Grading Texas – Page 56 – Texas State Teachers Association

Taking Confederate names off schools is not denying history

Austin ISD’s announcement that it will rename several more schools that have long carried names associated with the Confederacy has fanned more controversy over how we address that period of our country’s history. Intentionally or not, some protesters to the name changes continue to misunderstand or misstate what the issue is all about.

One commenter on TSTA’s Facebook page accused AISD officials of trying to help children forget history, and a couple of other commenters seemed to agree.

“Changing the name of a school is like the Civil War never happened…and teaches kids that you can change history to fit your narrative,” she said, missing the point entirely. The reason that the schools were named for Confederate figures in the first place was to deny history, to deny or downplay the fact that the reason Texas and the other southern states fought the Civil War was to protect slavery, a particularly extreme form of racism.

AISD is not denying the Civil War or the roles that many Texans and other prominent Southerners played in it. AISD, instead, has decided that it will no longer honor the memories of those individuals.

If you don’t like that change in policy, that’s your prerogative, but don’t claim it’s a denial of history. The real deniers of history were the 20^th century defenders of the Confederacy who tried to whitewash the real reason the Civil War was fought. Many years after the war had ended, these individuals and groups supported erecting statues and naming schools for Confederate figures in an effort to cover up history with their own self-serving fiction.

There is nothing heroic about defending slavery or racism, and AISD officials recognize that.

Tax bill would kill deduction for student loan interest, promote vouchers

Elections have consequences, and some more of them are showing up in anti-educator and anti-student provisions in the tax bill drafted by the Republican majority in Congress.

Not only would the bill repeal the $250 tax deduction that under-paid teachers are now afforded for purchasing classroom supplies out of their own pockets, it also would kill the deduction that teachers and millions of other Americans have been able to take for interest on their student loans.

The interest deduction has been as much as $2,500 a year, but it would be wiped off the books. That would increase costs for college loan borrowers by as much as $24 billion over the next 10 years, according to the American Council of Education, which represents 1,600 colleges and universities.

The tax bill also would promote a back-door approach to private school vouchers by allowing taxpayers of any income level to set aside as much as $10,000 a year in tax-free accounts for expenses at private K-12 schools. These tax breaks, which would benefit the wealthy more than anyone else, would drain federal dollars from government programs, including public schools, where the vast majority of children will continue to be educated.

All in all, the tax bill is a poorly disguised attempt to further enrich the top 1 percent and corporations at the expense of educators, students, their families and other middle- and lower-income taxpayers. Use the following link to tell your representative in Congress that you oppose this bill.

Urge your member of Congress to oppose this tax bill

GOP tax bill would kill deduction for student loan interest

Educators who punish flag protesters are violating the Constitution

The issue of not standing for the Pledge of Allegiance as a form of political protest provokes a lot of controversy. Many Americans, including many veterans, are offended, and that is understandable. The president can tweet his outrage, but educators must follow the law. And the law gives every American, including students as well as NFL players, the right not to stand for the pledge.

If students want to sit quietly during the pledge or kneel on the sidelines of the football field while the national anthem is being played, teachers and coaches should leave them alone. And if their school administration has a policy that denies those rights, they should demand that their school board change it.

I bring up this issue for two reasons. First, it is wrong for schools to deny the constitutional rights of any student. And, secondly, if they do they may very well find themselves wasting taxpayer dollars defending against lawsuits they never should have invited and will eventually lose. See the story linked at the end of this post.

The U.S. Supreme Court in a case from West Virginia ruled more than 70 years ago – in the middle of World War II — that requiring students in public schools to salute the flag or recite the pledge was a violation of their First Amendment rights.

American soldiers were dying then to defend those First Amendment rights, and many more have died since. Many Americans, especially veterans and their families, understandly are upset or enraged by what they see as disrespect for the flag. But the rights that veterans served and died to defend included the right of all Americans to peacefully protest by taking a classroom seat during the pledge or a knee during the anthem.

I always recite the pledge and stand for the anthem. But I am a white male who hasn’t experienced a history of the prejudicial behavior that some flag protesters, their families, friends or communities have experienced or may still be living through.

You don’t have to agree with the flag protesters, but as long as they are acting peacefully, respect their right to do so and leave them alone.

2 Texas students sue schools to freely protest the pledge

Free speech is essential, even when it is self-serving

Private donors at the University of North Texas had every right to recruit Donald Trump Jr. to deliver a speech this week to raise money for university scholarships. They had every right to pay the president’s son $100,000 for his time, even though that probably is a lot more than most students will realize from any scholarship.

The audience also had every right to listen to the confused rhetoric that Trump Jr. dumped on them. If they believed him, which many apparently did, that’s a shame. But free speech carries with it the right to be underinformed, misinformed and noninformed, and Trump Jr. carried on the family tradition.

Here are some excerpts as reported in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram story linked below.

Trump Jr. accused some universities of becoming “captive to political hatreds” and said they had turned “traditional values” into “hate speech.” In the view of some campus leaders, he said: “Hate speech is anything that says America is a good country and our founders were great people, that we need borders. Hate speech is anything faithful to the moral teaching of the Bible.”

He said not a word – if so, it wasn’t reported – about the real hate speech spewed by white supremacists and neo-Nazis at the deadly white supremacy march in Charlottesville, Va., or his father’s attempt to equate their hatred with the actions of peaceful civil rights counter-demonstrators. He said not a word about how white supremacists have been emboldened by his father’s rise to the White House.

And he said not a word about the juvenile-style of hate-mongering that his father regularly tweets at the slightest provocation or perceived insult to the thin presidential skin.

Trump Jr. described himself and his father as “nationalists,” while claiming that many people are confused at the meaning of American nationalism. Discrimination on the basis of race, gender or class, he said, is “contrary to the ideas of nationalism.”

He apparently said nothing though about discrimination on the basis of religion, which, in Trump’s “nationalistic” view, must justify the ban on immigrants from many Muslim-majority countries.

Trump Jr. said when all countries are governed by nationalist principles, “they’ll act in the best interest of their people. That means they are less likely to engage in foreign wars.”

I guess he forgot about the nationalist extremists who started World Wars I and II. Like it or not, we live in a world of international relationships that can’t be oversimplified by nationalistic rhetoric.

This, incidentally, is the same Trump son who eagerly attended a meeting during the presidential campaign with a Russian lawyer who promised “dirt” on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Not surprisingly, he didn’t address the pending investigations into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian attempts to interfere in the U.S. election.

Trump Jr. scolds universities during UNT speech, a fundraiser for scholarships

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