We are sorry for the two month delay in posting our time has been divided between our new South Dakota political blog, The Angry River Rat, and the Common Civic Good. We should be back up and running at full speed for the summer. Thank you for your support.
Editorial Staff
Common Civic Good
Showing posts with label Common Civic Good. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Common Civic Good. Show all posts
14 April 2011
17 January 2011
Is the work of the Civil Rights Movement Deteriorating?
Today is Martin Luther King Day a day of remembrance of the struggles that people endured to provide civil rights to a majority of Americans. Martin Luther King Day was created in 1983 by an act of Congress and signed by Ronald Regan on November 2, 1983. It officially became a Federal Holiday on January 20, 1986. After it became a federal holiday, it took 14 years before every state in the Union officially made it a holiday. Most states in the transition had a holiday of remembrance on this day, but did not officially call it Martin Luther King Day.
The Civil Rights Movement was a successful in eliminating discrimination starting in schools and then moving to human rights and then voting rights promised in the 14th and 15th amendment. These were great strides in American civic culture. Now it is under attack. Many Tea Parties have tried to turn back time. Granted they have not repealed the 14th and 15th amendment, but they are taking small steps to change these rights given to all by the Civil Rights Movement.
One example of this is happening in Wake School District in Raleigh, North Carolina. According to an article in the Washington Post , Wake School District is doing some dramatic engineering to its school selection process. The new Tea Party backed Republican School Board has decided to throw out the diversity standards to the district. What is surprising about this, is that Wake School District is a district that is known their success in integration. Wake School District had the policy of integration to make sure that all students had an equal opportunity. This policy was enacted in 1970 for racial integration and then in 2000 they changed it from racial integration to economic integration.
Now with the change in the school board and some parents concerns, the school board is decided to remove the diversity policy. School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta stated about the changes, "if the result is a handful of high-poverty schools, he said, perhaps that will better serve the most challenged students." The new boards idea is that students should be able to go to the schools closest to their place of residence. What happens is that students will not be integrated. Pockets of public schools in the district will be better off than others. This plan will set up separations of economic status.
Separation of economic status is violates Brown v. Education 1954. A quote from Chief Justice Warren's Majority Opinion that can apply to this situation:
The importnace of Martin Luther King Day is to remember where we came from and not to repeat it. Moves like this done by the new Wake School Board move us backwards instead of forward. The new civil right movement is not of race, but of economic status. For all of us to be the most productive in society we need to intergrate our schools for the common civic good. On Martin Luther King Day please look at yourself and society work together to make a better country.
P.S.: So everyone remembers what King said on the Mall on Washington here is the I Have a Dream Speech.
The Civil Rights Movement was a successful in eliminating discrimination starting in schools and then moving to human rights and then voting rights promised in the 14th and 15th amendment. These were great strides in American civic culture. Now it is under attack. Many Tea Parties have tried to turn back time. Granted they have not repealed the 14th and 15th amendment, but they are taking small steps to change these rights given to all by the Civil Rights Movement.
One example of this is happening in Wake School District in Raleigh, North Carolina. According to an article in the Washington Post , Wake School District is doing some dramatic engineering to its school selection process. The new Tea Party backed Republican School Board has decided to throw out the diversity standards to the district. What is surprising about this, is that Wake School District is a district that is known their success in integration. Wake School District had the policy of integration to make sure that all students had an equal opportunity. This policy was enacted in 1970 for racial integration and then in 2000 they changed it from racial integration to economic integration.
Now with the change in the school board and some parents concerns, the school board is decided to remove the diversity policy. School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta stated about the changes, "if the result is a handful of high-poverty schools, he said, perhaps that will better serve the most challenged students." The new boards idea is that students should be able to go to the schools closest to their place of residence. What happens is that students will not be integrated. Pockets of public schools in the district will be better off than others. This plan will set up separations of economic status.
Separation of economic status is violates Brown v. Education 1954. A quote from Chief Justice Warren's Majority Opinion that can apply to this situation:
Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system.Now white is replaced with rich and colored is replaced with poor this statement would still be true. Many studies have have shown that when students in poverty are consolidated in a school the outcome is not benefitical for the students that attend the school. It is important for intergration for the success of all students.
The importnace of Martin Luther King Day is to remember where we came from and not to repeat it. Moves like this done by the new Wake School Board move us backwards instead of forward. The new civil right movement is not of race, but of economic status. For all of us to be the most productive in society we need to intergrate our schools for the common civic good. On Martin Luther King Day please look at yourself and society work together to make a better country.
P.S.: So everyone remembers what King said on the Mall on Washington here is the I Have a Dream Speech.
01 January 2011
New Year New Technology for the Blog!
For some of our regular readers will see changes in the Common Civic Good. We have added another writer to the blog, we are now have a facebook page Common Civic Good, and we have opened up a Twitter account to be more mobile and to highlight some of our new stories. The goal of this is to allow our articles to reach the most people we possibly can. By using this technology we hope that we can move information faster and create connections with our audience to make the blog better.
If you have any ideas that you would like to see the blog do or any story ideas please tell us. We would love comments and we hope next year we will have more social interaction.
Thank you for reading and have a Happy New Year from the Common Civic Good.
If you have any ideas that you would like to see the blog do or any story ideas please tell us. We would love comments and we hope next year we will have more social interaction.
Thank you for reading and have a Happy New Year from the Common Civic Good.
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