Chris Powell: Judge Jackson flunks the ‘what is a woman’ test; school daze; United Robots’ mystery building

Graphic by F l a n k e r

MANCHESTER, Conn.

President Biden nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court to fulfill a campaign promise to give the court its first Black woman. But this week Jackson told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she can't define "woman" because "I'm not a biologist."

So how could the president have been so sure as to what constitutes a woman? He's no biologist either.

And how could the Democratic senators supporting Jackson, also no biologists, be so sure even as they are trying to push her through the confirmation process before her judicial and political philosophies are explored too much?

When the hearing on Jackson's nomination began, "woman" was in the dictionary, and had been for a long time.

But Jackson's evasion on the woman question was a strong hint that if she makes it to the court she will assist the extreme political left in promoting transgenderism and erasing any recognition of gender differences, particularly in regard to women in sports.

Of course, for many years all Supreme Court nominees have been evasive about their views on legal and political controversies. But this evasion never has been taken as far as Jackson took it this week.

The Senate should not accept such evasion. It should tell the president that if he wants to nominate a Black woman for the court, he should find one who at least isn't afraid to admit knowing what a woman is.

Hamden (Conn.) High School . The school’s main building was built in 1935 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The lobby has murals showing scenes from Hamden's history.

— Photo by Streetsim 

According to a Rasmussen poll this week, 58 percent of likely U.S. voters think that the public schools are getting worse, with only 13 percent thinking that they are improving.

Of course, the virus epidemic's interruption of schooling has damaged education terribly. But education already had been declining for years and is probably even worse than the 58 percent in the poll believe. A report in the New Haven Independent this week may not have been surprising but still should have been horrifying.

Quoting the city school system's data, the Independent reported that the performance of 45 percent of New Haven students is two grades behind where it should be and the performance of another 44 percent of students is one grade behind. Only 11 percent of New Haven students are performing at grade level.

Since most of the city's children are fatherless and impoverished, New Haven is worse in this respect than Connecticut generally, but statewide student performance should horrify as well. The last time Connecticut's high school seniors were formally tested for subject proficiency was in 2013 by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. While Connecticut's seniors performed best in the country, half still had not mastered high school English and two-thirds still had not mastered high school math.

Even so, contrary to the Rasmussen poll, most people in Connecticut seem satisfied with their public schools. At least there is no movement to improve schools academically or seriously examine student performance.

Maybe opinions about schools are like opinions about Congress, where most people think that Congress is corrupt and taking the country in the wrong direction even as most people like their own members of Congress

After all, there's some comfort in thinking that while schools are declining generally, one's local schools are still great and that, as in Lake Wobegon, all local students are above average. Such thinking relieves parents of any responsibility to take note of public education's transition from academic learning to "social and emotional learning" with a dollop of political indoctrination -- schooling without the inconvenience of proficiency-test scores.

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Connecticut's Hearst newspapers this week published a remarkable news item produced by an outfit called United Robots, whose computer programs process raw data and put it into prose.

This particular item, drawn from property records, said a "spacious and historic house" in Bridgeport with three stories, 3,700 square feet, seven bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a detached garage had been sold for a mere $2,000. A photograph showed the house looks intact and secure.

But the "robots" didn't explain the low price, so incongruous amid Connecticut's housing shortage. Bridgeport is a troubled city but residential property there is not worthless. There must be a reason for the giveaway price of that house but the "robots" apparently lack the curiosity of a live reporter.

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester.

Sam Pizzigati: Retailers connive to tighten screws on public-school budgets

 "The Old Beggar,'' by Lewis Dewis.

Via OtherWords.org

Back to school! These three simple words used to leave America’s public-school teachers giddy with anticipation. Now they leave them opening up their wallets and worrying.

The problem? Teachers have been spending out of their own pockets for generations to decorate their classrooms and the like. Now many have to spend their own money for basic school supplies — everything from pens and pencils to cleaning supplies.

One national study last year by Scholastic and YouGov found teachers spending an average of $530 a year on classroom supplies. The number of teachers who spend over $1,000 out of pocket, adds a National School Supply and Equipment Association report, has doubled.

In Oklahoma, third grade teacher Teresa Danks has been spending $2,000 annually of her own money. Earlier this summer, with her school district facing a $10 million budget cut, Danks actually started panhandling. She took to a busy street corner with a simple hand-made sign: “Teacher Needs School Supplies! Anything Helps.”)

Many passers-by did help. But the fiscal squeeze on America’s public-school budgets and teacher wallets is now threatening to get even worse.

That’s because big-box retail giants — the very stores where many teachers go to buy school supplies — have unleashed a fierce lawsuit offensive to significantly lower their local property- tax bills.

Property taxes remain, in most of the country, the single most pivotal source of local public school funding. If corporate retail powers like Home Depot and Target succeed in their new greed grab, the state comptroller in Texas recently warned, local public schools in his state alone would lose $1.2 billion annually, with another $703 million in school funding lost from the state level.

Our top big-boxers are flourishing: Home Depot profits last year jumped nearly 14 percent to $8 billion. And Home Depot CEO Craig Menear took home $11.5 million.

So on what grounds should the big-box boys be taxed less? Retail CEOs, Education Week reports, are having their lawyers make the astonishingly audacious argument that “the massive stores they operate ought to be appraised as if they were vacant.”

This ridiculous “dark store theory” has been winning lawsuits in Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin, and school districts in the Midwest have already lost millions of dollars in revenue. In some cases, court rulings have actually forced local governments to reimburse big-box retailers for the higher property taxes they’ve already paid.

The new attack on local public-school funding isn’t just coming from brick-and-mortar retailers. Amazon, the online retail king, is taking new steps to avoid taxes, too.

Amazon now collects sales taxes on the goods consumers buy online in states that impose them.But Amazon is only collecting taxes on about half the goods that people who click onto Amazon itself buy. The half of sales that go through the third-party vendors that the Amazon site spotlights go untaxed.d.

The State of South Carolina is demanding that Amazon end this tax avoidance. Amazon is disputing the South Carolina claim, and the case is going to the courts. All the big online retailers will be watching closely. A South Carolina victory could mean higher tax revenue nationwide from big online retailers.

All these big-time retailers can afford to pay higher taxes. Our biggest retail empires, after all, have already made their emperors into some of the world’s richest people. The chief executive of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, now holds the third-largest individual fortune in the world.

Panhandling Oklahoma teacher Teresa Danks says she’s “tired of not having enough funding for our classrooms but being expected to always make it happen.”

The super rich who run retail in America could ease that fatigue. They could start paying their taxes.

Sam Pizzigati, an Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow, co-edits inequality.org. 

Scott Klinger: Tax breaks for business slam public schools

As fall approaches, millions of moms and dads are scrambling to prepare for the first day of school, excited to support their children’s success.

But are schools ready to receive our kids and foster that success? Increasingly, the answer is no.

In at least 18 states, local government funding levels are declining, according to an analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. And as a result, many schools will open with fewer teachers than last year, among other detrimental losses.

As lawmakers throw up their hands and say, “sorry, there’s just not enough money,” we must ask: Where has all the money gone?

State and local governments give away at least $70 billion a year to business subsidies, most of it in foregone tax revenue. Local property taxes are the most significant tax most corporations pay. In most communities, they’re also the backbone of local school finance.

So when subsidies slash corporate property taxes, our schools often get hurt the most.

In Chicago, for example, we already have a glimpse into the unsavory relationship between tax subsidies and school finance. Last year, one subsidy program alone cost public services $461 million. Meanwhile, the city’s schools are facing a budget that is $140 million less than they had last year.

When cities line the pockets of powerful interests with subsidies while short-changing children, they harm everyone — including businesses that depend on a well-educated work force.

Unlike Chicago, in most cities it’s difficult to calculate exactly how much state and local tax subsidies drain from a given school district. But that’s about to change.

Starting next year, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board will require more than 50,000 government bodies to report how much tax revenue they’ve lost to economic development tax breaks given to developers and corporations.

Though school districts, library districts, and other special purpose districts seldom have a role in awarding these subsidies, they too will be required to report how much revenue they’ve lost lost—even as a result of tax breaks handed out by other governmental bodies.

This new data will also shine a light on inequities in education, allowing new critical examination of whether tax breaks that fill corporate coffers come disproportionately at the expense of the most disadvantaged school districts.

This way, we can say no to deals that pad the profits of the already wealthy at the cost of denying opportunity to those looking to get a foot on the first rung of the economic ladder.

Some states are already following the logic of this new common sense standard. In a 2011 budget deal, California decided to phase out an expensive subsidy granted by redevelopment agencies, and as a result, paved the way for local property tax revenues to rise by 10-15 percent in coming years. These added revenues will allow cities and towns throughout California to increase funding for local priorities—including schools.

Soon, we’ll all have a much better idea about where the funding for schools throughout the nation has gone. Parents and teachers clamoring for smaller class sizes and more support services will have the data to back their demands.

And taxpayers will be able to debate whether costly, long-term tax breaks that often go to the most prosperous businesses in town have been worth the cost of struggling schools.

As we look ahead to the new school year, it’s time to hold our governments and schools accountable to meet student needs. The data is coming soon that will help us get there.

Scott Klinger is the GASB 77 Activation Coordinator at Good Jobs First. To learn more about the GASB 77 disclosures coming next year, visit www.goodjobsfirst.org/gasb. Distributed by OtherWords.