Greene County Democrat

Tag: Government Accountability Office

  • Newswire : Congresswoman Norton fighting for D.C., Black Press in new Congress

    Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent
    @StacyBrownMedi
    Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton is a living legend with more than 50 honorary degrees and a list of accomplishments the size of her beloved District of Columbia. One of the ways that Norton remains updated through her book club.
    “I think the book that I enjoy is ‘On the Basis of Sex,’ about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg,” Norton said. “But, as far as having a favorite movie, television show or song, I don’t have time.” That’s because she’s busy fighting for the rights of her fellow Washingtonians.
    It’s a battle she’s fought for nearly 30 years as the District’s representative in the House of Representatives.
    “Certainly nothing can be more important than making the District a state and I don’t suppose that any member of Congress can do anything that’s more important,” said Norton, 81. “We are going to get a vote on statehood this time and I expect it to be successful in Congress. We’ll just have to see what happens in the Senate,”
    Norton arrived in Congress in 1991. Already a national figure known for her work during the civil rights movement, Norton arrived with a determination that others could easily see.Her hard work helped to break barriers for Washington as she successfully fought for a bill that provided up to $10,000 annually for high school students in D.C. to attend any public U.S. college or university. That bill also provided up to $2,500 per year for D.C. students to attend many private colleges and universities.
    She also gained a unique $5,000 D.C. homebuyer tax credit for residents and helped stabilize
    the city’s population with various incentives during times of economic crisis. Most of that was
    accomplished while Democrats sat in the minority.
    Along with the many battles still ahead, Norton has also tackled the issue of federal agencies
    and how they spend their combined more than $5 billion advertising budget. She said she’s gathered co-sponsors for a bill that will require all agencies in the government to produce their spending reports and detail what they have spent and will spend with black-owned newspapers and media companies.
    “I introduced it the last session, but it’s a new session and [Democrats] are in the majority so there’s a difference,” Norton said, adding that she remains amazed at how black newspapers – particularly in a major city like Washington – have been able to thrive.“You just wouldn’t know what’s really going on if you didn’t have the Black Press of America,” Norton said.
    “That’s why I asked for a Government Accountability Office report to detail what federal agencies spend with the Black Press. My legislation will make the government lead by example in advertising with the Black Press and make them more conscious of their obligations.“That’s why I push it the way I am pushing it now,” she said.
    For Norton, it all syncs with a motto she adopted from the Declaration of Independence “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal,” Norton said, quoting that famous document. What I love is the saying, ‘self-evident.’ Take a moment and think about that saying. I do,” she said.

  • GAO report: Segregation increasing at some U. S. schools

    By Lauren Victoria Burke (NNPA News Wire
    Contributor)

    A recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the segregation of African American and Hispanic students nationwide is getting worse.
    In particular, a notable increase in segregation among K-12 public schools was pointed out in the study. The study also found that charter schools may often take students from public schools and enroll them into less diverse schools. The study also found that Hispanic students were “triple segregated” by economics, race and language barriers. The report was released on the 62nd anniversary of the landmark decision in the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which declared that segregated schools were unconstitutional.
    On May 16, a judge in Cleveland, Miss., found that schools in the town were just as segregated as they were a half-century ago. “The delay in desegregation has deprived generations of students of the constitutionally guaranteed right of an integrated education,” U.S. District Judge Debra Brown wrote.
    At a press conference on Capitol Hill, Congressional Black Caucus Chairman G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), House Education and Workforce ranking Democrat Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), and House Judiciary ranking member Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) along with Reps. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) spoke on the issue.
    Reps. Conyers, Butterfield and Scott will author a bill that would require schools to “designate at least one employee” to work on complying with diversity requirements. “The percentage of schools where 75 percent of students are both low-income and Hispanic or African-American has increased from 9 percent in 2001 to 16 percent in 2014,” Rep. Conyers said.
    The report also found that schools that were segregated offered fewer courses in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) related fields and college preparatory classes. “Segregation in public K-12 schools isn’t getting better. It’s getting worse, and getting worse quickly,” Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia said.
    Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted that, “There are 6,727 highly-segregated schools in our nation, where one percent or less of the school population is white. #BrownVBoard.”
    In a statement about the report, National Urban League President Marc Morial said that the findings in GAO report confirm “that the promise of Brown remains a promise that has gone largely unfulfilled.” Morial continued: “In too many communities, students of color are now more segregated with less access to equitable educational opportunities than in decades prior.”
    NAACP Legal Defense Fund Director Sherrilyn Ifill said that the report shines a light on worsening education inequities that that cannot be divorced from our nation’s legacy of racial discrimination that has perpetuated racial and socioeconomic isolation. Ifill said: “It is our imperative on the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education to ask, ‘How will we act to address current disparities like resource inequities and discriminatory discipline practices?’”
    Lauren Victoria Burke is a political analyst who speaks on politics and African American leadership. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke.