Texas Civil Rights Review

Author: mopress

  • Compensatory Education in Texas, Who Pays?: Closing Argument Part Three

    In Part Three of his closing argument in behalf of Edgewood Intervenors in the 2004 Texas school funding trial, attorney David Hinojosa of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) argues that when it comes to the needs of economically disadvantaged students, Texas continues to discount students who deserve premium attention.

    The general purpose and theory of comp ed in our nation and state is to compensate for low investments in low income children, low community investment, family advantages, low health investment, access to a history of success.

    The evidence shows that parents of economically disadvantaged students often have low educational levels, poor housing, and they must overcome these obstacles created by poverty, including the lack of resources in their local public schools. And when the intensity of poverty increases, as the evidence shows, within a school or a school district, research has shown that the negative effects upon the economically disadvantaged are magnified.

    Within the Edgewood intervenor districts, the intensity of poverty ranged from 70 percent economically disadvantaged to 96 percent economically disadvantaged. And while the West Orange-Cove plaintiff superintendent testified about the new struggle in dealing with an increasing number of economically disadvantaged children, our districts have been struggling at higher levels for a much longer period of time.

    But as each witness testified, save for one, Dr. Armor, these children can succeed with appropriate resources. Even with the limited resources under TAAS our clients managed to pull up from below one year to reach recognized and exemplary status. Of course, it took about seven to eight years to get to that level because the resources were still insufficient at the time.

    Now, as a whole, under TAAS the economically disadvantaged, the African-American and the Hispanic in the state were all the success that the State wanted to talk about those groups reaching. They never reached the 80 percent, all tests taken, standard under TAAS as a group, even after nine years of testing. They remained about 14 percentage points behind whites, which is further evidence that the comp ed weight is underestimated.

    And as the testimony has shown, TAKS as a whole is a new ball game with low cut scores on each subject matter except in the initial year, and economically disadvantaged students still pass the TAKS test at least 10 percentage points behind the first test takers of the TAAS. And as Dr. Cloudt, for the State, agreed, the gap is back, even though it never went away. Looking at the comp ed test scores on TAKS, which we showed earlier, I’ll briefly go through this.

    Well, before we look at the TAKS scores I want to show you where some of these economically disadvantaged children are coming from. And those photos are from Pharr-San Juan-Alamo that were offered. And in that region here’s a student community. They’re also known as colonias. Here’s another student home. This is the environment that our children leave and go to school. This is the environment providing them the in-house training that they need, or not providing that training.

    And going to the fifth grade TAKS scores for the economically disadvantaged in 2003, you can still see the gap between fifth grade economically disadvantaged and all students, which actually also includes the economically disadvantaged, so it actually brings it down a little. The eighth graders trail as well. The eleventh graders trail as well.

    Looking at the 2004, it’s no different. Only one-half of the fifth graders, one-half of the eighth graders and just over one-half of the eleventh graders of the economically disadvantaged total are passing the TAKS all-test standard.

    And the eleventh graders need to pass it in order to graduate. 42 percent of the economically disadvantaged will either have to take it again and again and again, or else not get that high school diploma. And even with State aid, each superintendent for West Orange-Cove, the Alvarado, and the Edgewood intervenors all identified numerous critical-area needs which are special and immediate concerns, given the rising Texas standards imposed by our state and nation.

    Harder tests have led to higher failure rates and the need for more intensive services for our at-risk and economically disadvantaged students. And the great need for additional necessary resources was identified through a sample of districts by Dr. Reyes.

    Comparing the TAKS test scores for 2002-2003 — or comparing the on-time completion and potential for higher education graduation rates, the seven districts was a comparison of seven wealthy districts who averaged zero to 20 percent of economically disadvantaged, excluding Austin, and comparing it to a group of Edgewood intervenor districts which had economically disadvantaged students, 79 to 96 percent, economically disadvantaged. And the percentage difference shown is the percentage that it would take the economically disadvantaged in order to get up to the average of the non-economically disadvantaged districts.

    The next slide shows potential for higher ed, SAT/ACT at or above criterion. The wealthiest districts had 54.4 percent of their kids pass. The poor districts had only 4 percent.

    The next slide shows the achievement differences between the two sample districts, showing marked differences between the average of all students in one set of districts versus another set of districts.

    The next slide shows that, even when you combine sample one and sample two — let’s lump them together. We’re not going to take them apart. When you look at the percentage difference of SED versus non-SED in the districts, you see the marked difference.

    In the third grade see that it’s only 8.6 and 8.8 percent, and it grows all the way up to 72.8 percent by the tenth grade. And this next one shows when you look at within the district, the property poor districts, when you look at them and then you look at the percentage differences of at-risk versus non-at-risk students, you see that once again there is an incredible gap between the performance of the at-risk students.

    The State would probably write them off and say “Well, they’re not supposed to pass. They’re at risk. That’s why they are at risk. The ones at-risk are moving out.” Well, the whole purpose of compensatory education is to eliminate the achievement differences, not to reduce it, not to put it aside.

  • Oscar White?

    Building a New

    Global Audience

    By Greg Moses
    Texas Civil Rights

    Review
    https://texascivilrightsreview.org/phpnuke
    Published at

    Counterpunch

    Take nothing away from the talent at Sunday night’s Oscars, white

    folks can act. And Sean Penn shows no small courage when he travels to Baghdad to re-center our

    experience of war. So please read carefully.
    Because you’d think from watching it all on

    Sunday night that a century of Hollywood has produced a remarkable global alliance of white audiences,

    from Billy Crystal’s Long Island, to Peter Jackson’s New Zealand, not to mention Charlize Theron’s

    South Africa, Nicole Kidman’s Australia, or Sir Ian Mckellan’s England.

    In fact the

    geography of this audience sounds remarkably like Bush’s coalition of the willing, doesn’t it?

    Don’t get me wrong. The players who were honored Sunday night are my entertainment

    heroes and all of them have been reliable witnesses against the late imperial wars. But didn’t

    anybody else notice how white it all looked?

    Once upon a time, as we saw Sunday evening,

    the late, great Gregory Peck starred in the terrific movie, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” And not long

    after that, as we also saw, the late and legendary Katherine Hepburn played a courageous part in

    “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

    But forty and fifty years later, after these

    noteworthy achievements in the art of civil rights, guess who’s not coming to the Oscars? Does Oscar

    have a last name? Oscar White?

    There is no reason at this point to fawn over important

    exceptions. I would rather point out that on Oscar night, some “losers” must be braver than others.

    When I saw the first movie in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy a few years ago, I

    watched it back-to-back with “Ali.” And since that long afternoon turned into evening, all the

    excellencies of the trilogy have been speaking to me also of the fact that Tolkien’s mythology is

    mightily white. After all he was born in South Africa, and he taught at Oxford.

    But I

    don’t begrudge Tolkien for writing a white mythology, especially when the theme begs its characters to

    give up their obsession with total power. Tolkien itches the problem of white mythology from

    within.

    Nevertheless, I do worry about the images of conflict that are perpetuated in

    this colossal epic, where ethereal whiteness meets an enemy made of dark mud.

    And I

    worry about collective structures of taste that are reinforced when these white-centered narratives

    have no visible, say visual, counter-challenges in the nearby image mix. What happens when there is

    nothing but other white-centered narratives to jostle up against on a night that celebrates excellence

    to audiences around the world?

    On this reading, the movie “Monster” could be viewed as

    a cautionary exploration of white womanhood, artistically daring for a blonde, South African star.

    Penn and his co-star Tim Robbins have been courageous in their outspoken warnings

    against the ring of power in the real world, and I was not unmindful that Clint Eastwood made a choice

    to put the two together this year, and then sat squarely behind them, as they took top honors from the

    academy. Please don’t tell me that I overlooked all this.

    But we do have a problem

    here, and we need to talk about it without succumbing to cheap accusations.

    For example,

    today, when conservatives appeal to “merit and excellence” as “race neutral”; we cannot forget that

    there was nothing race-neutral about “merit or excellence” on Sunday night. Nor is there any simple

    way to evade the welded relationship between “merit” and “whiteness” that helps support our

    mainstream sensibilities of what counts for truth and beauty.

    It is a complex problem,

    fitted exactly to the kind of cultural leadership exemplified by Penn and Robbins. Against this

    problem, they are more active than most.

    The difficulty of solving the problem demands

    a reform of Oscar beyond the notable uplifting of our most disgruntled, white genius.

    A

    process of affirmative action, if you will, should be considered by the academy. Not because “lesser

    excellences” of Black, Latino, Asian, or American Indian talents need “assistance”. No, that is not

    the argument. The genius is there already, quite solid, and quite strong.

    Reform is

    needed, because presumptions of white-centered excellence need systematic counter-considerations and

    persistent challenges. On Oscar night, when image is everything, let there be no more Oscar White!

  • Tuesday: Operation Free the Children Now Begins in Dallas

    In the first week of a nonviolent campaign that organizers say will last until all the children are freed from prison, five demonstrators Tuesday will stage a quiet protest outside the District Office of Dallas Congressman Pete Sessions.

    . . .

  • Hutto Vigil VI: LULAC Joins Cause, Media Access Demanded

    “We all made a commitment to drawing a line between the two Americas,” said an upbeat Johnson-Castro by phone, speaking about Vigil VI at the T. Don Hutto immigration jail.

    The vigil drew about 50 folks, along with news cameras from ABC and NBC affiliates.

    “People are angry,” said Johnson-Castro. “Even the media are angry because they can’t even talk with the children on the inside.

    “What do you think about a government that holds itself up as a great protector of free speech, bu then denies free speech to children in prison?”

    President Rosa Rosales from the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) pledged her organization to the cause of closing down Hutto and all the children’s prisons.

    The Palestine Solidarity Committee from the University of Texas, Democrats from Williamson County, and local LULAC members joined a few “caravan people,” which is Jay Johnson-Castro’s term for folks who have been traveling with him since Feb. 2, when the Marcha Migrante II Border Caravan left San Diego.

    “It’s criminal what’s happening at Hutto. The people doing this ought to be on the inside with the children on the outside,” said Johnson-Castro.–gm

  • Why Election Issues Remain

    And Why We’re Going to Look at the Original Documents in the Vo Election Challenge

    By Greg Moses

    IndyMedia Austin / Houston

    On the surface of things, voters in Houston have finally been allowed to assert their preference in the November election of Vietnamese immigrant Hubert Vo to the state house. The long-time Republican incumbent last week finally withdrew his legislative challenge following publication of a Republican-led investigation that recommended in Vo’s favor.

    Not far beneath the surface of things however, larger questions linger, and they should not be swept under the rug. There are questions of precedent: do we want to normalize this kind of legislative contest in close elections? There are questions of racist media bias: why is the major daily now reporting that the case had obvious merit from the start? And there are questions of fairness: why should the alleged wrongdoings of voters be more worthy of attack than the alleged wrongdoings of Republican lawyers who go after them?

    Houston blogger Greg Wythe of GregsOpinion.Com speaks plainly about one voter rights issues that lives in the aftermath of the attempt to overturn the Vo election. By treating this unsuccessful legislative challenge as a ‘good fight’, a worrisome attitude is developing that makes these ugly proceedings more likely next time around.

    “Taylor and Co. [the attorneys who pressed the legislative contest] just want to be able to get away with more challenges of the voters’ will,” writes Wythe. “Plain and simple. They want more people to vote by provisional ballot. They want more votes they can kick out if they disagree with the outcome. In short, the problem with democracy to Andy Taylor is just that too damn many people vote. Democracy would be fine and well, I suppose, if we just left it to the party bosses of the GOP primary and left it at that.”

    To Wythe’s worthwhile suspicion, allow me to add: The ‘provisional ballot’ method that was ushered in via the so-called Help America Vote Act (HAVA) not only segregates ballots of voters who are judged to be questionable on election day, but the process also makes it possible to preserve a public record of how the ballots were cast.

    Each provisional ballot is supposed to get a “retrieval code” which helps to segregate the vote. But this also means that voter preference is technically knowable without having to ask the voter. And this means that in a contest where lawyers are in constant dialogue with election officials, the temptation presents itself in a palpable way, to discern a voter’s preference while deciding which voters to discredit.

    In contrast to blogger Wythe’s concern that the election challenge raises dangers of partisan manipulations, a Houston Chronicle news story this week reports that the election challenge was compulsory from a fairness point of view and that the attorney who pursued the challenge was a sort of moral hero who took the hard road that others in the GOP would have been publicly embarrassed to take.

    The Chronicle news report in fact presents an argument that the election was worth overturning on its face had there been enough political courage among Republicans to do the right thing. Since the GOP was too shy to take such a public stand, they needed an upright attorney to set the system straight.

    Here is the Houston Chronicle account passage from Feb. 10:

    Taylor [the GOP attorney] won points for taking on a cause that made some Republicans uneasy. The election was close enough, and the eligibility of enough voters was in question, that someone in the GOP had to pick up Heflin’s case.

    Heflin asked the House to overturn the election — and a partisan bloc vote could have done that in the GOP-controlled body.

    But it would have meant voting against Vo, the first Vietnamese immigrant elected to the House and a member of a constituency, Asian-Americans, that both parties covet.

    Taylor wasn’t faced with that political dilemma, and Heflin became the latest GOP legal cause he’s championed.

    If I am correct about the logic of the Chronicle’s “news report” then an assumption is being nurtured that any close election morally deserves the kind of treatment to legislative challenge that we’ve just witnessed. What this means to voters of Houston and to subscribers of the Houston Chronicle is that next time there is a close election, they should prepare for lawyers to swoop down upon them while Chronicle reporters applaud.

    Actually, I much prefer the Houston Chronicle’s editorial position on this issue, which recently called for the challenger to withdraw, because the pretext for the contest was not supported by evidence.

    Said the editorial board on Jan. 31: “As the participants commenced sorting through disputed votes, it soon became clear that rather than some grand conspiracy, irregularities documented were of an accidental nature and not orchestrated by either candidate.”

    The Chronicle news item, ten days later, only makes logical sense if we draw out its most significant hidden premise: that there was very good reason to suspect that the rate of illegal voting fell more heavily on one side rather than another.

    Contrary to what the recent Chronicle news report asserts, it would not be enough to suppose that the combination of close election and illegal voters is enough to trigger a likely reversal of an election. One has to suppose in addition that illegal voters are unevenly distributed among the partisan camps.

    So long as we presume that the rate of illegal voting is evenly distributed across parties, the raw number of illegal votes means nothing. And until we have clear evidence in the matter, we should not go around accusing one class of voters of having obvious tendencies to vote at higher rates of illegality.

    Especially, we should take notice that this is Black History month in Texas, too. This the worst time to be smuggling bigoted assumptions that criminalize “Southside” voters, especially when those assumptions already go against the better judgment of the Chronicle editorial board (who endorsed the GOP candidate in the first place) and the Republcan-led investigation (which could not have been more patient with the challenger’s attorneys).

    Newspaper reports should not criminalize entire classes of voters without very clear evidence. But the Chronicle’s assumption of Feb. 10 only makes sense if we criminalize Vo’s “Southside” voters, contrary to all evidence that GOP lawyers were able to muster.

    In fact, as blogger Wythe points out, following a tip by Vo attorney Larry Veselka, the only two votes that one might want to call intentionally illegal were votes initially cast for Vo’s opponent. So if we are considering evidence rather than bigotry, the facts show that “the eligibility of enough voters” to overturn the race was NEVER in question.

    In the end, I am hoping that the Houston Chronicle writers who last week built barricades against pending issues of voters rights (including a swipe at this writer) will come to be guided by the general principles of their own editorial board.

    The writers have not been fair to the voters of Houston, especially not to the emerging grassroots voters. In the aftermath of the thorough investigation by Master of Discovery Will Hartnett (R-Dallas), it is a completely insupportable claim to say at this point that “the eligibility of enough voters was in question, that someone in the GOP had to pick up Heflin’s case.” In fact, as I have argued, the conclusion only follows from a premise that is bigoted against the ‘Southside’ voters in this race.

    Racist is the word for this kind of news reporting, which is very sad to see at any time; but from a major metro dail

    y during Black History Month in the year 2005? The more I write about it, the angrier I get.

    Yet, we must say that it is never too late. And we can encourage Chronicle reporters to take guidance from their editorial board and begin focusing on the rights of Houston voters rather than the careers of Republican lawyers.

    Next week, the Texas Civil Rights review has an appointment to view all the original documents in this election challenge. We will see for ourselves if there is any truth to reports that irregular depositions were submitted by GOP attorneys or whether those same attorneys improperly affected voter registrations during the course of investigation. We’ll go it alone if we have to. But it should be pointed out in advance that the room containing the documents has room for more than one curious reporter at a time.