The Koch Brothers Pushing School Segregation

[+EdwardGlen]

Racism is alive and well in America and backed by billionaires and the Tea Party GOP

 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/14/the-battle-for-wake-count_n_926799.html?ir=Politics&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008

 

The stakes in the battle over the Wake County Public School System in North Carolina couldn’t be higher.

 

On one side are the billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch, and the Tea Party and libertarian groups they fund. On the other, parents, students and community leaders are bent on stopping measures passed by the conservative-led school board that they argue would re-segregate the county’s public schools, which had been a national model for diversity and integration.

 

Since 2000, Wake County has used a system of integration based on income. Under this program, no more than 40 percent of any school’s students could receive subsidized lunches, a proxy for determining the level of poverty. The school district is the 18th largest in the country, and includes Raleigh, its surrounding suburbs and rural areas. It became one of the first school systems in the nation to adopt such a plan.

 

But Wake County’s plan became a political flash point when five conservative candidates, bankrolled by Americans for Prosperity, a political activist group funded in part by the Kochs, were elected to the school board on a “neighborhood schools” platform that would dismantle the existing integration policy.

 

 

The new board touted their plan as one that would end busing and eliminate class, and subsequently race, as a factor for student school assignments. The “neighborhood schools” plan would assign students to schools closer to where they lived, meaning students from mostly poor and black communities would likely attend schools whose demographics were much the same. White children from well-heeled families would be more likely to attend schools filled with upper-middle class white children and enjoy more resources.

 

The elections led to heated protests. Under pressure from community groups and activists, the school board halted the plan for further review. It has since developed a number of alternative plans, though most of those would still have some re-segregating effect.

 

The NAACP filed a complaint with the Department of Justice in response, and there have been legal challenges based on its constitutionality.

“Our issues is how are the children, both black and white going to be cared for,” said the Rev. WIlliam Barber, who heads the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP. “When we argue for diversity it is not simply people need to be in close proximity to each other. Whenever you have racially identifieble, high-poverty schools, you also have corresponding with that under resources and high teacher turnover.”

 

The complaint filed by the NAACP contends that “African-American, Hispanic and mixed-race students and their families, have been injured by the intentionally racially discriminatory actions of a five-member majority of the Wake County Board of Education,” and that upon winning a majority the new board majority “immediately took drastic steps to reassign non-White students to schools with a higher percentage of non-White students than their prior school, and to reassign White students to schools with a higher percentage of white students than their prior school.”

 

Following the NAACP’s complaint, the United States Department of Education Office for Civil rights launched an investigation into the “neighborhood schools” plan, and in January, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan chided the Wake County school board in a letter to The Washington Post.

 

"America's strength has always been a function of its diversity, so it is troubling to see North Carolina's Wake County school board take steps to reverse a long-standing policy to promote racial diversity in its schools," wrote Duncan, who warned against other school boards adopting similar plans. "I respectfully urge school boards across America to fully consider the consequences before taking such action," Duncan wrote. "This is no time to go backward."

 

Opponents, like the filmmaker and activist Robert Greenwald, say at the heart of the battle is a larger fight over publicly-funded education and the Koch brothers commitment to funding activism that falls in line with their libertarian agenda.

 

“I don’t want to be a panic or hysteric, but if you can have the Koch brother billionaires, multi-billionaires, buying a school board election, where does it stop?” said Greenwald, a filmmaker and political activist who this morning released Koch Brothers Exposed: Why do the Koch Brothers Want to End Public Education?, a short film on the Koch Brothers role in the Wake County election.

 

“This money is buying ideology and that has a consequence,” he said. “It’s such a tough situation because here are local people with a school system that is working, that people are enjoying, that has created a good education, created diversity [and] created success.”

 

Michael Evans, who until last Friday was the school district’s chief spokesman, said that in March the board gave incoming superintendent Tony Tata the responsibility to come up with a new plan. But even as various plans are being developed and presented, the “neighborhood schools” plan has been tweaked. Students, for now, would not be sent back to their community schools. Evans said the hope is to make a decision on the new plan sometime in the early fall to put in place the following school year.

 

Parents and opponents of the new board’s actions are bracing for elections in October, fearing that if the conservative majority is maintained on the board, it will feel emboldened to push harder with their plans.

 

Rita Rakestraw, a Democrat who ran for a seat on the school board in 2009 and was defeated by an Americans for Prosperity conservative candidate, said that Democrats are gearing up for a tough pushback this time around, though only one of the board’s members is up for reelection.

 

“A lot of people are just disappointed, hoping that we can turn this thing around and vote in a better school board with these elections,” said Rakestraw, who is now active in the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, a group that has been critical of the current school board.

 

“It’s a crying shame that white conservatives from the Midwest and the Koch brothers would come into the South and pump millions of dollars into our elections to go back to segregated schools,” she said. “They need to get their nose out of our business.”

[hecticdad]

what the heck does this have to do with the mmma, i am tired of seeing news that doesnt support, promote, or have any relation with medical marijuana

[MORE COWBELL]

STANDARD OPERATIONAL PROCEDURE!

 

money buys power, influence, police protection(publicly funded) and great lawyers

Corps are people now with agendas and personalities most are sociopathic because they are profit driven-THE POINT IS THIS... TO KEEP THE PROFITS IN THE HANDS OF THOSE LIKE THE KOCHS, THEIR FRIENDS, FAMILIES, NEIGHBORHOODS SCHOOLS, HOSPITALS AND INSTITUTIONS-SHOOT IF THEY COULD BUY A WHOLE CITY OR STATE THEY WOULD-JUST TO MAKE IT "THEIR WAY"...I THINK THEY OWN TEXAS..................

[+EdwardGlen]

Koch Bro's fund Schuette.

 

Koch Bro's fund; AFA http://www.afa.net/ - Americans for Prosperity http://www.americansforprosperity.org/national-site and many, many, many more right wing conservative ultra religious political front groups (Tea Party) that would rather see us MM Patients dead or in prison.

 

Its political because the politicians made it so!

 

DEA Propaganda Machine In Full Affect

 

http://www.justice.gov/dea/demand/speakout/index.html

 

Summary of the Top Ten Facts(??) on Legalization

 

Fact 1: We have made significant progress in fighting drug use and drug trafficking in America. Now is not the time to abandon our efforts.(importation and use of heroin,cocaine,meth,ecstasy are at all time highs)

 

The Legalization Lobby claims that the fight against drugs cannot be won. However, overall drug use is down by more than a third in the last twenty years, while cocaine use has dropped by an astounding 70 percent. Ninety-five percent of Americans do not use drugs. This is success by any standards.

 

Fact 2: A balanced approach of prevention, enforcement, and treatment is the key in the fight against drugs.(to bad judges, cops, and courts are unbalanced)

 

A successful drug policy must apply a balanced approach of prevention, enforcement and treatment. All three aspects are crucial. For those who end up hooked on drugs, there are innovative programs, like Drug Treatment Courts, that offer non-violent users the option of seeking treatment. Drug Treatment Courts provide court supervision, unlike voluntary treatment centers.

 

Fact 3: Illegal drugs are illegal because they are harmful.(so outlaw alcohol)

 

There is a growing misconception that some illegal drugs can be taken safely. For example, savvy drug dealers have learned how to market drugs like Ecstasy to youth. Some in the Legalization Lobby even claim such drugs have medical value, despite the lack of conclusive scientific evidence.

 

Fact 4: Smoked marijuana is not scientifically approved medicine. Marinol, the legal version of medical marijuana, is approved by science.(denied science fact is not a fact)

 

According to the Institute of Medicine, there is no future in smoked marijuana as medicine. However, the prescription drug Marinol—a legal and safe version of medical marijuana which isolates the active ingredient of THC—has been studied and approved by the Food & Drug Administration as safe medicine. The difference is that you have to get a prescription for Marinol from a licensed physician. You can’t buy it on a street corner, and you don’t smoke it.

 

Fact 5: Drug control spending is a minor portion of the U.S. budget. Compared to the social costs of drug abuse and addiction, government spending on drug control is minimal.($50B a yr could pay a lot of teachers,firemen, police,emts, etc, etc)

 

The Legalization Lobby claims that the United States has wasted billions of dollars in its anti-drug efforts. But for those kids saved from drug addiction, this is hardly wasted dollars. Moreover, our fight against drug abuse and addiction is an ongoing struggle that should be treated like any other social problem. Would we give up on education or poverty simply because we haven’t eliminated all problems? Compared to the social costs of drug abuse and addiction—whether in taxpayer dollars or in pain and suffering—government spending on drug control is minimal.

 

Fact 6: Legalization of drugs will lead to increased use and increased levels of addiction. Legalization has been tried before, and failed miserably.(Lie)

 

Legalization has been tried before—and failed miserably. Alaska’s experiment with Legalization in the 1970s led to the state’s teens using marijuana at more than twice the rate of other youths nationally. This led Alaska’s residents to vote to re-criminalize marijuana in 1990.

 

Fact 7: Crime, violence, and drug use go hand-in-hand.

 

Crime, violence and drug use go hand in hand. Six times as many homicides are committed by people under the influence of drugs, as by those who are looking for money to buy drugs. Most drug crimes aren’t committed by people trying to pay for drugs; they’re committed by people on drugs.

 

Fact 8: Alcohol has caused significant health, social, and crime problems in this country, and legalized drugs would only make the situation worse.

 

The Legalization Lobby claims drugs are no more dangerous than alcohol. But drunk driving is one of the primary killers of Americans. Do we want our bus drivers, nurses, and airline pilots to be able to take drugs one evening, and operate freely at work the next day? Do we want to add to the destruction by making drugged driving another primary killer?

 

Fact 9: Europe’s more liberal drug policies are not the right model for America.(Says who)

 

The Legalization Lobby claims that the “European Model” of the drug problem is successful. However, since legalization of marijuana in Holland, heroin addiction levels have tripled. And Needle Park seems like a poor model for America.

 

Fact 10: Most non-violent drug users get treatment, not jail time. (Lie)

 

The Legalization Lobby claims that America’s prisons are filling up with users. Truth is, only about 5 percent of inmates in federal prison are there because of simple possession. Most drug criminals are in jail—even on possession charges—because they have plea-bargained down from major trafficking offences or more violent drug crimes.