Black Education, Walter Williams

Black Education: What Makes Sense?

By Walter E. Williams | November 28, 2018 2:29 PM EST

What do you think of the proposition that no black youngsters should be saved from educational rot until all can be saved? Black people cannot afford to accept such a proposition. Actions by the education establishment, black and white liberal politicians, and some civil rights organizations appear to support the proposition. Let's look at it with the help of some data developed by my friend and colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell.
The Nation's Report Card for 2017 showed the following reading scores for fourth-graders in New York state's public schools: Thirty-two percent scored below basic, with 32 percent scoring basic, 27 percent scoring proficient and 9 percent scoring advanced. When it came to black fourth-graders in the state, 19 percent scored proficient, and 3 percent scored advanced (http://tinyurl.com/y85a4phm).
Dr. Sowell compared 2016-17 scores on the New York state ELA test. Thirty percent of Brooklyn's William Floyd elementary school third-graders scored well below proficient in English and language arts, but at a Success Academy charter school in the same building, only one did. At William Floyd, 36 percent were below proficient, with 24 percent being proficient and none being above proficient. By contrast, at Success Academy, only 17 percent of third-graders were below proficient, with 70 percent being proficient and 11 percent being above proficient. Among Success Academy's fourth-graders, 51 percent and 43 percent, respectively, scored proficient and above proficient, while their William Floyd counterparts scored 23 percent and 6 percent, respectively, proficient and above proficient. It's worthwhile stressing that William Floyd and this Success Academy location have the same address.
Similar high performance can be found in the Manhattan charter school KIPP Infinity Middle School among its sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders when compared with that of students at New Design Middle School, a public school at the same location. Liberals believe integration is a necessary condition for black academic excellence. Public charter schools such as those mentioned above belie that vision. Sowell points out that only 39 percent of students in all New York state schools who were recently tested scored at the "proficient" level in math, but 100 percent of the students at the Crown Heights Success Academy tested proficient. Blacks and Hispanics constitute 90 percent of the students in that Success Academy.
There's little question that charter schools provide superior educational opportunities for black youngsters. In a story The New York Times ran about charter schools earlier this month, "With Democratic Wins, Charter Schools Face a Backlash in N.Y. and Other States," John Liu, an incoming Democratic state senator from Queens, said New York City should "get rid of" large charter school networks. State Sen.-elect Julia Salazar, D-Brooklyn, said, "I'm not interested in privatizing our public schools." The New York Times went on to say, "Over 100,000 students in hundreds of the city's charter schools are doing well on state tests, and tens of thousands of children are on waiting lists for spots."
One would think that black politicians and civil rights organizations would support charter schools. To the contrary, they want to saddle charter schools with procedures that make so many public schools a failure. For example, the NAACP demands that charter schools "cease expelling students that public schools have a duty to educate." It wants charter schools to "cease to perpetuate de facto segregation of the highest performing children from those whose aspirations may be high but whose talents are not yet as obvious." Most importantly, it wants charter schools to come under the control of teachers unions.
Charter schools have an advantage that some call "selection bias." Because charter schools require parents to apply or enter lotteries for their children's admission, they attract more students who have engaged parents and students who are higher-achieving and better behaved.
Many in the teaching establishment who are against parental alternatives want alternatives for themselves. In Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, 25 percent of public-school teachers send their children to private schools. In Philadelphia, 44 percent of teachers do so. In Cincinnati, it's 41 percent. In Chicago, 39 percent do, and in Rochester, New York, it's 38 percent. This demonstrates the dishonesty, hypocrisy and arrogance of the elite. Their position is, "One thing for thee and another for me."
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University.

From Glock ID, a forum

The Divorce - by a Law Student

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:

We have stuck together since the late 1950's for the sake of the kids, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce.

I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has clearly run its course.

Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right for us all,
so let's just end it on friendly terms.

We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.

Here is our separation agreement:

--Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a similar portion.
That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement.
After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.

--We don't like re-distributive taxes so you can keep them.

--You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU.

--Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA, and the military.

--We'll take the nasty, smelly oil industry and the coal mines, and you can go with wind, solar and bio-diesel.

--You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell. You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them.

--We'll keep capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street.

--You can have your beloved lifelong welfare dwellers, food stamps, hippies, druggies and illegal aliens.

--We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEOs, and rednecks.

--We'll keep Bill O’Reilly and Bibles, and give you NBC and Hollywood.

--You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.

--You can have the peaceniks and war protesters.

--When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.

--We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.

--You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, political correctness and Shirley McClain.
You can also have the U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill.

--We'll keep the SUV's, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Volt Tesla and Leaf you can find.

--You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors.

--We'll keep "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "The National Anthem."

--I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute "Imagine," "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing," "Kumbaya," or "We Are the World."

--We'll practice trickle-down economics, and you can continue to give trickle up poverty your best shot.

--Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.

Would you agree to this?

If so, please pass it along to other like-minded liberal and conservative patriots,
and if you do not agree, just hit delete.

In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you might think about which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.

Sincerely,
John J. Wall
Law Student and an American!

P. S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin & Charlie Sheen, George Clooney,
Barbara Streisand, and (Hanoi) Jane Fonda with you.....

P.S.S. And you won't have to press 1 for English when you call our country.

GOD BLESS AMERICA! 󾓦👍

Veteran's Day

For all my fellow Veterans, have a great Veteran's Day!

USMC Birthday

Happy Birthday U S Marines.  Finest Fighting Force in the Universe.

Multiple Shooting Aftermath

It's like clockwork. Soon after a multiple shooting, the Dems/Progs want to do SOMETHING, none of which will make any difference. The same group of fools who say that it is impossible to identify and remove 11-15 million undocumented Democrats will say they want to find and confiscate over 300 million firearms from lawful owners. I don't think so.  Molon Labe.

Skin in the Game. Walter Williams

Skin in the Game

By Walter E. Williams | November 7, 2018 5:14 PM EST

In describing the GOP tax cuts, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said that they and bonuses American workers were getting were "crumbs." They were "tax cuts for the rich." Some argued that the tax cuts would reduce revenues. Pelosi predicted, "This thing will explode the deficit." How about some tax facts?
The argument that tax cuts reduce federal revenues can be disposed of quite easily. According to the Congressional Budget Office, revenues from federal income taxes were $76 billion higher in the first half of this year than they were in the first half of 2017. The Treasury Department says it expects that federal revenues will continue to exceed last year's for the rest of 2018. Despite record federal revenues, 2018 will see a massive deficit, perhaps topping $1 trillion. Our massive deficit is a result not of tax cuts but of profligate congressional spending that outruns rising tax revenues. Grossly false statements about tax cuts' reducing revenue should be put to rest in the wake of federal revenue increases seen with tax cuts during the Kennedy, Reagan and Trump administrations.
A very disturbing and mostly ignored issue is how absence of skin in the game negatively impacts the political arena. It turns out that 45 percent of American households, nearly 78 million individuals, have no federal income tax obligation. That poses a serious political problem. Americans with no federal income tax obligation become natural constituencies for big-spending politicians. After all, if one doesn't pay federal income taxes, what does he care about big spending? Also, if one doesn't pay federal taxes, why should he be happy about a tax cut? What's in it for him? In fact, those with no skin in the game might see tax cuts as a threat to their handout programs.
Whenever tax cuts are called for, it's not long before they are called tax cuts for the rich. Let's look at who pays what in federal income taxes. Using IRS data for 2015, the latest year available, the Tax Foundation reports that the top 1 percent of earners made about 21 percent of the nation's income, but their share of federal income taxes was 39 percent. They paid more in income taxes than the bottom 90 percent, who paid 29.4 percent of federal income taxes (http://tinyurl.com/y7t4ljv8).
In 2015, the top 50 percent of taxpayers paid 97.2 percent of all individual income taxes. Also, the top 1 percent had an income tax rate of 27 percent, while the bottom 50 percent had a tax rate of less than 4 percent. It turns out that 892,420 households -- out of roughly 34 million total households -- paid 39 percent of federal taxes that year. Most Americans have little or no federal income tax obligation, so how in the world is it possible to give a tax cut to them?
Another part of the Trump tax cuts was with corporate income -- lowering the rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. That, too, has been condemned by the left as a tax cut for the rich. But corporations do not pay taxes. Why? Corporations are legal fictions. Only people pay taxes. If a tax is levied on a corporation, it will have one or more of the following responses in order to remain in business. It will raise the price of its product, lower its dividends to shareholders and/or lay off workers. Thus, only flesh-and-blood people pay taxes. We can think of corporations as tax collectors. Politicians love our ignorance about this. They suggest that corporations, not people, will be taxed. Here's how to see through this charade: Suppose a politician told you, as a homeowner, "I'm not going to tax you. I'm going to tax your land." I hope you wouldn't fall for that jive. Land doesn't pay taxes.
Getting back to skin in the game, sometimes I wonder whether one should be allowed in the game if he doesn't have any skin in it.