March 30, 2014

South Africa's ANC Under Harsh Spotlight Over Luxury Construction

 

T. Madonsela

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Global Information Network

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – South Africa’s ruling African National Congress is trying to deflect harsh criticism over a finding that President Jacob Zuma’s country residence was upgraded with expensive improvements that were billed to taxpayers.

The damning report, released last week, concluded a two year study by public protector Thuli Madonsela.

According to the report, entitled "Secure in comfort", Madonsela found Zuma had contravened the executive ethics code because he failed to stop the spiraling costs of the upgrades at his country property, as is his duty as a member of the Cabinet.

Red-faced ANC leaders, in a novel strategy, now insist they were misled by others to believe that, among other things, a swimming pool was in fact a “fire pool” to hold water in case of fire.

Party leaders Gwede Mantashe and Zweli Mkhize said they want action again the national police commissioner who, they alleged, led them astray with inaccurate information.

The public protector, meanwhile, complained that she was the target of hostile threats during her investigation.

In her report, Madonsela found that President Zuma improperly benefited from a grand, excessive, opulent and obscene government upgrade to his homestead and should repay a "reasonable percentage" of about R20-million worth of upgrades.

The police facilities were "obscenely excessive", she said. And moving Zuma's neighbors to make way for the construction was also not justifiable, she said, despite the government’s claims that they were a threat to security.

"I could not find any authority or legitimate reason for classifying the relocation of the households at state expense as a security measure as envisaged in any of the authorizing security instruments." Features for which Zuma should bear at least part of the cost, Madonsela said, include the swimming pool (which never really was a "fire pool") and the cattle kraal, which she said Zuma himself had had a hand in.

Madonsela found that Zuma was aware of the scale and cost of the construction at Nkandla throughout and that he should have taken steps to stop the escalating costs. Instead, Zuma regularly complained that the upgrades were not happening fast enough.

The dramatic ballooning of costs on the Nkandla project was closely linked to the actions of Zuma’s personal architect, Minenhle Makhanya.

Finally, Ms. Madonsela questioned why the swimming pool, the helipads, a military clinic and housing for members of the police's VIP protection service were not located closer to the community rather than behind the security fence of the Zuma compound. The government's explanations, she said, were inadequate. 

Zero-Tolerance Policies Turn Black Students into Zeroes

African-American students are suspended from pre-school at the highest rates

By Frederick H. Lowe

Black boys are suspended from  high school at a much
higher rate than other racial and ethnic groups.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from TheNorthStarNews.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - African-American boys and girls are suspended from the nation's public schools in greater numbers than any other racial and ethnic group even in preschool, according to U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights report released on Friday.

The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Justice Department reported that African-American students were 16 percent of the student population during the 2011-2012 school year, but black boys received 20 percent of out-of-school suspensions and black girls received 12 percent.

There were 1.9 million single out-of-school suspensions and 1.55 million multiple out-of-school suspensions. Some 130,000 students were suspended during the school year.

Black boys and black girls were suspended more than whites, Hispanics, American Indian/Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders, Asians and students of more than two races, the report stated.

The information is detailed in a 24-page report illustrated with colorful charts and titled "Data Snapshot: School Discipline." The report covered the 2011-2012 school years with Civil Rights Collection Data from all 97,000 of the nation's public schools, 16,500 school districts, representing 49 million students.

This was the first time since 2000 that the Department of Education has received race, gender, and ethnic group data from all of the nation's public school districts, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan said during a news conference in Washington, D.C.

"The data released today reveals particular concern around discipline for our nation's young men of color, who are disproportionately affected by suspensions and zero-tolerance policies in schools," Duncan said.

Out-of-School Suspensions Benefit The Police
Out-of-school suspensions eventually benefit the police who are there to arrest people and the nation's prison system which locks them up, providing jobs to prison guards and administrators.

"Suspended students are less likely to graduate on time and more likely to be suspended again. They are also more likely to repeat a grade, dropout and become involved in the juvenile justice system," the report said.

Black students represent 27% of students referred to law enforcement and 31% of students subjected to a school-related arrest.

Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., wrote in an email to supporters that the law center has been "fighting the school-to-prison pipeline for years, bringing case after case to reform zero-tolerance policies that amount to a war on our nation's children."

Dees gave two examples of cases involving the Southern Poverty Law Center. The cases don't signal SPLC lawyers are representing Al Capone, John Dillinger or even Michael Corleone.

A school suspended a student in Mobile, Ala., for 50 days because his shirt was not tucked into his pants. To top that off, a 14 year old in Meridian, Miss., was locked up for several days because he had too many pockets on his pants, Dees said.

He noted that May 17 marks the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation. He added, however, that the recent data shows that even after six decades, traces of Jim Crow linger. "And it's devastating to African- American communities, who see their children's futures cast aside as they are earmarked for dropout and incarceration," he Dees said.

Out-of-school suspensions of black students begin with preschool. Only 40 percent of public school districts offer preschool programs.

Preschool Suspensions
African-American students represent 18 percent of preschool students but 42 percent of first-time suspensions and 48 percent of students suspended more than once.

"This critical report shows that racial disparities in school discipline policies are not only well-documented among older students, but actually begin during preschool," Holder said.

The study reported that African-American students represented 16 percent of the student population, but 32 percent to 42 percent of students suspended or expelled.

In comparison, white students represented 51 percent of the student population and 31 percent to 40 percent of students suspended or expelled, the study reported.

The report noted that African-Americans are suspended and expelled at a rate of three times greater than white students. On average, 4.6 percent of white students are suspended or expelled compared to 16.4 percent of African-American students.

Black boys’ school experiences are often traumatic, causing high rates of depression, said Dr. Waldo E. Johnson Jr. of the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration.

The report lists out-of-school suspension rates for 49 states. West Virginia reported the highest out-of-suspension rate for African-American males at 32 percent. West Virginia was followed by Mississippi (27 percent), Illinois (27 percent), Massachusetts (26 percent), and District of Columbia (26 percent). North Carolina was the only state in a single digit for African-African male suspensions at 6 percent.

As for African-American girls, Wisconsin led the nation with a 21 percent out-of-school suspension rate. Wisconsin was followed by Michigan at 16 percent and Missouri was also at 16 percent.

North Dakota reported the lowest out-of-school suspension for African-American girls at 0.0 percent. Georgia did not report its out-of-school suspensions.

Find how your state, district and school rank among out-of-school suspensions at the searchable database.

March 29, 2014

March Madness: College Athletes Win Right to Unionize
What Does this Mean for HBCUs?

By William Spriggs

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The Chicago regional office of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled in favor of the College Athletes Players Association (CAPA)  in determining that the scholarship football players at private Northwestern university had the right to form a union.  Courageous leadership by Kain Colter of Northwestern and CAPA founder Ramogi Huma led to this victory. Now everyone is crying in their beer because the discussion has focused on athletes being paid. But, CAPA is about all that unions do: giving voice to the workers.  

Too little attention is focused on issues of player safety and health in the media storm following the ruling. For instance, almost no mention has been made of the new $1 billion TV contract for the NCAA and the lack of long-term health assistance to former players who have been injured. And, few reporters have read the decision to understand the facts presented: including “voluntary” meetings extending beyond the four hours a day of required practice allowed by NCAA rules, organized practices between 7:50 a.m. and 11:50 a.m. Tuesday through Thursday that clearly conflict with scheduled coursework and travel time to and from games, not included in the NCAA count of time players spend. In all, players spend 40 to 50 hours a week on football during the fall semester of classes.

Some are taking this as a teaching moment to reflect on access to higher education more broadly. During March Madness, some of the ironies are in full display. UCLA, with a storied history in college basketball, made it to the round of 16 this week in the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament. Less noticed is that this past fall, UCLA admitted onlyb 48 male African American freshmen. Many of the universities we see on television in March show basketball teams with great diversity. Yet, their broader study body does not look so diverse.

To young African-American men, in particular, is there little wonder then that sports appear to be the real ticket? Currently, the U.S. Department of Education is touting rules that ironically will benefit these same schools, as if they were models in developing the talent America needs for its future given that the majority of Americans born this year are of color and 20 percent of American children are poor. The scorecard the department envisions does not reward the schools doing the heavy lifting outside this limelight.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are responsible for about one in five African-Americans who earn baccalaureate degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) fields. That is why, Payscale.com shows that the starting salaries of baccalaureate holders from HBCUs like Prairie View A&M University, Tuskegee University and North Carolina A&T State University are higher than for many of the schools in the Sweet 16 like the Universities of Arizona, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Tennessee and Iowa State University, Michigan State University and Baylor University.

Howard University, Spelman College, Xavier University of Louisiana, Hampton University, Florida A&M University and Morgan State University are the top six in the nation in producing black workers who will go on to earn doctorates in the STEM fields. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a distant member of the leaders, in 12th place.

Yet, the Education Department is pursuing a scorecard slanted to be a model for universities with huge endowments and already high tuition like MIT. That model doles out discounts to some students who need help paying tuition and saddles many with debts. The model does not scale up to handle large numbers of slots for students who qualify for Pell grants—which max out at $5,645 a year. Among top schools, Harvard and MIT look good for having 20 percent of their students eligible for Pell Grants. At Tuskegee, 64 percent of students get Pell Grants, as it is high for most HBCUs. But without the $32 billion in endowment of Harvard or the $11 billion endowment of MIT, and without being able to charge tuition rates of around $43,000 like Harvard and MIT, it is a huge challenge to provide assistance to such a large number of students without the means to pay; and leads to rising debt for others.

The other solution is for America to commit to dramatically increase investment in our colleges—publicly endow them—to make access to college an American right—not leave access to the vagaries of past inequalities and the elites who aren’t measuring up in delivering access or diversity on the necessary scale.

Follow Spriggs on Twitter: @wspriggs.