Finally The Feminists Engage, Sue DOJ Over Transgender Edict

Posted on August 18, 2016 by A.P. Dillon

Since the start of the bathroom wars, many have asked the question, where are the feminists? Well, a national group of feminists have answered on behalf of two women.

Albuquerque Journal reported:

A national group of “radical feminists” more commonly associated with fights for abortion and gay rights has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of two Albuquerque women they say are at risk of greater violence, discomfort and oppression because of transgender policies in public schools.

The suit seeks to block federal guidelines issued in May 2016 that instruct schools to allow transgender people to use bathroom and school facilities aligned with their self-identified gender instead of their genitalia.

The group, Women’s Liberation Front, or WoLF, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque on Thursday saying two of its New Mexico members who are identified in the court documents as “AB and AB’s mother” have a “well-founded fear” they will have to “share such facilities with people who are biologically male” and that puts them at “imminent, traceable” risk.

“The reinterpretation of ‘sex’ to include ‘gender identity’ also means that girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms must be opened up to any male who ‘identifies’ as female,” the group says on its website.

And in the suit, the group says “as a female, she is more vulnerable to assault or rape (including impregnation) when she is in isolated or closed areas with men.”

Go read the rest.  WOLF has started a G0 Fund Me page and according to the Albuquerque Journal, they have raised over $10,000 already. As of the writing of this article, their total raised is $13,215.

Here is the text from the Go Fund Me Page, which has a link to their suit against the DOJ:

Women’s Liberation Front vs. The United States

The swift and enthusiastic push for transgender rights in America is having dire consequences that severely threaten the privacy, dignity, safety, and equality of women and girls.

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Education (DOE) have abruptly enacted a new policy, defining the category of “sex” in Title IX to include “gender identity.” This effectively renders Title IX meaningless, as females can no longer be recognized as distinct from males. Indeed, Title IX, the legislation used to champion the very creation of female sports, is now being used to dismantle them, as male athletes demand access to female teams, dominating the competition.

The reinterpretation of “sex” to include “gender identity” also means that girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms must be opened up to any male who “identifies” as female. Girls’ rights to personal privacy and freedom from male sexual harassment, forced exposure to male nudity, and voyeurism have been eliminated with the stroke of a pen. Schools that do not comply with the demands of any male student to access protected female spaces will now lose federal funding.

Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) has decided this cannot stand. The President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, has told teenage girls that they are now required to get over their “discomfort” at boys in their locker room. We need your help to fund our legal battle against the U.S. government. We have filed a lawsuit and we need $75,000 to see this battle into court.

You can read our legal complaint in full here:
http://womensliberationfront.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/WoLF-v.-United-States-Department-of-Justice-complaint-as-filed.pdf

Make your voice heard! Defend the rights of women and girls!

www. womensliberationfront.org

One comment left by a donor asserts that allowing gender identity to ‘supersede sex in the law’ is “unconscionable”:

Standing against the ongoing colonization of women by men. Girls and Women (females) as an oppressed class have a right and have reasons to establish boundaries. Allowing “gender identity” to be interchangeable with or to supersede “sex” in law – or outside the law as the case may be – is unconscionable. For those stopping by, take a good look at how many who donated felt a need to do it anonymously. Why do you suppose that is? Who are the bullies? Women’s lives matter more than men’s feelings. Period. Yes, I said period.

Related Reading:  Radical Feminists Are Suing The DoJ’s Transgender Decree For Making Women Share Bathrooms With Men

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION, LEGAL, LGBTQ Issues, YWBMTC | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Target Earnings Fall, Is #BoyCottTarget Having an Effect?

Posted on August 17, 2016 by A.P. Dillon

“Difficult Retail Environment“.

Tell me again that the Boycott Target movement didn’t have an effect?

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), LGBTQ Issues, NCGA, YWBMTC | Tagged | 3 Comments

#AmplifyChoice: Eye-Popping Numbers On Admin Bloat vs Student Growth

Posted on August 17, 2016 by A.P. Dillon

On August 11th and 12th, the annual Amplify Choice conference, which focuses on school choice issues, was held in Denver, Colorado.

During the conference, a presentation was given entitled, “The Economics of School Choice”.  The presentation was given by Ben Scafidi, who is a professor of economics and the director of the Education Economics Center at Kennesaw State University.

Scafidi’s presentation had some eye-popping numbers when it came to student population growth juxtaposed with that of administrative and non-teaching staff. The full presentation is available at the end of this article.

For example, Scafidi stated that from 1950 to 2009 teacher staffing size grew 386% versus students at 96%. During that same period, administrative and other non-teaching staff ballooned by an incredible 702%.

Between 1992 and 2014 non-teaching staff grew an additional 34%.

NAEP SCAFIDIScafidi noted that student achievement did not rise during this staffing surge. In fact, scores are flat or declining.

Comparing 1992 to 2012, reading declined, while math scores stayed flat.

Scafidi also asserted that that No Child Left Behind did not make states engage in this staffing surge.

“The hiring of staff are individual district policy choices.”, said Scafidi.  “Are some caused by state? Sure, but most of it is local. It doesn’t matter who to blame, this has been going on since 1950.”  Scafidi added that this pattern has no political pattern. It was bipartisan over time.

In the last 60 years, admin bloat has increased 7 times faster than student population according to Scafidi.  The cost of administrative staff is $50,000 per person on average and includes training, benefits, retirement  and other compensation related details.

Scafidi asserted that there would have been $27 billion in savings every year if increases to non-teaching staff had matched student enrollment.  According to Scafidi, with that $27 billion dollars in savings, every teacher could have had around a $8,700 raise.

Scafidi went on to highlight the administrative bloat versus student growth in a number of states. Scafidi also included details of the of savings the state would have had if their administrative staff had grown at the same pace as their student population.

Below are a few examples of the growth rates by state from 1992 to 2014. Most of the numbers increased, however a few states saw student and teacher growth go negative.

  • AZ:  students 68%, all staff 58%, teachers 42%, ADMIN 74%.
  • CA: students 24% , 28% all staff, 16% teachers 37% ADMIN
  • CO: students 48%, 66% all staff, 52% teachers 88% ADMIN
  • Washington D.C.: students -3% , Staff 2%, teachers -6%, ADMIN 13%
  • IN: students 9%, all staff 33%,  teachers 10%, 56% ADMIN
  • LA: -10% students, all staff 44%, teachers 1%, 144% ADMIN

Scafido noted that Louisiana could have given a $34,0000 raise to teachers with their $1.6 billion savings.

Let’s look local at the administrative bloat.

From 1992 to 2014 in North Carolina, student growth increased 39%, staff and teachers both went up 52%  and  administrative/non-teaching positions also went up 52%.

What if North Carolina had  increased staff at the same rate that student enrollment increased?

North Carolina schools would have saved $396,000,000 each year in recurring savings. The state could use that savings to give every teacher a $4,000 raise, reduce property taxes of offer 49,515 kids an $8,000 scholarship to private schools.

As Scafidi noted nationwide, North Carolina’s student achievement did not really rise along with the staffing surge.

This is the opposite of what North Carolina Superintendent Dr. June Atkinson has been saying recently.  In an interview with the Jefferson Post, Atkinson said,  “People in North Carolina, if they knew how little was spent on administration, they should be sending us ‘thank you cards’ for doing the work to support teachers in the classroom.”

Atkinson has touted increased graduation rates, yet few have looked deeper into what those numbers mean. Atkinson had promoted an 84.5% graduation rate, yet that number comes with some catches.

Atkinson has touted the 85.4% graduation rate, but the NC School Report card says that 47.9% of students were “career and college ready” and included a grade level proficiency of 57.9%.

In other words, a true reading of the 85.4% graduation rate means that out of every 100 students, roughly 85 graduated. Of that 85 students, only 48% were considered “career and college ready”. That translates to 41 students out of 85 – less than half.

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has had a very low non-teaching staff turn-over rate when compared to that of in-classroom teachers.

In fact, this past year Dr. Atkinson and DPI made an art out of shifting staff from job to job in order to maintain their staffing levels using funds that were earmarked for specific programs. This caught the attention of the legislature and a firestorm ensued.

DPI, under the direction of Dr. Atkinson, has also contracted out a consistently large number of projects that have been costly in both state and federal dollars.  Quite a few multi-million dollars contracts have gone to SAS Institute, Pearson and the Friday Institute at NC State University.

DPI has sent NC tax dollars out of state on various occasion as well.  Case in point, DPI didn’t even write their own Race To The Top grant.  A Bill Gates Foundation backed group called ‘Boston Consulting‘ was paid for input, but eventually the Friday Institute ended up filing the application.

There was also the issue that around 7,300 teacher applications were backlogged. In addition to that, NC received an “F” from USA Today for teacher screening. Dr. Atkinson apparently stuck the screening issue in a drawer several years ago and never followed through, forcing the the legislature to step in yet again.

This raises the question not asked in the Jefferson Post article: What does DPI’s administrative staff really do themselves that justifies continued six figure non-teaching positions?

Thanks to Ben Scafidi, we now know what North Carolinians have been over-paying for.

View Scafidi’s presentation:

 

* This article has been updated to reflect more accurately what entities were involved in the RTTT grant.
Posted in EDUCATION, NC DPI, School Choice | 4 Comments

Read NC’s Emergency Application to SCOTUS on NC Voter ID – #ncga

Posted on August 16, 2016 by A.P. Dillon

North Carolina has filed an emergency application to the Supreme Court regarding the state’s voter ID law after the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the law.

Read: 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Strikes Again, Overturns NC Voter ID Law
Read: 4th Circuit Ruling
Read:  HOUSE BILL 589

The application has been sent to Chief Justice Roberts. The opening pages are a barn burner.

Here’s an excerpt:

Mere months before a general presidential election, the Fourth Circuit has invalidated several provisions of North Carolina election law as intentionally discriminatory even though the court did not disturb the District Court’s extensive and exhaustive factual findings that those provisions will not actually have a
discriminatory impact on minority voters. To our knowledge, that marks the first time in the past half century that a court of appeals has reversed a fact-finder’s finding that a State did not enact an election law with discriminatory intent, and the first time in history that a court has invalidated as intentionally discriminatory an election law that has been affirmatively found to have no discriminatory effect. To make matters worse, the Fourth Circuit reached these unprecedented results in the context of a voting reform this Court has already held to be constitutional. Moreover,
the Fourth Circuit based its discriminatory intent finding almost exclusively on evidence that the challenged provisions could have a disparate impact on minorities, even though it did not disturb the District Court’s finding that they will not actually do so. And the ultimate result is that the Fourth Circuit has prohibited North Carolina from enforcing a voter-ID law that is actually more sensitive to disparate impact concerns than those in force in many of its sister States, and simultaneously compelled North Carolina to reinstate several other voting practices that most other States do not permit at all.

Also, this bit – which highlights that the 4th Circuit appears to have ignored facts:

Moreover, the Fourth Circuit’s decision does so in disregard of nearly 500 pages of meticulous factual findings made by a District Court that considered a nearly 25,000- page record and testimony from over 100 witnesses. 

Here’s the meat of the application, which contains three main points including pre-registration, early voting days and the fact that the voter ID requirement was already used in one election with .008% of voters reporting an impediment issue:

First, as to the voter-ID law, the State has already had one election with its voter-ID requirement in place, and only .008% of the 2.3 million votes cast during that near-record-high-turnout 2016 primary were not counted because a voter could not obtain photo ID or qualify for the provision’s robust “reasonable impediment” exception. Second, as to early voting, the State has had multiple elections with 10 days instead of 17, and its requirement that each county maintain the same number of early voting hours as it did under the previous 17-day rule has actually significantly increased early voting, both generally and by minorities—presumably because the law frees up counties to devote their limited resources to offering more convenient early voting hours and locations. Finally, staying the “preregistration” of 16-year-olds could not possibly impede or deter anyone from voting in the upcoming general election because no 16-year-old will be eligible to do so.

Read the full Emergency Application:

Interestingly, the 4th Circuit ruling overturning NC’s Voter ID law  lists, “Penda D. Hair, ADVANCEMENT PROJECT, Washington” as having been one of many argued the case. Penda Hair is married to the White House Counsel, Neal Eggleston.  Local media appear to have not made this connection nor noted the possibly conflict of interest therein.

On top of ignoring the statistics for voter ID,  it  seems the 4th Circuit has also ignored that the Obama administration’s Dept. of Justice approved the voting maps for North Carolina.

Footnote number 184 on page 331 of the 420 Memorandum Opinion and Order NC Voter ID states there appears to be discriminatory intent, yet made no claim against the law in court:

“Notably, the United States does not make a § 2 results claim against the current version of North Carolina’s ID law. (Doc. 419 at 73 n.26.) The United States’ only ID-related claim is that SL 2013-381 was passed with discriminatory intent.”

Related:

 

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Campaign 2016, ELECTIONS, NCGA, Voting | Tagged | 1 Comment

Math Is Hard for #WCPSS’s Tom Benton

Posted on August 16, 2016 by A.P. Dillon

Wake County School Board member, Tom Benton, might be a Common Core math victim. Recently Benton told the News and Observer that per pupil spending was still “behind the 2008 level”:

“When we look at the amount of money per student, we are still behind the 2008 level,” said Wake County school board chairman Tom Benton. “The money from the state government has not kept pace with the growing student population.”

Is that true? What does the Department of Public Instruction’s (DPI) statistics say?

If you strictly go by DPI’s Fast Fact numbers which ignore the 5 year average capital dollars, then yes it would be.  What is also lagging is federal dollars. Local dollars, however, are pretty close.

Per DPI, Here’s the statewide per pupil spending in 2008-09:

State: $5,616 (65.9%) Federal: $831 (9.8%) Local: $2,075 (24.3%)
TOTAL: $8,522
Wake county was the largest district with 133,215 students and a per pupil expenditure rate of $8,119, not including the 5 year capital outlay.

Now here’s 2015-16, again per DPI:
State: $5,634 (67.9%)  Federal: $635 (7.7%)  Local: $2,027 (24.4%)
TOTAL: $8,296
Wake county is the largest district again with 153,488 students and a $8,363 per pupil expenditure, not including the 5 year capital outlay.

It would seem that it’s not the state’s spending per pupil that is really lagging. Wake county has been the largest district in the state for quite some time, yet has continually ranked near the bottom of the districts for per pupil spending.

In the 2014-2015 school, Wake county was 97th out of 115 in per pupil spending. That school year, Wake county spent $8,363 per pupil with a 5 year capital outlay average of $673.87.

That 2014-15 per pupil spending by Wake county, not including the capital outlay, is above the statewide average reported by DPI of $8,296 for 2015-16.

Visit DPI’s statistics for more ranking details:  Ranking of Final Average Daily Membership, Per Pupil Expenditures, and Capital Outlay

If one looks at the expenditures per pupil statewide, excluding for child nutrition, we see that we’re past 2008 levels in terms of local percentages with statewide percentages showing increases creeping up to 2008 levels.

In 2008, the local percentage was 23.1 whereas in 2015 it is now 24.4%. See below.

Historical without Nutrition

Including child nutrition, the  2008 levels in local percentages stood at 24.4%. In 2015, that funding stood at 24.3%.  Mr. Benton is complaining about .1% difference.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION, Wake County School Board | Tagged , | Comments Off on Math Is Hard for #WCPSS’s Tom Benton

Common Core Cheerleading Group Gets Mult-Million Dollar Gates Foundation Grant

Posted on August 10, 2016 by A.P. Dillon

Bill Gates Dead CatAn education non-profit known for recruiting teachers to promote Common Core in the political arena has received a large grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In June of 2016, Hope Street Group received a grant for $2,650,003 for the purpose of ‘training teachers on policy’ and working on ‘perception improvements’.

Grant Details:

Date: June 2016
Purpose: to select, train and network teachers to drive sustainable policy, practice and perception improvements at local and state levels.
Amount: $2,650,003
Term: 19
Topic: K-12, K-12 Education
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Washington, District of Columbia
Grantee Website: http://www.hopestreetgroup.org

This site has well-documented the presence of Hope Street Group in North Carolina, including reporting on NC State Superintendent, June Atkinson, entering into a partnership  with the group in 2015.  As such, the group has gotten away with using taxpayer  funded resources for their messaging purposes.

Multiple members of Hope Street Group engaged in attacks on the Academic Standards Review Commission (ASRC) during the commission’s review of Common Core. Hope Street Group members used Op-eds to criticize the commission and elevate Common Core. The group also sent letters to the commission in an effort to pressure them.

Hope Street Group employs a  ‘Teacher Voice Network’. The organization recruits teachers they call “fellows” to promote pro-Common Core messaging and other related education policy initiatives. One of the Hope Street Fellows involved in criticism of the ASRC was  Trey Ferguson.  Ferguson is one of the “NC Teacher Voice Network Fellows“.

As a result of the reporting on this topic by this website, the founder of Hope Street Group, Demitri Melhorn, decided to engage in ‘trolling’ by lashing out in a Medium blog post.  This website responded in kind.

At the end of the last legislature session, there was an attempt bring back traditional math as an alternative to Common Core via HB 657. The Department of Public Instruction was not happy with this move, which in essence, called their bluff on the current standards revision process.  On cue, Hope Street Group again came out on the offensive and it was Trey Ferguson again leading the charge to rescue Common Core.

Read About Hope Street Group:

 

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Common Core, EDUCATION | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Common Core Cheerleading Group Gets Mult-Million Dollar Gates Foundation Grant