The Black Informant

Where the idea originated that suggests that the way to improve a historically failing public educational system is to simply feed it more money, I will never know.

Before I get to Tim Rutten’s latest article in the LA Times, let me provide some quick historical data on this school system.

From Wikipedia~

Los Angeles Unified School District (the “LAUSD”) is the largest (in terms of number of students) public school system in California. It is the second-largest in the United States. Only the New York City Department of Education has a larger student population. During the 2007-2008 school year, LAUSD served 694,288 students, and had 45,473 teachers 38,494 other employees. It is the second largest employer in Los Angeles County, after the county government. The total school district budget for 2008 was $19,986,000,000 US dollars. In enrollment breakdown by ethnic group, 73% of its students of Hispanic origin and 11% of its students of African-American origin. Non-Hispanic White students comprise 9% of the student population, while Asian students comprise 4%. Students of Filipino origin form 2% of the student population, and American Indian and Pacific Islanders together are less than 1%.

The school district consists of Los Angeles and all or portions of several adjoining Southern California cities. LAUSD has its own police department. The Los Angeles School Police Department was established in 1948 to provide police services for LAUSD schools . The LAUSD enrolls a third of the preschoolers in Los Angeles County, and operates almost as many buses as the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The LAUSD school construction program rivals the Big Dig in terms of expenditures, and LAUSD cafeterias serve about 500,000 meals a day, rivaling the output of local McDonald’s restaurants.

The LAUSD has a reputation for extremely crowded schools, high drop-out and expulsion rates, low academic performance in many schools, poor maintenance and incompetent administration. Bond issues and ambitious renovation programs have not uniformly eased these conditions. As part of its school-construction project, LAUSD opened two high schools (Santee Education Complex, South East) in 2005 and four high schools (Arleta, Contreras Learning Complex, Panorama, and East Valley) in 2006. (more…)

Rutten is talking about the latest drop-out rate report issued for LAUSD, and boy it ain’t pretty. Here are some excerpts from his article.

The statewide numbers were stunning; the figures for Los Angeles were tragic. According to the California Department of Education, one in every four of the state’s students fails to finish high school. In the LAUSD — which is supposed to educate 10% of all California’s school-age children — a third of all students drop out.

Those figures are even more distressing when you break them down racially and ethnically: More than 40% of the LAUSD’s black students will not complete high school, and 35.4% of the Latinos will drop out. (Currently, 73% of LAUSD’s nearly 700,000 students are Latino; 11% are African American; 9% are white; and 4% are Asian.)

But there’s failure enough for everyone. According to the new numbers, whites and Asians also drop out at double-digit rates — 20.1% and 13.4%, respectively.

[...]

One of the few who did react to Thursday’s numbers was Betty T. Yee — former chief deputy director for budget of the California Department of Finance — who pointed out that, over their lifetimes, each succeeding “class” of 120,000 dropouts will cost the state $46 billion because “they are more likely to be unemployed and pay no taxes, resort to criminal activity and rely on publicly funded programs for basic subsistence and healthcare. … A high school graduate is 68% less likely to be on any public assistance program than a high school dropout.” (By the way, $46 billion is 2.9% of California’s annual gross state product.) (read the rest of the article here)

When companies fail to perform, they go out of business. Public education is not only business, but BIG business. I say cut them. Especially with these kind of numbers:

(from same article)

If that’s not enough to get somebody’s attention, consider the current dropout rates at these Los Angeles high schools: Jefferson (58%), Belmont (56%), Locke (50.9%), Crenshaw (50%), Roosevelt (49.6%), Fremont (46%) and Jordan (43.7%)

“But how are these kids going to get educated if we cut these schools?”

If most parents of kids in these schools don’t care to show up for a parent/teacher meeting, let them (not you) worry about how their kids are going to get educated. As for the parents that are involved, send their kids to schools that are working.

From Wikipedia

“Jackson was born Jesse Louis Burns in Greenville, South Carolina, to Helen Burns. Helen Burns was a 16-year old single mother when he was born. His biological father, Noah Louis Robinson, a former professional boxer and a prominent figure in the black community, was married to another woman when Jesse was born. He was not involved in his son’s life.” (more…)

2001

(CNN) — The mother of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 2-year-old daughter says she just wants Jackson “to be a father” to the child who was born after the two had an affair.

In an interview with ABC’s “20/20,” Karin Stanford, 39, the former head of the Washington office of Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH coalition, says her relationship with Jackson has become strained in the last year after she took him to court to formalize child support payments.

“I want Jesse Jackson to be a father to Ashley. I want us to have very clear visitation,” says Stanford in an interview with Connie Chung to be aired Friday at 10 p.m. EDT on ABC. “He (Jackson) was born out of wedlock … He understands the hurt and the pain it causes.”

She said Jackson has only visited his daughter once in the last seven months — a far cry from his frequent visits in the first year of her life. (more…)

And here’s a question worth pondering~

According to Jackson, he has received about 50 honorary doctor degrees from various institutions across America. Also his organization Rainbow/PUSH has received millions of dollars over the years from various corporations. Given his historical approach to go after the sponsors of those who make derogatory comments against Blacks, should these institutions and corporations relinquish their support of Jackson in light of his latest gaffe moment of transparency?

House is “too big”.

Riiight.

Quick thoughts~

For the past couple of days, O’Reilly has been making the rounds on Fox giving his reasons why the whole Jackson tape was not released. According to him, he was not trying to “destroy” Jackson by reporting the whole incident.

So why tease the public by mentioning there were more tasteless comments in the first place?

On top of that, the transcript and tape were property of Fox, yet he blames “weasels” for putting it out on the internet.

Just shut up!

[Link]

This is why the “war against homelesness” is nothing more than a popular shadow boxing match.

Most homeless have city-funded home
C.W. Nevius
sfgate.com

A long overdue civil grand jury report released Wednesday says that the city should be proud of getting over 4,000 homeless people into housing since 2004 but distressed at the scene on the streets.

Panhandling, public drunkenness and street loitering are still an unpleasant reality downtown.

The mayor and others are now admitting what the grand jury reported - that a majority of those on the streets are not homeless. The head of the city’s homeless program, Dariush Kayhan, estimates that 50 to 75 percent of street people live in supportive housing.

“We just warehouse addicts,” said the grand jury’s Stuart Smith. “Granted, it is a nicer place for them, but it doesn’t address the problem.”

In short, the jury is reflecting the views of many San Franciscans who made the choice to live here. They understood that housing and taxes would be higher, and so would the cost of a meal in a restaurant. They understand and believe that the city needs to provide for its poorest homeless residents and don’t begrudge what the grand jury says is $186 million a year in city funds spent to finance homeless programs.

But, they ask, can’t someone stop the panhandling? And, given all the programs and services, is it unreasonable to ask those who are being given supportive housing to start making some effort to be self-sufficient? (more…)

The simple fact that the mayor is now admitting this is a problem suggests that they knew this for a long time. They just didn’t have the political will to do something about it.

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set,” he said. “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.” Barack Obama, 7/2/08

F.Y.I. I checked an unedited copy of the video from the Obama campaign against an edited version put out by some non-Obama supporters just to make sure nothing was left out of context. As far as I could see, nothing was left out. What is even more puzzling is that this particular line was left out the transcript of this speech.

Full transcript of Obama’s prepared remarks

As for the video, try to scroll to minute 16:40. That is where he mentions the quote above.

The Progressive Review
Sam Smith

It is against the journalist’s code of ethics to say so, but the presidential campaign has become incredibly dull. Over the past few weeks, the candidates have become becalmed, drifting in the electoral ocean, sails flapping lazily, awaiting for nature and history to cause something to happen.

Actually it has. We’re on the verge of war with Iran and the banking system is collapsing, but neither candidate has much to say on these topics. Instead the hope huckster lectures the NAACP on how to raise their children and his opponent struggles to find some justification for his existence since he was a prisoner of war.

Part of this is just the shift from primaries to general election, the former being a sort of personnel interview while the latter usually demanding some attention to actual issues. Neither candidate, however, is inclined to take on the challenge. They see their role, after all, as being life’s great commercial break.

The increasingly timid Barack Obama is still ahead in the polls and electoral vote count, and may benefit even further by the heightened turnout of several constituencies. But given the incompetence of his opponent and the disaster of his presumptive predecessor, he should be doing far better. Among his problems, he clearly prefers the pulpit and op ed page to the street corner and the union hall. Further, his rapid decline from patron saint of change to faint patron of the status quo does not bode well if he does get elected.

Obama not only offers little hope of restoring the Constitution, he is not even the anti-war candidate he pretends to be; he just wants to switch its primary locale from Iraq to Afghanistan. His hubristic, pompous approach to matters political is already becoming tiresome. Democrats, after all, are meant to put their views into legislation; it is traditionally the conservatives who prefer endless cliches. And, though he speaks of change, Obama has yet to come up with any really good examples of it and, though he is considered eloquent, his enthusiasts rarely offer a quotation in support of this contention.

Obama has already alienated some of his own constituency for his indefensible position on telecom immunity and electronic spying. But trouble is arising elsewhere as well, witness this from John Bresnahan of Politico:

“After a brief bout of Obamamania, some Capitol Hill Democrats have begun to complain privately that Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is insular, uncooperative and inattentive to their hopes for a broad Democratic victory in November.

“‘They think they know what’s right and everyone else is wrong on everything,’ groused one senior Senate Democratic aide. ‘They are kind of insufferable at this point.’. . .

“One Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, compared the Obama campaign unfavorably to President Bush’s administration.

“‘At least Bush waited until he was in the White House before they started ignoring everybody,’ the aide said.” (Read the rest here. Visit The Progressive Review here.)

Disney’s ’subservient’ black princess animates film critics
By Arifa Akbar, Arts Correspondent
independent.co.uk

When Disney announced it was casting its first black princess for its latest animation film, the African-American heroine was hailed as a positive role model for little girls and an ambitious marketing ploy, not to mention an attempt to ward off the allegations of racism that have lurked since the heyday of Walt Disney Productions in the 1940s and 1950s.

But now the film studio finds itself fending off a chorus of accusations of racial stereotyping in its forthcoming big-budget cartoon, The Princess and The Frog: An American Fairy Tale, which marks a return to hand-drawn animation.

A musical set in 1920s New Orleans, the film was supposed to feature Maddy, a black chambermaid working for a spoilt, white Southern debutante. Maddy was to be helped by a voodoo priestess fairy godmother to win the heart of a white prince, after he rescued her from the clutches of a voodoo magician.

Disney’s original storyboard is believed to have been torn up after criticism that the lead character was a clichéd subservient role with echoes of slavery, and whose name sounded too much like “Mammy” – a unwelcome reminder of America’s Deep South before the civil rights movement swept away segregation.

The heroine has been recast as Tiana, a 19-year-old in a country that has never had a monarchy. She is now slated to live “happily ever after” with a handsome fellow who is not black – with leaks suggesting that he will be of Middle Eastern heritage and called Naveen. The race of the villain in the cartoon is reported to have also been revised. (more…)
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Other issues to be hotly debated–

#Why not an African name?
#Will Tiana be light-skinned or dark-skinned?
#Will she speak in broken English?
#Will her hair be nappy or straight?
#Weave, fro or braids?
#Big behind or flat?
#Big lips or small?
#Will she come from a broken home?

Stay tuned!!

Why 99.9% of the bloviating coming from amateur race experts on this issue is pure garbage.

Why do Asian students generally get higher marks than Latinos? (LA Times)