GRAPHIC: Per Capita Spending on Education in the United States

Education Week released its analysis of per capita spending on education by the various states in the Union. The national average is $12,526 but Utah spend $7,207 per student while Vermont ($20,795) and Alaska ($20,640) are at the very top. At this link you can mouse over the map and see how your state compares.

California is at $9,417.

Hat/tip to Education Week.

OCTOBER 23-27 IS #ACTIVELEARNINGWEEK2017

This week is Active Learning Week. If you're a college professor, you can take a pledge.

REPORT: Many Los Angeles Area STEM Jobs In 2016-2021 Will Not Require 4-Year Degrees

Interesting report from the Center for a Competitive Workforce about a potential talent shortage in the Los Angeles county area in the near future. Many people think that STEM technical jobs require a 4-year degree, but this report says that there will be many "middle skills" job openings in the Los Angeles area that will not.

In the region there will be approximately 67,450 job openings over the next five years for the 20 occupations examined in the report.  But, according to the latest data available, from the academic year 2014-15, there were fewer than 27,000 career education award earners in the greater Los Angeles Basin. And only about 7,800 awards were conferred in programs training relevant to the 20 target occupations. 

If this trend continues without our region’s talent development systems and institutions responding in kind, especially the community colleges which are the primary suppliers of this middle skill talent, then the demand in the region will not be met over the next five years.

One key takeaway from the report is that local community colleges in Los Angeles will only provide 58% of the people with associates degrees or certificates that the area will likely need to fill these jobs in the near future.

Hat/tip to KPCC

REPORT: No Educational Achievement Gap Between Multiracial and White Students

A new report published by the Brookings Institute, a liberal think-tank in Washington D.C. claims that there is educational gap between multiracial and white students. This would seem to contradict the race-based theories  trying to explain the achievement gaps which are often found when one analyzed educational attainment data through a racial and ethnic lens.

Here's an excerpt from the report, authored by Jonathan Rothwell, an Economist who works at Gallup

Despite the growing number of multiracial students, almost no attention has been given to their educational outcomes. But gaining a better understanding of how multiracial students perform may cast useful light on the causes of race gaps more generally. My analysis shows that:

1.    Students of multiracial identity are from families with lower socioeconomic status than whites; 

2.    They attend schools that are far more integrated with whites and Asians compared to blacks, Hispanics, American Indians, and Pacific Islanders 

3.    Multiracial students have the same average test scores as whites on math, science, and writing; 

4.    For reading tests, multiracial students outperform other groups, including Asians; and 

5.    These results contradict the controversial hypothesis that between group differences in IQ result from genetic differences between races.

These findings suggest that the race gaps in academic achievement in the United States are the result of inequality, especially in terms of access to educational opportunities, and therefore could be closed under fairer political, social, and economic arrangements.

This is just more evidence about the socially constructed nature of race and the arbitrariness of racial categories. If "white"

WATCH: Animated Gif Proving Pythagoras' Theorem #math

This is a perfect depiction of a creative way to illustrate mathematical concepts, even relatively simple ones like Pythagoras' Theorem that a² + b² = c². Or, in words, the sum of the squares of the two sides of a right-triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse.

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Bobby Jindal Gives Evasive Answers To Questions On Evolution

Not sure if this belongs in Godless Wednesday category but it is something I feel like I need to blog about to alert my fellow godless heathens! Governor Bobby Jindal, currently "praying about whether he will run for President in 2016" and former Rhodes Scholar (to study biology and public policy) refused multiple opportunities from reporters to say whether he believes in evolution or not.

Instead, this is what Jindal said:

"I'm not an evolutionary biologist"
and
"I will tell you, as a father, I want my kids to be taught about evolution in their schools, but secondly, I think local school districts should make the decision."
and 
"I told you what I think. I think that local school districts, not the federal government, should make the decision about how they teach science, biology, economics. I want my kids to be taught about evolution; I want my kids to be taught about other theories."

This is the same politician who exhorted his fellow Republicans to "stop being the stupid party"! Until ambitious GOP politicians like Jindal stop issuing dog-whistle messages instead of acknowledging scientific truths ("Evolution is a real biological phenomenon. The climate of the earth is being impacted by man-made activity. A blastocyst is not a human being.") they will continue to be thought of as the group of people who puts faith before fact.

And that is just stupid.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: 10-Year-Old Tanishq Abraham Graduates From High School With 4.0 GPA

Tanishq Abraham, 10, made some headlines as a prodigy this week with the news that he was graduating from high school at the age of 10, with a perfect 4.0 GPA no less. This is not too surprising, since he joined Mensa at age 4 and has been taking college courses since age 7.

The San Francisco Examiner reports:

Abraham was home-schooled for the past three years, and then he passed a state exam in March that certified him as having met the appropriate academic standards to receive his high school diploma in California.
[...]
The boy says that he realized he had a special gift when he was just in kindergarten. At that very young age, he realized he could read books written for second and third graders. Additionally, his math skills were that of a second or third grader. He believes that learning just comes more naturally to him than to other youngsters. It also helps that he says he really likes to learn things. 

Abraham names science as his favorite subject. However, he says he also enjoys social studies and history. Of math, he says he kind of likes it. He plans to either become a doctor – though he doesn’t know what kind – or perhaps a medical researcher or even the president.

Let's hope that Taishq continues to excel as he gets older!

SCOTUS Upholds Michigan's Affirmative Action Ban 6-2, Sotomayor Vociferously Dissents

On Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court issued a curious 6-2 ruling upholding the constitutionality of a Michigan ballot measure which precludes the use of "race-based preferences" in public education. The majority opinion by Anthony Kennedy went out of its way to say that it was not ruling on the constitutionality of race-based affirmative action policies but on whether voters had the power to ban affirmative action policies.

New York Times reports:

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s controlling opinion for three justices took pains to say that the decision was a modest one. 

“This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved,” he wrote, in an opinion joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. “It is about who may resolve it. There is no authority in the Constitution of the United States or in this court’s precedents for the judiciary to set aside Michigan laws that commit this policy determination to the voters.” 

His announcement of the decision from the bench was businesslike. Then Justice Sotomayor summarized her dissent, an unusual move signaling deep displeasure. She said the initiative put minorities to a burden not faced by other college applicants and so violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause. 

“The Constitution does not protect racial minorities from political defeat,” she wrote. “But neither does it give the majority free rein to erect selective barriers against racial minorities.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined the dissent. Justice Sotomayor seemed to mock one of Chief Justice Roberts’s most memorable lines. In a 2007 decision that limited the use of race in public school systems, he wrote, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” 

Justice Sotomayor recast the line. “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race,” she wrote, “is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination.”

The result is significant for California, because the Golden State is one of 7 where voters have passed ballot measures banning affirmative action based on race (or gender) in public education. California's measure is called Proposition 209 and an attempt to place a repeal on the November 2014 ballot was abandoned earlier this year after Asian constituents expressed their displeasure with the idea of allowing UCLA and UC Berkeley to be allowed to take race into account when deciding who gets admitted to California's top state universities.

This is not surprising, because figures that came out this week show that Asians are a plurality (36.2%) of all admitted students from California to the University of California, with Latinos (28.8%) surpassing Whites (26.8) for the first time this year. Black students made up a paltry 4.2% of the total number of admitted California students.

SCOTUS blog reports on how strongly Justice Sonia Sotomayor attempted to convince her colleagues that what they were doing in allowing the majority to ban policies intended to help minorities was wrong:

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who recited orally from the bench a lengthy version of her dissenting opinion, said the ruling would make it much harder for racial minorities to defend affirmative action programs.  What had happened in Michigan, she protested, was “the last chapter of discrimination” — changing “the basic rules of the political process in that state in a manner that uniquely disadvantaged racial minorities.” 

The Sotomayor opinion, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, ran to fifty-eight pages – surpassing by more than three times the length of the lead opinion by Justice Kennedy and even exceeding the forty-four pages that all of her colleagues had written.

Viva Sonia!

CA State Senate Abandons Attempt To Restore Race-Conscious College Admissions

Bad news today out of the Democratic state senate, where a state constitutional amendment that would place a partial repeal of Proposition 209 on the November 2014 ballot has been tabled. Proposition 209 passed in 1996 and banned the use of race, ethnicity or gender in public education, public contracts or public employment. The state senate had passed SCA 5 by a vote of 27 to 9 on January 30, 2014.

Speaker John Perez (and State Controller candidate) announced today that the Assembly would not consider the measure. According to the San Jose Mercury-News Asian-American state senators switched from support to opposition due to pressure from the community.

Last week, saying they had received thousands of calls and emails from constituents, senators Leland Yee, D-San Francisco; Ted Lieu, D-Torrance; and Carol Liu, D-La Cañada/Flintridge asked Assembly Speaker John Perez to stop the bill. 

"As lifelong advocates for the Asian-American and other communities, we would never support a policy that we believed would negatively impact our children," they wrote in a letter to Perez. 

In 1996, California became the first state to outlaw affirmative action in public university admissions and state hiring, a policy that took effect in 1998. The amendment would have allowed voters to lift that ban, either this fall or in 2016. 

Hernandez and others have said that misinformation about what affirmative action would mean -- such as racial quotas for new freshmen -- spread quickly, stoking parents' fears about their children's chances of getting into UC, the state's public research university system. 

Using racial quotas in admissions would be unconstitutional; recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have strictly limited consideration of race in public university admissions. UC officials last week said any suggestion of quotas is irresponsible: "We have never done that, and we never would," said Nina Robinson, UC's associate president and chief policy adviser.

 Hopefully the legislature will realize that it is important to be able to use race as a factor in college admissions.

Bigots Fail To Qualify CA Referendum On Transgender Student Rights Law!

As I predicted in December, the Secretary of State today confirmed that religious extremists and heterosexual supremacists failed to submit enough valid signatures to force a referendum on the School Success and Opportunity Act (AB 1266). In order to suspend the law and force a vote on the measure in November 2014, the opponents of the measure had claimed they had enough signatures to force a vote but they submitted 619, 387 signatures and a 3% spot check showed that they were above 95% of the needed total which triggered a review of every single signature. In the end, though, the Secretary of State determined that only 487,484 were deemed valid and 504,760 were needed. That's a deficit of 17,276 or 3.4% of the total needed to qualify the measure.

They got 96.6% of the way to their total, which is scary enough. But close is not good enough!
 This is great news for transgender and cisgender students in all California schools.

The haters could still try and file a ballot measure to repeal the law or a constitutional amendment to prevent the legislature from enacting such a measure in the future.

Equality California celebrates with a press release:

Attempt to Repeal the School Success and Opportunity Act Fails

(San Francisco) Today, the effort to repeal the School Success and Opportunity Act — California’s new law ensuring that all children have opportunities to do well in school — failed to qualify for the ballot.

The law — also known as Assembly Bill 1266 — went into effect on January 1, ensuring that schools have the guidance they need to make sure all students, including those who are transgender, have the opportunity to do well in school and graduate.
The law is modeled after policies and practices that are already working well in several schools, and gives important guidance to educators so they can work with students and families on a case-by-case basis.

Oakland’s Redwood Heights School is among the California schools with policies in place that provide transgender young people with fair chances. Like other schools with similar policies across the state, the policy has been successful since it was established five years ago.

“We want our students to know that when they walk onto this campus, they are welcomed for who they are,” said Redwood Heights Principal Sara Stone. “Every educator I know went into the education field because they truly care about young people and making sure they have everything they need to do well in school.”

The law helps students like Zoey, a 12-year-old transgender girl from the Los Angeles area who transferred out of her school after administrators there refused to acknowledge her as a girl or allow her to use the girls’ restroom. Her mom, Ofelia Barba, says that the law makes it easier for her daughter to go to school and be herself.

“I love my daughter and want the same things for her that other parents want for their children,” Barba said. “I want what’s best for her, for her to be happy, and for her to be able to do well in school. No one wants to see any kid singled out and excluded from school because of who they are.”

The Support All Students campaign comprises a broad coalition of nearly 100 state and national organizations supporting the new law. The coalition includes Equality California, Transgender Law Center, National Center for Lesbian Rights, ACLU of California, Gay-Straight Alliance Network, L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, Gender Spectrum, LGBT organizations, racial justice organizations, statewide teacher and parent organizations, and others committed to ensuring that all kids have the opportunity to do well in school and graduate.

Said Transgender Law Center Executive Director and Campaign Chair Masen Davis: “This law gives schools the guidelines and flexibility to create an environment where all kids have the opportunity to learn. We need to focus on creating an environment where every student is able to do well and graduate. This law is about doing what’s best for all students — that’s why it’s supported by school boards, teachers, and the PTA.”

To learn more about the School Success and Opportunity Act and the Support All Students campaign, visit www.SupportAllStudents.org.

Great news!

POLL: Americans Think Math Is Most Valuable School Subject

Well, this is heartening news to this college mathematics professor's ears! Gallup has polled Americans about what they think the "most valuable subject" they studied in school, and the subject that came up the most (it's a free response question) was mathematics, with just over one-third of respondents mentioning it.

Gallup reports:

The results, from Gallup's Aug. 7-11 Work and Education poll, are generally similar to those from 11 years ago. The most notable difference is a sharp increase in the percentage mentioning science, from 4% to 12%. While still well behind math and English, science has now moved ahead of history into third place in the rank order of subjects.

The question does not specify which level of school -- grade school, high school, college, or postgraduate study -- respondents should use in assessing the value of subjects. Thus, respondents were free to look back over their entire educational history to select the subject they thought was most valuable to them.

However, responses do differ according to Americans' own level of educational attainment, with math increasingly less likely to be mentioned by those with higher levels of education. Specifically, 43% of those with a high school education or less say math has been most valuable, compared with 19% among those with postgraduate education.

In contrast, the importance of English rises with higher levels of formal education, tying math as the most important among four-year college graduates and coming in first among postgraduates. It could be that those with higher education levels are more likely to use written communication as a part of their jobs.

This is an interesting result.  I wonder if people with less education are just telling respondents what they think the pollster wants to hear, and not what is actually the most valuable subject, but one they perceive as the most valuable subject they learned in school.  People who have more education seem to believe that communication skills (English, writing, reading) are important in whatever endeavor one is engaged in, although I would argue, so is the ability to calculate and reason quantitatively. I find it very curious that Gallup last asked this question way back in 2002(!)

There are other demographic variations  on what subject is the most valuable with women respondents choosing English slightly above mathematics (29% to 28%) and with men placing math (40%) and science (15%) over English (13%). Conservatives more strongly support math as their most valuable subject (38%) but both moderates (35%) and liberals (26%) do as well.

What do YOU think, dear reader, was your most valuable subject in school? Feel free to respond in the comments!

Homophobes File Referendum on Transgender Student Rights Bill

Here we go again. Just last week Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 1266, the School Success and Opportunity Act, into law. SSOA basically put into effect statewide the policy of the state's largest school district, LAUSD, which allows transgender students to participate fully in activities using the gender identity that they feel is most appropriate. Massachusetts and Colorado already have similar statewide policies.

Most people think this was a historic move forward to advance the rights of transgender students. Of course, that is not how the homophobes see it. They have filed paperwork to put theis historic civil rights law up for a referendum, meaning that it would not go into effect immediately if they are able to file 500,000 signatures with the Secretary of State within 90 days. Then there would be a vote during a statewide election in 2014 on whether the measure would go into effect at all or be effectively repealed.

Equality California executive director John O'Connor responded to the move:

"This is a predictable move by fringe groups that oppose all pro-equality measures and that historically have lacked the capacity to successfully execute similar efforts. AB1266 is an historic civil rights bill ensuring all students have the opportunity to participate and succeed in schools, including transgender students. EQCA and our partners will remain vigilant about monitoring the situation."

It should be remembered that there were also people who wanted to put the FAIR Education Act up for  a vote of the people of California, and they failed (twice!) to do so. The FAIR Education Act was a law that amended the state Education Code to insure that information about LGBT people in all California public schools has to be "fair, accurate, inclusive and respectful."

Now it looks like the homophobes are starting to realize that they are most certainly going to lose the war over marriage equality (California's fight over Proposition 8 ended with a whimper on Wednesday August 14) they are changing their focus to the T in LGBT rights, narrowing in on challenging the very concept of gender identity itself.

This is the hyperbolic language they are using on their temporary website to publicize their attempt to overturn the Transgender Student Rghts Bill:

Governor Jerry Brown just signed into law AB 1266 which would allow boys and girls to share the same school locker rooms, showers, restrooms, sporting programs, and school activities, based on the student’s gender identity, rather than his or her actual biological gender. 

Gender identity refers to a person’s subjective opinion of ones gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s biological sex. But no matter the student’s gender identity, imposing this drastic and intrusive law upon all students is foolish and irresponsible. 

This bill will go into effect in Jan. 2014 unless we stop it.

One of the main reason that the heterosexual supremacists are going after AB 1266 is that the polling on it is pretty tight, with a June 2013 survey indicating 43% support and 46% opposition to the then pending legislation.

Hopefully they won't even get enough signatures to qualify the referendum, but this is probably also about activating the conservative base in California for the 2014 statewide elections, since currently the Republican party has basically zero power in all three branches of California government.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

CA Gov. Signs Transgender Student Bill Into Law!

For Immediate Release

CA Governor Brown Signs Historic Transgender Student Bill into Law

(San Francisco, CA, August 12, 2013)—Today, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the historic School Success and Opportunity Act into law, ensuring that transgender youth have the opportunity to fully participate and succeed in schools across the state. Assembly Bill 1266—which goes into effect on January 1, 2014—was authored by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano and passed the California State Senate and Assembly earlier this summer. The law is the first of its kind in the country. It requires that California public schools respect students’ gender identity and makes sure that students can have equal access to all school activities, sports teams, programs, and facilities.

“I’m so excited that California is making sure transgender students have a fair chance to graduate and succeed,” said Calen Valencia, an 18-year-old transgender student from Tulare. “I should have graduated this year, but my school refused to give me the same opportunity to succeed as other boys. Now other transgender youth won’t have to choose between being themselves and graduating high school.”

Co-authored by Senators Mark Leno and Ricardo Lara and Assemblymember Toni Atkins, the bill is backed by a coalition of leading organizations, including National Center for Lesbian Rights, ACLU of California, Gay-Straight Alliance Network, Equality California, Gender Spectrum, Transgender Law Center, statewide teacher and parent organizations, and dozens of other organizations.

The new law builds on a national movement to end discriminatory practices and ensure transgender youth have the same opportunity to succeed as other students. Massachusetts and Colorado have statewide policies in line with AB 1266, and the Colorado and Maine state human rights commissions have held that state law requires schools to respect students’ gender identity. Additionally, many school districts across the country have adopted policies that ensure no student is left out, including the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest school district.

California law already prohibits discrimination in education, but transgender students have been often discriminated against and unfairly excluded from school facilities and physical education, athletic teams, and other school activities. This exclusion negatively impacts students’ ability to succeed in school and graduate with their class. For example, physical education credits are required to graduate, but transgender students often do not have the support they need to fully participate in the courses.

The supporting organizations are truly appreciative of Gov. Brown’s efforts to protect LGBT Californians and ensure all students have the opportunity to excel in our public education system. From his support to ban harmful sexual orientation change efforts to his leadership on marriage equality to his signing of AB 1266, Gov. Brown has sent a powerful message to LGBT youth letting them know their state and their government fully support them. In so doing, he is not only changing, but also saving lives.

Said NCLR Legal Director Shannon Minter: “We are grateful to Governor Brown for his longstanding commitment to ensuring that all California students are able to attend school without discrimination or harassment. By signing AB 1266, he has made that commitment real for transgender students, who will now have the same opportunities to participate and to succeed as other students.”

GRAPHIC: No (Rich) Child Left Behind

The New York Times Opinionator blog has an interesting article entitled "No Rich Child Left Behind" by Stanford education professor Sean Reardon which publicizes a fact that most people not involved with education policy may not realize: the wealth of one's parent's is the largest factor (more significant than race or ethnicity or gender) in determining whether someone becomes a college graduate or not.

This idea is captured by this excerpt:

To make this trend concrete, consider two children, one from a family with income of $165,000 and one from a family with income of $15,000. These incomes are at the 90th and 10th percentiles of the income distribution nationally, meaning that 10 percent of children today grow up in families with incomes below $15,000 and 10 percent grow up in families with incomes above $165,000. 

In the 1980s, on an 800-point SAT-type test scale, the average difference in test scores between two such children would have been about 90 points; today it is 125 points. This is almost twice as large as the 70-point test score gap between white and black children. Family income is now a better predictor of children’s success in school than race.

And a key point to remember is that the disparity between rich kids and poor kids is widening while racial/ethnic disparities have been slowly decreasing.

The widening income disparity in academic achievement is not a result of widening racial gaps in achievement, either. The achievement gaps between blacks and whites, and Hispanic and non-Hispanic whites have been narrowing slowly over the last two decades, trends that actually keep the yawning gap between higher- and lower-income students from getting even wider. If we look at the test scores of white students only, we find the same growing gap between high- and low-income children as we see in the population as a whole. 

Professor Reardon explains the implications of this phenomenon on our society:

Meanwhile, not only are the children of the rich doing better in school than even the children of the middle class, but the changing economy means that school success is increasingly necessary to future economic success, a worrisome mutual reinforcement of trends that is making our society more socially and economically immobile. 

The entire piece is well worth reading. Check it out!

Godless Wednesday: AZ Links God and Graduation?

Arizona is well-known for bizarre public policy proposals, but the latest news about a bill to require all high school graduates to state a faith-based oath in order to get a diploma has many people up in arms.

This is the text of the proposed oath:

I, _______, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge these duties; So help me God.

Anyone see any problems with forcing all high school seniors in Arizona to state an oath containing the word "God" in it?

Good grief!

Hat/tip to Think Progress

UPDATE: Rubio Admits Earth is 4.5B Years Old

As regular readers of this here blog thingy know, we at madprofessah.com are members of the reality-based community. So, when putative 2016 presidential hopeful U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) answered the innocuous question "How old do you think the Earth is?" from GQ magazine with a frankly unacceptable response, I called him on it.

Even crazy old coot Pat Robertson rejects the notion of a "young earth" and encourages others to as well.

Today, the 41-year-old Cuban-American GOP wonderboy admitted he does know how old the earth is to Politico:

Rubio also addressed the controversy surrounding his recent comments to GQ about the age of the earth. 

“Science says it’s about four and a half billion years old and my faith teaches that that’s not inconsistent,” he clarified. “The answer I gave was actually trying to make the same point the president made a few years ago, and that is there is no scientific debate on the age of the earth. I mean, it’s established pretty definitively as at least four and a half billion years old … I was referring to a theological debate and which is a pretty healthy debate.” 

“The theological debate is how do you reconcile what science has definitively established with what you think your faith teaches? For me, actually, when it comes to the age of the earth there is no conflict: I believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and I think scientific advances give us insight into when he did it and how he did it,” he said. “But I still believe God did it, And that’s how I’ve been able to reconcile that and I think it’s consistent with the teachings of my church. But other people have a deeper conflict and I just think in America we should have the freedom to teach our children whatever we believe.”

Really, Senator Rubio? This response just shows how sneaky he can be. He got caught pandering to religious extremists and know he is blathering about a "theological debate." The question was NOT about the theological debate. The question was about a scientifically determined fact, and he answered differently from what he knew was true, in order to not offend people who wish to have a debate (theological or other) about this question. Busted!

And the point about "[I]n America we should have the freedom to teach our children whatever we believe" is just a canard. PARENTS can teach their kids whatever craziness they want to, but public schools, paid from the taxes of everyone can not endorse any parent's religious views and so should just teach the facts. This last point is something fellow Brown GOP 2016 Presidential hopeful Bobby Jindal does not understand either.

Godless Wednesday: Jindal's Voucher Program Struck Down

Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has been a strong supporter of school voucher programs and pushed through a plan in his state which allowed public money in the form of vouchers to go to private schools with explicitly religious curricula.

Last week a judge ruled that Louisiana's voucher program was unconstitutional:

Judge Tim Kelley sided with argu­ments presented by teacher unions and school boards seeking to shut down the voucher program and oth­er changes that would funnel more money away from traditional public schools. The governor, who made the voucher program and other educa­tional changes a sig­nature of his early second term, said the state will appeal the decision.

The ruling was basically only based on the funding mechanism, not on the questions of whether funneling public money to promote a specific religious education agenda is illegal or not.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Obama's Vote % of White People and Uneducated

There are some interesting analyses of the presidential vote which illustrate the contours of President Obama's re-election victory and the characteristics of the coalition he brought together to carry him to 332 electoral votes and nearly 51% of the popular vote.

Previously I had blogged about the crucial role of the LGB population (5% of the electorate) voting 76% to 22% for Obama-Biden 2012 but today I want to talk about the people who did NOT vote for the President.

The graphic at the top of this post indicates that all of the top 10 states that have the highest percentages of people with college degrees (MA, MD, CO, CT, VT, NJ, VA, NY, MN) voted for Obama, while 9 of the bottom 10 (WV, MS, AR, KY, LA, AL, IN, TN, OK) voted for Romney-Ryan 2012.

Additionally, Charles Blow in The New York Times noted some other interesting features of the election results:

 This year was the first presidential election in which there were more Asian-American voters (11 percent) in California than African-American ones (8 percent). In 2008, 6 percent were Asian-American and 10 percent were African-American. In fact, there were more Asian-American voters than African-American voters in Washington and Oregon, the other two Pacific Coast states, this year, too. 

[...] 

In fact, Obama won the white vote only in states with small minority voting populations. The others Obama won were Iowa (93 percent white), New Hampshire (93 percent white), Oregon (88 percent white), Connecticut (79 percent white) and Washington State (76 percent white). 

[...] 

 Obama won all four states that begin with “New” (New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York), but he lost all five that begin with a direction (North Carolina, South Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia).

It's interesting that conservatives have been focussing on how how people of color voted for the first Black president but they haven't noticed how places (in)famous for unapologetic racial prejudice voted overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney. For example, Obama won a mere 10% of the white vote in Mississippi.

Hat/tip to Wonder Man and Sentient Meat.

Saturday Politics: Great Resource on CA Propositions

The above image is a screen shot from CaliforniaChoices.org, a very useful resource for California voters who are contemplating how to vote on the 11 ballot propositions on the 2012 general election ballot. I just selected the postions of the Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Bay Guardian and San Diego Union-Tribune but you can customize it how you like. I also included the positions of the California Democratic Party and the California Republican Party. There's a whole other option of  selecting the positions from various unions as well.

One weird feature of the website is that it doesn't allow you to add your own choices in the red/green comparison table, although it does allow you to share your choices via social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Pinterest.

If you are a California voter I strongly encourage you to use CaliforniaChoices.org to find out more about the ballot propositions to help you make your decisions. You can also see my own positions on the 2012 California ballot propositions:

Good luck, and happy voting!

Expelled Bullied Black Gay Teen Sues School District

Darnell Young, his mother Chelisa Grimes, and twin brother Darrell

We have been covering the saga of Darnell "Dynasty" Young, a Black gay teen who was expelled from his Indianapolis area high school after he took a weapon to school after being repeatedly bullied. Recently, Dynasty had his suspension suspended and was reinstated and allowed to attend school again (although not at his original school).

The latest news is that Dynasty has had a federal lawsuit filed on his behalf by the National Center for Lesbian Rights against Indianapolis Pubic Schools for failing to protect Dynasty while he attended school despite repeated pleas by his mother, Chelisa Grimes.

NCLR issued a press release about its lawsuit:

As the 2011-2012 school year progressed, the harassment worsened, and Dynasty fell into depression. He was unable to eat properly, lost a great deal of weight, and dreaded going to school. Increasingly fearful for her son’s safety, Grimes gave her son a self-protection flashlight, a small device that emits a loud noise, a light, and a weak electric charge. On April 16, 2012, six students surrounded Dynasty to attack him. He held the device in the air and activated it. The noise caused the aggressors to leave without assaulting him. But instead of locating the students who had threatened to attack Dynasty, Tech administrators suspended Dynasty for trying to prevent the attack and later expelled him.

In addition to the physical and emotional harm he experienced as a result of the bullying and the discrimination he experienced from IPS administrators who refused to take any meaningful steps to protect him, Dynasty was unable to complete the spring semester of his 11th-grade year at Tech High School, and will need to make up any necessary credits to graduate on time in 2013. He has recently enrolled in Indianapolis Metropolitan High School, a charter school not affiliated with IPS, where he is taking extra classes in an effort to try graduate on schedule.

“All students should be able to get an education without fearing for their physical safety, and they should be able to rely on school administrators to protect them when abuse does occur,” said NCLR Senior Staff Attorney Christopher F. Stoll, one of the attorneys representing Dynasty and his mother. “It is outrageous that school officials who were entrusted with their students’ safety and education blamed Dynasty for the abuse he suffered, and eventually expelled him from school, instead of accepting their responsibility to protect him from harm.”

The lawsuit asserts claims for violations of federal civil rights law and the U.S. Constitution based on IPS’s deliberate indifference to the harassment and abuse Dynasty experienced and its discriminatory treatment of him based on his gender and sexual orientation.  The suit further alleges that IPS punished Dynasty and failed to address the harassment in part due to his failure to comply with Tech officials’ demands that he change his appearance and style of dress, in violation of his rights to freedom of expression and liberty under the First Amendment and the federal Due Process Clause.  The suit also challenges IPS’s failure to consider Dynasty’s appeal of his expulsion as required by its own internal procedures and the Constitution.

“I want to make sure no other student in the Indianapolis Public Schools ever has to go through the kind of abuse that I went through,” said Dynasty. “I am hoping this will get IPS to start treating kids like me with respect and really do something to protect their students.”

We will continue to follow the details of this case at MadProfessah.com and get the word about the prevalence and impact of bullying on LGBT teens around the country.

Hat/tip to LGBT Think Progress.