Wed 14 Sep 2005
From Think Progress:
The Wall Street Journal reports that Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings will ask Congress to waive a federal law that bans educational segregation for homeless children. The Bush administration is arguing, along with states like Utah and Texas, that providing schooling for evacuees – who, in this case, are likened to homeless children — will be disruptive to public school systems, so they want to have sound legal backing for creating separate educational facilities for the 372,000 schoolchildren displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The State of Mississippi is opposed to waiving the Act because they argue the law helps evacuees enroll in schools without red tape.
Naww….. this doesn’t have ANYTHING to do with race.
(via Atrios)
September 15th, 2005 at 2:05 am
“Naww….. this doesn’t have ANYTHING to do with race.”
In other words, it does. But how does it? What evidence is there of racial segregation in this case?
September 15th, 2005 at 3:00 am
Buildings and teachers for 375,000 students? That’s a lot of expense for local school districts. It appears many of the displaced are temporarily concentrated in a few states.
Consider next that this influx is likely going to last a short period of time. The need for an increase in facilities and staff will vanish in a few months or a year. Most states have tenure laws regarding teachers that would impact the district after the evacuees are gone.
I assume there is a plan to create a federally funded temporary school system, possibly using the displaced teachers and temporary facilities. The students can learn and the teachers who used to work in NO and other closed districts could work.
Potentially standing in the way of this solution is a regulation of the federal education bureacracy not written in anticipation of 375,000 evacuee children.
On the other hand is the solution of complete disruption of the education system in states near the disaster. If a state elected to absorb the students, so be it. But Texas etc. ought to be spared being forced to do so under these circumstances.