Pinned
Derek Black “has written a gem of a book with his latest, Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy. [The] book arrives at the right time… [i]n the age of MAGA and Donald Trump.”
Derek W. Black
6,926 posts
Derek W. Black
@DerekWBlack
@UofSCLaw Professor focusing on constitutional law, education rights, school funding, and equal opportunities for disadvantaged students.
Joined October 2013
- If states pushing vouchers didn’t have the lowest public school spending rates, you might listen when they say they want to help kids. But when they have all the $$ in the world for vouchers & little for pub schools, it’s hard to stomach. Texas ranks 43.
- Great news from Supreme Court. It leaves in tact a lower court holding that charter schools are state actors and, thus, must comply with the US Constitution. This is devastating news for those who think states can authorize religious charter schools.
- Couldn’t believe this was true, so I read the bill myself. Sure enough, TX Senate just passed a bill to remove Frederick Douglass, MLK, Cesar Chavez, Susan B. Anthony, the Civil Rights Movement and more from the required reading in social studies. 1/x theroot.com/texas-senate-p…
- The fact that private school voucher programs benefit wealthy families more than needy families is no longer news. But the data is still obscene. New report reveals that the wealthiest 6% in Oklahoma receive 33% of voucher funds. reformaustin.org/education/vouc…
- AZ taxpayers face a $400 million shortfall for voucher program they were told would only cost $65 million. Gap will be bigger next year. These programs aren’t targeting the needy either. More than half of voucher recipients are already in private school.
- Vouchers supposedly help poor kids but they “chiefly subsidize” kids who already attend private schools & their cost is borne by students “who attend the state’s underfunded public schools.” That’s what you call robbing the poor to help the rich. 1/2
- Harris to address teachers in one of her first campaign events. You might recall that she proposed an average $13,500 raise for teachers in her 2020 campaign, which was the first major teacher salary initiative from a presidential candidate in two decades.
- Twenty of the private white academies formed in NC during desegregation are now drawing state funds through vouchers—$20 million a year. And 83% of families receiving vouchers across the state are white. Hard to say vouchers are expanding access.
- Fearing the venom of the angriest parents, a SC school district removed 97 books. This December, it returned 92 of them to the shelves. This interview reveals just how empty the attacks actually were. And yet we are still recovering from deep wounds.
- Not that better education or fairness were ever the point, but politicians pushing vouchers should take note that Sweden went down this road 30 years ago and just declared its publicly financed private school program a “system failure.”
- Ultra conservative ran against racial & sexual indoctrination, but on school board found there wasn’t any, & socio-emotional materials taught children “how to be a good friend, a good human.” Realized claims had been ploy to lay groundwork for vouchers.
- Beyond me how new school board members can show up at first meeting & fire superintendent & general counsel w/out any justification or forewarning. This is a superintendent who drove buses when there were no drivers & told gen counsel to do same. 1/x
- Ohio investigating a network of Nazi homeschools. Disturbing that it got this far. Just another example why state programs that incentivize families to leave public schools are a terrible idea, but must be regulated if states make that mistake.
