BEWARE...SOME DAYS ARE NOT VERY PRETTY. I GET CRABBY LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE DO. AND I DO SPEAK MY MIND.
DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO TRUE, REAL, EVERYDAY FEELINGS LIKE MINE.(But I think you would enjoy it)
DON'T FORGET...FREEDOM OF SPEECH !
(Parents don't have time to raise their own kids, they are having "mommy" or relative or friend watch the kid while they are out Clubing or hooking up. Lets be REAL about the reason)
Ready for kindergarten? Florida's new test found many youngsters were not
The percentage of Florida youngsters deemed
ready for kindergarten plummeted last year, thanks to a new test that
tripped up many 5-year-olds.
About 54 percent of the
students who started kindergarten in public schools in August 2017 were
ready for school, according to the test results recently released by the
Florida Department of Education.
Four years earlier, 72 percent of new kindergartners were ready, based on another test used to determine literacy skills.
The
low passing rate on the new test upset early-childhood educators across
Central Florida and the state. They doubt its accuracy. They fear
students struggled in part because it was an online test and they were
unfamiliar with working on a computer with a mouse. And they are angry
because their state-funded pre-kindergarten programs are judged on how
former students did on the new kindergarten-readiness test.
“I was shocked. I was beyond shocked,” said Cindy Seda, who owns A Tot’s World III in Winter Springs.
“We
have always been very, very proud of our quality,” said Seda, whose
Seminole County center has had the same pre-K teacher for 21 years. “I
was never concerned the children leaving our center were ready for
kindergarten.”
But the percentage of her former students who
passed the kindergarten test was 60 percent this past year — down from
nearly 90 percent in prior years
Seda’s center just met Florida’s
new pre-K requirements, which were adopted this spring and require a 60
percent “readiness rate.”
Across Florida, however, 43 percent of the more than
6,000 schools and daycare centers that offer Florida Voluntary
Pre-Kindergarten Program, or VPK,, failed to meet the new standard. This
year, the state imposed no consequences on pre-k providers whose
students fell short on the new test, but in coming years they could face
probation and then removal from the state program.
Florida’s
pre-K program is publicly funded but mostly contracted out to private
preschools and childcare centers, though some public schools take part,
too. The program is free to all 4-year-olds, with more than 163,000
students enrolled this past year.
Florida had not given a literacy
test to new kindergarten students since 2013 because of problems with
its previous exam, which was also given on computer. The state also
didn’t rate its pre-K providers during those four years.
It gave
its new kindergarten test — Star Early Literacy — for the first time in
August. In late May, it published the rates on a website parents can use
to search for pre-K programs.
“The public will judge you on that, whether it is fair or not,” Seda said.
The
state’s Office of Early Learning, which oversees the pre-K program,
called the new test a “starting point from which we can set higher
expectations” and said lower scores with a new test are not surprising.
It noted that youngsters who took part in the state pre-K program had a
64 percent passing rate — about 10 percentage points better than that of
all new kindergartners.
The state’s education department also
defended the 27-question test, saying it is meant for young children and
does not require them to have prior computer skills, assessing their
ability to navigate through the questions before allowing them to begin.
But many remain skeptical, questioning why the results this year would be so much worse than from several years ago.
“I
keep asking the question, What does it mean to be ready for school?”
said Karen Willis, chief executive officer of the Early Learning
Coalition of Orange County, one of the local groups that helps oversee
state-funded pre-K programs. “That shouldn’t waver from test to test.”
An
online petition started by a preschool principal in Broward County asks
Gov. Rick Scott to remove the new results from the state website. “Our
programs and schools do prepare children for kindergarten and the world
JUST not your assessment,” reads the petition on change.org that has 427
signatures.
“The readiness rate was really not done fairly this
year,” agreed Carol Foo, executive director of Conway Learning Center in
Orange County.
Her school had an 87 percent readiness rate four years ago. It fell to 63 percent this year.
Like
many preschools, the Conway center does not have children spend time
working at a computer and manipulating a mouse. Young students who do
use technology, she and others said, are more familiar with tablets and
smartphones, which they can touch and swipe.
The Orange County
school district, which offers the state’s pre-K program at about 80
elementary schools, was upset by the low scores this year, too, said Meg
Bowen, director of elementary curriculum and instruction.
State
law requires the readiness test to be given within the first 30 days of
school, and many kindergarten teachers administer it almost as soon as
classes start. In the coming year, Bowen said, they’ll first spend time
making sure their new students are comfortable working with a computer
and a mouse. That will help administrators see if the problem was the
technology — or the test itself.
Since its inception in 2005,
educators have questioned the Florida law that required pre-K providers
to be judged on how their graduates do on a kindergarten readiness test.
They
argue such a system doesn’t take into account what skills children had
when they started pre-K, making it hard to gauge whether preschools
helped their students. They don’t like that it is given at the start
kindergarten, months after pre-K programs end, so some student skills
are lost over the summer. Finally, they note that Florida’s academic
standards for pre-K describe play-based learning, where students gain
early reading and math skills but also grow socially, express their
creativity and explore.
The readiness test, however, focuses solely on literacy skills.
“What
we taught them is not being captured,” said Lesha Buchbinder, executive
director of the Early Learning Coalition of Lake County.
Pictured,
San Antonio, Texas, man, Kino Jimenez who assaulted Whataburger teen,
Hunter Richard on account of him wearing a Make America Great Again
(MAGA) hat. Image via social media.
Kino
Jimenez a San Antonio man is fired from his bartending job after video
shows him assaulting a teen wearing a Make America Great Again hat at a
local Whataburger joint.
Going viral is video of an incident which took place at San Antonio, Texas fast food outlet, Whataburger– which saw a teen being verbally attacked and assaulted on account of him wearing the infamous President Trump campaign hat, Make America Great Again (MAGA).
In the video (see below), a man is seen throwing a drinkat
a 16 year old teen wearing the red MAGA cap’s face, after having
verbally accosted him. From there the individual, since identified as 30
year old man, Kino Ahuitzotl Jimenez by social media
users, grabs the MAGA wearing boy’s hair before walking out of the fast
food outlet with the hat, mouthing off, ‘this is gonna go great in my fucking fireplace, bixch’.
Told the violated teen, Hunter Richard via news4santonio, ‘I
support my President and if you don’t let’s have a conversation about
it instead of ripping my hat off. I just think a conversation about
politics is more productive for the entire whole rather than taking my
hat and yelling subjective words to me’.
Which is a backhand way of saying, if
society wants to propagate the notion that it lives in a civil
democratic society (if only…) then it ought to also be prepared to
accept views, sensibilities and actions that it might also disagree
with, even be offended by.
According to the victim, the incident happened while the 16 year old teen was with friends at the fast food outlet off Nacogdoches and Thousand Oaks, Tuesday night when he was suddenly approached by Kino Jimenez. Howard insisted the attack was unprovoked.
‘I didn’t think it was going to
generate the amount like what people are doing, I was looking at the
comments by some people and “ they are like this is uncalled for” and
other people are like mixed opinions but I didn’t think it would blow up
to what it is now,’ the roughed up boy said.
But it gets better.
Pictured, Kino JimenezNo love lost for Kino Jimenez….
Kino Jimenez employer responds to viral video:
Following the cellphone video going viral, and the assaulter being
identified as Kino Jimenez, a local San Antonio bartender, the man’s
employer, Rumble San Antonio, last night posteda Facebook post telling of the man being fired.
Wrote Rumble: ‘It came to our attention earlier this evening that
a part-time employee was captured on cell phone video assaulting
another person at a local eatery. The assault took place, presumably,
because this employee did not agree with the other individuals political
stance.’ ‘We have since terminated this employee, as his actions go against everything that this establishment stands for.’ ‘Rumble has, and always will be, a bar that is as inclusive as
any establishment could possibly be. THIS BAR IS A SAFE SPACE FOR
EVERYONE! No matter your race, creed, ethnicity, sexual identity, and
political stance, you are welcomed here!’ ‘We do not condone the actions or behavior that were displayed in the cell phone video, and we never will.’ ‘If you have any questions or concerns please message us privately. We support and appreciate your business.’
But it may not just end there, with news of a police report having been filed….
Principal refuses to allow first black valedictorian to give speech, so Rochester mayor intervenes
Jaissaan Lovett says he was denied a chance to give
his speech as his high school's first black valedictorian, so his city's
mayor invited him to give it at City Hall.
Youtube/City of Rochester, N.Y. Mayor's Office
When
Jaissaan Lovett graduated last month as his high school's first black
valedictorian, he prepared a speech — but he says his principal wouldn't
let him give it. So someone else stepped in who wanted to hear what he
had to say: the mayor of Rochester, New York, Lovely Warren. Not only
that, she gave him a much wider audience for his message.
Lovett
said he was never asked to give a graduation speech, though past
valedictorians had gotten to, according to the newspaper. When he asked
to speak anyway, he said the principal, Joseph Munno, said no.
"He
didn't want to see the speech or what it said, nothing," Lovett told
the Democrat and Chronicle. "He just said no." The paper said Munno
declined to comment.
Mayor Warren invited Lovett, who works in her
office as an intern, to deliver the speech at City Hall. She then
posted it on her YouTube channel and Facebook page.
Jaisaan Lovett's Valedictorian Speech by
City of Rochester, NY .Mayor's Office on
YouTube"Unfortunately, Jaisaan's school did not
allow him to give his valedictorian speech," Warren said in the video.
"For some reason, his school – in a country where freedom of speech is a
constitution right, and the city of Frederick Douglass – turned his
moment of triumph into a time of sorrow and pain.
"Jaisaan will
never graduate from high school again. He will never get that moment
back. This is not the time to punish a child because you may not like
what he has to say."
Lovett had his own message for his principal, too.
"I'm
here as the UPrep 2018 valedictorian to tell you that you couldn't
break me. I'm still here, and I'm still here strong," Lovett said in the
video. "And after all these years, all this anger I've had toward you
and UPrep as a whole, I realized I had to let that go in order to better
myself."
The school's board of trustees responded to the
controversy in a Facebook post, saying they're "aware of the concern"
and will be "reviewing the circumstances regarding what happened." They
wished Lovett "much success as he continues his education at Clark
Atlanta University, which he will attend on full scholarship, according
to the Democrat and Chronicle.
UPrep, an all-male school serving grades 7-12, is one of
Rochester's best regarded charter schools, according to the Democrat and
Chronicle, with annual graduation rates well above 90 percent.
On her Netflix show The Break this week, Wolf, 33, said she agreed with Rep. Maxine Waters’ recent
suggestion that Trump officials should be publicly confronted. And the
comedian shared some very specific ideas for critics who may come
face-to-face with President Trump‘s elder daughter and adviser.
“You can’t just casually harass these people, you have to insult them
specifically,” Wolf said. “ ‘You’re a c–t’ doesn’t hurt them. It’s on
their vision board.”
Pretending to address Ivanka, 36, Wolf said: “Is your nickname
herpes? Because you’re not necessarily the most dangerous person in the
administration but you’re very unpleasant, totally incurable and you
always show up when we’re about to get f–ked.”
Wolf also compared Ivanka to the birth control pill Yaz, saying, “At
first it seemed like it’d be really cool and helpful, but you need to be
immediately recalled.”
The comedian then suggested calling Ivanka “Tiffany,” the name of her younger and less publicly visible half-sister.
“If you see Ivanka on the street, first call her Tiffany. This will
devastate her,” Wolf said. “Then, talk to her in terms she will
understand. Say, ‘Ivanka, you’re like vaginal mesh. You were supposed to
support women, but now you have blood all over you and you’re the
center of a thousand lawsuits.’ ”
In an article on Monday, Fox News condemned Wolf’s comments as a “vulgar attack” against the first daughter.
Some people on Twitter agreed that Wolf’s remarks were out of line, while others applauded the comedian for “not backing down.
Wolf’s comments come amid an internal debate among Democrats about
how aggressively to confront the president and members of his
administration.
After White House press secretary Sarah Sanders was recently asked to leave
the Lexington, Virginia, restaurant the Red Hen because she works for
Trump, Rep. Waters urged attendees at a rally to keep “push[ing] back”
against members of the Trump administration with similar confrontations.
“If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a
department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a
crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they’re not welcome
anymore, anywhere,” she said.
Some Democrats reacted by seeking to distance themselves from Waters’
remarks, while Trump and other conservatives strongly condemned her
comments and made calls for “civility.” But those calls were quickly
criticized as hypocritical in light of the president’s own habit of
verbally attacking his enemies.
Wolf faced some backlash in April after she mocked Sanders at the
White House Correspondents’ dinner, saying “she burns facts, and then
she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye.” New York Times
White House correspondent Maggie Haberman, MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski
and others faulted Wolf for what they perceived to be cracks about
Sanders’ appearance.
But Wolf refused to apologize, and insisted her remarks had nothing to do with Sanders’ looks.
“All these jokes were about her despicable behavior,” Wolf said at the time.
In 1979, the legendary writer James Baldwin began work on a manuscript examining his relationships with Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and
Martin Luther King Jr. He never finished it. In 2017, filmmaker Raoul
Peck used Baldwin’s words as the foundation for his riveting masterpiece
“I Am Not Your Negro.”
Peck’s
entire film is captivating, but one segment in particular ceaselessly
haunts me. The meditative voice of narrator Samuel L. Jackson
deliberately carries us through one of Baldwin’s most damning
reflections on a good percentage of white Americans, “I’m terrified at
the moral apathy – the death of the heart which is happening in my
country. These people have deluded themselves for so long that they
really don’t think I’m human. I base this on their conduct, not on what
they say. And this means that they have become, in themselves, moral
monsters.”
As
he did throughout his life, Baldwin raises difficult but necessary
questions with which we must wrestle. Why are so many white Americans so
brutally mean and inhumane? Why do so many others feel comfortable
justifying or excusing it? Why do others still, who claim “not to think
that way,” find it acceptable to say little and do even less? Make no
mistake, there are certainly whites who stand in the tradition of
William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown and others. However, reasonable
people must admit they are the exceptions, not the rules.
To
be sure, no matter how sensibly and dispassionately one approaches the
subject, many whites immediately paint them as angry black people,
[reverse] racists, or maniacs. Despite that, while far too many cower
and equivocate, other brave Americans continue to raise the issue in the
public sphere. A small sample of important work over the last few years
includes Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “The First White President” in the Atlantic,
Charles Blow’s “The Lowest White Man” in the New York Times, Rose Marie
Berger’s rumination “Why are white people so mean?” and Michael
Harriot’s recent sledgehammer piece, “White people are cowards” in The
Root.
All
of these writers along with stalwart academics like Duke University’s
William “Sandy” Darrity, Emory University’s Carol Anderson and others
contextualize the subject and push back against the emerging narrative
that white American mean-spiritedness appeared and apexed with the
ascension of Donald Trump.
That is a lie. The truth is none of this is new. Its genesis is
actually rooted in times long before America’s current anti-black and
brown immigrant president’s family immigrated to the country.
Voter
fraud is a canard. Voter suppression, however, is real and is not new.
It has been around since the limiting of the franchise to
property-holding white men at the beginning of the country’s political
story. Forcing the extension of it to others has always been a
struggle.
Traumatizing families and children of
color is not new. White Americans enslaved blacks, raped black women,
demonized black men, ripped black children from their parents, sold them
all when profitable, visited any number of other inexcusable atrocities
upon them ... and justified it all. Those who resisted were threatened,
punished or killed. Once slavery ended, whites continued to glorify
slavery and the Confederacy with flags, statues, monuments and political
candidates who reaffirmed all the nastiness and death. They still do.
The
Supreme Court’s support of such indecency is not new. Remember Dred
Scott and many other legal blows to decency and democracy.
That
only scratches the surface. Native American genocide, black codes,
grandfather clauses, poll taxes, intimidation, disproportionate
incarceration, convict leasing, Jim Crow, Japanese American internment,
police murder of black men, women and children often without
consequence. None of it is new. It is the continuation of a
long-standing pattern and, as Congresswoman Maxine Waters advised,
resistance needs to be fomented.
Medgar Evers was
slain in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, and Martin Luther King in 1968. James
Baldwin passed in 1987. None of them ever experienced Donald Trump, but
all witnessed omnipresent American white supremacy and meanness. Maybe
Baldwin was right when he said we are dealing with “moral monsters.” It
is hard to say at this point. If that is the case, we need to be clear
about it. Such an acknowledgment would lower the expectation that many
of our white brothers and sisters will be inclined to make decisions
based on human decency rather than economic and political calculations
or privilege maintenance. At least that honesty would eradicate the lies
and pretense.
If
America continues on this path (and there is no historical or
contemporary evidence that it will not), maybe Emma Lazarus’ words
famously associated with the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired,
your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” should be
replaced with a paraphrasing of Dante, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter
here ... unless ye be white.”
Wolf also compared Ivanka to the birth control pill Yaz, saying, “At
first it seemed like it’d be really cool and helpful, but you need to be
immediately recalled.”
