Race to the Bottom

So, 98 percent black Birmingham Public Schools (BPS) system is now controlled by the state of Alabama.

The Atlanta Public Schools (APS) system is in shambles (80 percent black), with 35 former administrators, teachers, principals, and the disgraced Beverly Hall – once regarded as one of the top superintendents in America – indicted for their part in the biggest cheating scandal in the history of the nation. Former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin has said the media coverage of the 35 indictments (all black, mind you) is akin to a “lynch mob.”

Memphis joins Birmingham as having its almost entirely black (and black-run) city school system taken over by the state

A cheating scandal the white Atlanta Chamber of Commerce tried to cover-up…

And no Front Page Magazine, it’s not a story of “Democrats Robbing Minority Students” (after all, whites are the minority in the APS system…), it’s a story that illustrates why many of America’s large cities already operate under third-world governance.

Now, the black city-state of Memphis joins the ranks of Atlanta and Birmingham with yet another black-run school system in a “Race to the Bottom”

[Crucible of Change in Memphis as State Takes On Failing Schools, New York Times, 4-3-13]:

MEMPHIS — Not far off a scruffy boulevard lined with dollar stores and payday loan shops in a neighborhood of run-down brick bungalows, Corning Achievement Elementary School here is a pristine refuge, with gleaming tile floors and signs in classrooms proclaiming “Whatever it takes.” 

 In this Mississippi River town marked by pockets of entrenched poverty, some of the worst schools in the state are in the midst of a radical experiment in reinventing public education. 

Last fall, Tennessee began removing schools with the lowest student test scores and graduation rates from the oversight of local school boards and pooling them in a special state-run district. Memphis, where the vast majority of public school students are black and from poor families, is ground zero: 80 percent of the bottom-ranked schools in the state are here. 

Tennessee’s Achievement School District, founded as part of the state’s effort to qualify for the Obama administration’s Race to the Top grant, is one of a small handful of state-run districts intended to rejuvenate chronically struggling schools. Louisiana’s Recovery School District, created in 2003, is the best-known forerunner, and this year Michigan also set up a state district for failing schools. In February, Virginia legislators passed a measure to set up a similar statewide district. 

The achievement district is a veritable petri dish of practices favored by data-driven reformers across the country and fiercely criticized by teachers’ unions and some parent groups. 

Most of the schools will be run by charter operators. All will emphasize frequent testing and data analysis. Many are instituting performance pay for teachers and longer school days, and about a fifth of the new district’s recruits come from Teach for America, a program in which high-achieving college graduates work in low-income neighborhood schools. And the achievement district will not offer teachers tenure. 

While some parents, teachers, administrators and community leaders hail signs of progress in the seven months the achievement district has been in existence, others have complained about a lack of racial sensitivity and have accused the new district of sidelining experienced teachers, many of whom are black. About 97 percent of the students in the achievement district schools are black, compared with fewer than half the teachers.

Once championed by the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce (and protected), now indicted...

 

“We’re not just asking people to do something incrementally different in a system that is fundamentally broken and the same,” said Chris Barbic, the achievement district’s superintendent and a Teach for America alumnus who went on to found the Yes Prep chain of 11 charter schools in Houston.

Ladies and gentlemen – the United States of America is in a “Race to the Bottom.”

The desire to close the racial gap in achievement has only highlighted the enormous racial differences that exist, exacerbating them to a point where noticing the correlation between the fall of the BPS, APS, and Memphis school system is akin to treason against the ruling ideology governing all aspects of life in 2013 America.

 America is in a “Race to the Bottom” – and remember: in Atlanta, the white Chamber of Commerce tried to cover-up the scandal and protect Beverley Hall – and there is no need to oppose this policy.

There is a need to distance yourself from the self-inflicted carnage of “Registered Democrats”  blacks now running cities like Memphis, Birmingham, and Atlanta.

They see nothing wrong with how they are running things in the City Hall’s and education headquarters of these cities, but they see everything wrong when people dare notice that “Things Fall Apart” when they run the show.

Somewhere, leaders of the Chinese military are laughing, knowing any technological advantages the American military has over the current People’s Liberation Army is countered by the disadvantage of many American cities being controlled by “Registered Democrats” black people.

More to the point, the America Education System is wedded to a policy of “Racing to the Bottom,” with the dedication of precious resources fully committed to closing the racial gap in achievement.

Memphis, Atlanta, and Birmingham public school systems (all showered with plenty of state, federal, and grant money) are the equivalent of Zimbabwe in our midst.