We need to stop pretending neoliberals are part of the democratic party.
For decades they have been invading the only left wing party and dragging it to the right.
That’s why they get the same corporate donations as Republicans. They want the same shit, and donors buying off both parties guarantees donors always win.
Unfortunately, a lot of the country will only vote for Democrats who barely dip their toe into the left side of the spectrum to throw people a bone on occasion.
That’s the only way a Democrat got elected to the Senate in West Virginia. It was Joe Manchin.
Hell, 34 years ago he was more progressive than Biden:
In early 1990, Byrd proposed an amendment granting special aid to coal miners who would lose their jobs in the event that Congress passed clean air legislation. Byrd was initially confident in the number of votes he needed to secure its passage being made available but this was prevented by a vote from Democrat Joe Biden who said the measure’s passage would mean an assured veto by President Bush
That’s the only way a Democrat got elected to the Senate in West Virginia. It was Joe Manchin.
Manchin comes from an obscenely wealthy coal family in the state. He could have run under either party and won in a landlord landslide based on that alone.
He just got more concessions from the Democrats, who were more than happy to trade away legislative priorities for a Senate Majority.
unfortunately the democratic rank and file seem to have a humiliation kink cause the party heads keep humiliating their base and the base keeps voting for them.
Party leadership is decided by an open vote of about 450 people/organizations.
Some is elected officials like president, senator, and a shit ton of mayors. Some political organizations, ex Members, random ass people who are usually donors
But it’s an open vote, and the people running usually cutthroat.
So if you don’t toe the party line, the party might not support you later.
That’s when they do get to vote. There was like 30 years where no vote was held, people were just appointed.
The system is way more fucked up than most people realize. And it’s designed to hold onto all their power while presenting the illusion of democracy
During a recent Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee hearing, Democratic Sen. Bonnie Westlin, lead sponsor of the Senate version of the bill that would restore prone restraints in schools,
The other person provided the name, here is Bonnie Westland’s reasoning:
During a recent Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee hearing, Democratic Sen. Bonnie Westlin, lead sponsor of the Senate version of the bill that would restore prone restraints in schools, presented it less as a backtrack and more as an opportunity. The issue is about ensuring campus cops remain “important team members in our schools,” Westlin said, while creating uniformity across school resource officers’ duties, their training requirements and accountability.
What she’s referencing is the fact that police responded to the ban by removing 400 officers from schools. She wants cops back in schools for some reason, and she wants to give 150k tax dollars a year to police depts.
Along with removing restraint rules for school-based police and campus security staff, the pending legislation would allocate $150,000 this year to develop consistent, statewide training standards for school resource officers and require police to complete the lessons before working on campuses. The bill also seeks to clarify that school-based police officers should not be involved in routine student discipline.
Police won’t go to school if they can’t do that particular move, a deadly move that easily kills, on high school children. This ghoul is making the assumption we need or even want them there.
Ladies and gentlemen, i present to you the “Harm reduction party”
Cedrick Frazier is in on it, too. For some reason he rates a picture while Bonnie Westlin doesn’t. Presumably because of the comparisons the article/general press is making with these laws/Floyd and that Frazier is black. Saying anything about him being black in the article would be crass, but they’ll just drop a picture and not have to write anything. “Ooooh look, he must be a hypocrite!” I mean he kinda sorta is maybe, but not because he’s black but because the article says he was a champion of police reform after Floyd’s murder and now is walking back a reform.
The money is supposed to go to training. Seems reasonable enough. They have a “Captain of Investigations Tanya Harmoning” going on in there about how the cops only know how to do things one way. Seems like it could be good if they learned a different way. There is a little more detail, too: “But even without a ban on prone restraints, he said that state law would continue to prohibit school-based officers from pinning students to the ground in ways that restrict breathing.”
I despise that quote, because it is false on its face. The position they are unbanning is one that restricts breathing. I just saw a link on lemmy a few days ago about this very position and how dangerous it is.
As far as the money for training goes, i hate that too. Its ostensibly to train cops not to kill kids while using the move that we’re now allowing them to do because they had a tantrum and quit when we told them they couldn’t.
We don’t need cops in schools, period, and paying for the privilege of having them back? Has me straight fucking pissed.
None of this ire is directed at you, mind you, youre great :D
I don’t see anything in the article mention if the enrollment reduction is due to population loss in the area, enrollment in charter or other schools, or a decision to “home school.”
Because of its size, California has the most schools where enrollment loss hit at least 20% during the pandemic — over 1,400. High-priced areas like Silicon Valley reflect a host of recent demographic trends, including record-low birth rates and a limited housing market. Other families left districts during school closures for private schools and charters. All of these factors add up to fewer school-age children attending traditional public schools.
This I can understand, though I know people’s views on pandemic/isolation are varying. I don’t think enrollment data during that time should skew or influence current trends though.
I’m not in the education field, but unless I’m missing something, I don’t think it makes sense to talk about low attendance rates and closing school based on pandemic attendance. I see these comments supporting lower attendance now, so I’m curious what those figures are.
I know people here in South Texas who work in “Title 1” schools that are predominantly minority and the kids just flat out disappeared. Some were working jobs to support their families, others moved to Mexico or near there, and others they can’t find the family anymore, so most likely the whole family moved somewhere else.
We moved our kids to a private school after school went remote and we saw first hand how terrible the teachers were. We were blown away by just how ineffective they were. Since moving to a private school our kids struggled for the first year but then really started to catch up and are now a couple years ahead of their old peers.
We know others that just decided to switch to programs like K12.
What I find weird about this article is that they should be celebrating smaller class sizes. This should allow them to spend more time helping the students that they do have.
I imagine the lower enrollment equates to lower funding which means they have to reduce costs. Every organizations number one coat is usually payroll, right?
You last point is where my mind is at. We’ve been bemoaning enormous class sizes and not enough resources to go around for almost 20 years, this seems like it would be the perfect opportunity to spring board a new era of public education. While I understand that butts in seats = funding, perhaps something can be done to ensure kids keep receiving an education with the benefits of smaller classrooms.
Mostly private and home school in my area. The district is still showing a 10% loss in enrollment despite being the #1 relocation destination in the US in 2023 (according to Uhaul, so take from that what you will). We’re gaining population, and still public school enrollment is going down.
Private and charter schools are all completely full. There are so many homeschoolers that businesses that do extra-curriculars (music lessons, dance programs, sports, etc) are all offering morning and mid-day sessions to keep up with demand. The local little league is talking about having two teams limited to homeschoolers so they can practice mid-day and free up the fields during after school hours.
Meanwhile the public schools struggle to keep their teacher slots, which are allocated based on enrollment.
In my country, a lot of rural schools close right after getting renovated, which adds an insult to injury. And after a village’s school closes, the rest of it goes away very quickly.
While I agree, state funding for districts is typically decided based on student enrollment and attendance. Fewer students attending classes means drastically less funding for the district. So even if enrollment has dropped 30%, that doesn’t mean they have the same number of teachers for 30% fewer students. Classes are bigger than ever these days, because schools can’t afford to hire enough teachers, (and teachers are fleeing the job to work elsewhere.)
Was it just that he was being held in a prone position or was it perhaps complicated/exacerbated by you know, the cop kneeling on his neck? I mean surely that was the main contributing factor to Floyd’s death at the cops’ hands, wasn’t it? Not just that he was being held on the ground? This long article seems to avoid any details while using the comparison to amp its message.
News story about deaths from prone restraint that starts off with the story of one where the officers were laying across their victim’s back, not standing on his neck - kpbs.org/…/deadly-restraint-despite-decades-of-wa…
Another news site has been doing a long running research project on this that started pre-George Floyd and has accumulated dozens of instances of prone restraint killing people - www.9news.com/…/73-a4ae192c-ceb6-4815-9e72-2f8a80…
the74million.org
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