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09/20/9!
WILSON LIBRARY
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VOLUME 93 - NUMBER 15
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DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, APRIL26, 2014 TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 30
Schools Separate and Unequal’
60 years after Brown
OPENING 2014 CROP WALK - Some of dignitaries on hand for the 2014 CROP
Walk to Fight Hunger from left to right are: NCCU Chancellor Debra Saunders-
White; City Councilwoman and Mayor Pro Tern Cora Cole-McFadden and in
back Chuck Davis of the African American Dance Ensemble. See photos on page 6.
NC judge considers if
districts can sue on tenure
GREENSBORO (AP) - A judge in Greensboro is considering whether two school
districts can sue the state over North Carolina’s teacher tenure law.
Special Superior Court Judge Richard Doughton said April 16 he wants more infor
mation on whether the school districts have legal standing to sue, the News & Record
of Greensboro reported.
Doughton said he expects to make a decision next week on whether Guilford and
Durham school district leaders should temporarily be freed from certain provisions of
the law.
The Durham Board of Education and the Guilford County Board of Education and
Guilford Superintendent Maurice Green are suing the state over new requirements on
revoking tenure from vested teachers. They say the new law is too vague and could
leave them vulnerable to lawsuits.
They say revoking tenure from vested teachers would violate the state and U.S. con
stitutions.
School districts have until June 30 to award new contracts to certain teachers who
agree to waive the extra layer of job protection.
North Carolina’s lawyers say school districts cannot sue the state.
Lawyers have until Monday to provide the additional information Doughton wants.
Gov. Pat McCrory and other state leaders want to eliminate tenure for all teachers by
2018.
By Freddie Allen
NNPA Washington
Correspondent
WASHINGTON (NNPA) - As
the 60th anniversary of the Unit
ed States Supreme Court ruling
in Brown v. Board of Education
approaches, a new report by the
Economic Policy Institute found
that schools are more segregated
now than they were in 1980.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s
May 17, 1954 landmark deci
sion effectively banned racial
segregation in schools in South
ern states where racially separate
schools were far from equal. The
report outlines the myriad differ
ences that existed between black
schools and white schools lead
ing up to the 1954 decision.
“Black students were not only
segregated but wholly denied
meaningful educational opportu
nity,” the report stated. “Schools
60- years ago were separate but
not equal. In Clarendon, South
Carolina, the school system at
the heart of the Brown collec
tion of cases, per pupil spend
ing in schools for whites was
more than four times the rate in
schools for blacks. The capital
value of schools for whites was
nine times the value of shacks
for blacks. The pupil-teacher ra
tio in schools attended by whites
was 28-to-l, for those attended
by blacks it was 47-to-l.”
The report continued: “There
were flush toilets in schools for
whites and outhouses at schools
for blacks; buses transported
white students to school while
black students walked; schools
for whites had janitors while
schools for blacks were cleaned
by teachers and students them
selves.
“The typical black student
now attends a school where only
29 percent of his or her fellow
students are white, down from
36 percent in 1980,” stated the
report.
The report also described
how family background can im
pact educational achievement.
“When a few children in a
classroom come from homes
with less literacy, and without
the benefit of high-quality early
childhood care, a skilled teacher
can give those children special
attention,” stated the report. “But
when most children in that class-
room have these disadvantages,
the average instructional level
must decline. The most skilled
teachers must devote more time
to remediation, less to new in
struction.
The report offered a number
of recommendations including,
“adjusting attendance zones,
establishing magnet schools, or
implementing controlled choice
programs.”
But in order to fully integrate schools, the report said, neighbor
hoods that feed those schools must also be integrated and that re
mains an uphill battle even with rental voucher programs.
“Low-income working families are eligible for vouchers to sup
plement their rental payments up to market rates, even in middle-
class communities, but the voucher program is barely funded, and
(Continued On Page 2)
Central High in Tuscaloosa, Ala., like others schools, has
grown increasingly segregated.
Clergy Release Open Letter during
Passover to Governor McCrory and NC
General Assembly Leadership on Be
half of the Forward
Together Moral Movement
A group of clergy members from the Christian, Jewish and Mus
lim faiths, including Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, released a letter
last week to Governor McCrory, Senate Leader Berger, and Speaker
Tillis on behalf of the Forward Together Moral Movement. The let
ter requested a meeting with the North Carolina General Assembly
leadership before the opening of the 2014 short session on May 14th.
The letter is provided below.
The letter emphasized the constitutionally inconsistent, morally
indefensible and economically insane nature of the public policy
agenda pushed in the 2013 session and urged a new and moral direc
tion to be forged in the upcoming months.
April 18, 2014
Governor Patrick McCrory
State ofNorth Carolina
1 E. Edenton Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
Senator Philip E. Berger
President Pro Tempore
North Carolina State Senate
2007 Legislative Building
Raleigh, NC 27601
Representative Thom Tillis
Speaker of the House
North Carolina House of Representatives
16 W. Jones Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
“We believe it is time to move in a different direction, a new direc
tion, a moral direction. We are in the middle of Passover, a holiday
that commemorates God’s work to ensure justice for Gods people.”
Dear Governor McCrory, President Pro Tempore Berger and
Speaker Tillis:
In this holy season we write to you with a sense of urgency, prayer
and call of faith to speak truth and love. The business of governance
is complicated and often requires making unpopular policy decisions
that alienate even the most beloved elected officials from their bases.
Over the course of the last year, you and your colleagues made sev
eral unpopular policy decisions. These decisions cut resources from
an already overstretched K-12 budget; they rejected health insurance
(Continued On Page 2)
States’ refusal to expand Medicaid is deadly attack on poor Americans
By Jesse Jackson
We pledge allegiance to “One nation, under God.” When terrorists attack us, we unite as one to defend
our nation and our countrymen and women. Yet, we allow the doctrine of the Confederacy — states’
rights — to divide us, even to the point of costing Americans their lives.
Charlene Dill, a resident of Florida, was a 32-year-old mother of three. She worked three jobs to try to
support those children, despite having a serious heart condition. She earned too much — $11,000 a year
— to be eligible for Medicaid under Florida law. She would have been able to get expanded Medicaid
under the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.
An Analysis
But the conservative justices on the Supreme Court ruled that states have the right to refuse to expand
Medicaid, even though the federal government will pay 100 percent of the costs for the first three years,
and 90 percent thereafter. This states’ rights decision would cost Charlene Dill her life.
Every member of the Florida state legislature has health insurance. Yet, as zealous opponents of
Obamacare, they voted not to expand Medicaid, turning their noses up on billions in federal support. That
decision cost Charlene Dill her life.
According to a Harvard study, an estimated 8 million Americans will remain uninsured because of the
decision of 25 states to refuse to expand Medicaid. They estimate that will result in about 7,000 deaths
Per year, or 19 a day. The victims are working people, who earn too much to get Medicaid and too little to
afford health insurance. Conservatives, one would think, would want to help those who get the early bus,
who clean our streets, take care of our children, work the midnight shift. But they hate Obama far more
•han they care for low-wage workers. They choose partisan politics over the common good.
Not surprisingly, the states that have refused to expand Medicaid include almost the entire South, ,
the states of the former Confederacy, as well as the Republican bastions in the Midwest and West (from
Kansas to Idaho). These are among the poorest states in the union, with the most residents who have no
health insurance, and the worst health care indices.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz spent 20 hours in a fake filibuster against Obamacare, while his state ranks
among the worst in the country with more than one in five of its residents without health insurance. Geor
gia State Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens brags that the state is doing “everything in its power
to be an obstructionist,” while 18.4 percent of Georgians go without health insurance.
Mississippi residents, not surprisingly, are most likely to lack access to basic necessities. One fourth
report that they didn’t have money for food at some point in the last 12 months. Mississippi residents
have the lowest life expectancy, the highest obesity rates (over 35 percent), the lowest household income,
and nearly one in four reports they lack the money to purchase health care. Yet the governor of Missis
sippi refuses millions in federal aid to expand Medicaid.
People of color — primarily African Americans in Mississippi and the former confederate states, La
tinos in Texas and elsewhere — are disproportionately the victims of this cruelty.
That should not surprise. From John C. Calhoun’s South Carolina Ordinance ofNullification to seces
sion, the Civil War to segregation, states’ rights has always been a doctrine wielded to oppress minorities,
even at the cost of depriving poor working people of all races.
These governors and legislators assume that poor people do not register and do not vote (and they
are passing laws to make it harder for them to do so). They assume that most Americans won’t care if
thousands die needlessly. They assume that states’ rights can allow America to move from one nation to
two nations, separate and unequal.
Charlene Dill is neither the first nor the last to be lost to this callous calculation. But I believe we are
a better country than that. Working and poor people have an insult level that is being violated. People of
conscience will not turn their eyes forever. This is a moral disgrace that cannot be simply ignored.
Rev. Jesse Jackson is president of Operation PUSH in Chicago, III.