February 5, 2012

Post Katrina: Study Correlates New Orleans School Expulsions to Crime
By Zoe Sullivan

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Louisiana Weekly

The report is a scathing indictment of the way that charter schools are dealing with disruptive students, correlating expulsions to the city’s notorious crime rate. While the connection may seem obvious, the report offers no specific data to back it up. This is one of the issues that former Orleans Parish School Board member and education advocate Leslie Jacobs cites with the document. “If you look at the annual dropout rate,” she said, “it’s all public schools students in the city. A school may expel a child, but that doesn’t mean the child is on the streets.”

Research on Reforms is a think tank focused on public education in New Orleans. Co-founder Dr. Barbara Ferguson, who was the first female superintendent of the New Orleans public school system and who holds both a doctorate in education and a juris doctorate, authored the report. She points to studies correlating school drop-out rates with crime. More focused research, however, has not as yet been done to demonstrate this link in New Orleans.

Asked whether it had documentation on the correlation between crime and expulsions, the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center and the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) both said that they had not conducted such a study. A public information officer for the NOPD said that this kind of study would require a significant investment of time and that it would be illegal for the Department to release the names of juveniles in the criminal justice system for comparison with school records since this information is protected under the law.

“Kids don’t just disappear,” René Greer, spokesperson for the Department of Education (DOE) said, as she affirmed the Department’s commitment to keep youth in school. “So there is a great deal of focus on meeting the needs of students, even the most challenging students.” Greer went on to ask that people inform the about cases where students are being expelled unfairly.

Ferguson’s report lays out the argument that, under the charter system, it has become easier for public schools to expel students. “Prior to Katrina,” she said a student who was expelled from one school, “that student was well-known in the district, and that student was placed in another school.” Something, she sustains, is not happening now. This, she says, is a way of weeding out poor-performing students who bring down School Performance Scores. Ferguson says that her requests for “unidentifiable” student codes from the State Department of Education, which would allow her to evaluate this assertion more accurately, have been denied. Greer, in contrast, told The Louisiana Weekly that no such request had been filed.

Jacobs, a prominent charter-school supporter, disputed Ferguson’s claim. “In 2004-05, the last year before Katrina, 11.3 percent of our 9th- to 12th-graders dropped out that year. In 2009-10 ([the] latest data available), 5.7 percent of our 9th- to 12th-graders dropped out that year. We have cut the rate almost in half.”

Asked about this, Ferguson sustained that there was “no way of knowing” how students were classified by the state (i.e. dropout, unknown, expelled, etc.), and, consequently, whether these figures are accurate because the State would not release the data.

“Either they need to give us the data and the codes to track them, or they need to track them themselves,” Ferguson argued to The Louisiana Weekly. “We have not been able to get the codes of the students to track them. And if they’re not going to track them and report on them every year, then we are going to continue to make the claim that youth in our city are the victims of a school system that doesn’t take care of all of its children.”

Asked about this, Greer said that it would be a violation of privacy regulations to release this kind of data, but that the DOE does run some inquiries for researchers.

The “Continuing Failure” report sustains that hundreds of students fall through the Recovery School Systems administrative cracks each year when schools are closed and no automatic transfer is arranged when a charter school stakes its place. The report states: “…a total of 1,068 high school students for this 2011-2012 year…needed to find another school to attend since their school had been closed…Whether or not they did, no one knows as the Recovery School District does not track student enrollment.”

Responding in writing to this, Recovery School District spokes-person Kizzy Payson explained that the school district will be introducing a new enrollment system in February. “The new system will prioritize all students whose school have been closed or is phasing out,” the statement said, “and will account for every child enrolled in a RSD charter or direct-run public school.”

Jacobs contested the report’s allegation of not tracking students in a written rebuttal. She defended the state saying that it tracks students and is “consistently ranked in the top 10 for its data.”

“Once a student enters public schools, s/he is assigned a student ID number,” Jacobs wrote. “The state tracks that student each year…A student expelled from one school who is not re-enrolled in another school is classified by the state as a dropout.”

While this may be true, traditional public school advocates see a system that incentivizes school performance at the cost of educational equity.

“The system of chartering schools and the market model that we have basically incentifies [sic] schools not to take problem children.” Dr. Raynard Sanders, a former New Orleans public school principal, told The Louisiana Weekly. “So therefore we have a system where many of them have a selective admissions process where the kids that are easiest to educate, we want to take them in the schools, and the kids that have some deficiencies, we want to keep them out.”

Another related point Jacobs contests in Ferguson’s report concerns this process of weeding out “disruptive” students. According to Ferguson, prior to Katrina, even if principals wanted to expel students, strict rules forced them to figure out how to work with them in the classroom. “No matter how difficult the student was to teach, no matter how disruptive the student was, no matter if the parent cooperated with the school or not, the student remained in some New Orleans high school,” the report asserts. This halcyon view, however, differs from the picture offered by the overall pre-Katrina dropout rate Jacobs cited.

Nonetheless, research by the Southern Poverty Law Center identifies other barriers to New Orleans public education. The organization’s 2010 study identifies “brutal and ineffective school security and discipline policies” as well as obstacles for students with disabilities. Questioned about this, Greer reiterated the importance of whistle-blowers and concerned citizens who help the State to fulfill its responsibilities.

Another study by the Institute for Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota concluded that the post-Katrina reorganization has steered a predominantly minority group of students “into a group of lower performing schools” through direct and indirect policies such as location, disciplinary policies and recruitment efforts.

In spite of the acrimony over the current state of public education in New Orleans, one area where Jacobs and Ferguson agree concerns the need for improvement is the dropout rate among incoming 9th-graders. According to Jacobs, this figure has stayed steady since Katrina, indicating that this transitional moment is when many youth disengage from the school system and risk becoming involved in harmful activities.

Obama Echoes Occupiers: Pushes Economic Justice in State of the Union

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

President Obama gives the State of the Union address. As Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker John Boehner look on. White House Photo 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - President Obama used his last State of the Union speech before the November election to paint himself as the champion of economic justice by demanding higher taxes for millionaires and tighter reins on Wall Street.

Although not calling the movement by name, he echoed Occupy Wall Street, which is protesting economic and social inequality, in addition to corporate dominance at the expense of 99 percent of the population. Pushing economic justice, he said, “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by.

Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same set of rules. What’s at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them.”

Taking advantage of a huge national platform to make the case for his re-election, President Obama on Tuesday night defiantly defended his record after three years in office and laid blame for many of the country’s woes at the feet of banks and what he called an out-of-touch Congress.

He proposed sweeping changes in the tax code and new remedies for the U.S. housing crisis, setting as a central campaign theme a populist call for greater economic fairness. He mentioned taxes 34 times and jobs 32 times during his hour-long speech, emphasizing the two issues are at the heart of this year’s presidential campaign.

Standing before a joint session of Congress, the president said, “Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires” as he proposed a minimum 30 percent effective tax rate on those who earn a million dollars or more.

President Obama said he would ask the attorney general to establish a special financial crimes unit to prosecute those persons and parties charged with breaking the law and whose fraud contributed to the 2007-2009 financial crisis that plunged

the United States into recession. President Obama’s message could resonate in the 2012 campaign following the release of tax records by Mitt Romney, a potential Republican rival and one of the wealthiest men ever to run for the White House. He pays a lower effective tax rate than many top wage-earners. Democrats have hammered Republicans in Congress for supporting tax breaks that favor the wealthy. Republicans staunchly oppose tax hikes, even on the richest Americans, arguing they would hurt a fragile economic recovery.

The U.S. unemployment rate was 8.5 percent in December— and the black jobless rate is twice that percentage. No president in the modern era has won re-election with the rate that high.

President Obama’s rhetoric and his audience’s response was more overtly partisan than last year when both sides sought a tone of civility in the aftermath of an assassination attempt on Democratic Arizona lawmaker Gabrielle Giffords.

In the most emotional moment of the evening, President Obama warmly embraced Rep. Giffords as he made his way to the podium. The congresswoman, who has made a remarkable recovery after being shot in the head, retired from Congress on Wednesday. The response to Rep. Giffords was one of the few moments of bipartisan enthusiasm in a Congress rife with antagonism.

Democrats rose en mass to cheer, while Republicans stayed seated in stony silence, when President Obama vowed to “oppose obstruction with action.” But both sides applauded when the president called for developing all domestic energy sources.

President Obama used the speech to revive his call to rewrite the tax code to adopt the so-called “Buffett rule,” named after the billionaire Warren Buffett, who says it is unfair that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

Those making more than $1 million a year would pay an effective tax rate of at least 30 percent and their tax deductions would be eliminated under the proposal.

To underscore his point, Mr. Buffett’s secretary, Debbie Bosanek, was seated in the first lady’s box in the House of Representatives for President Obama’s address.

In HBCU 'Equality' Lawsuit, Officials Testify White Universities Get More Funding

By Todd Beamon

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspapers

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Morgan State University has been unable to fully execute its mission because of poor financial support from the state of Maryland, its retired president has testified.

“We have never had the resources to carry out our full mission,” testified Earl S. Richardson, who served as Morgan’s president for 26 years before retiring last year. “You had an institution with enormous potential …, yet you did not have the resources to fulfill that mission.”

Richardson was among several witnesses called on day seven of the trial in a lawsuit brought by the Coalition for Excellence in Maryland Higher Education Inc. against the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC). The case  is being heard by U.S. District Court Judge Catherine C. Blake in Baltimore.

The trial began Jan. 3 and is expected to last six weeks. More broadly, Richardson added: “There’s no question: There’s a great disparity in the amount of investments made by the state between the historically Black colleges and universities and the traditionally White institutions.”

He also described the difference in financial resources provided by the state to HBCUs versus TWIs as “woefully lacking.” Besides Morgan, the other HBCUs in the case are Bowie State University, Coppin State University and the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore.

The legal action, first filed in 2006, seeks an estimated $2.1 billion to make the HBCUs “comparable and competitive” to such traditionally White institutions (TWIs) as the University of Maryland- College Park, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Salisbury University and Towson University. A UMES graduate, Richardson has served during the Clinton Administration as chairman of the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. President Jimmy Carter first named him to that panel, which seeks ways to enhance the nation’s HBCUs.

In Maryland, prior to becoming Morgan’s president, he worked as executive assistant to the chancellor of the University System of Maryland and as assistant to the USM president. Richardson holds a master’s and doctoral degrees in educational administration from the University of Pennsylvania. Under meticulous questioning by Henry A. Thompson II of the Kirkland & Ellis LLP law firm in Washington, which is representing the coalition, Richardson testified on a broad range of issues he faced –and his dealings with MHEC – during his tenure. His testimony primarily focused on program duplication and how several programs approved by the state agency affected Morgan. Central to his testimony was MHEC’s 2005 approval of a Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) Program at Towson and the University of Baltimore (UB).

The joint program replicated similar ones at Morgan and Bowie State University. Morgan’s program began in 1969, while UB established its program in 1972 when it was a private institution. Expert Testifies-Moving Beyond Just Being Black Schools By Todd Beamon Maryland’s four Black colleges and universities will flourish once they have unique, high-demand programs that are not duplicated at the state’s traditionally White institutions, the last witness for the plaintiffs testified last week.

"These programs would create areas of expertise that would define these institutions beyond their racial history,” Walter R. Allen, a sociology professor at the University of California-Los Angeles, testified on Jan. 18, day nine of the trial before U.S. District Court Judge Catherine C. Blake in Baltimore. The lack of such programs at Bowie State University, Coppin State University, Morgan State University and the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore, Allen testified, “creates a situation where the academic missions being assigned to HBCUs leads them to be seen only as Black schools.”

More... Maryland Secretary of Higher Education Calvin W. Burnett, citing unnecessary program duplication of the Morgan and Bowie programs, initially rejected the Towson-UB proposal in 2004. But shortly thereafter, he reversed himself, approving the plan – and MHEC followed suit in 2005. Negotiations among the schools failed – “Towson wanted degree authority to award the MBA,” Richardson testified – and the joint program began in 2006. “The impact was almost immediate,” Richardson testified. “The enrollment plateaued immediately and then took a nose dive shortly thereafter.”

“The greatest impact, percentage-wise, was in White students,” he continued. At one point before the Towson-UB program was approved, Morgan had as many as 50 White students in its MBA program. “We went … down to about six students. And now, I believe it's one or two – if that.”

Other unnecessarily duplicative programs approved for TWIs by MHEC that negatively affected Morgan, Richardson testified, included a 1996 computer engineering program for UMBC that duplicated a similar specialty under Morgan’s electrical engineering program; a master’s and doctoral programs in computer engineering, also approved for UMBC; and a community college administration program at the University of Maryland-University College that was approved for online instruction only – and only to residents outside Maryland.

“That does not seem reasonable to me,” Richardson testified of the UMUC program. “That’s a program that taxpayers underwrite – and to say they cannot take a program that they have approved, it’s reprehensible.” In other Jan. 12 testimony, Anthony W. Robinson, a Morgan graduate who is president of the Minority Business Enterprise Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc. in Washington, testified how his organization – which provides information and legal assistance for developing minority businesses – could not award federal technology research contracts to his alma mater and to UMES in the 1990s because they lacked the institutional support services required by the government.

The contracts went to Clark-Atlanta University, an HBCU in Georgia, and to the University of Delaware in Newark, he testified. “It’s such a huge loss of opportunity – because the best and the brightest minds at these institutions are not working on these projects,” Robinson testified. “It’s a huge loss for the institutions because they’re losing access to the billions of dollars for research and development that flow into the state. “And it’s a loss for the students because they’re not having access to private industry and the technologies that drive innovation."

By J. Kojo Livingston

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Louisiana News Weekly

(TriceEdney Wire.com) - As Governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal boasted at his inauguration about the progress Louisiana has made under the first four years of his administration, two leaders of North Louisiana’s Black Univer­sities are bracing to fend off the effects of mid-year cutbacks imposed by the governor.

All of higher education is being impacted by the cutback. Both Grambling State Univer­sity and Southern University at Shreveport have made major accomplishments during the past year. Both now face threats to that progress at the hands of an administration that has created a massive deficit by increasing tax breaks to the wealthiest of citizens.

Southern University at Shreve­port is coming off of a year that included a major capital purchase which will allow expansion of its widely recognized medical programs and therefore an increase in self-generated revenues. It has also enhanced other academic programs. However the Univer­sity cannot expect to be rewarded for the successful efforts of the previous year.

Because the Revenue Estimating Conference declared a budget deficit for the state for the fiscal year 2011-12, all of higher education has been ordered to reduce its budget by $50 million. Each institution has to reduce its budget by as much as three percent. For Southern that amount comes to about $300,000. Chancellor Ray Belton’s had his Office of Finance and Administration come up with plans for cutting operational expenses and other items; however it was just not enough to avoid impacting personnel. To avoid outright layoffs Southern will be furloughing most employees without pay for a small number of days over a four- to five-month period.

Non-tenured faculty will be furloughed a total of four days from February to May. Administrative and professional or unclassified employees will be furloughed a total of five days from February 1 to June 30. The administration believes that it can minimize the impact of the cuts on the operations of the school and on the lives of employees. Belton acknowledged to his staff that this was a tough challenge but was upbeat about the ability of the SUSLA family to overcome the cutbacks and still provide quality education to their students.

An hour’s drive to the west of Shreveport is Grambling Univer­sity which is facing a similar situation. The Sun spoke with University President Dr. Frank Pogue about the school’s challenges and successes during the past year. Pogue was proud that 2011 was the year that Grambling State University advanced from having 98 percent of its academic programs that require accreditation by the Board of Regents to 100 percent of its programs accredited, and, Gramb­ling State University successfully met 100 percent of the requirements of the LA GRAD Act. There was also progress in the area of sports with the return of Doug Williams to resume the head coaching position and their victories at the Bayou Classic and their defeat of Alabama A&M University to become the SWAC Champions.

Pogue was very clear about what he thought was the low point of 2011, “After experiencing drastic cuts in state appropriation over the past two years, Grambling State University was recently notified that we would undergo an additional mid-year reduction by almost $1 million. Although these cuts are difficult to absorb, our primary priority is to protect the Mission of Grambling State University.”

Pogue is concerned that “These frequent budget reductions will continue to make it extremely difficult for the university to plan for its future.” The president does not see any relief in the near future, “It seems that cuts to higher education will continue, and although very harmful decisions are being made, we will continue to restructure the university to ensure that our mission is protected and that our students continue to have access to excellent educational experiences.”

Pogue says the most important thing he wants to accomplish in 2012 is “to advance a very aggressive and successful five-year capital campaign with a goal to raise needed financial resources to support academic and athletic scholarships, campus infrastructure, facilities enhancement, University Lab Schools and other university needs.”

Across state leaders are concerned about the trend of cutting funds for higher education while raising fees. Senator Lydia Jackson described the fee increases as a de facto tax increase. Others are concerned about the survival of Black institutions of higher learning and about having educated leadership for the state in the future. Some leaders, like, Shreveport’s Theron Jackson, are calling on the community to organize to provide direct financial support to the Black colleges, while fighting policies that threaten to eliminate Black higher education altogether.