Diversity regulations keeping minority kids out of good schools in Hartford

The following article was published on the American Thinker website. It’s an excellent example of the perils of left-wing micromanagement and its devastating effects on common sense. In short, members of the White race have become the minority in leftist-run, Hartford Conn. And there are no longer enough to “go around.”   Ed.

By Thomas Lifson

The person figuratively standing at the schoolhouse door and telling black students to go back to their segregated, bad public schools is a diversity bureaucrat these days.  Qualified minority students are being kept out of seats they applied for in magnet schools because they are the wrong race!  The ideology of diversity is keeping smart black and Hispanic kids out of better schools in Hartford, Connecticut because there aren't enough white kids to go around.

As a result, seats remain empty in magnet schools, as the students rejected because they are black or Hispanic have to go to inferior public school they sought to escape.

Shades of George Wallace standing in front of a schoolhouse door to deny black children the opportunity to attend integrated schools.

Seriously, this is no tortured metaphor or extended chain of reasoning.  This is the literal, simple, direct truth.  Blacks and Hispanics are sent to the back of the line – by liberals who designed a complicated system to allow children to escape failing public schools, only if there is enough "diversity" in those magnet schools.

Matthew Kaufman and Vanessa de la Torre of the Hartford Courant report:

As the new school year approached for Hartford magnet schools, seats opened up at popular Capital Prep north of downtown – a boon for some of the hundreds of wait-listed students eager to attend the school that pledges to shepherd every graduating senior into a four-year college.

But that good news would never trickle down to the students. The next in line on Capital Preparatory's waitlist were minority students. And enrolling more black or Latino students, officials concluded, would jeopardize efforts to meet integration standards created under Connecticut's historic Sheff v. O'Neill desegregation case.

And so – in a practice that has quietly taken place at Hartford's award-winning magnet schools for years – the open seats at Capital Prep were left empty, and those minority students on the waitlist were rejected because of their race.

"That breaks my heart," said Capital Prep Principal Kitsia Hughey Ferguson, who had to shut out scores of students this school year, despite having ample space in her school. "And I know that's not the spirit of Sheff. That's not what they intended 20 years ago – that we would be turning students away, and more importantly: That we would be turning Hartford students away."

The underlying problem is that Hartford's whites have fled the city in large numbers, so that in order to attract enough whites to "diversify" the magnet schools, suburban families must be attracted to enroll their kids in an inner-city magnet school, and not enough families are willing to bus their kids back into the inner city, even if it is to a magnet school.

Make no mistake: this is a liberal program, instituted by liberal activists ("civil rights trailblazers" as the Courant has it) who brought a court case and got a decision they wanted.  As a result of their efforts, poor and minority students are being denied a chance at good schools.  Instead, they are sent to worse public schools that are themselves not at all diverse.

The state-run school choice lottery, often described as a random, roll-of-the-dice operation, is in fact a carefully engineered process designed to push white and Asian students toward the front of the line at magnet schools that still attract too few non-minority applicants.

And when that doesn't tilt the playing field enough, some schools have no choice but to ignore all Hartford students on the waitlist for certain grades, filling open seats with only suburban children – who are more often white – and leaving Hartford children in neighborhood schools that remain illegally segregated.

The name Rube Goldberg springs to mind over this ridiculous situation, where good schools have empty seats and minority kids are sent to worse, more segregated schools.  That's bad for taxpayers (who pay for the empty seats) and bad for minority kids denied a chance at good schools, but it is good for the teacher unions, whose members at the non-magnet public schools have more jobs, thanks to the kids denied entrance to magnet schools because they are black or Hispanic.

Would it be paranoid to suggest that this is not a random outcome?  That the "good intentions" excuse does not apply?  That, in fact, the complex plan was worked out in the knowledge of the underlying demographic changes that would render the plan unable to attract enough white kids from the 'burbs?

Ask yourself: how cunning and ruthless are the teacher unions?

As my Connecticut friend who sent me this article put it, at a minimum, we do know that this is "Reason #8,722 why liberals should never run anything."

It’s A Republic if You Can Keep It. Part 4

By Mark Herr, CSG Administrative Staff

In the 18th Century, Mrs. Powel took to heart Dr. Franklin’s instruction to keep the U.S. republic. Today’s political environment, however, makes clear that she alone was not enough to keep our republic. She’s gone now and here we are, left to deal with a so-called “democratic” republic on an apparent crash course with anarchy. In 21st Century America, then, how do we maintain our republic?

Before we can maintain this structure, we need to understand it. The original U.S. mixed republic was designed to be balanced on a scale between tyranny and chaos – a place of peace between oppression and collapse. So first, determine how our republic is presently functioning. Is the aircraft balanced or unstable? Then ask yourself, is this because of the pilot, a dysfunctional governmental structure, or both? 

Language of Liberty

Returning to the American aircraft analogy, the passengers on the Right side of our federal government aircraft between 2009-2016 might tell you the previous pilot (Obama) was “definitely, purposely” trying to crash the plane – as if he had 100% control of it like a king. And today (2017), the Left-side passengers would say the current pilot (Trump) is “definitely, purposely” trying to crash the aircraft – as if he has 100% control of it like a king.

Based on this thinking, both sides organize within the cabin using various methods to attempt to disrupt or preserve the pilot’s control (i.e. protest, occupy, testify, sue, etc.). They eventually succeed in replacing or keeping the single pilot (i.e. DNC, GOP, etc.). Both sides will tell you those actions “keep the aircraft” from crashing. However, are these modern day “pilots” (Obama & Trump) merely navigating the plane to the Left or to the Right? And depending on your perspective, are you mistaking these Left and Right turns for evidence that the plane will soon be crashing?

In the 21st Century, “cabin and cockpit” politics dominate while Ben Franklin’s prescribed maintenance of keeping the republic is almost non-existent. The irony is that in some cases a plane’s crashing has little to do with the pilot. In other words, the pilot turns the plane left or right – keeping it on a course. However, two other MAJOR factors outside the control of the pilot can contribute to a plane’s crash – and these factors deserve your attention!

Consider carefully the forces of nature like gravity, turbulence, lightning strikes, and so on. In addition, when something is wrong with an aircraft’s structure due to sabotage or negligence, regardless of a Left or Right pilot, either pilot will find it nearly impossible to maintain control of it. At that point, it matters little whether the pilot is from the Right or Left. It only matters that the damaged structure is repaired and the natural force of gravity is overcome.

Our republic is built to overcome the gravity of our human nature, just like a plane is designed to overcome gravity. Think of it: the super majority of us naturally engage government only when it hurts us personally – in much the same way we call our doctor only when something hurts in our body. And until that point, we leave all control of our system to the “pilots”. On the other hand, those who have been given control of the system (the governors or pilots) will naturally expand their control of the governed – as in the overreach of national health care.  Just like gravity, isn’t this expansion of control the natural course of governments? Historically, world governments have demonstrated this as is confirmed by our experience and that of America’s Framers.

Taking these natural forces into account, the U.S. architects built a mixed republican form of government. And to keep that structure intact, they intended that the GOVERNED (that’s us) should take on the structure’s maintenance responsibilities. This was never before tried in the history of government. This requires the governed to overcome their human nature daily and keep the governors’ human nature confined to their delegated “cockpit” of control.

Keeping the U.S. republic in the 21st Century requires a major paradigm shift on the part of the governed. We must first start with ourselves and change the way we think and speak about government. Stop saying “government has too much power.” By saying this, we are giving life to government with our words and we are equating the government with the pilot. This is an un-natural statement. Government is not the pilot. Government is an “it,” a system, the aircraft. When we say, “government has too much power” we begin to behave as if we have no power (a falsehood) and are speaking our own slavery and chaos into existence.

Second, as natural-born people, we need to learn the U.S. republican system. When it comes to government, we are naturally lazy and leave all things governmental to the pilots. The truth is, in our U.S. republican system, we govern together with the pilots. We must prioritize our lives and learn the system so we can fix and maintain it, just like mechanics of an aircraft. Otherwise, everything else in life will take precedence and eventually we end up neglecting the system. Then we wonder why our governmental aircraft is in danger of crashing.

Third, we must commit to building relations with everyone on board the “aircraft:” Left and Right side passengers as well as the elected, appointed and employed “pilots.” We are conditioned to being divided. And as a nation, we are in danger of being conquered by those divisions. Unable to maintain this system on our own, each of us will need a community intent on keeping the structure of our republic intact. We can gather a tremendous amount of knowledge about the function of the “aircraft” – how our system is working now - just by listening to the governed and the governors.

Fourth, troubleshoot the system. Your paradigm shift, your knowledge of the system, and your commitment to build relationships with fellow citizens and those controlling government alike will alert you to trouble in the structure. Always remember this: replacing the pilot does not fix the system – doing so merely determines the direction of the plane. Also, keep in mind, putting out the fire (fixing an issue) does not fix the aircraft either – doing so merely allows you to go back to sleep in the cabin.

We naturally think it is the Left or the Right-side passengers or the pilot in the cockpit trying to bring down the U.S. republic. It is much easier to identify the saboteurs of the U.S. republic when we can see through all this smoke. The saboteurs will use any pilot or issue in the cabin to keep us distracted from keeping the system intact.

To become experienced in troubleshooting our government, we must continuously overcome our natural tendency to focus on fixing the “most important” issue in our minds or simply replacing the pilot. Issues and candidates (pilots) will come and go. The principles that keep the system intact and maintained must always be our focus.

In closing, it is important to fix the system – the issues and pilots will work themselves out. It is futile to attempt to fix issues or people. To fix our system, we must start with ourselves and cultivate a community of keeping our republican structure. It’s “a republic if YOU can keep it” – not Obama or Trump. With habit, practice and long-training WE can keep our U.S. republic.  

Part 1; The US is not a Democracy     http://www.thecoachsteam.com/2017/02/the-us-is-not-democracy-so-what-is-it.html 

Part 2; The US is not a Democracy    http://www.thecoachsteam.com/2017/02/the-us-is-not-democracy-so-what-is-it_27.html

Part 3; The US is not a Democracy  http://www.thecoachsteam.com/2017/03/the-us-is-not-democracy-part-3.html

 

Mark Herr, Co-founder and President of Center for Self-Governance, was born in England to a military father and was raised in South Korea. He is a retired Air Force veteran who served his entire career in Tokyo, Japan.  Herr holds a BS in marketing & management and a MBA in finance & information systems.  As a social and political scientist, Mark devotes 289 days per year, nationwide, to studying and teaching State Constitution, Regional government, City-County government, training citizens and legislators in applied civics, and teaching high school students foundational civics. He is co-authoring the book "Speaking the Language of Liberty”.

The Language of Liberty series is a collaborative effort of the Center for Self Governance (CSG) Administrative Team.  The authors include administrative staff, selected students, and guest columnists. The views expressed by the authors are their own and may not reflect the views of CSG.  Contact them at info@tncsg.org. To learn more, go to CenterForSelfGovernance.com.

Mayor Rahm Makes Certain that Political Correctness takes Precedence Over Policing in Chicago

Those who don’t read the Chicago Police blog Second City Cop on a daily basis, do yourselves a favor and start. Written from the point of view of damned fine people who do a damned difficult and very often, thankless job, SCC reveals the perpetual corruption of the Rahm Emanuel Administration and the brutal effect the politics of the left has on the Chicago Police Department and the ability of Chicago’s cops to fight crime & defend the public.  

Case in point, the story which Second City Cop covers here. The IPRA is the Independent Police Review Authority. Made up entirely of civilians, the IPRA investigates allegations of police misconduct by the CPD. As in the officer [DS] case, the IPRA also investigates when no allegations of misconduct have been made.

Another Reopened Case

Here's a previously ruled Justified shooting opened for political reasons:

• [DS], who has been in the 018th District for 18 years, needs our help. He is in a no pay status currently and IPRA is trying to fire him for a shooting that happened just over three years ago which was deemed justified at the time. Here's a brief synopsis:
  
  [DS] was assigned to the tactical team in 018 and was working with the area detectives on an armed robbery crew that was creating havoc in the district. While on a surveillance of one of the offenders homes in the suburbs, offender pulled into his driveway and exited his vehicle. The decision was made to take the offender down and [DS] and other detectives converged on the scene. Offender saw what was about to happen and jumped back into his vehicle. Offender then proceeded an attempt to drive over [DS] and another detective at which time [DS] fired 3 times striking the offender. The offender succumbed to his wounds. An immediate investigation by the department ruled the shooting justified and IPRA at the time concurred.
  
  Fast forward to present time and IPRA gets a new Chief Administrator who decides that she is going to re-open numerous shooting investigations due to the Laquan McDonald shooting. [DS] finds out his shooting is to be one of them. In January [DS] gets promoted in the first class of detectives only to find out that he is being taken off the list and being put in call back due to IPRA's re-investigation. IPRA's re-investigation concludes that [DS's] first two shots were justified and the third was not. Superintendent Johnson weighed in and stated that the shooting was justified while IPRA went to a three person review of the Police Board who sided with IPRA. 2 weeks ago [DS] was put in a no pay status and has to go in front of the full Police Board sometime this year.  

  

  Rahm in a familiar pose

Did you get that? In a rapidly evolving, violent, loud, dynamic situation, some armchair assholes from IPRA dissected a shooting that took maybe 2 seconds to unfold and determined that the first two shots were justified and a third shot was unjustified.

And how pray tell did they determine this? What if the first and third shots were the justified ones? Hindsight is supposed to be 20/20, but a cop doesn't have that sort of luxury in a highly fluid situation with a guy trying to run over multiple officers with a car.

Special Ed (Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, named by Rahm in 2016) seems to have made the determination that it was a justified shooting, as IPRA did three years ago, but was overruled by political actors operating in a political environment looking for a political outcome.  

Rahm in yet another familiar pose

This finding is crap and ought to be treated as crap. The FOP should be loud and outraged about this and the superintendent might want to think about the fact that Officers are going to see this three-year delay as a witch hunt for scalps.

You think the police are fetal now?