Concerning that bill to help fund future busing!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 2019

Campaign cons voters again!
Yesterday, we cited an exciting possibility:

According to the Washington Post, the Harris campaign seemed to be saying that Candidate Harris does support mandated busing as a way to fight "segregation" in our public schools.

We suggested that this might turn out to be a certain campaign's latest con. That said, the passage in question was this:
VISER AND LINSKEY (7/2/19): Harris’s debate thrust put Democratic candidates in a position they have not experienced for decades—having to contemplate a position on busing. Harris on Sunday said that she still supports busing and sees a modern-day use for it.

“The schools of America are as segregated, if not more segregated, today than when I was in elementary school,” she told reporters in San Francisco on Sunday. “And we need to put every effort, including busing, into play to desegregate the schools. . . . There’s no such thing as separate but equal, and so busing is one of the ways by which we create desegregation and we make it more equal.”

Harris’s campaign on Monday said that she supported federal resources for busing and cited legislation from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (D-Ohio). That legislation would authorize $120 million for a variety of purposes, including one to expand school busing services.
In a public statement, Harris said that she still supports busing to "desegregate" schools. According to Viser and Linskey, her campaign cited the (rather puny) Murphy-Fudge bill as evidence of that fact.

Has any other Democratic campaign ever conned us liberal voters on such a regular basis? When we scrambled to peruse the Murphy-Fudge bill, we found that its press release had started off like this:
MURPHY, FUDGE INTRODUCE LEGISLATION TO INCREASE DIVERSITY IN SCHOOLS

Thursday, September 6, 2018:

WASHINGTON–U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (Ohio-11), a member of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, on Thursday introduced the Strength in Diversity Act, legislation to promote diversity in schools. Specifically, the legislation authorizes $120 million in grants to support new and expand existing voluntary community-driven strategies to increase diversity in schools.
The word "voluntary" was sitting right there, right in the opening paragraph! Way back when, it was mandated busing which Biden opposed, with Bernie Sanders (and quite a few others) not too far behind.

The Murphy-Fudge bill is known as the "Strength in Diversity Act." Eventually, the press release listed the various measures its rather limited funds could be used to support:
Specifically, the Strength in Diversity Act:

Authorizes $120 million to provide planning and implementation grants to support voluntary local efforts to increase socioeconomic diversity in schools. Grants could fund a range of proposals, including (but not limited to):

Studying segregation, evaluating current policies, and developing evidence-based plans to address socioeconomic and racial isolation

Establishing public school choice zones, revising school boundaries, or expanding bussing [sic] service

Creating or expanding innovative school programs that can attract students from outside the local area

Recruiting, hiring, and training new teachers to support specialized schools

Supports school districts, independently or in collaboration with neighboring districts, as well as regional educational authorities and educational service agencies.
Once again, Murphy and Fudge stressed the fact that the bill would fund voluntary efforts. Except for its puny level of funding, there's certainly nothing wrong with this bill. But this bill has nothing to do with the kinds of mandated busing programs Biden opposed long ago.

This bill wouldn't fund the kinds of programs Biden opposed long ago. Just a guess—the types of "bussing service" this bill would help fund would be the kinds of busing a district might provide to help kids travel out of their home neighborhoods to attend highly diverse magnet schools.

Such busing services help enable "public school choice" and the revision of pre-existing, narrow school boundaries.

When we read the Washington Post, we assumed that statement by the Harris campaign would turn out to be its latest con. Viser and Linskey should have noted the obvious problem with the misleading thing they'd been told.

Support for this bill doesn't contradict anything Biden ever said, even back in 1974, which was a long time ago. Has any Democratic campaign ever been this consistent in its repetitive cons?

For whatever it's worth: Sanders was listed in the press release as one of the bill's three co-sponsors, along with Elizabeth Warren. Harris may support this innocuous bill, but she wasn't so identified.

For ourselves, we're sick to death of these kinds of cons. "We humans were always wired this way," despondent top experts have told us.

19 comments:

  1. IMHO Biden's problem is that he didn't defend himself effectively. Biden should have said exactly what Bob wrote. Maybe Bob Somerby should run for President.

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    Replies
    1. Too old. Plus he may be a Russian agent.

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    2. Biden opposed busing on the basis of state's rights, he has no defense.

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  2. "For ourselves, we're sick to death of these kinds of cons."

    You're saying it a lot, dear Bob, and yet you stick with the zombie cult. What gives?

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  3. "Strength in Diversity" act. LUL When can we expect the "Peace via War" or the "Freedom through Slavery" acts?

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  4. “Way back when, it was mandated busing which Biden opposed,”

    Yes, Biden opposed mandatory busing. But he also opposed busing, period. He thought it was a terrible idea. Somerby is wrong to imply the contrary.

    Even insofar as his opposition to mandatory busing is concerned, that may not be true either. In a post-debate interview last week, he claimed he always supported busing to correct “de jure segregation.” Perhaps that busing wasn’t mandated in his mind, but there were plenty of cases where it was in fact mandatory.

    Harris believed busing was beneficial for her, and for Berkeley, and she supports its use in the future, as does Bernie Sanders. She does not say she supports mandatory busing.

    If Somerby could find anything in the record that shows Biden actually supported voluntary busing efforts, that would strengthen his case. Otherwise, it is a falsification of both Biden’s and Harris’s position that Somerby is engaging in.

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    Replies
    1. Here's a naive question: What's the difference between mandatory and voluntary busing? the Berkeley system, which Kamala was a part of, was not required by a federal or state law or judicial decision. It was a free decision by the Berkeley city government. Still, an individual parent had no choice. From the individual POV it was mandatory.

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    2. That is true of any city ordinance: it’s obligatory for all city residents. Whether Berkeley citizens mostly supported or mostly opposed the busing policy prior to its enactment, is an interesting question.

      Somerby thinks he has uncovered the hypocrisy of Harris, but Biden’s is staring him in the face. Biden did not like busing at all, he thought it was a terrible idea. Why can’t he just say that? If it was a terrible idea in communities with “de facto” segregation, why was it any less terrible where “de jure” segregation existed? Did kids get to spend less time riding the bus where segregation was de jure, or were parents any less upset in those places? The distinction between de facto and de jure strikes me as specious the way Biden is using it.

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    3. Forced busing was a poor remedy, not a policy. It was ok for a while when blacks were being bussed to white schools, but became intolerable when whites were being forced to bus their children to black neighborhood schools.

      Bussing gave us faux populists phonies like Mike Barnicle who continue to this day occupying a privileged seat in our national discourse. It also gave us the biggest phony of all time, Ronald Reagan.

      Courage by a politician in those days was extremely rare, and Joe Biden was no profile in courage. On the other hand Hillary Clinton put her life on the line going to Alabama to document how the new all white academies were circumventing effort by the Federal government to abolish segregation.

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  5. Hey,
    I'm with Somerby and the other bigots at this site.
    Segregation forever!
    Can I get a Hallelujah? Can I get an Amen?
    Tomorrow, as promised, Bob will wax poetic as he describes the beautiful black children he taught in Baltimore.
    Keep on hiding behind them Bob. Keep on hiding.

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  6. I have read multiple research articles on the issue, but have yet to find a single one which suggests school desegregation per se has had a significant effect on the black-white achievement gap. Desegregated neighborhoods and greater funding do show an effect, however. That blacks whose parents moved into a mainly white school district perform better should not surprise anyone, even accounting for social/economic status. This is an example of liberals, of whom I count myself a proud member, ignoring the science in order to maintain some undeserved moral high ground.


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    Replies
    1. There is indeed research that shows school desegregation has a positive effect on black student test scores. Your premise is inaccurate.

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    2. Provide the link to the actual paper, not just some article referencing it. If you are unable to do it, at least have the integrity to admit it.


      From:
      “LONG-RUN IMPACTS OF SCHOOL DESEGREGATION & SCHOOL QUALITY ON ADULT ATTAINMENTS”
      Rucker C. Johnson - NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
      http://www.nber.org/papers/w16664

      “The 2SLS estimates shown in Table 2 indicate significant positive effects of desegregation- induced increases in school spending on blacks’ educational attainment and adult wages, which are an order of magnitude larger than the corresponding naïve OLS estimates. The beneficial effects of desegregation-induced increases in school spending for blacks are particularly pronounced when simultaneously accounting for changes in racial school segregation (columns (3), column (6)). In contrast, these 2SLS models reveal small, insignificant effects for increases in racial integration for both blacks and whites...”

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    3. I’ve read the entire NAEP study but will wait until TDH’s next education post to discuss it.

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  7. 300 years of slavery; 100 years of subjugation; 55 years of grudging acceptance.
    There is a moral high ground.

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