A parent is challenging a desegregation order that was supposed to help integrate public schools in St. Louis, Mo., but is now barring her child from attending a school of his choice. La’Shieka White alleges discrimination against her son, who is black, and wants to enroll in a public school which, ironically, is predominantly white.
"I feel like I'm being treated differently because of my skin color," Edmund Lee, Jr., White's 9-year-old son, says in a video produced by the Pacific Legal Foundation.
At the center of the lawsuit is a 33-year old desegregation order that was designed to help black students transfer to whiter suburban public schools and to allow non-black students to transfer to inner-city schools such as magnet schools. The school transfer program prevents black students living in the suburbs from transferring to inner-city schools. (more…)
Headline writersSometimes the headlines don't match the story. Accidents or click bait? Either way, these headline writers need improvement.
Salon: "Reform makes broken New Orleans schools worse."
Writer Jennifer Berkshire, better known as EduShyster, is a school choice and education reform critic. Reform can be messy. It isn't perfect. Berkshire's moniker tells us where she stands, and critics can serve as foils who keep us grounded.
She doesn't tell the whole story about education reform in New Orleans, but she raises a number of worries from the potential disenfranchisement of local residents in the decision making process to reductions in the ranks of black teachers. Those are issues reformers should answer for. The simplistic, distorted headline undermines the argument.
News & Record: "Another offensive reform in the machinery of death"
What could this article possibly be about? Military reform? Executions? Nope, it's about vouchers.
Chris Fitzsimon, founder of the progressive N.C. Policy Watch, wrote this article about the perceived problems of sending students to private schools that aren't required to administer the state test, hire certified teachers, or use the state's curriculum. Some of his points have merit; others don't (public schooling doesn't solve the issue of crazy or incorrect curriculum being taught), and many of them rehash the usual talking points.
But if vouchers are the "offensive reform" what is the "machinery of death?" Public education?
