BLUE SKILL LEVELS VERY LOW: Is Holmes County the typical rural school district?

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2021

Charles Blow, in love with the poor: We were sorry to read this photo caption in today's New York Times:

Amanda Gorman, poet and co-chair of the gala, wore a bright blue dress designed by Vera Wang. She carried a clutch that looked like a book titled “Give Us Your Tired.”

The gala in question was the Met Gala, We were sorry to read that Gorman was there, along with so many others.

Most simply put, the Met Gala is Manhattan's annual Sturges Rally for the rich, dumb and influential. The inanity is fully celebrated in this morning's New York Times, all through the Thursday Styles section. 

The gala accompanies New York Fashion Week. In this morning's print edition alone, the featured headlines are these:

Lorde, Tom Ford and Kacey Musgraves Party During Fashion Week
Despite the Delta variant, the fashion tribe found lots of reason to celebrate.

New York Fashion Week Returns. Here’s the Cliffs Notes Version.
In case you missed it, a tour through our coverage of the shows.
How New York Is New York Fashion?
An infusion of out-of-town talent brings a jolt of energy to Men’s Day at New York Fashion Week.
Red Carpet Radicals: The Met Gala Really Wanted to Make a Statement
This year’s theme was American Independence. Patriotism, pop culture and politics were in fashion, but to what end?

‘Stick It to the Man’ and Other Lessons From the Met Gala Cocktails
Guests found many moments to reflect on contemporary American life.

For the record, four more reports appeared beneath a single "The Stories Behind the Looks" heading. We'll spare you the names and the details, other than to report that Billie Eilish has apparently made a daring choice:

She's decided to deep-six the fur!

Malala Yousafzai wasn't there. Neither was Greta Thunberg. These absences would possibly signal hope for the future, if any such hope for the future could rationally exist.

AOC was at the Gala, as you've undoubtedly heard. Most simply put, wealth / power / celebrity never don't win, or at least they never fail to win within our own failing, extremely dumb culture. 

Remembering Norm Macdonald, the moths are constantly drawn to that flame! The rewards are simply too damn high. (So is the good-natured gullibility, though more on that tomorrow.)

According to that one report, guests at Met Gala cocktail soirees "found many moments to reflect on contemporary American life." We feel sure we we can guarantee this:

No one reflected on the Holmes County Consolidated School District, a small, badly underfunded rural district in the high-poverty Mississippi Delta region. Also, no one reflected on the life situation of  Harvey Ellington, age 17, an admirable senior at Holmes County Central High, the district's only high school.

No one reflected on any of that, and no one ever will. Holmes County is far off the beaten track, and nobody cares about people like Ellington or about his horrific school.

The track record on this matter is plain. The history on this has been established over a great many years.

Having said that, we'll say this:

This past weekend, the New York Times featured the woes of this rural school district in its Sunday magazine. The lengthy report by Casey Parks was part of the magazine's Education Issue, an effort designed to let Times readers think that the newspaper actually cares.

That said, you've seen the report mentioned nowhere but here. The lengthy, admirably detailed report will generate no wider discussion.

Those predictions can be made with quiet confidence. The Met Gala generates oodles of splash. Kids like Ellington don't.

As we noted yesterday, Parks should be complimented for the depth of  her reporting about the plight of kids in that underfunded district. We'll also say this:

It seemed to us that Parks possibly doesn't know a whole lot about the problems involved in low-income schooling in general. That should come as no surprise. 

Newspapers like the New York Times conduct no such ongoing discussion. Even the most well-intentioned observers are left with little awareness of the basics concerning this general field of play.

Having said that, let us also say this about Parks' detailed, depressing report. More specifically, let us say this about a false impression her piece rather plainly conveyed.

Parks' very lengthy report appeared beneath these headlines:

The Tragedy of America’s Rural Schools
Outdated textbooks, not enough teachers, no ventilation—for millions of kids like Harvey Ellington, the public-education system has failed them their whole lives.

Those headlines conveyed a fairly obvious impression. They convey the impression that the appalling conditions in the Holmes County Schools are typical of America's rural school districts in general.

That same impression was conveyed in this passage early in Parks' report:

PARKS (9/12/21): While researchers and activists have spent decades detailing the ways urban schools have failed children, students like Ellington are learning in more dire conditions. Most of the country’s poorest counties are rural, and two years ago, leaders at the Rural School and Community Trust, a national nonprofit group, found that decades of population loss and divestment by state governments has left many rural communities facing “nothing less than an emergency” when it comes to educating children.

Nationwide, more than 9.3 million children—nearly a fifth of the country’s public-school students—attend a rural school. That’s more than attend the nation’s 85 largest school districts combined. And yet their plight has largely remained off the radars of policymakers. John White, the deputy assistant secretary for rural outreach at the U.S. Department of Education during the Obama administration, says that every time the nation or individual states roll out an education program, he searches for the word “rural.” “You either find one or two words or none at all,” he said.

"Most of the country’s poorest counties are rural?" That could even be true, but that doesn't mean that it's relevant.

"Nearly a fifth of the country's public school students attend a rural school?" Now the rubber is hitting the road, with a statistical statement that's almost surely grossly misleading.

We're told that a fifth of our public school students attend a rural school. As our own specific example, we're then shown Harvey Ellington's school, where the kids are all black kids, where the region is among the nation's poorest, and where the hallways flood every time it rains.

Almost surely, that admirable youngster's gruesome school isn't typical of the schools attended by those other nine million kids. For one thing, the Holmes County schools are overwhelmingly black (twelve white kids out of 3,000, Parks writes), while America's rural schools, as a group, are predominantly white.

Also this:

Holmes County lies in the Mississippi Delta, in the heart of our nation's deep poverty. Beyond that, their situation is part of that state's ongoing racial history—the students are almost all black because the white kids are all attending private schools opened in the aftermath of court-ordered school integration.

Beyond that, Mississippi's racial politics affect the finding of those schools in ways Parks describes. As described, the situation in the Holmes County Schools is appalling and depressing, but it almost surely isn't typical or rural schools across the breadth of the nation.

We blue tribal types! Once in awhile, our greatest newspaper pretends that it cares about such matters as this. When it does, it tends to pretend that it cares all the way, suggesting that Amerikan schools are like this from coast to coast.

They publish an article to show us they care, and then the subject is dropped. In the one article they're willing to run, they push Storyline all the way. 

Here in Amerika, 9.3 million schoolkids are up to their knees in water. So we readers are led to believe. In comments, we readers  respond by saying how deeply we are,

At that point, the subject is gone till the next special Issue  Meanwhile, Vanessa Fieldman and her ship of ghouls swarm the Met Gala cocktail events, offering a type of fashion / celebrity / rich folks reporting which goes on year round.

The woods are lovey, dark and deep, but wealth and celebrity constantly in. We the readers are quick to believe the things our anointed leaders have said.

They strike a pose and we applaud. This occurred again this past week in the case of the heartfelt Charles Blow.

Tomorrow: When Charles Blow met Hugh Hefner


40 comments:

  1. "Most simply put, the Met Gala is Manhattan's annual Sturges Rally for the rich, dumb and influential."

    Yeah, dear Bob, the most repulsive manifestation of liberalism. Those who Howie Carr calls "the Beautiful People".

    Oh well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I really want to thank Dr Emu for saving my marriage. My wife really treated me badly and left home for almost 3 month this got me sick and confused. Then I told my friend about how my wife has changed towards me. Then she told me to contact Dr Emu that he will help me bring back my wife and change her back to a good woman. I never believed in all this but I gave it a try. Dr Emu casted a spell of return of love on her, and my wife came back home for forgiveness and today we are happy again. If you are going through any relationship stress or you want back your Ex or Divorce husband you can contact his whatsapp +2347012841542 or email emutemple@gmail.com website: Https://emutemple.wordpress.com/ Https://web.facebook.com/Emu-Temple-104891335203341

      Delete
    2. Mobile phone is capable of making millions if you are smart enough to invest in Stock/bitcoin through the help of an Expert, Mrs Mary, she will help you on how to invest and make good profits. I invested $5,000 with her help and I was able to make $32,000 within the period of intensive trading. How many hours a day do you spend on your phone and how productive are those hours? Contact her today to gain financial freedom. Email: maryreeltradings@gmail.com

      Delete
  2. "Most simply put, the Met Gala is Manhattan's annual Sturges Rally for the rich, dumb and influential. "

    Here is a better description:

    "Opening Night Gala. Opening night of the 2021–22 season—marking both the re-opening of the Met following the pandemic closure and the first performance by the Met of an opera by a Black composer—will be a truly historic occasion."

    No wonder Somerby hates it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The difference between Sturges and Fashion Week is how many people were vaccinnated.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Malala Yousafzai wasn't there. Neither was Greta Thunberg. These absences would possibly signal hope for the future, if any such hope for the future could rationally exist."

    Or perhaps they are just not opera fans...

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Remembering Norm McDonald, the moths are constantly drawn to that flame!"

    Yes, let's remember Norm MacDonald, who was a funny comedian but also held views similar to someone else we all know (from Vox, 9/2018, speaking to the Hollywood Reporter):

    "Over the course of the interview, Macdonald touched on the #MeToo movement — he said he’s glad it has “slowed down a little” — and said how deeply sorry he feels for people who’ve faced consequences after admitting wrongdoing in their actions and statements. He specifically lamented the plights of his friends Louis C.K. and Roseanne Barr, having “gone through what they have, losing everything in a day.”

    Macdonald also said he really doesn’t think Donald Trump’s presidency has been that disastrous, and dismissed the idea that Trump’s election has emboldened racist attitudes throughout the country."

    Somerby's crocodile tears for MacDonald would be more convincing if (1) he spelled his name right, and (2) he were not using his death in furtherance of his own diatribe.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Now there's a cogent criticism. What is wrong with you?

      Delete
  6. "No one reflected on the Holmes County Consolidated School District, a small, badly underfunded rural district in the high-poverty Mississippi Delta region. Also, no one reflected on the life situation of Harvey Ellington, age 17, an admirable senior at Holmes County Central High, the district's only high school."

    Somerby has no idea whatsoever what attendees at that Gala were reflecting upon. AOC has done more than Somerby or anyone else to address economic inequities but Somerby has the gall to declare that he knows what she and other public figures were thinking, because they spent a night out at an important milestone in this pandemic, the reopening of New York City's cultural events!

    What an ass Somerby is today.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "Holmes County Schools is appalling and depressing, but it almost surely isn't typical or rural schools across the breadth of the nation."

    The article cites statistics comparing rural and urban public schools that suggest that even though this particular school is especially bad, rural schools are disadvantaged compared to urban schools. Somerby cannot argue those differences away by pinning them on race.

    And how on earth can Somerby argue that race is unimportant for teachers and activists to focus upon and then claim that it is unfair to generalize the problems of a black rural school to white rural schools, because that example school is so darn black?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're dumb. If you knew anyhing, you would know that schools are funded by the tax base of any particular region in the US. Richer you are, better the schools.

      How does race play a factor in that calculus?

      Maybe you can tell us, but I doubt it.

      Leroy

      Delete
    2. School are funded different ways in different places. For example:

      "K-12 public schools in Colorado are primarily funded through a combination of local property taxes and state revenues. Historically, local property taxes have made up the majority of funding, but after years of automatic, deep and inequitable cuts in property taxes, the bulk of funding comes from the state."

      Property taxes contribute to local funding but there are other sources too. Sounds like YOU didn't know that. Somerby brought up race, not me.

      Delete
  8. "Holmes County lies in the Mississippi Delta, in the heart of our nation's deep poverty. Beyond that, their situation is part of that state's ongoing racial history—the students are almost all black because the white kids are all attending private schools opened in the aftermath of court-ordered school integration."

    I told you so, I told you so. I predicted that Somerby would call this out, when he claimed there was a statistical howler in this report. But this isn't a misuse of stats -- it is a difference of perspective and opinion, and the author of the report, who has stated things clearly, is entitled to hold different opinions than Somerby.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So, an article focusing on the worst of rural schools doesn't count because the students are black, so of course no one cares about them, but that is not typical of other rural schools (some of which serve poor hispanic kids in Texas)? That sounds pretty racist to me.

      Delete
  9. "They publish an article to show us they care, and then the subject is dropped."

    Somerby repeats his own version of a big lie -- that no one cares and the NY Times never talks about rural schools except in a single performative article. But here are a few of the articles focusing on rural schools run by the NY Times in 2021 and 2020, contradicting Somerby's complaint:

    Sept 7, 2021: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/us/politics/rural-schools-funding-cut.html

    11/13/2020: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/us/wifi-dead-zones-schools.html

    3/4/2020: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/politics/rural-schools-funding.html

    1/22/2021: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/us/a-report-card-for-us-schools.html

    8/2/2021: https://www.nytimes.com/1921/08/02/archives/rural-schools-again.html

    7/28/2021: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/us/covid-schools-at-home-learning-study.html (talks about impact of pandemic on rural students)

    9/8/2021: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/us/covid-schools-at-home-learning-study.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, cut and paste error:

      Here is the last one: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/magazine/what-will-school-really-look-like-this-fall.html

      This is a quick and dirty sampling searing google using the terms rural school NY Times. No doubt there are more. It is sufficient to show that Somerby is lying about the NY Times having no interest in rural schools.

      WIFI was very important to schools during 2020 because of the pandemic. Areas without wifi had a great deal of trouble educating kids and that affected rural areas more than urban ones.

      Delete
    2. You're a deranged fucking moron. Go fuck yourself.

      Delete
    3. If you had stayed in school you would have a larger vocabulary now.

      Delete
  10. By Somerby's reasoning, why should we care about rural schools in the US when millions of Afghan children are predicted to die of famine this coming winter?

    ReplyDelete
  11. The "Mississippi Delta" is not the delta of the Mississippi River but an alluvial plain between the Mississippi River and the Yazoo River. The delta of the Mississippi River is almost 500 km south of the "Mississippi Delta".

    Nobody cares. Not liberals, not conservatives. Not Americans, not Russians.

    Our civilization is floating down the river into the Gulf of Mexico, and nobody cares.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I care! And I'll remember this.

      Delete
    2. "Sliding into the sea" would have been more apropos, don't you think old-timer?

      Leroy

      Delete
  12. I love this:

    “Lorde, Tom Ford and Kacey Musgraves Party During Fashion Week
    Despite the Delta variant, the fashion tribe found lots of reason to celebrate”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It would make sense that the anti-maskers would be envious of the states where mask mandates and vaccination now permit resumption of normal life.

      New York is the center of the Fashion industry in the US and Fashion Week is like a big trade fair for New Yorkers. Somerby thinks of it as frivolity but it is mostly commerce.

      Delete
  13. “Malala Yousafzai wasn't there. “

    Does Somerby know anything about Malala?

    “Malala Yousafzai on Thursday praised Hollywood star Angelina Jolie and Amnesty International for writing "Know Your Rights".
    Sharing a picture with the actress, Malala wrote, "I'm proud of my friend Angelina Jolie and Amnesty for writing "Know Your Rights", a book to give children the knowledge they need to stand up to injustice in their own lives and around the world."”

    “Malala Fund believes girls are the best investment in peace, prosperity and our shared future.
    With support from the following partners, we are leading the movement for education and equality around the world.
    Apple
    Bill & Melinda Gates
    Starbucks”

    “As part of British Vogue’s special July 2021 issue digital cover, Malala was also interviewed by CEO of Apple, Tim Cook. In March, Malala had announced a multi-year partnership with Apple TV+ as she launched her brand-new production company, Extracurricular.”

    “besides promoting girls’ education and women’s rights, she also wants to make comedies through her production company.

    Malala Yousafzai, the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, has signed with UTA. [a talent agency]

    I look forward to working with UTA to develop creative ways to amplify the voices of the next generation of girls and young women.””

    She also studied philosophy at Oxford, and loved it there.

    Why would Somerby think Malala wouldn’t necessarily have been at Fashion Week or the Met Gala? She may have been there soliciting donations. She may love fashion and opera. And she most assuredly wouldn’t condemn those who do, because she isn’t an asshole.

    ReplyDelete
  14. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  15. “At that point, the subject is gone till the next special Issue “

    Somerby might just as well be talking about his own blog. A search for “Holmes County” yields exactly 3 hits at this blog, all from the last three days, all based on the Times article.

    He waits until it shows up in the Times, which means it is getting visibility and being discussed, and then complains that no one is discussing it but himself. And he won’t discuss this or any other education-related matter until it shows up again in the Times.

    Casey Parks has reported on Holmes County for the last several years; there is a series of essays about it at the Hechinger Report. Here is an article from a Mississippi publication about Holmes County schools:
    “Holmes County school district dismantled, state takes control”
    https://mississippitoday.org/2021/08/05/holmes-county-school-district-dismantled-state-takes-control/

    Somerby is doing less than the Times here. There is no reason Somerby needs to wait on the Times to discuss these topics. His criticism would be more pointed if he had previously been discussing the plight of Holmes County schools at all, but oddly, he has never discussed this himself, pretending he’s the only one discussing it, when it has been discussed by others for quite a while. The only reason he’s discussing it is because it appeared in the Times. Was he even aware of Holmes County prior to last week?

    ReplyDelete
  16. “that admirable youngster's gruesome school isn't typical of the schools attended by those other nine million kids.”

    “a statistical statement that's almost surely grossly misleading.”

    Parks mentions the Rural School and Community Trust website, which was prominently mentioned early in her report:

    http://www.ruraledu.org/

    They have a lot of statistics, including the 10 “highest-priority” states in rural education. Mississippi is at the top of the list, with 235,000 students at risk, and many more in the other 9 states, including more than half a million in the #2 worst, North Carolina. This is the statement from Parks’ story: “decades of population loss and divestment by state governments has left many rural communities facing “nothing less than an emergency” when it comes to educating children.” It’s right there in the article. It doesn’t say that every rural district is just like Holmes County.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Did Digby write anything about the Sussman indictment? Did Lawyers Guns and Money? Oh - they skipped that story? The indictment describing the agents of the Clinton Campaign coordinating with tech executives to "gather and mine public and non-public Internet data regarding Trump and his associates, with the goal of creating a “narrative” regarding the candidate’s ties to Russia."?

    Didn't make the cut over there, huh? Not important enough?

    That's how highly they think of you.

    And it is how you got your ass played on Russiagate - believing a false narrative, an "inference” and “narrative” regarding Trump" that was concocted by Clinton from the start. Read the indictment - it's the exact playbook on how they lied to you and fed you propaganda they knew was false.

    They lied to you - you, the very people whose interests them claim to have in mind.

    But LGM isn't going to say one. word. about. it.

    That's how highly they think of you.

    Sleep tight!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How would they "concoct" anything if the ties were not there?

      Are you aware that Clinton hasn't run for anything since 2016? Why would they be talking about her?

      Delete
    2. "How would they "concoct" anything if the ties were not there?"

      Read the indictment and they will show you exactly how. They show you the whole playbook from top to bottom. Who gets paid by who, how the information is gathered and disseminated by Clinton operatives even after it's known to be completely false. Read it. Or stay in the dark about how you've been propagandized.

      Delete
    3. I read the indictment.

      There are several tenuous ties here: (1) Tech executive-1 and Internet exec-1 are not tied to the Clinton campaign on this except that all worked with Sussmann on different things at different times; (2) the computers were tied to a Trump mailing campaign, if not to the Trump organization directly, so there was a Trump connection; (3) all Sussmann is accused of doing is failing to divulge his clients names to the FBI so they purportedly didn't know Sussmann's complaint had political ties, even though he worked for the law firm of record for the Clinton campaign.

      Note that opposition research is not illegal. Note also that this does not show that Trump had no Russian ties involving those computers. This looks like retaliation against Clinton's campaign lawyer for trying to find out why Trump's computers were communicating with Russia (which they were doing).

      We are now seeing that the FBI has taken politically motivated actions beyond Comey's attack on Clinton, including failure to investigate Kavanaugh during his hearing. This looks like another revenge-motivated attack on the Democrats, with no substance to it whatsoever.

      I don't see any attempt to propagandize in that indictment, other than your use of it to smear Clinton, who was cheated out of her time in office and should have been our president. Because she was not, hundreds of thousands of people died needlessly of covid, not to mention those who suffered under Trump's insane policies and failure to act in places such as Puerto Rico after the hurricane.

      Delete
    4. From CNN:

      "According to the indictment, Sussmann -- a prominent cybersecurity lawyer whose law firm Perkins Coie worked for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign -- lied at a September 2016 meeting with then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in which Sussmann shared information about possible connections between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank.
      Sussmann told Baker he wasn't working on behalf of any client, yet prosecutors allege he was representing the Clinton campaign as well as a tech industry professional to provide the server data, according to the indictment.
      Sussmann's attorneys have said he would fight the charge in court, and his law firm said in a statement Thursday he had resigned "in order to focus on his legal defense."
      The criminal charge on Thursday quickly became an underwhelming mark in a special counsel investigation that for years sought to unearth failures in the FBI and intelligence community's efforts in the early Russia investigation -- only to land on a single charge against a low-profile outside attorney. The information Sussmann presented to the FBI ultimately became a sidebar that fizzled quickly in the larger Russia investigation, which established that the Trump campaign welcomed Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and resulted in several convictions of six top Trump advisers."

      Delete
    5. Clinton's campaign consulted this firm for help with questions related to her server, according to the indictment itself. There is no other tie stated.

      Delete
    6. Toobin, a legal expert, commented:

      ""I think counselor Jarrett gave a very accurate description of the charges here," Toobin began. "But, if I can just add how weird this case is and how unusual even this case is. First of all, Sussman isn't charged with lying to an FBI agent. He's charged with voluntarily going to a lawyer at the FBI, the top lawyer Jim Baker, and describing what might be a crime and saying you should look into this."

      00:02
      02:57





      "In that conversation, he says, I'm not representing a client generally," he continued. "Specifically I'm just sort of reporting this. That's what's alleged. There are no notes of this conversation; there is -- this is a five-year-old conversation and in Baker's report to his colleague, the colleague writes down, everyone knows that Susman's firm represents the Clinton campaign, so there was no mystery about who Sussman was or where Sussman was coming from. So the idea that this was some lie that changed the FBI and changed their investigation just seems deeply bizarre to me, if this statement was ever said at all because there are no notes."

      He added that this had been filed because the statue of limitations was about to expire and Durham had found nothing else in his investigation of the origins of the Russia probe.

      Delete
    7. You're asking the people to spend a lot of effort, just to pretend this is something they care about.

      Delete
    8. I'm glad Digby and Lawyers, Guns, and Money aren't wasting their time with this shit.

      Delete
  18. Mobile phone is capable of making millions if you are smart enough to invest in Stock/bitcoin through the help of an Expert, Mrs Mary, she will help you on how to invest and make good profits. I invested $5,000 with her help and I was able to make $32,000 within the period of intensive trading. How many hours a day do you spend on your phone and how productive are those hours? Contact her today to gain financial freedom. Email: maryreeltradings@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete