Who rides the bus? Who pays for it?

Like school systems across the country, the Charlotte-Mecklenberg schools have a budget gap. To close it, they first announced they’d close eight schools.  Because of where the schools were and the students they serve this has prompted a federal investigation into civil rights violations.

Today, the Charlotte-Mecklenberg schools announced that instead of closing schools, they’d cut back on bus service.  The schools are also looking to cut programs that help the students who need the most — pre-kindergarten programs and those that assign more teachers to schools in low-income areas.  Of course cutting back on bus service also means kids that take the bus to magnet schools won’t be able to get to their magnet schools anymore. They’ll still have to be bused, just not as far.

Is it surprising that when a school board is considering cuts to close a budget gap the first place they turn is to the programs that help the students the most? No. Disappointing but not surprising. Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

Kids are headed back to school this week across the nation, and backpacks will soon be filling up with carefully crayoned pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. But the civil rights leader can teach them a lot more than how to practice staying in the lines.

Babble checked out some of the new children’s books to make the story of peaceful protest in the favor of right resonate at home. Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

Remember Will Phillips, the ten-year-old boy from West Fork, Arkansas who decided that he was not going to recite the Pledge of Allegiance until the phrase “with liberty and justice for all” was accurate — that is, until everyone was able to marry the person they love?  Young Will was, of course, referring to the issue of marriage equality — more specifically, the lack of marriage equality in this country.  Will’s protest garnered international attention after he got in trouble for talking back to a substitute teacher about it — after four days of the teacher trying to force him to stand and recite the pledge, he told her “Ma’am, with all due respect, you can go jump off a bridge.”

Continue reading »

Tweet

2

Pin It

Most states have some form of protection for women who choose to breastfeed their children.  California, for example, along with forty-two other states, specifically allows women to breastfeed in any public or private location where they have a right to be.  In Michigan, women who are breastfeeding do not have quite the protection accorded them in California but they are, at least, exempt from laws concerning public indecency.  A bill currently under consideration in the state house would change that, if passed.

Continue reading »

Tweet

4

Pin It

In the best-selling series of books that bear his name, Harry Potter and his friends are heroes.  It turns out that the same is true in the real world — at least as far as the friends go.  Some of the boy wizard’s biggest fans are coming together to protect marriage and keep families together.  The Massachusetts-based, non-profit Harry Potter Alliance, “dedicated to using the examples of Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore to spread love,” has organized a “magical day of activism,” according to the group’s executive director, Andrew Slack.
Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

Jonathan Escobar is the kind of kids who stands out from the crowd, especially when he wears his pink wig.  Escobar prefers to wear wigs, makeup, and feminine-style clothing, a style choice that’s gotten him in trouble at school. Continue reading »

Tweet

41

Pin It