Politics
Democrats Hold Their Own Hearing to Update Education Law
In this Jan. 21, 2015, file photo, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., sitting next to ranking member Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., listen to testimony during a hearing looking at ways to fix the No Child Left Behind law during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Outnumbered by Republicans, Democratic lawmakers are jockeying to get their views heard as Congress moves ahead on revising the much-maligned No Child Left Behind education law. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
KIMBERLY HEFLING, AP Education Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democratic lawmakers are clawing to get their views heard as Congress moves ahead on revising the much-maligned No Child Left Behind education law and its annual school testing requirements.
They crowded into a small Capitol Hill hearing room Thursday for their own forum on changing the law in protest of Republicans’ handling of the issue. Votes on a GOP bill are anticipated soon.
The bill “shows that poor, minority and disabled children are not a priority for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle,” said Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio.
Some worried about a provision in the bill to let federal dollars follow a low-income student to a different public school, saying they fear it will hurt schools with a high concentration of poor students. “How do you think we can best get that message out?” said Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif.
The No Child Left Behind law, signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, was intended to close substantial achievement gaps between the academic performance of minority and low income students and their more affluent peers. It mandated that students in grades three to eight be tested annually in reading and math and be tested again once in high school.
Schools that didn’t show annual growth faced consequences, and every student was to be proficient by 2014.
GOP Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, now the House speaker, sponsored the legislation with the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and other senior lawmakers, and Congress sent it to Bush with overwhelming bipartisan support.
The law’s annual testing requirements, Common Core standards and school choice are all controversial issues wrapped up in the debate. Both sides heartily agree that the landmark law needs to be fixed, but tensions are high over the level of federal involvement in fixing schools.
Complicating the matter, allegiances don’t clearly fall along party lines. While more conservative Republicans would like to essentially eliminate the federal role in education, GOP-friendly business groups side support a strong federal role, as do civil rights groups that traditionally align with Democrats. At the same time, teachers’ unions, which also tend to align with Democrats, argue the Obama administration has placed too much of emphasis on testing.
Deciding that the goal of proficiency for every student by 2014 was unattainable, the Obama administration in 2012 started granting waivers to states. The waivers allow states to avoid some of the more stringent requirements of the law if they met conditions such as adopting meaningful teacher evaluation systems and college- and career-ready standards like the Common Core. The standards spell out what skills students in each grade should master in reading and math.
Widespread disagreement over how to change the law has kept Congress from getting a bill to President Barack Obama.
Republicans congressional leaders who now control both the House and Senate say they hope to pass a bill this year. That’s left House Democrats complaining things are moving too fast.
Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, released a bill to update the law similar to one passed by the House in 2013 without one Democrat on board, and scheduled a Feb. 11 committee meeting to consider it. The bill maintains testing requirements, but it strips the federal government of much of its authority — including limiting the education secretary’s role in “coercing” standards. A vote is expected in late February.
Kline said the committee has had more than a dozen hearings over the last four years. “Americans have waited long enough for reforms that will fix a broken education system,” he said.
Like Sen. Lamar Alexander, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Kline has expressed concern that a strong federal role in education stifles education advancement and innovation in states.
But Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the newly appointed senior Democrat on the House committee, accused House Republicans of a “hasty, partisan push” to rewrite the law and he organization the forum with a panel of education experts.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement that Kline’s bill would “turn back the clock on growth.”
Much of the discussion in the Senate has focused on whether federal testing mandates should continue. Alexander has said he’s willing to listen to both sides and he’s hopeful he can get a bill out of his committee by the end of the month. But there have been signs of dissent. The committee’s senior Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray came out this week against allowing federal money to follow students, an idea also included in a draft bill circulated by Alexander.
“We have to have a bipartisan result. Otherwise we won’t have a law,” Alexander said Wednesday.
_____
Follow Kimberly Hefling on Twitter: http://twitter.com/khefling
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Activism
In 1974, Then-Gov. Jimmy Carter Visited the Home of Oakland Black Black Political Activist Virtual Murrell While Running for President
civil rights icon Georgia State Representative Julian Bond said that Carter, along with governors Reuben Askew of Florida, Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, and Terry Sanford of North Carolina, were all a part of what was being dubbed the “New South” and so supported civil rights and voting rights for African Americans.
By Virtual T. Murrell
Special to The Post
On his way to seeking the presidency, then-Gov. Jimmy Carter visited the Bay Area in his capacity as campaign chairman of the Democratic National Committee in March of 1974.
A friend of mine, Bill Lynch, a Democrat from San Francisco, had been asked to host Carter, who was then relatively unknown. Seeking my advice on the matter, I immediately called my friend, civil rights icon Georgia State Representative Julian Bond, for his opinion.
Bond said that Carter, along with governors Reuben Askew of Florida, Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, and Terry Sanford of North Carolina, were all a part of what was being dubbed the “New South” and so supported civil rights and voting rights for African Americans.
Based on Julian’s comments, I agreed to host the governor. We picked him up at the San Francisco Airport. With his toothy smile, I could tell almost right away that he was like no other politician I had ever met. On his arrival, there was a message telling him to go to the VIP room, where he met then-Secretary of State Jerry Brown.
After leaving the airport, we went to a reception in his honor at the home of Paul “Red” Fay, who had served as the acting secretary of the Navy under President John Kennedy. (Carter, it turned out, had been himself a 1946 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a submariner in the 1950s.)
The following afternoon, the Niagara Movement Democratic Club hosted a reception for Carter, which was a major success. Carter indicated that he would be considering running for president and hoped for our support if he did so.
As the event was winding down, I witnessed the most amazing moment: Carter’s wife, Rosalynn, was in the kitchen with my former wife, Irene, wearing an apron and busting suds! You would have to have been there to see it: The first and last time a white woman cleaned up my kitchen.
A few months later, President Richard Nixon resigned amid the Watergate scandal. He was succeeded by his vice president, Gerald Ford.
On the heels of that scandal, Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976 represented integrity and honesty at a point in America’s history when he was just what the nation needed to lead as president of the United States.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of January 1 – 7, 2025
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of January 1 – 7, 2025
To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.
Activism
Racially Motivated Violence Against Black Teen Prompts $10 Million Claim Against LAUSD
In December, a second altercation, on a video shared with news media, showed 4 to 6 boys attacking a Black student and using racial slurs. The video also shows a person in a safety vest trying to stop the fight and telling them to “handle it after school.” Then, the video ends.
By Solomon O. Smith, California Black Media
A distraught mother and her legal team announced a $10 million lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) on Dec. 16, alleging that her son was the target of bullying because of his race.
“CS DOE is a 14-year-old African American student at Verdugo High School. He is a Ninth Grader,” reads a statement the plaintiff’s attorneys shared with California Black Media (CBM).
“Almost from the first day of class (in August 2024), CS DOE was targeted by Latino students who called him racial slurs, physically attacked him and threatened to stab him.”
The family’s identity has not yet been released to the public due to safety concerns, according to their attorneys Bradley C. Gage and Caree Harper. The student’s mother is identified only as A.O. in the complaint.
The first video, filmed in August, showed several non-Black students punching and kicking a Black student in a bathroom on campus while yelling racial slurs. The mother claims that the students who attacked her son were not punished, and the administration asked her to move her son to another school for his safety.
“They wanted him to leave the school without giving any disciplinary action towards those students,” said the student’s mother. “He’s not going anywhere. He’s going to finish. I wanted him to at least stay until the December winter break, and then I was going to transfer schools for him.”
Before she could enroll her son in a different school the attacks escalated.
In December, a second altercation, on a video shared with news media, showed 4 to 6 boys attacking a Black student and using racial slurs. The video also shows a person in a safety vest trying to stop the fight and telling them to “handle it after school.” Then, the video ends.
CS DOE, a 14-year-old freshman, left the school but was followed by a car, according to Gage. Several individuals exited the vehicle, one with a “large butcher knife.” A fight ensued and two people were stabbed. The Black student was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon but was later released into his mother’s custody.
The high school freshmen is scheduled to appear in juvenile court on Feb. 1, but Harper says she will reach out to the District Attorney and make the case against charging the young man.
“His mama had to go find him because he was hiding and fleeing for his very life,” said Harper.
According to the boy’s mother, the young student is still traumatized and has not been able to return to the area because it remains unsafe. Racial slurs have also been spray painted on their home.
“I’m sad. I’m devastated, you know,” said the mother. “I still feel like they’re after him. I still feel like they can kill him, possibly.”
The LAUSD and principal of Verdugo High School did not respond to CBM’s requests for comment.
If you are – or someone you know is – has experienced a hate crime or hate incident, please visit CAvsHate.org for more information and to find out what you can do about it.
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In 1974, Then-Gov. Jimmy Carter Visited the Home of Oakland Black Black Political Activist Virtual Murrell While Running for President
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Politics
Democrats Hold Their Own Hearing to Update Education Law
In this Jan. 21, 2015, file photo, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., sitting next to ranking member Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., listen to testimony during a hearing looking at ways to fix the No Child Left Behind law during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Outnumbered by Republicans, Democratic lawmakers are jockeying to get their views heard as Congress moves ahead on revising the much-maligned No Child Left Behind education law. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
KIMBERLY HEFLING, AP Education Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democratic lawmakers are clawing to get their views heard as Congress moves ahead on revising the much-maligned No Child Left Behind education law and its annual school testing requirements.
They crowded into a small Capitol Hill hearing room Thursday for their own forum on changing the law in protest of Republicans’ handling of the issue. Votes on a GOP bill are anticipated soon.
The bill “shows that poor, minority and disabled children are not a priority for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle,” said Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio.
Some worried about a provision in the bill to let federal dollars follow a low-income student to a different public school, saying they fear it will hurt schools with a high concentration of poor students. “How do you think we can best get that message out?” said Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif.
The No Child Left Behind law, signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, was intended to close substantial achievement gaps between the academic performance of minority and low income students and their more affluent peers. It mandated that students in grades three to eight be tested annually in reading and math and be tested again once in high school.
Schools that didn’t show annual growth faced consequences, and every student was to be proficient by 2014.
GOP Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, now the House speaker, sponsored the legislation with the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and other senior lawmakers, and Congress sent it to Bush with overwhelming bipartisan support.
The law’s annual testing requirements, Common Core standards and school choice are all controversial issues wrapped up in the debate. Both sides heartily agree that the landmark law needs to be fixed, but tensions are high over the level of federal involvement in fixing schools.
Complicating the matter, allegiances don’t clearly fall along party lines. While more conservative Republicans would like to essentially eliminate the federal role in education, GOP-friendly business groups side support a strong federal role, as do civil rights groups that traditionally align with Democrats. At the same time, teachers’ unions, which also tend to align with Democrats, argue the Obama administration has placed too much of emphasis on testing.
Deciding that the goal of proficiency for every student by 2014 was unattainable, the Obama administration in 2012 started granting waivers to states. The waivers allow states to avoid some of the more stringent requirements of the law if they met conditions such as adopting meaningful teacher evaluation systems and college- and career-ready standards like the Common Core. The standards spell out what skills students in each grade should master in reading and math.
Widespread disagreement over how to change the law has kept Congress from getting a bill to President Barack Obama.
Republicans congressional leaders who now control both the House and Senate say they hope to pass a bill this year. That’s left House Democrats complaining things are moving too fast.
Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, released a bill to update the law similar to one passed by the House in 2013 without one Democrat on board, and scheduled a Feb. 11 committee meeting to consider it. The bill maintains testing requirements, but it strips the federal government of much of its authority — including limiting the education secretary’s role in “coercing” standards. A vote is expected in late February.
Kline said the committee has had more than a dozen hearings over the last four years. “Americans have waited long enough for reforms that will fix a broken education system,” he said.
Like Sen. Lamar Alexander, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Kline has expressed concern that a strong federal role in education stifles education advancement and innovation in states.
But Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the newly appointed senior Democrat on the House committee, accused House Republicans of a “hasty, partisan push” to rewrite the law and he organization the forum with a panel of education experts.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement that Kline’s bill would “turn back the clock on growth.”
Much of the discussion in the Senate has focused on whether federal testing mandates should continue. Alexander has said he’s willing to listen to both sides and he’s hopeful he can get a bill out of his committee by the end of the month. But there have been signs of dissent. The committee’s senior Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray came out this week against allowing federal money to follow students, an idea also included in a draft bill circulated by Alexander.
“We have to have a bipartisan result. Otherwise we won’t have a law,” Alexander said Wednesday.
_____
Follow Kimberly Hefling on Twitter: http://twitter.com/khefling
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Activism
In 1974, Then-Gov. Jimmy Carter Visited the Home of Oakland Black Black Political Activist Virtual Murrell While Running for President
civil rights icon Georgia State Representative Julian Bond said that Carter, along with governors Reuben Askew of Florida, Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, and Terry Sanford of North Carolina, were all a part of what was being dubbed the “New South” and so supported civil rights and voting rights for African Americans.
By Virtual T. Murrell
Special to The Post
On his way to seeking the presidency, then-Gov. Jimmy Carter visited the Bay Area in his capacity as campaign chairman of the Democratic National Committee in March of 1974.
A friend of mine, Bill Lynch, a Democrat from San Francisco, had been asked to host Carter, who was then relatively unknown. Seeking my advice on the matter, I immediately called my friend, civil rights icon Georgia State Representative Julian Bond, for his opinion.
Bond said that Carter, along with governors Reuben Askew of Florida, Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, and Terry Sanford of North Carolina, were all a part of what was being dubbed the “New South” and so supported civil rights and voting rights for African Americans.
Based on Julian’s comments, I agreed to host the governor. We picked him up at the San Francisco Airport. With his toothy smile, I could tell almost right away that he was like no other politician I had ever met. On his arrival, there was a message telling him to go to the VIP room, where he met then-Secretary of State Jerry Brown.
After leaving the airport, we went to a reception in his honor at the home of Paul “Red” Fay, who had served as the acting secretary of the Navy under President John Kennedy. (Carter, it turned out, had been himself a 1946 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a submariner in the 1950s.)
The following afternoon, the Niagara Movement Democratic Club hosted a reception for Carter, which was a major success. Carter indicated that he would be considering running for president and hoped for our support if he did so.
As the event was winding down, I witnessed the most amazing moment: Carter’s wife, Rosalynn, was in the kitchen with my former wife, Irene, wearing an apron and busting suds! You would have to have been there to see it: The first and last time a white woman cleaned up my kitchen.
A few months later, President Richard Nixon resigned amid the Watergate scandal. He was succeeded by his vice president, Gerald Ford.
On the heels of that scandal, Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976 represented integrity and honesty at a point in America’s history when he was just what the nation needed to lead as president of the United States.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of January 1 – 7, 2025
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of January 1 – 7, 2025
To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.
Activism
Racially Motivated Violence Against Black Teen Prompts $10 Million Claim Against LAUSD
In December, a second altercation, on a video shared with news media, showed 4 to 6 boys attacking a Black student and using racial slurs. The video also shows a person in a safety vest trying to stop the fight and telling them to “handle it after school.” Then, the video ends.
By Solomon O. Smith, California Black Media
A distraught mother and her legal team announced a $10 million lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) on Dec. 16, alleging that her son was the target of bullying because of his race.
“CS DOE is a 14-year-old African American student at Verdugo High School. He is a Ninth Grader,” reads a statement the plaintiff’s attorneys shared with California Black Media (CBM).
“Almost from the first day of class (in August 2024), CS DOE was targeted by Latino students who called him racial slurs, physically attacked him and threatened to stab him.”
The family’s identity has not yet been released to the public due to safety concerns, according to their attorneys Bradley C. Gage and Caree Harper. The student’s mother is identified only as A.O. in the complaint.
The first video, filmed in August, showed several non-Black students punching and kicking a Black student in a bathroom on campus while yelling racial slurs. The mother claims that the students who attacked her son were not punished, and the administration asked her to move her son to another school for his safety.
“They wanted him to leave the school without giving any disciplinary action towards those students,” said the student’s mother. “He’s not going anywhere. He’s going to finish. I wanted him to at least stay until the December winter break, and then I was going to transfer schools for him.”
Before she could enroll her son in a different school the attacks escalated.
In December, a second altercation, on a video shared with news media, showed 4 to 6 boys attacking a Black student and using racial slurs. The video also shows a person in a safety vest trying to stop the fight and telling them to “handle it after school.” Then, the video ends.
CS DOE, a 14-year-old freshman, left the school but was followed by a car, according to Gage. Several individuals exited the vehicle, one with a “large butcher knife.” A fight ensued and two people were stabbed. The Black student was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon but was later released into his mother’s custody.
The high school freshmen is scheduled to appear in juvenile court on Feb. 1, but Harper says she will reach out to the District Attorney and make the case against charging the young man.
“His mama had to go find him because he was hiding and fleeing for his very life,” said Harper.
According to the boy’s mother, the young student is still traumatized and has not been able to return to the area because it remains unsafe. Racial slurs have also been spray painted on their home.
“I’m sad. I’m devastated, you know,” said the mother. “I still feel like they’re after him. I still feel like they can kill him, possibly.”
The LAUSD and principal of Verdugo High School did not respond to CBM’s requests for comment.
If you are – or someone you know is – has experienced a hate crime or hate incident, please visit CAvsHate.org for more information and to find out what you can do about it.
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