

Certainly it had political implications. Mitch McConnell, for example, is fundraising off of the Rand Paul filibuster. The National Republican Senatorial Committee launched a #StandWithRand fundraiser for senators who “remained committed to upholding the values and the mandates of the Constitution.” McConnell himself has asked supporters to sign a petition declaring:

 “I stand WITH Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell. They are shining examples of Republican leadership.” 

With comments like this one knows that more than drone policy was on the agenda.  And Paul, PR as one might call him,  doesn’t always make sense as he speaks. At times he can bend and distort quotes from non-libertarians. One famous example is his earlier claim that Elena Kagan had claimed that the government could require citizens to eat broccoli.  Shades of Supreme Courts activists!  The actual record shows clearly that she didn't say this.

So PR’s demagogue potential is there even if he may be on the side of the angels in the drone-war debate.

PR himself followed up his standing words (“I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination for the CIA. I will speak until I can no longer speak”) with slightly different words in an OpEd in the Post “My filibuster was just the beginning.” Here we may be seeing part that slippery, muddled slope as sound argument gets overtaken by talking points. Part of the article described his ordeal, part listed House conservatives who appearing in the back of the chamber to show their support as part of what Paul perhaps hopes in a more general movement than issues raised by drone attacks. On that issue many of us might agree with him broadly that we need more transparency into and more meaningful oversight of drone strikes.  But what rallied Paul and some conservatives was the issue that these might be against U.S. citizens and even within United States borders. In his filibuster Paul noted: “no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court.”

 In the OpEd Paul said. “I hope my efforts help spur a national debate about the limits of executive power and the scope of every American’s natural right to be free.”

I was struck as were some others with his focus on American citizen rights. What about non-citizen rights as humans?  Where’s the humanity?  Is libertarian philosophy American-centric?

WP Opinions had a series of letter under the title Use of drones requires more than a filibuster. Some of them such as the David A. Drachsler, ACLU board member, who noted more general rights provided for by the Constitution.

‘The Fifth and 14th amendments prohibit the federal and state governments from depriving “any person” of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”’

OK, so we should protect foreign tourists, resident aliens, green-card-holding workers or undocumented persons. 

Randy Scope, of Silver Spring, cited the “Living Under Drones” report by scholars at Stanford University and New York University. This adds even a larger scope of concern about the drone-enabled killing and wounding of children in Pakistan and elsewhere.  Where’ the compassion?

Bruce P. Heppen, of Potomac, had perhaps the strongest response to Paul’s OpEd:

“I cannot decide which is sadder, that Sen. Rand Paul thinks he has advanced the debate on the use of drones or that The Post chose to run his vapid commentary. “

Images

Stand with Rand: http://www.bokbluster.com/

Rand Stand: http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/03/06/Rand-Paul-Inspires-HuffPo-to-Blister-Obama-Over-Drone-Policy

Look at me: http://www.nationalmemo.com/excerpts-from-rand-pauls-filibuster/

There They Go Again: Specialty License Plates

by Gary Berg-Cross

There’s a license-plate and First Amendment violation dispute underway in North Carolina. In the past states required drunk driving offenders to use special “whiskey plates” to visually signal their offense. This NC dispute has more of a right to life/religio-ethics slant. It follows on the 2nd Circuit ruling in favor of a Vermont resident who wanted to put a Biblical reference on a license plate. In the Tar Heel State the American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of 4 "pro-choice automobile owners" to void a new law, easily passed both Republican-controlled state legislative chambers, establishing a "Choose Life" license plate. The NC General Assembly approved the "Choose Life" plate this year, along with 79 other specialty plates. The Carolina Pregnancy Care Fellowship, an association of nonprofit pregnancy counseling centers, will get $15 from each plate sold.

Note in Virginia, you can buy "Trust Women/Respect Choice" license plates but the funds are denied to pro-choice, women-trusting groups. You don't even have the plate option in NC.

The ACLU contends that the license plate constitutes state-sponsored discrimination in part because the North Carolina legislators have denied requests for plates that would carry such messages (not one of the 79 plates) as “Respect Choice.” Katherine Lewis Parker, the state's ACLU legal director notes:

"The state is opening up a forum to one side of the argument. When they do that, they are constitutionally obligated to open to the other side."

In this case the other side would be the state offering a tag for abortion rights supporters, such as a "Respect Choice" or 'Trust Women'. So says Sue Holliday, a certified nurse midwife who is one of the plaintiffs in the case. Holliday put her case this way, in a statement posted by the ACLU:

“If anti-choice drivers are permitted to express their views on their license plates, people like me should be able to express our view that women deserve full reproductive freedom,”

If history is a guide there is a good chance that the decision will be reversed. The AP noted in covering this story that in:

“2004, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a South Carolina judge's ruling that the "Choose Life" plates approved by lawmakers in that state were unconstitutional because they provided one group a forum to express its beliefs without giving the opposing view a similar forum. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, and the state was forced to pay Planned Parenthood's $157,810 legal bill.”

Some of the new tide of conservative legislators thinks otherwise. NC Republican state legislator Mitch Gillespie, who sponsored the bill establishing the “Choose Life” plate, told the local NC News & Observer paper that the suit was an attempt by “an evil liberal organization to try to appease its liberal base.” That’s the ACLU in right-wing speak. Gillespie added that he didn’t think the suit will succeed since he knew that conservative legal groups were lining up to help defend the law. Just another data point on the uncompromising political-religious times we live in.