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The recently released National Assessment of Educational Progress 2009 Trial Urban District Assessment found no significant change in the reading scores of schoolchildren in the District of Columbia and 17 other urban school districts.
Reading is also a challenge for some top Obama administration officials.
Their refusal to read the law is designed to give them plausible deniability for the federal government’s failure to secure the border and enforce existing law.
During an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Paul was asked whether he supported the seminal civil rights legislation:
MADDOW: In terms of legal remedies for persistent discrimination, though, if there was a private business, say, in Louisville, say, somewhere in your home state, that wanted to not serve black patrons and wanted to not serve gay patrons, or somebody else on the basis of their -- on the basis of a characteristic that they decided they didn’t like as a private business owner -- would you think they had a legal right to do so, to put up a “blacks not served here” sign?
PAUL: Well, the interesting thing is, you know, you look back to the 1950s and 1960s at the problems we faced. There were incredible problems. You know, the problems had to do with mostly voting, they had to do with schools, they had to do with public housing. And so, this is what the civil rights largely addressed, and all things that I largely agree with.
MADDOW: But what about private businesses? I mean, I hate to -- I don`t want to be badgering you on this, but I do want an answer.
PAUL: I’m not -- I’m not --
MADDOW: Do you think that a private business has the right to say we don’t serve black people?
PAUL: Yes. I’m not in favor of any discrimination of any form. I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race. We still do have private clubs in America that can discriminate based on race.
Paul then dug himself into a deeper hole.
MADDOW: And should Woolworth lunch counter should have been allowed to stay segregated? Sir, just yes or no.
PAUL: What I think would happen -- what I’m saying is, is that I don’t believe in any discrimination. I don’t believe in any private property should discriminate either. And I wouldn’t attend, wouldn’t support, wouldn’t go to.
But what you have to answer when you answer this point of view, which is an abstract, obscure conversation from 1964 that you want to bring up. But if you want to answer, you have to say then that you decide the rules for all restaurants and then you decide that you want to allow them to carry weapons into restaurants.
For the past two days, I participated in a charrette on education reform on the campus of North Carolina A&T State University. It was from here on Feb. 1, 1960, four students launched the lunch counter sit-ins at F.W. Woolworth in downtown Greensboro.
Among the museum’s many exhibits are the original portion of the lunch counter and stools where the students sat.
Paul’s racial gaffe brings to mind a son of the South, William Faulkner, who famously observed, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Fifty years after the nonviolent protests that catalyzed the civil rights movement, Paul thinks the role of the federal government in desegregating private businesses is “still a valid discussion.”
Monday marked the 56th anniversary of the landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education. In the unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
I am leaving for Greensboro, N.C., in a few hours to participate in an education symposium charrette, “The Crisis for Black Public Schoolchildren,” organized by DeWayne Wickham, the director of the Institute for Advanced Journalism Studies at North Carolina A&T University.
I am pressed for time so I will share information about the charrette in a future post.
It’s Election Day in Pennsylvania, where voters will decide whether Democrat-turned-Republican-turned Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter stays or, as expected, gets the boot.
Specter’s primary opponent, Rep. Joe Sestak, hammered him for voting against Elena Kagan’s nomination as Solicitor General of the United States.
I have gone to really great lengths to find out about Dean Kagan’s approach to the law and approach to the job of Solicitor General and to get some of her ideas on the law because she’s in a critical public policy making position… We had an extensive hearing where I questioned her at some length. Written questions were submitted and she responded to them. I was not satisfied with the answers which were given and when her name came before the Committee, I passed.
[…]
I have no illusion that the issues that I have raised will prevail. I think it is pretty plain that Dean Kagan will be confirmed. But I do not articulate this as a protest vote or a protest position but really one of institutional prerogatives that we ought to know more about these nominees; we ought to take their confirmation process very seriously.
As a Supreme Court justice, Kagan would be in an even more critical public policy making position. Indeed, TV One’s Roland Martin observed, “Appointed for life, these justices can have a lasting impact on this and future generations.”
So African American leaders are taking the confirmation process very seriously and asking questions.
Some of the most pointed questions are being asked by black women who say they “have to have more information before we know whether we’re for or against her.”
During an appearance on “Washington Watch,” Melanie Campbell, the convener of the Black Women’s Roundtable, said:
First and foremost, this is not about being against the President. That’s the first thing. It’s about doing …our due diligence as leaders. For the last two years, even before the President was elected, it was, “He’s not going to be the African American president. He is the President of these United States…If that’s the case, then you have a right to ask questions. You have the right to probe.
Barbara Arnwine, the executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, added:
There are questions about where was she on affirmative action. There are these issues that have to be sorted out and we just want answers. We want information. Our duty as civil rights groups is to look at the complete record.
Let’s be clear: Black civil rights and political leaders harbor no illusion that Kagan’s nomination will be derailed.
Instead, what’s at stake is the “delicate dance” between African Americans and President Obama.
Martin, the host of “Washington Watch,” recently wrote:
I’ve been told countless times by folks on both sides that Obama can’t be seen as favoring African-Americans over others, and his White House has been especially scared of touching anything dealing with race. As a result, black civil rights leaders and prominent Democrats have largely bitten their tongue, unwilling to publicly take on the president and some of his decisions. Instead, they quietly fume, mumbling under their breath and offering their critiques in measured tones.
Yet I have gotten the sense that black civil rights and political leaders may stop the racial solidarity and stand up for the principles they have long fought for. I’ve been expressly told that some have no interest in working hard or raising money in the fall on behalf of Democrats to hold on to the House and Senate.
Midterm elections are about mobilizing the base. In 2006, the last midterm election, black voter turnout was 41 percent. Black women participated at a higher rate than black men.
There’s no dancing around the fact that Obama and congressional Democrats need black women to show up in November.
The question then becomes: If you don’t respect us, why do you expect us on Election Day?
First Lady Michelle Obama is on a mission promoting her Let’s Move! campaign to solve the epidemic of childhood obesity.
The Childhood Obesity Task Force recently released an action plan, “Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity Within a Generation.” Among its recommendations:
Getting children more physically active, through quality physical education, recess, and other opportunities in and after school; addressing aspects of the “built environment” that make it difficult for children to walk or bike safely in their communities; and improving access to safe parks, playgrounds, and indoor and outdoor recreational facilities.
Back in the day, New York City kids never stopped moving in the built environment – the sidewalks and streets. Whether it was dodge ball, stickball or hide-and-go-seek, kids were physically active.
My favorite games were hopscotch and skelly. And I loved jumping double-dutch.
To this day, when I pass girls jumping double-dutch, I think about asking for a jump. But I quickly come to my senses. I would probably get tangled up in the ropes and fall flat on my you-know-what.
