I feel it's disingenuous to cry "distortion" when the facts show that the GOP doesn't stand with the racists, but it sure benefits from their votes. Either the racists think they'll get the best deal when Republicans are in power or they're already getting it. Neither one stirs up joy in one's heart.
Facts? What facts? What you've passed to me from Wikipedia is a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacking thirty years after the event that has nothing to do with what actually happened and everything to do with rewriting history so that it makes you feel better. Strom Thurmond and other Southern Democrats knew segregation was dead after 1964 and changed to the GOP for other reasons - otherwise, what would have stopped Byrd from joining his former Dixiecrat in the GOP?
It's hardly "playing" the "race card" when it's demonstrably true that policies like "No Child Left Behind"--promoted and signed by the current President-- disproportionately impacts urban Blacks and Hispanics by gutting the schools attended by millions of their children. It works by forcing teachers not to actually teach kids material, but to teach to the tests, at the risk of funding loss. That's a complete distortion of what NCLB actually calls for, and having had to sit through 2+ years of education classes as I work on my teaching certification (in night school) I think I know what it does and doesn't cover. The main reason black and Hispanic kids in the inner cities don't get decent educations is because the school boards in those cities answer primarily to the teachers' unions and other power blocs in the DFL, not to the parents whose kids are allegedly their primary concern. NCLB forces some accountability into the system by giving parents who care about their kids the chance to get their kids out of schools that don't work and into schools that do. Yes, some teachers teach to the tests. Whenever you have standardized tests you're going to get that. It beats the heck out of teachers who teach whatever odd corner of language arts or history happen to catch their fancy, though. And that happens a lot.
Race, history, and NCLB
Facts? What facts? What you've passed to me from Wikipedia is a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacking thirty years after the event that has nothing to do with what actually happened and everything to do with rewriting history so that it makes you feel better. Strom Thurmond and other Southern Democrats knew segregation was dead after 1964 and changed to the GOP for other reasons - otherwise, what would have stopped Byrd from joining his former Dixiecrat in the GOP?
It's hardly "playing" the "race card" when it's demonstrably true that policies like "No Child Left Behind"--promoted and signed by the current President-- disproportionately impacts urban Blacks and Hispanics by gutting the schools attended by millions of their children. It works by forcing teachers not to actually teach kids material, but to teach to the tests, at the risk of funding loss.
That's a complete distortion of what NCLB actually calls for, and having had to sit through 2+ years of education classes as I work on my teaching certification (in night school) I think I know what it does and doesn't cover. The main reason black and Hispanic kids in the inner cities don't get decent educations is because the school boards in those cities answer primarily to the teachers' unions and other power blocs in the DFL, not to the parents whose kids are allegedly their primary concern. NCLB forces some accountability into the system by giving parents who care about their kids the chance to get their kids out of schools that don't work and into schools that do. Yes, some teachers teach to the tests. Whenever you have standardized tests you're going to get that. It beats the heck out of teachers who teach whatever odd corner of language arts or history happen to catch their fancy, though. And that happens a lot.