North Carolina Schools Discipline Rate Probed By Feds: Black Students

Discipline Rate Of Black Students In Del., Elsewhere Is Probed

The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights is investigating whether Black Male Students are punished disproportionately in the Christina School District in Wilmington and Newark, one of five districts nationwide under scrutiny for its discipline record.

Federal investigators are in the process of visiting all of Christina's schools and have requested detailed discipline data for at least the last two academic years.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan first mentioned districts were being investigated at a conference in late September hosted by the Department of Education's Civil Rights office and the Department of Justice's Civil Rights division.

Besides Delaware, the school districts under review are in New York, North Carolina, Utah and Minnesota.

CIVIL RIGHTS: Education Dept. sees spike in complaints

One of the other districts, the San Juan School District in rural Utah, is being investigated for alleged gender disparities without respect to race or ethnicity, according to a school official.

Christina district officials acknowledged that a Disparity exists in the discipline rates for Black Male students that they are working to correct, according to district spokeswoman Wendy Lapham. She added that the district has been cooperating with the federal investigation.

Statewide, Black students made up about 32% of the public school population last year, but they accounted for about 55% of students who were suspended or expelled, according to an analysis by The News Journal published in June that compared discipline statistics provided by the state to school enrollments.

The discipline rates for all students in Delaware are higher than the national average: 21,690 of the state's 126,801 students — about one in six — were suspended or expelled in the 2009-2010 school year, which is down slightly from the year before. Those numbers include in-school suspensions. Counting only expulsions and out-of-school suspensions, the number dips to 14,368 students, or about one in nine.

The Christina School District had the highest rate among the state's 19 school districts in the 2008-2009 and the 2007-2008 school years. However, the district's numbers went down in almost every school in 2009-2010.

Lapham said the decrease is the result of an effort to better train teachers, help students learn to deal with conflicts and the elimination of a zero-tolerance policy.

She said the district has been analyzing its data internally and has been "working to address any issues of Disparity by working with teachers at the classroom level, increasing training for para-professionals, reviewing and discussing data at the school level and significantly reducing suspensions and expulsions."

In 2009, a 6-year-old boy brought a Boy Scout tool to a Christina school to eat his pudding at lunch. Under the district's zero-tolerance policy, the boy faced a punishment of suspension or expulsion. The policy did not allow educators to make a punishment judgment call based on the context of the incident or age of the child.

But after public outcry and widespread media attention, the school board decided to amend its policy as it pertained to kindergarten and first-grade students.

Parents and officials point to that outcome when they complained about Christina's high rate of punishment among black males. The 6-year-old was white.

Wanda Stanley said she read about the boy's case with interest because her 11-year-old daughter was expelled after a box cutter fell out of her jacket pocket at Pulaski Elementary School in Wilmington. The girl did not know how the box cutter got in her pocket and had no intention of hurting anyone, her mother said. Police were notified by the school but did not file charges.

School officials told her there was no room for debate about the expulsion because of the district's zero-tolerance policy, Stanley said. From her perspective, Stanley saw that a white boy went unpunished while her Black Daughter was put out of school.

"I am hurt because I know my daughter is totally innocent and I don't want this to follow my daughter through her schooling," Stanley said.

The district and state boards of education ruled that the expulsion was justified. The district's board amended the zero-tolerance policy further last school year.

A complaint against the school board is pending before the state Human Relations Commission, alleging that the district discriminated against Stanley's daughter on the basis of age and race.

Studies show that Minorities are punished at higher rates than their peers, but there's not evidence that these children misbehave more, said Dan Losen, a former teacher who now works for the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The government under President George W. Bush did not investigate many schools for these issues, which are now getting attention under the Obama administration, he said.

Typically, reviews from the Office of Civil Rights are used to help districts find solutions and to monitor progress, Losen said, because "the preference has historically been to enter into a joint problem-solving approach rather than issuing violations."

Helen Spacht, principal at Christina's Wilson Elementary, said programs like the district's Day of Caring help reinforce the importance of kindness and how to treat others with respect. The school is certified under the Anti-Defamation League's No Place for Hate program, which means staff and students have undergone training on diversity issues. Also, teachers have been meeting to share ideas and literature on better classroom and bullying management, she said.

"It's really changing the strategies and how they work with students," she said.

But the district has not made enough progress in dealing with these issues, said New Castle Councilman Jea Street, who organized a rally in April to protest the discipline rates.

"The fact is that (the office of civil rights) is once again going to have to do what local officials refuse to do," Street said. "Nobody would listen to me when I claimed Christina was discriminating when it changed policy to accommodate one child and knew full well that the same policy had been used overzealously for others."




Court: Suspended N.C. Students Can Go Unschooled

North Carolina’s Constitution guarantees children an opportunity for a basic education, but doesn’t require alternative schooling for students suspended for misbehavior, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday.

While local school boards are required by state law to establish at least one alternative learning program for students serving long-term suspensions, school administrators are not required to accommodate every suspended student, the court ruled.

“Because the safety and educational interests of all students receiving alternative education must be protected, students who exhibit violent behavior, threaten staff or other students, substantially disrupt the learning process, or otherwise engage in serious misconduct may be denied access,” Justice Mark Martin wrote for the court.

The case started with a fistfight outside a rural high school in January 2008 and attracted the attention of groups ranging from Civil Rights Advocates to school administrators to education groups from Alabama to Chicago.

Viktoria King and Jessica Hardy were sophomore students at Southside High School in Chocowinity when a melee led to sheriff’s deputies handcuffing and briefly arresting a dozen students.

The two girls were suspended from school for the rest of the semester and told they could not attend Beaufort County’s alternative school for troubled students.

Attorneys for the girls argued that violated the state constitution’s right to a public education. North Carolina’s top court ruled in a school funding case in 1997 that the Constitution gives each child a right to a “sound basic education.”

But that doesn’t mean protecting students from the consequences of their own misconduct, Martin wrote.

“A critical distinction exists between the state uniformly denying students in low-income districts access to a sound basic education and the state offering all students a sound basic education but temporarily removing students who engage in misconduct that disrupts the sound basic education of their peers,” Martin wrote.

The court did rule school administrators must explain why they denied a suspended student any alternatives, sending the case back to lower courts for further action.

King’s mother eventually paid for a home tutor during her semester-long suspension, while Hardy received no schooling until later entering the local alternative school, The Star-News of Wilmington reported in March.


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Sources: Schott Report, UCLA, USA Today, U.S. Dept Of Education Office Of Civil Rights, WRAL, Youtube, Google Maps

Education Cuts Are Dumbing Down America & Hurting Minorities, Where's Obama?

Protests Over Education Cutbacks Snarl Traffic, Lead To Arrests


A California movement protesting $1 billion in budget cuts to the state's university system appeared to have burgeoned into a nationwide demonstration on Thursday.

Students and professors in dozens of states were challenging administrators and state lawmakers over budget cuts and tuition increases that they say are reducing students' class options and increasing their expenses.

Some of the demonstrations turned chaotic. In Oakland, California, police arrested 160 protesters who shut down a major freeway, according to city police spokeswoman April McFarland.

The Oakland protesters had left a march from the University of California, Berkeley to Oakland City Hall and wound up on the Interstate 980/880 interchange, CNN San Francisco affiliate KGO reported. KCRA: Protesters threaten to block interstate

McFarland said the protesters brought Thursday evening rush hour traffic to a halt for an hour and 45 minutes.

One man is in critical condition after he tried to elude arrest by jumping off the freeway onto a tree, KGO reported. He fell from the tree onto the street below, a roughly 22 foot drop from the interchange, according to KGO.

At the University of California Davis, police held back student protesters who had threatened to shut down nearby Interstate 80, CNN affiliate KCRA in Sacramento reported.

Police fired rubber bullets into the ground in an effort to deter students, who made it as far as an I-80 exit ramp just south of campus.

At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, at least 15 people were arrested in demonstrations Thursday, according to CNN affiliate WTMJ.

A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee vice chancellor allowed a protester to drop off pamphlets in the chancellor's office, then called campus police when dozens of protesters tried to enter the building, according to WTMJ.

University police called the Milwaukee Police Department for backup, and officers spent an hour rounding up protesters.

Students yelled "Let her go!" and "What did he do?" as Milwaukee police led students into their black and white vans.

Across the country, students told of having to work second jobs and make lifestyle adjustments in the face of dramatic tuition hikes.

"I work at two jobs, go to school full time to make ends meet," said Tyler, a fifth-year senior at San Francisco State University, where students and faculty protested Thursday. She did not give her last name.

"I have been here a really long time. I struggle to keep [taking] classes to be able to keep my financial aid every semester, and I really don't know when I'm going to be able to get out of here. Every semester, something is cut, and I can't get the class I need. Who knows when I will be out of here," she said.

Many of Thursday's demonstrations focused on cuts to state-funded colleges and universities, which supporters say drive up tuition, limit classes and make higher education unobtainable to many. A blog called Student Activism, which was compiling a list of the protests, said that 122 events were scheduled in 33 states -- most on campuses, and some at state capitols.

Professors and students say dissatisfaction, anger and an uncertain future had led to call for a "Day of Action" to defend education.

At the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, dozens of protesters gathered Thursday and chanted, "Hey hey, ho ho, these student fees have got to go."

Video submitted from the demonstration by a CNN iReporter calling himself Bowtieguy showed students carrying handmade signs with messages like "Where's Holub's pay cut?" -- a reference to university chancellor Robert C. Holub.

Another homemade sign read "Chop from the top."

At California State University-Fullerton, dozens of students marched outdoors, chanting, "Students united will never be divided." A video submitted by a CNN iReporter who calls herself MelissaF showed handmade signs saying "Protect humanities" and "What happened to our future?"

State funding for the California State University system was reduced by nearly $1 billion for the academic years between 2008 and 2010. Schools have responded by increasing fees, canceling classes, cutting student support programs and furloughing professors. Fees have increased 182 percent since 2002. Class waiting lists have doubled or tripled.

"The less affordable education becomes, the less likely low-income students will be able to get a college education," said Lillian Taiz, president of the California Faculty Association and professor of history at California State University Los Angeles.

In addition to protests at numerous public colleges and universities in California, demonstrations also were planned for K-12 schools Thursday, according to the Student Activism blog.

On the other side of the country, in Georgia, a legislative committee proposed $300 million in cuts to the state's college system, on top of the $100 million cut in the past two years, University of Georgia President Michael F. Adams wrote in an open letter to students, faculty and staff.

"This is not our plan; these are not cuts we offered to make; and we will vigorously oppose any effort to implement them," Adams wrote.

In response, student organizers in Georgia are urging fellow students at every college in the state system to wear black this week to "symbolize the 'death' of our education," according to a post on Facebook.

In Colorado, hundreds rallied at the Capitol in Denver, holding signs and cheering.

In New York, students at New York University, which is private, planned to meet up to protest tuition increases and education cuts with students from Hunter College and the New School, two other private institutions in Manhattan, said NYU student Claire Lewis.

"It is a private university, but like a lot of public universities, our tuition is also getting increased," Lewis said. "This isn't anything new with the economic crisis with us; our tuition gets increased an average of 6 percent every year," she said.

"But lots of our students depend on federally funded grants and loans, and so the broader-nation education cuts definitely affect us." She added, "Kids literally work two or three jobs to pay for their tuition here."

In Maryland, students at the University of Maryland in College Park planned to walk out of class at noon, meet at the student union and then march to a plaza for a rally, according to a Facebook invitation.


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Sources: CNN, Google Maps

UCLA's Student Throat Slashed By A Fellow Student...No Clear Motive

UCLA student brutally attacked in chemistry lab


Students in a UCLA chemistry lab watched helplessly Thursday afternoon as a classmate suddenly slashed the neck of a fellow student, causing serious injuries.

The attack occurred just past noon on the sixth floor of Young Hall, prompting swift police mobilization and leaving students shaken by the violence as word spread across campus.

One witness inside the lab told The Times that the alleged assailant, a 20-year-old male student in the class, walked up to the 20-year-old female victim and appeared to repeatedly punch her. The witness said he realized it was more serious when she slumped over, bleeding profusely from her neck.

Police have booked Damon D. Thompson on suspicion of attempted murder.

Another student, Woojin Lee, was waiting with a friend near the lab when he heard screams and crying.

"I thought somebody blew themselves up with chemicals," Lee said. "Some of the students in that room were covered with blood on their coats and latex gloves. I saw her neck; the [teacher's assistant] was trying to help her."

"It was horrifying because she was a fellow student and a partner," Lee added. "Something happens at a prestigious university like UCLA, it seems unbelievable."

Thompson was arrested inside Young Hall minutes after the incident. The name of the victim has not been released. She was rushed to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, which is on campus, in critical condition. She underwent surgery and her condition was improving.

Los Angeles Police Department detectives said they don't know the motive for the attack. A law enforcement source said there might have been a verbal altercation before the slashing, but details were unclear. Both students were seniors, and some campus sources said they may have been lab partners.

UCLA officials sent a text alert to students, faculty and staff soon after the attack, telling them that an incident had occurred at Young Hall and to stay away from the area.

The attack took place between class sessions in an organic chemistry lab. The undergraduate-level lab enrolls about a dozen students and is usually led by teaching assistants. It is part of a class for about 60 students that is overseen by lecturer Alfred Bacher, according to department officials. Bacher could not be reached for comment.

Cyril Baida, a graduate student who is a teaching assistant in a lab next door, said he helped escort the victim into his room and sat her down while another teaching assistant kept applying pressure through gauze on her neck to stop the bleeding.

The victim was breathing, but was very pale and at times appeared to be passing out, said Baida, who praised police and UCLA medics for a quick and effective response to 911 calls.

"We kept trying to talk to her and tell her she was going to be OK," he recalled. "We wanted her to stay conscious."

Baida said he did not know the victim or the suspect, but was told that they were lab partners and had worked on some of the same projects.

UCLA campus spokeswoman Carol Stogsdill said that she had no information on past behavioral problems involving the suspect and that she had heard of no reports of any previous trouble in the class or between the two students.

Peter Felker, a chemistry department vice chairman, said the department also had not received any reports of trouble in the lab or complaints about the suspect's past behavior. "Nothing that I'm aware of," he said.

UCLA biochemistry professor Sabeeha Merchant and others described the mood in Young Hall after the attack as dark.

"People are shocked that something like that would happen. But because we are at the university doesn't mean we are immune from what goes on in the rest of the world. This could happen in a restaurant or a shopping mall," Merchant said.

UCLA student Saad Ahmed said the violence left even unflappable med and pre-med students in shock.

"There was blood all over the place, so much blood where you thought, 'Is she going to make it?' " Ahmed said. "People were panicking, they were in disbelief, saying, 'How could this happen at UCLA?' "

This is the second time in the last few weeks that the Westwood campus has been touched by violence. Last month, a melee at an off-campus fraternity party left three students injured.



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Sources: LA Times, MSNBC, UCLA, Google Maps

Michael Jackson, Child Prodigy, Genius, King of Pop Music, Legend, Racial Peacemaker Is Dead At 50!...Never Another! (Photos)

MSNBC----

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Michael Jackson has died at age 50 after being rushed to UCLA Medical Center, NBC News has confirmed.

Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Steve Ruda told the L.A. Times that Jackson was not breathing when paramedics arrived at his home and CPR was performed.

TMZ.com reported that he may have suffered cardiac arrest.

Jackson had been due to start a series of comeback concerts in London on July 13 running until March 2010. The singer, whose hits included “Thriller” and “Billie Jean,” had been rehearsing in the Los Angeles area for the past two months.

The shows for the 50 London concerts sold out within minutes of going on sale in March.

His lifetime record sales tally is believed to be around 750 million, which, added to the 13 Grammy Awards he received, makes him one of the most successful entertainers of all time.

He lived as a virtual recluse since his acquittal in 2005 on charges of child molestation.

There were concerns about Jackson’s health in recent years but the promoters of the London shows, AEG Live, said in March that Jackson had passed a 4-1/2 hour physical examination with independent doctors.

"I am absolutely devastated at this tragic and unexpected news," said Quincy Jones, a longtime friend of Jackson's and producer of his “Thriller” album. “For Michael to be taken away from us so suddenly at such a young age, I just don't have the words. ... I've lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him."

A life in music:

Jackson was born on Aug. 29, 1958, in Gary, Ind., the seventh of nine children. Five Jackson boys — Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael — first performed together at a talent show when Michael was 6.

They walked off with first prize and went on to become a best-selling band, The Jackson Five, and then The Jackson 5.

Jackson made his first solo album in 1972, and released “Thriller” in 1982, which became a smash hit that yielded seven top-10 singles. The album sold 21 million copies in the United States and at least 27 million worldwide.

The next year, he unveiled his signature “moonwalk” dance move while performing “Billie Jean” during an NBC special.

In 1994, Jackson married Elvis Presley’s only child, Lisa Marie, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1996. Jackson married Debbie Rowe the same year and had two children before splitting in 1999. The couple never lived together.

Jackson has three children named Prince Michael I, Paris Michael and Prince Michael II, who was known for his brief public appearance when his father held him over the railing of a hotel balcony, causing widespread criticism.


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Sources: MSNBC, Reuters, The Insider, Wikipedia, Google Maps