Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Education / Woods In Victory for NAACP, Judge Orders Textbooks Delivered to School
Posted by Jeff Woods on Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 6:38 PM
Comments (50)
Showing 1-50 of 50
like
dislike
Denied entry? She had a choice! They all have choices! Now, her choice may have been H.G. Hill or John Early, but she still has a choice! Hey, you want to go to school in West Nashville. Go ahead! We will transport you out there!
If this case goes all the way to the Supremes, I'm not all that sanguine about the prospects of getting the Roberts Court to reaffirm Brown. Dis-integration is sweepin' the nation.
true, the supreme court ruled that way, but Louisville now zones based on FRL (free and reduced lunch), so some of those kids have some long bus rides, still.
Some Hume-Fogg students didn't get their books until yesterday, either. Believe me, it's not limited to schools in N. Nashville.
If kids all over the school system are not getting text books until three weeks in, parents all over the school system should be suing. Good lord.
Metro schools are just 35% white. And, the 35% of whites tend to be the less affluent whites.
At the high school level it is past time to do away with zoning altogether, but the efforts to integrate have been a disaster for urban schools.
I wonder if Aunt B will arrive at reasonable policy conclusions at some point regarding education and in other areas.
No, Martin. I will not.
Especially if by "reasonable" you mean "spending 1/8 of the school year without school books."
But you keep sulking, if you want.
Can't believe they STILL didn't have text books. What a load of crock.
http://tomoveanation.blogspot.com
So, another attorney finds a client and get
the Federal Court to hand out a big fee for
a few hrs. work. What's new, the ACLU budgets love these court ordered fees. The Court's actions were correct in this case, although, I'm not sure 24 hrs was reasonable.
How is getting books to kids a victory for the NAACP? Sounds like a victory for the KIDS to me; one that's now getting misappropriated for political ends rather than for the advancement of education.
An on-line commentor and Bellevue MS parent said, in a comment over at the Tennesseean, some Bellevue Middle School students finally got books the end of last week. What, was that a victory for the Bellevue YMCA? The VFW? Sounds like a victory just waiting to be claimed.
Perhaps MNPS should hire a "Textbook Tzar" to order books instead of having the various school principals oversee that task. Problem solved, tension released, buck passed.
Some nits to pick:
Jeff wrote: "The sixth-grade daughter of Frances and Jeffrey Spurlock was denied enrollment in Bellevue Middle School and forced to attend John Early instead."
Not true. She was given a choice of John Early or H. G. Hill Middle School.
Jeff writes of "the NAACP's lawsuit," the "NAACP's lawyer" and the "NAACP's demands."
Not true. The NAACP is not a party to the case and is not mentioned in the complaint. This is a class action suit brought by one local family as the named plaintiffs. Although the NAACP is presumably contributing to the costs of the suit, they have no legal interest in the outcome and no right to make decisions for the plaintiffs or their attorneys.
Jeff writes, "The case has been assigned to a new judge, Haynes told the courtroom in a final piece of bad news for the school board. It's John Nixon."
Not necessarily. Both are "liberal" judges but I suspect the plaintiffs would prefer that Judge Haynes, who is African American, stay on the case.
As pointed out in some of the comments, this suit is a long shot in light of recent appellate rulings. But one good thing has already happened. For too long, we've learned to live with aggravating, start-of-school textbook shortages. Now one family, who just moved here last year, raised hell about the problem and caught the attention of the media and a federal judge. It's got nothing really to do with the merits of the lawsuit, but you can bet the Board and the Director of Schools have taken notice. I suspect that next year any principal who fails to order enough books will find himself/herself driving a van to the depository the next day. I agree with Mr. Shumaker. That's a victory worth celebrating.
Oops. That last comment wasn't intended to be anonymous. It was me. (I wouldnt want Jeff Woods to think that anyone else cares as much about his mistakes as I do.)
Henry, why do you keep saying the textbooks have nothing to do with the merits of the lawsuit? That's only if you buy Metro's argument that mere incompetence is to blame, not racism. I guess since you know all, you know exactly how Judge Nixon is going to feel about that.
Come by Brandon's tonight to absorb even more of my wisdom. I'll call John Nixon and ask him to join us.
Can we say grandstanding? Unless this was a pre-planned suit, how did it come on the docket so soon? Come on, they have textbooks. They just did not have enough to send one home with each child. As of Monday, it had only been two weeks since school started and anyone involved in education in any district knows the first 2 or 3 weeks of school is a time of adjustment. Teachers get moved around and students get moved due to the unknowns involved in the final numbers at ANY school. Why? Students are accepted at their zoned school on the first day of school whether they have pre registered or not. There is a "new student" registration time before the start of school, but few parents take the time to go out of their way to actually take advantage of it. Similarly, students move out of a zone and do not inform anyone. They just show up and hope their records follow them. Gone are the days where parents actually took some responsibility and went to the central office to inform them of changes in their address.
Before you jump down the throats of the principals on this or any other issue, go to the schools and see what they have to deal with on a daily basis. They are doing the best they can within a social system that does not value a "free" education.
Some schools cannot send textbooks home with students because they will never see the books again. Schools now have to use many more consumables than in the past because the days of personal responsibiity with a text book are long gone, especially in middle school.
Come on, they have textbooks. They just did not have enough to send one home with each child.
And is this a problem in all Metro Davidson schools? (Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Been the law of the land for some time. Last time I checked, it was 2009 and not 1959.)
They are doing the best they can within a social system that does not value a "free" education.
And what "social system" would that be, exactly?
Holy cow. And now we've gotten to the point where people are arguing that the problem is that Nashville's children suck?
Wow.
Ha, I can just imagine the hordes of filthy preteens waltzing into schools they don't belong in and leaving with armfuls of brightly illustrated McGraw-Hills, just aching to be hollowed out and filled with mary jane cigarettes.
Really, I mean sometimes kids break their glasses. They should just wander around blind until they can prove they're responsible enough to see.
Andy--
Yes textbook distribution is a problem of logistics in ALL schools and all school systems. The principal has to make an educated guess because until the 1st day of school,(sometimes the 2nd or 3rd) they do not know how many will show up. Possibly the schools in higher income areas are more stable and the principals guess of enrollment is easier to gauge. So, maybe in lower income areas the numbers are harder to project due to the instability of the neighborhoods. In teaching, I had students who moved 2 or 3 times in one year.
The social system question--most today's society, including anyone who automatically assumes any problem they encounter in the public school system is motivated by prejudice, malice, or incompetence. If it is "free" it must not be worth much.
Again, go to any of the middle schools in town and see what is going on before you jump to conclusions. You might be surprised at the integrity and caring in all of the schools, including North Nashville.
...sometimes kids break their glasses. They should just wander around blind until they can prove they're responsible enough to see.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around "they don't value a free education" while blasting the parents for being so committed to making sure that their children get the most of it. So much so, in fact, that they're willing to make a federal case out of it (literally).
Should it really take a US District court order to get the school to figure out how to load books into a van in less than a day?
Maybe things have changed in public schools since my day, but in the first three minutes of school from grades K-12, I was getting handed my copy of the main text that would be used, and a syllabus where applicable.
It went something like this: Roll call, here's your seat, here's your book, here's what we're going to study. I can't ever remember having to wait more than a couple of periods, anyway.
that was before "no child left behind".. today's public school teachers are so saddled with bullshit paperwork, kids are lucky to learn anything.
Woods, B and others:
It remains to be seen whether or not the rezoning plan is unconstitutional.
But this whole conversation seems to follow this narrative: people who do NOT have school-aged children breathlessly report a situation as proof of discrimination.
People who do have school-aged children point out that the situation is not unusual at all - we've dealt with this as long as we've had kids in school. It's a part of school life, like chaotic dropoff/pick-up lines and fundraisers.
Then, we people with school-aged children are lectured that we don't know what they are talking about, or we don't care about our children because we put up with the situation in the first place.
Do you not see the absurdity of this?
Some of us have a frame of reference for how things work at schools. This cannot be discounted.
FOCUS.
Lack of textbooks early in the year is a fact of life in all schools (even expensive private schools). It is not necessarily discrimination, nor is it necessarily incompetence. It is simply the most obvious symptom of an extremely organic, complex system.
For my part, I do not worry about my daughter's lack of books early in the year. Even though this happens every year, her ITBS scores indicate she's doing just fine without the books early in the year.
I just don't think the opinions of actual parents of middle school kids should be so casually dismissed.
Well, my personal point of reference is that I went to public schools my whole life. We had the three R's, plus science, art, woodshop, recess, sports. Oh, and, um, textbooks. On time.
I doubt this has much to do with racism. I think this is just tired administrators overseeing tired systems, with precious few resources.
Slarti, you send your kids to private school. So an argument could be made that you don't know what you're talking about from first hand experience either.
And yet, no one shows you that kind of disrespect, while you feel free to be as patronizing as you can be.
Funny that.
I just don't think the opinions of actual parents of middle school kids should be so casually dismissed.
Does the courtesy of considering "the opinions of actual parents of middle school kids" also extend to the actual parents of the middle school students who are currently bringing suit?
Neither those children nor their parents are imagined.
And I'm sorry - when the MNPS response is "we'll get around to it by Friday" when they could just as easily comply within 24 hours? Isn't that pretty damned telling in and of itself?
Some of us have a frame of reference for how things work at schools. This cannot be discounted.
Having personally gone to middle tier public schools in small-town Illinois and Kansas is a valid frame of reference (as is having two half-sisters who are currently student teachers in same).
I wonder how many of the parents at John Early have been to the school and offered to help? Could they just have gone to school and said "I understand there is a problem here. Is there anything we can do to help out?" Or was the first thought "Let's jump on this and file a lawsuit?" What about the rest of you? Could any of you find your way to a school and offer to help out in some way instead of blasting them? Again, before you criticize the schools, go visit a school in North Nashville and find out first hand what is going on.
If you value your schools and your children's public education, you do not go out and file a lawsuit as soon as something does not suit you or there is a perceived slight. Heck no, but for this group it was off with their heads!
Maggie, as a former teacher, you make some good points about the difficulty of predicting opening day attendance. But according to the Tennessean, they were short of books for 160 sixth graders. That seems like more than just bad guessing. And why should it take the school system more than two weeks to solve a problem that the court fixed in 24 hours? Is this an extreme case or is it a systemic problem? If the latter, how would you, as a current/former Metro teacher, correct it?
Anon, it's a systemic problem. A couple of years ago McGavock High had this situation but worse. My kids have had the same issues at their schools. The principals do order the books so the question becomes is this a competent principal? Was the principal given bad information or is under trained and under supported by admin? Did someone in purchasing drop the ball or is the textbook ordering system somehow flawed or mismanged? I'm guessing the reason why the court was able to fix this so quickly is because the books had arrived. There's not some textbook warehouse stocked full of books, they are ordered from the textbook manufacturer and stored in each school. So it takes awhile to get new texts, they aren't local. I hope this is what happened because I would hate to think they took them from kids at other schools.
I think this family wanted their child at Bellevue Middle and didn't like the choices they were given and found a way around the system via this issue. Because we know Bellevue Middle also had textbook issues. To say that there is any racial or economic discrimination is really a stretch. Many of us parents have been complaining about this for years, at least someone is finally listening.
Come on, they have textbooks. They just did not have enough to send one home with each child.
oxymoron.
Focus, you demand? If we were to focus we would remember what this lawsuit is about, and it ain't only textbooks.
If you're just looking at the textbook issue (as evidence of disparate treatment it seems) the plaintiffs aren't making a super strong case. But under "wrongful intent" (on the part of the board presumably), the statements attributed to Warden are pretty damning if they're admitted as evidence. Plus, Garcia is already on record with this info.
Think about that. There's a person out there who is saying the school board officer sought out a rezoning plan with the intention of moving Black students out of a White district for the benefit of her political career (and, one may argue, conspired with another officer to bolster her own, must I name names?)
There are also some non-sexy arguments that go toward due diligence rather than explicit intent.
Many other arguments offered aren't so weak, either. Walker, I don't see how this is a "long shot."
The more I think about it, the textbook issue is an excellent PR move for the case going forward.
Andy Axel, going to middle tier public schools in small town Illinois and Kansas is NOT a valid frame of reference for urban public schools today. I am touched at your sweet memories of how schools were in your day, but laughed out loud--with a heavy dose of cynicism gained by 15 years of very engaged experience in MNPS-- at your astoundingly naive notion of how schools operate today. Roll call, here's your seat, here's your book, here's your syllabus, all within the first five minutes? Somewhere over the rainbow Andy, but not in Nashville public schools.
Mark, you're right that the complaint describes some comments by Warden and Garcia that will certainly help the plaintiffs but my (admittedly dim) understanding of recent case law is that neighborhood school zones, even if they result in de facto segregation, are no longer constitutionally suspect. ( If I were Metro's lawyer, I would argue that the statements by Warden and Garcia arise from the fact that you can't have an honest debate about neighborhood schools without talking about racial impacts and attitudes.) With four Supreme Court justices who believe that any race conscious zoning, even when done to promote diversity, is per se illegal, how can this case not be a long shot? )
Well I know that tea leaf reading is all the rage these days, but let's hope judges go case by case (a pipe dream, maybe).
If a judge finds as fact that Warden conspired to resegregate schools, I think even Thomas would have to side w/ the pl, don't you?
I'm not sure what is meant by "constitutionally suspect." Are you referring to the difference in applying standards (reasonable vs strict scrutiny)?
I am touched at your sweet memories of how schools were in your day, but laughed out loud--with a heavy dose of cynicism gained by 15 years of very engaged experience in MNPS-- at your astoundingly naive notion of how schools operate today. Roll call, here's your seat, here's your book, here's your syllabus, all within the first five minutes?
Naturally, that was before the vast liberal conspiracy had taken things over and started indoctrinating children to reject God (first minute) and to become homosexuals (by minute five). Those are a couple new bits of the curriculum, as I'm led to understand.
Have they put the finishing touches on the Obama Loyalty Oath yet?
In my day = a couple of decades. And like I said, I have a couple of sisters who teach in the secondary ed system, and my siblings have children - none of whom have ever encountered anything like this in their urban school districts (Oklahoma City and San Antonio, for what it's worth). I asked. And when Nashville looks backwards compared to Oklahoma City, it is I who is having the hearty belly laugh.
apokeinhtheeye and anonymous,
John Early is now a direct pathway school to Hume Fogg. There was a large unexpected enrollment jump because many parents want their children to go to Hume Fogg and if you are at John Early you no longer have to be placed in the academic lottery, so I say that child just messed up their chances but the many other parents who are enrolling there understand. This has resulted in the shortage of books. Everyone do your homework before jumping on the bandwagon. It's more to this than what is being shared. Stay tuned....
If I lived in N. Nashville AND I felt that my child would get a good education at a school in the neighborhood, I certainly would send him there. I drive from Bellevue to N. Nashville to work everyday, and that gets old. My 5th grader at Bellevue still doesn't have her Soc. Studies book, by the way.
There are some great teachers in the Pearl-Cohn cluster. I work at Pearl-Cohn and I love it there.
Sounds to me like the shortage of books is by a factor of four or five ... maybe less; I'm just going by numbers I found on a quick web search. Does someone have solid numbers?
Getting the number of books wrong by a dozen might be a mistake. Should not be a big one; there need to be a bunch of extras, and a few folk can share books for a while. But if every school has that kind of large goofage there's something extremely wrong in how this district is being run!
Maggie asks how many parents have offered to help. Err, this particular issue isn't one any parent should have to deal with; it's a basic issue of the school not doing its job. And one which was promised extra resources...
I agree with Andy's "first five minutes", more or less. That's how it worked for all the years I spent in public schools. Call roll and pick up your textbook by the end of the first class.
Thank-you "atjohnearly" for finally giving us an explanation of the book snafu that seems to make sense. If Metro's attorney had told that to the judge, it would have taken much of the wind out of the plaintiff's argument. I talked last night to a friend who sat through the court proceedings and, from his layman's perspective, Metro was badly out-lawyered. (But I also realize that the city's attorneys had less than a day to prepare for that initial hearing.)
Let me correct something. I just learned that during the court hearing, Metro acknowledged that only 18 more students showed up at John Early than had been anticipated. Therefore, "Dave" is correct. The book shortage (160) was several times larger than the number of unexpected students. It appears the information from "atjohnearly" was misleading.
There's still a number of kids at Bellevue Middle School who do not have books today. Wouldn't it be ironic if the same child who transferred from John Early for the same reason is now a victim at Bellevue? And if so, what should be the remedy? Should she be sent to another MNPS school who has textbooks ready and waiting?
Since all of you are so passionate about the
book issue, how many of you got off your
lazy butts and volunteered to deliver the books
Henry
If the number of projected students was off by 20, and each kid needs a set of 6 books or so, then the needed book count would be 120 books. The kids use a full set depending on the subject, not just one text per student. That may have been the case if just a few students were affected--either way, this principal is not the incompetent person she is being depicted as being.
I went to a class yesterday that still had 8 out of her 20 projected/registered students as no shows. Should she send the texts back to the depository or keep them? It is always a problem. Her school had a mobility rate (number of kids who enroll or move after the 2nd week of school) at 48% last year. Those numbers are available on the MNPS website. These numbers keep planning a nightmare and principals awake at night.
The lawsuit says that the cause of the missing books is institutional racism, but isn't it really the incompetence of the black female principal who failed to order books? Can't they bus in some white male principals to straighten this out?
Perhaps we are witnessing some disingenuous litigation engineering on the part of some rezoning opponents. "We didn't get our books, plus our child is being picked on!" Now you know how white parents feel, Mr. and Mrs. Spurlock. We don't want the little criminals-in-training going to school with our children either.
Which brings me to my brilliant idea on how to fix the school system. Demonstrate academic competence in eighth grade, or be sent to job training.
I gather most of you failed to read the entire document. Speaks well for Nashville public schools.
Thanks, Maggie. It did not occur to me that sixth graders would each have so many textbooks. I appreciate your setting me straight.
So is there no solution to this recurring problem? And, even if it remains an issue at the beginning of each year, should it really take two or three weeks to straighten things out? Or is the distribution of books not as high a priority within the Metro school system as many people outside the system evidently think it should be?
I talked last night to a friend who sat through the court proceedings and, from his layman's perspective, Metro was badly out-lawyered.
"Outlawyered" in court = "got their asses handed to them."
Maybe the MNPS lawyers forgot that they need to study before an exam. Any sixth grader could tell them that, books or no.
Better hope they bring the "A" game to the federal court because I doubt that "we're incompetent" is going to be perceived as an affirmative defense against accumulated accounts of wrongful intent.
Lets see: Our Metro School System didn't manage to deliver books in time for them to be used by students returning from summer recess. And then had to be ordered by the court to do so. Hmmm, interesting.
Of course, NAACP sees racist shit in the whole thing. And they are being properly noisy. But I would submit racism has damn little to do with any of it. And it gets worse, friends and neighbors.
This is just the beginning of the wages of bureaucratic incompetence. Just wait 'till we find out that, because of budget problems, books and teaching materials are unavailable late in the school year. And simultaneously, just as hot weather arrives, assorted schools are running heating systems and air conditioners at the same time to burn up their fuel allotment. You know, so they can get as much next year.
You think not? I can tell you where and who. And for one, it just makes me relaxed and confident about my official, governmental masters regulating my life. How about you?
I have never read a more bizarre set of posts.
If you have the money you send your little ones to a good private school and buy your own books. Most strive for that regardless of motive.
Also, most of these posters of course have no children, send them to U School or even worse have no money.
And, BTW, I do not see a single post calling for the dismissal of those responsible. This debacle seems to me business as usual with the bloggers getting all stirred up and insanely posting.
