Pastor Kyev Tatum's Blog

Tatum Makes It Official

2011-12-19T14:38:00.000-08:00

Rev. Kyev Tatum Makes It Official
"We are running to fight and save the Voting Rights Act."
by Betty Brink

FORT WORTH, TEXAS - Rev. Kyev Tatum, minister, head of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and co-founder of the Black, Brown and Tan Coalition, will officially kick off his campaign to be the Democratic nominee for the newly formed 33rdCongressional District, at 7 pm tonight at the Dock Book Shop, 6637 Meadowbrook Drive in east Fort Worth.

Calling his campaign the “Fight’in 33rd,” Tatum will be up against Fort Worth council member Kathleen Hicks and state representative Marc Veasey, the only announced Democratic candidates for the seat to date. However, there are rumblings that North Side council member Sal Espino is interested as well as lawyer and former county Democratic chair Art Brender. This should be an exciting race.

Stay tuned.

For more information on the campaign and the Fight'In 33rd movement contact Rev. Tatum at 817-966-7625 or kyevtatum@yahoo.com

Support Rev. Kyev Tatum for US Congress District 33

2011-12-05T21:50:00.000-08:00

Hello Friends:

For those of you who may not know, as a result of the 2010 Census a new district, Texas’ 33rd Congressional District, has been created and will be seated for the 113th United States Congress.

The 33rd Congressional District includes parts of southern and eastern Tarrant County, including parts of Fort Worth and Arlington. I have lived in, and have extensive knowledge of the populations and needs associated with the constituents associated with these areas. Therefore, it is with great pride and enthusiasm that I am announcing my desire to represent the citizens of Texas’ 33rd Congressional District and have decided to run in the 2012 Democrat primary elections on March 6, 2012. My campaign, with your help, will be OUR campaign. As it stands today, my primary desire is to focus on education; specifically urban public education. We are losing too many children under the current system and there is a need for comprehensive assessment and potentially for wholesale reform, which will have a tremendous impact not only on the youth of this district, but on their families and surrounding communities as well. Currently, I am in the process of establishing the Coalition of Americans Unified to Strengthen Education (CAUSE) to help move our education agenda through this campaign and into Congress. I need your help and assistance!

CAUSE is a group of Americans; Independents, Democrats, Republicans, Conservatives and Liberals who are committed to improving educational outcomes of all students, but especially those students who show a record of limited academic success and access. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., summed it best: It seems to me that education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals. We must remember that intelligence is not enough, intelligence plus character--that is the goal of true education.

My good friend, an educator at Texas State University in San Marcos, Vincent Morton likes to say, "Combine street sense, with intelligence and a Christian foundation and you just might have a good thang!"

As another preacher once said, our history demands it, our time requires it, our Children deserve it and God is still watching. I would greatly appreciate your prayers and support as I move forward individually, and as we move forward collaboratively, in effort to win this congressional seat and put the citizens of Texas' 33rd Congressional District's needs in the forefront where they should be.

Sincerely,
Rev. Kyev P. Tatum, Sr.
Candidate, US Congress TX District 33

Rev. Tatum Appointed To Serve on Texas Interagency Council

2011-10-31T08:12:00.000-07:00

AUSTIN, TEXAS - The Reverend Kyev Tatum, president of the Fort Worth Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was recently appointed to serve on the new Texas Health and Human Service Commission Interagency Council for Addressing Disproportionality and Disparities in Texas.

"This is an amazing honor and a unique opportunity for us to examine the current data and facts and make positive recommendations to improve public policies and program practices. Make no doubt about, our mission is to undo racism in Texas state agencies," says Rev. Tatum.

The Interagency Council will work directly with the staff at the Center for the Elimination of Disproportionality and Disparities (http://www.hhs.state.tx.us/oehd/index.shtml).

Sponsored by State Senator Royce West and State Representative Dawnna Dukes, SB 501 (http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/82R/analysis/html/SB00501S.htm) mandates the Interagency Council identify and make recommendations addressing issues of disproportionality in state services systems. The new Interagency Council for Addressing Disproportionality will meet quarterly, as required by statute, and will include representatives from the:

Health and Human Services Agencies,
Texas Education Agency
Texas Youth Commission
Texas Juvenile Probation Commission
Attorney General’s Office
Criminal Justice Division of the Governor's Office
Office of Court Administration of the Texas Judicial System
Permanent Judicial Commission for Children, Youth and Families

The Interagency Council is also required to include external stakeholders including a former foster care youth, and representatives from community and faith-based organizations and the medical community, appointed by the Health and Human Services Commission Executive Commissioner. Born to a single mother of ten in abject poverty, Rev. Tatum knows firsthand he negative impact of racism and discrimination on impoverished children.

“It’s devastating growing up African-American in poverty,” Rev. Tatum said. "We have known the cause of inequality for many years and now we have a chance to shape the future of Texas for the better for years to come, says Rev. Tatum who is a graduate of Fort Worth Trimble Tech High School and the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. For more information on the Interagency Council for Addressing Disproportionality, contact the Center for the Elimination of Disproportionality and Disparities at the Health and Human Services Commission at 512-487-3396.

41 Tarrant County area schools rated "unacceptable"

2011-08-05T05:38:00.000-07:00

By EVA-MARIE AYALA, JESSAMY BROWN AND SHIRLEY JINKINS
eayala@star-telegram.com, jessamybrown@star-telegram.com, syjinkins@star-telegram
http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/07/29/3255870/41-tarrant-county-schools-rated.html

Forty-one Tarrant County area campuses are now deemed "academically unacceptable," according to Texas Education Agency accountability ratings announced today.

The Fort Worth school district, while rated acceptable as a whole, had 22 campuses rated academically unacceptable, up from five last year.

The four-tiered rating system is based largely on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills tests with schools receiving an exemplary, recognized, academically acceptable or academically unacceptable rating. Other factors include completion and dropout rates.

Fort Worth's interim superintendent Walter Dansby acknowledged that the high number of unacceptable schools in the district could affect student and staff morale, but he stressed that changes are coming to the district to help address various needs.
"There's no doubt in my mind that we can reach our goals," Dansby said. "This is a temporary setback for the district, yes. But there are much brighter days ahead."
While some work to address struggling schools began under former superintendent Melody Johnson, who resigned in May, Dansby said he is working on various efforts as well.

For example, half the unacceptable schools are middle school campuses. Dansby said he is reorganizing positions so that middle schools will have their own central administrator so that individual campus needs can be better addressed. The current system has one administrator for both high schools and middle schools
Fort Worth wasn't the only school district to see a drop in its ratings.

School districts that dropped from recognized to academically acceptable include: Arlington, Burleson, Castleberry, Eagle-Mountain Saginaw, Everman, Keller and Mansfield.

All four Keller school district high schools dropped ratings, with Keller High losing its exemplary status to recognized. Central, Fossil Ridge and Timber Creek high schools all dropped from recognized to academically acceptable.
The Arlington school district has five campuses rated academically unacceptable, including Sam Houston and Lamar High schools.

Crowley schools, meanwhile, pulled their district rating up from academically unacceptable to academically acceptable. While the district had five academically unacceptable campuses, four schools also earned recognized ratings.

The Southlake-based Carroll school district, and all 11 campuses, received the top rating of exemplary.

This year, state education commissioner Robert Scott eliminated the Texas Projection Measure, a provision that was applied to schools based on how well students were expected to do in the future.

Critics, including some lawmakers, had complained that the TPM did not give credit based on actual student gains demonstrated. But supporters said that the measure was a good indicator of progress.

Last year, TPM helped boost ratings at 225 Tarrant County area schools. In Fort Worth, it bumped up ratings at 51 schools, 18 of which would have been unacceptable without it.

Crowley posted a district academically acceptable rating, but without the TPM, five schools got the academically unacceptable rating. and none were rated exemplary.
It’s a story of what might have been, according to Superintendent Dan Powell, who said the district would have received its first recognized rating since the 2002-03 school year if the TPM hadn't been pulled.

"Our kick was already in the air, and they changed the goalposts," Powell said at Thursday's school board meeting.

Four elementary schools were recognized including Bess Race, Deer Creek, Sycamore and Oakmont. Twelve campuses were rated academically acceptable. The five schools that received the state's lowest rating were Parkway and Poynter elementary schools, both Crowley and North Crowley Ninth Grade campuses, and Crowley Middle School.
This year’s campus and school district ratings are particularly important because they will be in place for two years instead of one, as the state transitions to a new program that includes end-of-course standardized testing.

Additionally, passing standards increased in math and science this year making it more difficult for some schools to hit higher ratings while more special education tests counted toward accountability as well. To meet the highest two ratings of recognized and exemplary, more students also had to perform at the higher commendable levels.

However, schools can still receive a bump in ratings from two other provisions, one giving credit for making enough improvement in an area and another that allows schools essentially to be graded on a curve and have exceptions in accountability.

“OUR BLACK CHILDREN ARE DYING AND NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE”

2011-08-05T05:34:00.000-07:00

The failure of African-American students is a state of emergency and we must demand better treatment from our public schools,” Rev. Kyev P. Tatum, president of the SCLC

12 out of 15 Tarrant County school districts fall short of federal accountability standards

http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/08/04/3270740/12-tarrant-county-school-districts.html

Posted Thursday, Aug. 04, 2011
BY EVA-MARIE AYALA
eayala@star-telegram.com

A dozen Tarrant County school districts failed to meet federal accountability standards, including Fort Worth, which faces increased sanctions because of multiple years of missing the benchmark, according to data released by the state Thursday.

The other districts that failed to make adequate yearly progress for 2010-11 are Arlington, Azle, Birdville, Burleson, Crowley, Eagle Mountain-Saginaw, Everman, Kennedale, Lake Worth, Mansfield and White Settlement.
Across Tarrant County, 181 schools missed the federal benchmark, up from 30 the year before.

Aledo, Carroll and Hurst-Euless-Bedford were the only Tarrant County districts in which all schools met the accountability standards.

Statewide, 605 districts, or nearly half, fell short, as did 2,233 schools, or 26 percent.

The federal standards are based largely on passing and participation rates on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills and on attendance and graduation rates.
Educators say it was more difficult for schools to make adequate progress this year because a provision that critics said inflated passing rates on the TAKS was eliminated, more special-education students were tested, and passing standards were raised in math and reading.

Schools that receive Title I federal funding and fail to make adequate progress are subject to a number of sanctions and risk losing federal dollars if improvement is not seen.

The progress benchmarks are part of the federal No Child Left Behind law, which aims to have 100 percent of students proficient in math and reading by 2014.
Arlington area

In the Arlington district, 38 schools -- more than half -- did not make adequate progress, including all of its high schools. Only one school failed to meet federal standards the year before. The district missed as a whole because of low passing rates for African-American and special-education students in math and low passing rates for special-education and limited-English students in reading.
Officials said they were surprised that so many schools came up short.

"If you go by the standard, by 2014 -- two years from now -- 100 percent of the kids are expected to pass the test 100 percent of the time," school board President Peter Baron said. "That's pretty unrealistic.

"We're not saying we're not going to pay attention to it, because we certainly are."
Superintendent Jerry McCullough said he sees the missed marks as more of a problem with the system and not with Arlington schools.

"Last year we had one school, and this year we had 38," McCullough said. "So something's wrong there."

For the first time, the Mansfield district did not meet federal accountability standards. That was due to special-education students' TAKS scores in math and reading. Eleven schools fell short of standards, including the four traditional high schools -- Mansfield, Summit, Timberview and Legacy -- which did not have enough students pass the math tests.

"We're still trending up. We're just not where we want to be," spokesman Richie Escovedo said.

Fort Worth area

The Fort Worth district is facing Stage 2 sanctions because it has missed the mark three of the last four years. Of its 124 schools, 76 did not make adequate progress, including 10 high schools, 17 middle schools and 45 elementaries. The year before, 20schools missed the mark.

The district failed to make adequate progress because of low passing rates for African-American, economically disadvantaged and special-education students on reading and math tests. In addition, not enough limited-English students passed in reading.

"It's a high standard and obviously every population needs to meet that, but our goal as a system is to get kids learning," said Michael Sorum, the district's chief academic officer. "We had some nice gains and some declines, but overall the picture was one of improvement in the district this year. We try not to let ratings define us."

The Stage 2 designation means that the district must inform parents about the status and why it did not make adequate progress, as well as implement various improvement plans, such as addressing teaching and learning needs, said DeEtta Culbertson, a Texas Education Agency spokeswoman.

Interim Superintendent Walter Dansby, who took office in June, recently said improvement efforts include appointing two directors of middle schools to focus on those campuses' individual learning needs. Some schools have new principals this year. The district is also partnering with Harvard and Vanderbilt universities to help assess what's working and what's not.

Seven district schools reached Stage 5 sanctions for missing federal standards for six years or more: Dunbar, Eastern Hills, Polytechnic and O.D. Wyatt high schools and Daggett, Handley and Meadowbrook middle schools.

The Everman district fell under Stage 1 sanctions because of low passing rates in reading and math for special-education students and low passing rates in math for African-American students.

"The system is set up to collapse under its own weight by 2014," Superintendent Jeri Pfeifer said.

Crowley failed to make adequate progress as a district, as did 12 of its 21 schools, including Crowley High.

"We strive for success for every student, but we realize not every child will meet these federally mandated standards in the required timeline," Superintendent Dan Powell said in a news release. Many principals were reassigned this year to improve test scores.

Northeast Tarrant

The Birdville school district fell under Stage 1 sanctions for the second consecutive year because it missed the mark two years in a row as 14 of 31 schools failed to make adequate progress, including all three high schools -- Birdville, Haltom and Richland.

The district missed the federal benchmark because of low passing rates for special-education students in reading and math and for limited-English students in reading. The year before, the district missed the standard because of low special-education math scores.

This school year, a new math consultant and a new math and science instructional coach will work with high school teachers to evaluate data from individual students, design lessons and refine the curriculum.

Adequate progress "is no indicator of how well we are educating our students," school board President Richard Davis said. "By looking at everybody else you can see the standards that they're using aren't good indicators."

Three Grapevine-Colleyville district schools missed progress standards: Grapevine High, Cross Timbers Middle and Bridges Accelerated Learning Center.

The district is implementing various efforts such as a college-prep program and accelerated-learning plans in middle and high schools to help struggling students get back on track, spokeswoman Megan Overman said.

Three elementary schools in the Keller district failed to make adequate progress. Basswood, Heritage and North Riverside did so because of low passing rates for economically disadvantaged students in math. North Riverside also had low reading passing rates for Hispanics.

Staff writers Jessamy Brown, Robert Cadwallader, Sandra Engelland, Shirley Jinkins and Amanda Rogers contributed to this report, which includes material from The Associated Press.
Eva-Marie Ayala, 817-390-7700

Taser Gets Zapped for 10 Millions

2011-08-04T18:12:00.000-07:00

FORT WORTH, TEXAS - The Arizona company that makes Tasers, the allegedly “less-lethal” weapons that have killed hundreds of people around the world, has lost another lawsuit. This time a North Carolina jury found Taser International responsible for the death of a 17-year-old store clerk who was hit with the weapon’s 50,000 volts of electricity because he pushed groceries off a counter and threw an umbrella.

In the July 19 verdict, Taser International was ordered to pay $10 million in damages to the family of Darryl Turner. A company spokesman said the verdict will be appealed.

Burton: “I read that press release and almost threw up.” Courtesy Vern Evans
News of the jury decision drew cheers from locals who have fought for years to stop the overuse of the stun guns by police in Fort Worth, where at least five people died after been tasered since 2005.

“It’s not a question of whether or not Tasers will finally be banned, but how much Taser International is going to have to pay for the funerals those weapons cost,” said Rev. Kyev Tatum, president of the Fort Worth chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

“In truth, it was a tremendous victory, a nail in the coffin of the use of Tasers,” he said. “And eventually, as those awards mount up against the company, against police departments, and against cities, they’ll be forced out of business.”
Marcus Hardin, whose grandson survived a 40-second tasering three years ago, agreed with Tatum’s assessment. “I give them [Taser International] five years,” he said. “Then they’re done.”

Hardin, with Tatum and Pastor Tom Franklin, founded the Taser Memorial at the New Mount Cavalry Baptist Church in Highland Hills. He said the North Carolina verdict “was a long time coming. Unfortunately, the number of people who have died after being shot with a Taser keeps going up. We’re up to 674 crosses at the memorial — and each represents someone who was tortured to death by a Taser.”
Mark Haney, a Fort Worth civil rights attorney who has worked on Taser cases for years, also praised the Turner verdict. “This adverse judgment is simply further evidence that Taser rushed these products to market without fully appreciating the risks associated with them,” he said.

The victory marked only the second loss Taser International has sustained in a courtroom — but most of the cases filed against the company don’t make it to court. Of the almost 130 lawsuits known to have been filed against the company, all but four were settled out of court. In the four that were decided by juries, Taser International has won two and lost two.

Company spokesmen regularly refer to the out-of-court settlements as though they were all wins for Taser.

John Burton, the California attorney who represented plaintiffs in both of the cases in which Taser went to court and lost, scoffed at that idea.

“One of the cases they put in their win column was a case I handled where they settled for $2.8 million before it came to trial,” he said. “So when they say they’ve won 127 cases, that just means they’ve settled out of court most of the time.”

In the North Carolina case, Turner, known generally as a good worker and excellent student, was working at the Food Lion grocery store in North Charlotte on March 20, 2008, when he was approached by an assistant manager who accused him of eating a microwaved sandwich he hadn’t paid for. Turner admitted the petty theft and was sent home for the day. But he returned after his shift was up, demanding to see the assistant manager, who refused to speak with him.

According to Burton, the young man “then pushed some product” from a counter and “threw an umbrella,” at which point a policeman, who had been called to remove Turner from the store, appeared in the doorway and fired his Taser into Turner’s chest at close range twice, the first time for 37 seconds.

The officer, Jerry Dawson, later said that he held the trigger down so long because Turner did not fall when hit. Dawson, a veteran of 15 years with the Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police Department, then fired at Turner a second time for five seconds. That time, Turner went into shock and died without recovering consciousness.
An autopsy by the Charlotte medical examiner found that Turner died from “acute ventricular dysrhythmia, agitated state, stress, and use of conducted energy weapon device (Taser).” In 2010 the city of Charlotte settled with the Turner family for $625,000, while admitting no culpability.

The $10 million judgment against Taser International came in a separate product-liability suit filed by the family.

Burton said he doesn’t think the company will be able to get off without paying damages the way it did in an earlier case that he and co-counsel Peter Williamson won against the weapon maker in 2008.

After the North Carolina verdict, Taser International released information meant to calm fears of investors in the publicly traded company and of law enforcement agencies that use the electronic weapons. Steve Tuttle, the company’s vice president of communications, said Turner had a condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), which is responsible for 39 percent of sudden cardiac arrest deaths in people under 21.

“That was a fully fabricated lie,” said Burton. “The Charlotte medical examiner, Thomas Owens, did the autopsy, and he said Turner had a great heart, free from all pathologies, in top shape. But Taser brought in someone from Harvard, Dr. James Stone, who examined some tissue and declared that Turner had HCM. We sent his findings to one of the world’s leading specialists on HCM, and he agreed with Owens, the ME: The kid simply didn’t have it. No enlarged heart, no thickening of ventrical walls, nothing.”

Tuttle’s release also noted that the jury was not told about three baggies of marijuana that were alleged to have been found on Turner. “Under North Carolina law, if someone has acted in a negligent manner that contributed to their damages, even a one percent contribution, they are barred from recovering damages. … The company’s legal council believe that Mr. Turner’s crimes, including theft, trespassing, drug possession, assault on fellow employees, resisting arrest, and initiation of an apparent assault on a law enforcement officer constitute negligent behavior that necessitated the use of force by police.”

“I read that press release and almost threw up,” said Burton. “This was a great kid. Never arrested, first in his class in high school, had applied for college, had a job at 17, didn’t smoke or drink … . Heck, I talked with the manager of the store, and he told me that Turner was a great worker, always on time, and that he had great potential with the company.

“And when I talked with other employees, they said the assistant manager was always unpleasant and routinely unfair. I mean, he [Turner] had eaten some food he hadn’t paid for — right, a 17-year-old in a supermarket job. And look what Taser makes him out to be.”

Both of the cases that Taser International lost in court were based on the premise that the company knew the weapons could be lethal in certain circumstances but did not warn the police departments and public of that.

Shortly after the first of those two cases was decided, the company added a number of warnings in its product package. After Turner’s death, the company added more language, warning that the weapons should not be fired into the chest near the heart.
Hardin sees the change as Taser International’s attempt to throw all responsibility onto law enforcement personnel. “Now when someone dies, Taser is going to say, ‘You were warned not to use the weapon in the chest area,’ or whatever, and that might get them off the hook.”

Burton agreed. The new warnings, he said, could mean that, when more people die after being hit with Tasers, their families “will be going directly after the police departments … for liability.

“The products, Tasers, are simply a lot more dangerous than the company says they are,” Burton said. “They talk about excited delirium killing all these people, as if everyone who dies after being tasered would have dropped dead in minutes anyway, and that’s just not the case.”

WALTER DANSBY - FROM STOP 6 TO THE SUPERINTENDENT

2011-07-02T14:05:00.000-07:00

“What a difference a day makes and the best is yet to come,” Ernie Horn

FORT WORTH, TEXAS - You could feel there was something special about to happen as you entered the doors at the Villas of Eastwood Terrace as red, white and blue balloons were hanging everywhere. The media, ministers and members of the community gathered on this special day to hear from the Fort Worth Independent School District’s new yet familiar face of Superintendent Walter Dansby. Growing up in the historic Stop 6 community, this son of an African Methodist Episcopal Church minister did not disappoint the crowd in the community center at the senior retirement complex located in the East Fort Worth neighborhood where he grew up.

Members of the World of Wisdom Ministry, a “seasoned” saints outreach ministry of the Friendship Rock Baptist Church, the Black, Brown and Tan Caucus, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Score a Goal in the Classroom and the United Educators Association of Texas (UEA) came together to host the Independence Day of Jubilee celebration to honor and support Dansby in his new role.

“What a difference a day makes and the best is yet to come,” said Ernie Horn, with Score a Goal in the Classroom as he opened the event with a powerful prayer.

The sweet spirit in the Villas was filled with prayers, praise and promise as people of all ages came together to congratulate Mr. Dansby on his historic appointment. Mr. Dansby is the first native son of Fort Worth and African American to be appointed to the top education leadership position at the Fort Worth school district.

“I have known Walter Dansby since our days together in high school and he has always been a great leader,” said Dr. Frank Lawson, pastor of the Harmony Missionary Baptist Church in East Fort Worth. “I worked with him and he has taught my children. He is the right man to lead our school system today,” Pastor Lawson said.

Larry Shaw president of the United Educators Association of Texas (UEA) shared a stirring story about his days as a teacher at an all black high school when Texas first integrated in Beaumont.

“Children do not care how much you know until they know how much you care,” Shaw said. He then went on to challenge the community to “re-dedicate to educate” all children within the district.

“Teachers have to sign a re-dedication commitment letter and I believe parents, students and the community should sign re-dedication commitment letters as well,” Shaw said to the affirming crowd.

Justice of the Peace Lisa Woodward encouraged the community to rally behind Mr. Dansby and supports his agenda to improve the academic performance of our children.

“We all have to do our part to help our children succeed,” Judge Woodward said.

Mr. Dansby gave an impassionate challenge to the entire community to come together to help educate all of the children within the Fort Worth Independent School District.

“No one person can do this alone. We need everyone involved. If it takes more to educate some of our children then we will give those children more,” Dansby said.

The crowd received his inspiring message with a standing ovation after he finished and most believe he deserves the permanent job.

Ms. Carmelita Pope Freeman with the US Department of Justice Community Relations Services leads the community in an exercise in how to turn C.O.N.F.L.I.C.T. into Commitment, Opportunity, to Negotiation, with Fairness, Love, Integrity, Compassion and Trust. Everyone enjoyed the exercise and Ms. Freeman has agreed to continue to work with the Fort Worth community to help foster greater peace and tranquility.

“Let me be clear. Mr. Walter Dansby deserves to be superintendent,” say Rev. Kyev Tatum, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

“We believe he deserves the job, not because he is a black man, not because he has spent 37 years in the district as a teacher, coach and an administrator. Walter Dansby deserves the job as Superintendent because he is the right man at the right time to help FWISD turn its academic failures into academic achievement and success. It only takes five votes from the School Board and I believe we have the five votes we need to give him the permanent job,” Rev. Tatum said.

The group has agreed to begin a movement to bring the entire community together to help improve the quality of life for everyone in Fort Worth.

“We are One Fort Worth and now is the time for us to come together and make sure everyone is treated with equality and dignity, that everyone can gain access to economic prosperity and be allowed to peacefully participate in the political process,” Rev. Tatum said.

For more information on how you can join this One Fort Worth effort contact the SCLC at 817-966-7625 or email: sclctarrantcounty@yahoo.com

FORT WORTH ISD IS THE WORST URBAN DISTRICT IN TEXAS

2011-06-05T13:46:00.000-07:00

40 SCHOOLS RATED UNACCEPTABLE WITHOUT EXEMPTIONS

Preliminary TAKS Scores Do Not Bode Well for FWISD

by Betty Brink

The Fort Worth schools’ preliminary rankings on the 2011 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, otherwise known as TAKS, have been released by the Texas Education Agency — and they are not good. Twenty-two schools have been ranked “academically unacceptable” this year. Fifty-seven came in with the next to lowest rank, “academically acceptable,” 33 got a “recognized” status, and only six achieved the highest rank, “exemplary.”

The district is ranked “academically acceptable.” With an asterisk: The ranking is based on the district meeting a “required improvement or exception standard.” “This means that when schools or districts are below the standard for passing but have moved up toward it by a sufficient number of percent points, usually about four percent, in the last year, they reach that mark,” Trustee Ann Sutherland said. “Notice that the district as a whole is not academically acceptable unless this yardstick is employed.” Eighteen schools that were ranked academically acceptable also had the asterisk, which means that at least 40 schools actually failed. By the time the final results are released in July, any of these schools, as well as the district, could fall into the unacceptable category if the TEA determines that the benchmark was not met.

The scores “tell us that there is much work to be done,” said Sutherland, who has been one of the sharpest critics of Superintendent Melody Johnson’s administration, pointing out that when Johnson arrived here to assume the post in 2005, Fort Worth ranked second from the top academically among the state’s six urban districts, FW, Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso. Today, it ranks second from the bottom, and the results of this year’s TAKS scores could drop it to the bottom.

(The other district’s scores have not been publicly released so comparisons will have to wait. Fort Worth has also not released these rankings to the public. However, Johnson, who has had the results since mid May, sent them to be board late on Friday, June 3, after Sutherland, Juan Rangel and Carlos Vasquez demanded at last week’s board meeting that she release them.)

“I am very disappointed that we have so many low performing schools,” wrote trustee Carlos Vasquez in an email. ”Dr. Johnson’s Vision 2010 and strategies have not worked. She has taken most of the instructional leadership away from our principals. Principals cannot chose what programs they have in their schools. … There seems to be a disconnect between our Central administration and our schools. You can’t blame the principals or the schools when they can only do what downtown mandates. We need to empower our principals, shift Title 1 monies back to the campus level and let them lead and not just manage.”
Johnson, in a move that surprised her board, submitted her resignation on May 19, effective September 19. While she has said only that she is leaving for family reasons, her mother is ill in California, it is significant, these trustees say, that Johnson submitted her resignation the day after she is alleged to have received the preliminary test results. Compared to last year’s scores, the district seems to be in deep trouble. However, those scores, which Johnson and her staff touted at the time as the result of her abilities to bring high academic achievements to the district, have been found to be highly misleading.

In 2010, the district showed only five academically unacceptable campuses, while 62 were ranked academically acceptable, 37 recognized, and 12 achieved the coveted exemplary status. However, last year’s scores were based on a questionable formula churned up the Texas Education Agency that has since been thrown out by the commissioner of education as an illegitimate way to rank Texas schools. Called the Texas Projection Measure, it was discarded after Democratic state representative Scott Hochberg from Houston exposed it as a misguided attempt to make Texas kids look better against their national peers by manipulating test scores. Briefly, what it did was add “helpers” to many schools, raising them up one rank, according to Sutherland, who called the system “a fraud.”

That year the state applied the formula that, simply put, allowed failing children to be counted as having passed the TAKS based on an assumption that these kids would one day pass the tests because other children whose test scores fit the same pattern eventually passed. The TEA called it a “growth measure.” Yet as columnist Rick Casey wrote in the Houston Chronicle last year, “To most of us, that would imply that [the TPM] looked at how a child did this year compared to the last.” But, Casey wrote, Hochberg brought out in a legislative hearing, that TPM doesn’t measure an individual child’s growth. It looked only at previous years’ scores of all students and, based on a formula devised from thousands of prior results, projected that children who pass reading or math were “likely” to pass other tests in future years. The now discarded formula, Casey pointed out, allowed half of the 1 million students who failed the TAKS being transformed into passing test takers, the number of unacceptable schools cut in half, while the number of “exemplary” schools doubled. The result: an artificially high ranking for most schools across the state, including Fort Worth.

“Now we are in the real world,” said one teacher.

“We need to analyze what part of the drop is due to the TPM and what part is due to us and districts need to ‘raise hell’ with Austin over this nonsense.,” Sutherland said. .

Many teachers and others, including the three trustees who pressured Johnson to release the scores, say that the 22 failing schools are the major reason Johnson has submitted her resignation. She leaves the district on September 19, unless – as is likely to happen – the board votes this coming Tuesday night to hire Deputy Superintendent Walter Dansby as an interim super allowing her to leave early.

One of Johnson’s most vocal critics said today that these latest results show that those who are “heaping praise” on Johnson as an innovator and great superintendent “have forgotten the unwarranted, unimaginable and unforgivable failure rate of the children in the Fort Worth public school system, especially for our black children. … The bigotry of low expectations has come true,” said Kyev Tatum, a minister and president of the Tarrant County chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

The low-performing schools, many with high minority populations, are: Dunbar High School; Eastern Hills HS; Polytechnic HS; Western Hills HS; O. D. Wyatt HS; Forest Oak Middle School; Dunbar 6th Grade; Handley Middle School; William James MS; McLean MS; Meacham MS; Meadowbrook MS; Morningside MS; Monnig MS; Leonard MS; Maude L. Logan Elementary School; Meadowbrook ES; D. McRae ES; AM Pate ES; Versia Williams ES; Atwood McDonald ES; and Woodway ES. The vast majority failed in either reading, math and science or a combination of the three. Versia Williams failed only the writing test and Dunbar 6th Grade and Meadowbrook Elementary failed only reading.

Schools receiving exemplary status were the Young Women’s Leadership Academy, in its first year; Riverside Applied Learning Academy; Burton Hill Elementary, George C. Clark ES; Tanglewood ES; and Van Zandt Guinn Elementary.

LEADERSHIP: WILL FORT WORTH NAME THE FIRST AFRICAN-AMERICAN MAN SUPERINTENDENT?

2011-06-04T06:06:00.000-07:00

The entire community is invited to attend the Fort Worth ISD Board Meeting on Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 5:30p.m. to witness history being made. The question is, will the district leadership do the right thing an appoint Mr. Dansby Superintendent? In these bad economic times we do not need to spend over $100,000 to look for new leadership. We need to give our "Fort Worth Born and Bread" an opportunity to lead. Two thing we know for sure about Mr. Dansby: He has the experience in the district and he "LOVES FORT WORTH AS MUCH AS WE DO." -Rev. Kyev Tatum

FORT WOERTH STAR-TELEGRAM STORY

FORT WORTH -- Trustees with the Fort Worth school district are likely to name Walter Dansby as interim superintendent next week and approve a separation agreement with outgoing Superintendent Melody Johnson.

A majority of board members have indicated support for naming Dansby, who is currently deputy superintendent, to the interim position at a called meeting Tuesday.
School board President Ray Dickerson acknowledged that having an interim superintendent is necessary because the search for a permanent replacement will likely take a few months, given that Dallas is also looking for a superintendent from a small pool of qualified administrators.

Dickerson said previously that he hoped to have a permanent replacement by the time Johnson's resignation took effect Sept. 19.

"It may take a bit longer than 31/2 months to find a new superintendent," Dickerson said. "So we have to have contingency planning in place and know where we're going."
Trustees are also expected to vote Tuesday on authorizing a superintendent search.
Details of a separation agreement with Johnson have yet to be determined, Dickerson said.

"We will be talking about the whole process," Dickerson said. "My view is that need to come to whatever settlement and arrangement and go forward so there's clarity on who's doing what and focus on the superintendent search."

Some trustees have said they would like to see Johnson leave before September, including her harshest critics, Ann Sutherland and Carlos Vasquez. Johnson, who has been with the district nearly six years, cannot be reassigned to another position in the district without her written consent, according to her contract. On May 19, she announced her intent to resign.

"We can't have an interim and Johnson still on board," Vasquez said. "I thank her for her service, but it's imperative that she close the year off and let us start the year with a new superintendent."

Johnson issued a statement saying she plans to stay until September unless an agreement with the board dictates otherwise. Johnson is expected to have 84 unused vacation, personal and sick days accrued by the end of June. She would be eligible to receive a cash payment for the unused days, which are valued at $115,269.98.
Dansby, who currently oversees the bond program, appears to have support from a majority of the nine-member board, according to informal polling of trustees by the Star-Telegram. He has not said whether he wants the post.

Dansby began his career in Fort Worth 37 years ago as a teacher and coach. He has held various administrative posts but does not have superintendent certification from the state. Dansby said he has completed all coursework for the certification but has not taken the test.

However, the state can grant up to a three-year waiver for the certification, Texas Education Agency spokesman Suzanne Marchman said. For example, former state Education Commissioner James Nelson received the waiver when he later became superintendent of Richardson.

Last week four trustees called for a special meeting as they pushed to name Dansby interim superintendent. But the five other trustees did not show, so the meeting was canceled because the board lacked a quorum.

Some said the lack of quorum was a sign that those absent did not want an African-American as the district's leader.

But Dickerson said it is not a racial issue and he has told Dansby that he supports him being named interim superintendent, which Dansby confirms.

Dickerson said he did not attend Friday's meeting because four trustees indicated that they could not attend because of other conflicts during the holiday weekend.

Eva-Marie Ayala, 817-390-7700

Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/06/03/3126770/fort-worth-trustees-expected-to.html#my-headlines-default#ixzz1OJPYii1d

FIVE FORT WORTH SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS NO SHOW FOR HISTORIC VOTE.

2011-06-04T05:36:00.000-07:00

Statement from the President of Fort Worth Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

“Tonight, the city, state and country witnessed the Fort Worth School Board historic cowardly act of extreme resistance to appointing the first home-grown African-American male Superintendent Walter Dansby. The FWISD has now become the Prince Edward County VA School District of the 21st Century,” says the Rev. Kyev Tatum, president of the Fort Worth SCLC.

History of Prince Edward County VA Schools link: http://www.vahistorical.org/civilrights/pec.htm

Fort Worth school board meeting canceled after trustees don't show up
Story by Eva-Marie Ayala (eayala@star-telegram.com) of the Fort Worth Star Telegram

Fort Worth Star-Telegram Story link:
http://m.star-telegram.com/star/db_108360/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=6I2q5ylJ&full=true#display

FORT WORTH, TEXAS - The division on the school board was visible tonight when a majority failed to come together to hold a special meeting. Trustees were to debate and possibly name an interim superintendent tonight, but the nine-member board needs five trustees to make a quorum.

Those who asked for the meeting were visibly upset saying their colleagues intentionally sabotaged the meeting to avoid naming Deputy Superintendent Walter Dansby as interim, some of them indicating race was a factor.

"It’s shameful," trustee Carlos Vasquez said. "Shame on my colleague's for not taking the time to come to do what's important for the future of our district."
Vasquez and trustees Juan Rangel, T.A. Sims and Ann Sutherland pushed for the meeting with the goal of naming Dansby interim in the wake of superintendent Melody Johnson announcing her plans to resign effective Sept. 19., Vasquez said. Sutherland asked for the interim superintendent item to be placed on last Tuesday’s meeting. When it was not, the four requested the special meeting. Board policy requires at least four trustees to call a special meeting.

Board president Ray Dickerson said earlier this week that the meeting wasn't necessary because there was no need for an interim. He said Tuesday that he hoped the board could name a permanent replacement before her departure and if not, an interim could be named later.

About 50 attended the meeting before the holiday weekend. Many in attendance also voiced their frustration at the cancellation. Some signed up to speak at the meeting, and Sims wanted to allow them to speak anyway. But after consulting with the school district's attorney, Rangel said he wanted to be cautious on having the appearance of a meeting, which would be against state law without a quorum.

Vasquez and Sims said they worried the other trustees aren't supporting Dansby because he is black. Four of the five trustees who did not show up are white and one is black.

Is It Because HE IS A BLACK MAN?

2011-05-28T14:49:00.000-07:00

"I know that's why," said Dr. T.A. Sims, Fort Worth Board Trustee, who is African-American. "Right now, it's all about power. In the 1990s, they didn't want a black superintendent, and now they've moved to where they don't want a minority superintendent, including a Hispanic. It might happen one day, but it should have happened today."

FORT WORTH -- Four trustees were blocked in their effort to name an interim school superintendent Friday evening when the rest of the nine-member board did not show up for a special meeting.

It takes five trustees for a quorum. The four, who were also the ones who asked for the meeting, were visibly upset. Some said their colleagues intentionally sabotaged the meeting to avoid naming Deputy Superintendent Walter Dansby to serve as interim superintendent.

"Shame on my colleagues for not taking the time to come to do what's important for the future of our district," Fort Worth Trustee Carlos Vasquez said. "We needed this meeting to get our affairs in order for our students. My question is: Why are they scared of Walter Dansby?"

On Tuesday night, the board accepted the resignation of Superintendent Melody Johnson, effective Sept. 19. At the time, Trustee Ann Sutherland said she had asked that the naming of an interim superintendent be placed on the meeting's agenda. It was not.

During the meeting, Sutherland, Vasquez, and Trustees Juan Rangel and T.A. Sims made clear their goal of naming Dansby to the role.

Afterward, the four requested that a special meeting be called for Friday. Under board policy, a meeting can be called if at least four trustees ask for one.

The absence of the five board members Friday proves that hidden politics are still at work, Sims said.

He and Vasquez said they worry that Dansby doesn't have support from other trustees because he is African-American.

"I know that's why," said Sims, who is African-American. "Right now, it's all about power. In the 1990s, they didn't want a black superintendent, and now they've moved to where they don't want a minority superintendent, including a Hispanic. It might happen one day, but it should have happened today."

Dansby attended the meeting but did not speak.

Four of the five trustees who did not show up -- Ray Dickerson, Judy Needham, Norm Robbins and Tobi Jackson -- are

Anglo. One -- Christene Moss -- is black.

Other plans

When contacted later Friday evening, Jackson said that she had planned to attend but that conflicts arose and she notified her colleagues on the board. Race is not a factor, she said. The board needs more time to consider its options and shouldn't rush a decision, even for an interim superintendent.

"We have to make a decision on what we want, but we as a board have to get together and discuss that," Jackson said. "We can't be reactive. But right now we're radioactive, and we can't be that."

Robbins said he had a long-standing commitment with his wife and had asked that the special meeting be rescheduled.

Dickerson, Moss and Needham did not return calls Friday evening.

Dickerson, who is board president, said earlier this week that the meeting wasn't necessary because Johnson will be on the job for about four more months.

He said he hoped the board could name a permanent replacement before she leaves. If not, an interim can be named later.

He also noted that the four trustees did not consult with the rest of the board to make sure Friday was a good day to meet.

About 50 people showed up for a meeting. Some had signed up to speak, and even after it became clear that there was no quorum, Sims wanted to allow them to speak anyway. But after consulting with the school district's attorney, Rangel, who is vice president of the board, said he wanted to be cautious about having the appearance of a meeting, which would be against state law without a quorum.

Eva-Marie Ayala, 817-390-7700

FORT WORTH SCHOOLS OUT OF CONTROL

2011-05-05T21:10:00.000-07:00

From the pen of award winning Journalist Betty Brink of the Fort Worth Weekly in response to Brother Eddie Griffin's attack on my civil rights advocacy against the mistreatment of children within the Fort Worth Independent School District. In my humble opinion, Dr. Melody Johnson is one of the worst Superintendents in the nation, especially in relations to urban poor and children of color.

Eddie Griffin:

I suggest you read the series of stories I have written about AHHS and the district. They begin on August 11, 2010, and run thru this week. You can find them all simply by doing a search on our web site www.fwweekly.com

Type in Betty Brink and you'll get more than you bargained for.

This is not about five days of absences and 255 students, Eddie, it is about deeply troubling corrupt practices at Arlington Heights that were uncovered -- not by me -- but by Joe Palazzolo and about a dozen or more teachers at Heights who had been trying to get something done for years. The district's OWN internal investigation upheld the majority of the accusations including the fact that the principal Neta Alexander admitted to ordering her staff person NOT to report seniors, juniors and "students of color" to the truancy court during 2010 in order to -- her words -- keep her completion rates high at the school. This is all documented in internal documents from the district's own investigator Mike Menchaca. A female coach and an assistant principal were found guilty of attendance fraud by Menchaca, they had falsified attendance records in order to allow at least 21 students to graduate who should not have because of chronic truancy. They were also having an affair and involving students in their liaisons. There were too many other violations of law and district policy at that school to go into in an email, including sexual harassment, all of which were ignored by the principal, but were well known to at least one board member, Judy Needham. It was reported that Melody Johnson was aware of the conditions there as well. And Chuck Boyd resigned, after admitting that he had protected one of those who were falsifying attendance documents and sexually harassing students and teachers. You have been around the block a few times as I have, Eddie, but I believe even you would be shocked at the language this coach was using in front of students, telling in graphic detail of her sex exploits. The principal, the female coach and her lover were also forced to resign, but no other action was taken against them, in spite of the fact that they were found guilty by the district itself of violations of state and federal laws. And a DA is investigating misuse of booster club funds. These are serious matters, and I suggest they are the demoralizing factors in this district, not the stories that I write based on facts and substantiated by documented evidence.

I suggest again that you read the series of stories. I do not write untruths, Eddie, nor do I write something I cannot back up with facts. I have spoken to dozens of teachers, counselors, nurses, data clerks, coaches, all of whom backed up the corruption at that school and the very difficult conditions that they have to work under in this district at other schools as well. The Connects story spells that out as well. And my series is not over. I am now working on legal fees paid out by this district to outside firms and I think you will be shocked when you read it. Especially when they are laying off folks who are needed and who need the work.
Take a deep breath, Eddie, and read the whole story. As for Kyev Tatum, the civil rights division is now sending in investigators and that isn't done lightly you know that.

Kyev is also fighting in the trenches as you are. I would hope that you would withhold judgment until the civil rights folks do their investigation. Respectfully Betty Brink

GROCERIES NOT GUNS WALMART!

2011-04-28T08:03:00.000-07:00

Walmart faces opposition in plan to expand gun sales
by CHRIS HAWES
WFAA-Dallas/Fort Worth
Posted on April 27, 2011 at 10:20 PM
Wal Mart faces opposition in plan to expand gun sales
FORT WORTH — Guns are returning to hundreds of Walmart stores nationwide, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The news has brought a tough response from some local religious leaders.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is questioning the decision by the retail giant, believing greater access to weapons could lead to more violence.

Five years ago, Walmart stopped selling shotguns and rifles at many stores. Today, however, a spokesman told the Wall Street Journal that hundreds of stores will get them back.

About one-third of Walmart stores had carried the firearms, according to the newspaper. About half of Walmart's 3,600 stores will now offer rifle and shotgun sales.

"Walmart had appeared to be a responsible corporate entity, but I guess with the recession they're trying to find any way feasibly possible... but at what expense?" asked Rev. Kyev Tatum, who heads the Fort Worth chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Out of more than 40 Walmart stores listed in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, News 8 found only two that currently sell rifles and shotguns. It is unclear how the company's decision will affect the North Texas, but Rev. Tatum is not waiting to find out.

"We're going to oppose it," Tatum said. "Hopefully we'll get an opportunity to speak with someone with Walmart at some point in time. This is still early in the game for us. They didn't ask us, but we're encouraging people not to buy the guns."

According to the Wall Street Journal report, Walmart decided to restore gun sales after realizing they were a bigger draw for some customers than had first been realized.

Walmart says gun sales will still generally be sold in its more rural locations.

E-mail chawes@wfaa.com

Race War of Slocum Receives Resolution in Texas House

2011-03-30T21:02:00.000-07:00

Texas House passes resolution recognizing 'horrific' racial massacre of 1910
Posted Wednesday, Mar. 30, 2011

By Tim Madigan

tmadigan@star-telegram.com
http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/03/30/2961760/house-passes-resolution-recognizing.html

AUSTIN - As the the first order of legislative business this morning, 96-year-old Myrt Hollie was wheeled into the Texas House chamber and seated next to Speaker Joe Straus, who happily shook Hollie's hand. Hollie's sons and granddaughters stood to his rear.

Then they listened as House members unanimously approved a resolution that formally acknowledged a forgotten racial atrocity, one that has haunted the Fort Worth resident and his family for more than a century.

In 1910, mobs of East Texas whites killed at least eight African Americans. One of Hollie's uncles was among the dead, another was badly wounded, and ancestors were forced to abandon their property near the small village of Slocum, located 150 miles southeast of Fort Worth.

For decades, Myrt Hollie and his family have sought to restore the atrocity to its proper place in history. For them, Wednesday morning at the Capitol had a dreamlike quality.

"I was overwhelmed with joy," Hollie said later as he sat in the office of State. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, who sponsored the resolution. "I didn't think this day would ever come. I didn't ever dream that I'd see the change the way we have. I didn't think I would live that long."

Veasey began preparing the resolution after learning about the slaughter in a Star-Telegram article in February. On Wednesday, he was joined at the front of the House chamber by Reps. Chuck Hopson and Byron Cook, both Republicans who represent areas in East Texas where the massacre took place.

"So many members, Republican and Democrat, came up to me afterward and thanked me for doing that," Veasey said later. "They said, 'I've never heard of that. I didn't know that happened.' I thought it was a great day for the House, a great day for Texas, and more importantly for that family."

The House resolution called the Slocum massacre "a horrific incident and one that is deserving of attention and discussion."

"Only by shining a light on previous injustices can we learn from them and move forward toward a future of greater healing and reconciliation," the resolution said.

It also summarized events as they are known to have occurred in the summer of 1910, when racial hatreds were ignited in and around Slocum, and mobs of whites took up arms against their African American neighbors. The dead were later found to be unarmed and most had been shot in the back.

"They hunted the Negroes down like sheep," Sheriff W.H. Black, a white from nearby Palestine, said at the time.

Seven white men were indicted for murder by a grand jury in Palestine, and their cases were transferred to Houston. But none of the accused men were ever brought to trial. Years later, the presiding judge suggested in his memoirs that prosecutors did not want to spend money necessary to prosecute whites for killing blacks.

At the time, the Slocum incident was reported in newspapers around the nation. Historians now say it was one of the worst racial atrocities of its kind in the post-Civil War era. But in the decades since, except for family stories passed down through generations, it has been largely forgotten.

"Despite the notoriety of the massacre, it has faded from history, and no one knows why," Veasey said in House remarks before the resolution passed. "Mr. Hollie, we thank you and your family for your persistence. You kept digging. You kept looking for the facts. You kept searching for justice."

Veasey said Wednesday that he would help the Hollies investigate why the Slocum defendants were never prosecuted. Family members said yesterday they will also continue to attempt to determine what became of the family property.

"This isn't the end. This is just the beginning," said Constance Hollie-Ramirez, Myrt Hollie's granddaughter.

But for the family and House members who greeted them Wednesday, the moment seemed healing. About 20 members of the Hollie family lingered in the Capitol Wednesday, taking dozens of happy photographs.

"They at least were able to see that an official body of government acknowledged that what happened was bad and it was wrong," Veasey said.

After the resolution passed, Myrt Hollie was asked about his old pain that has lingered from the tragedy.

"It's gone now," he said. "With this exercise, other people know about it. Other people can bear the burden. I can throw it away."

Tim Madigan, 817-390-7544

Are We Better Without God as a Nation?

2010-12-20T10:59:00.000-08:00

FORT WORTH, TEXAS Atheists across the country are attacking the Christian faith with false statements and unfounded truths concerning our belief system. Now is the time for Christians all over the world to join forces and fight back. We have launched a public awareness campaign entitled, "Our Nation Is Better With God" to connect one billion Christians together to send a clear message that we we are "One Nation Under God and Our Nation Is Better With God."

Fredrick Douglass reminds us that we must struggle for our freedom. He once said, "Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without plowing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has an it never will."

We need your support by becoming a "Soldier of the Cross" for the One Nation Under God and Our Nation Is Better With God Campaign.

Please send your contact information to:
Pastor Kyev Tatum, Coordinator
One Nation Under God and Our Nation Is Better With God
P.O. Box 60700
Fort Worth, Texas 76115
pastorkyevtatum@yahoo.com.

Together we will defeat the devil and save the hearts of our babies and the soul of our great country.

OUR NATION IS BETTER WITH GOD!

Billions Are Doing BETTER WITH GOD

2010-12-03T05:48:00.000-08:00

FORT WORTH, TEXAS - The Fort Worth Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference has called for an economic boycott of the Fort Worth Transportation Authority (The-T) starting Monday, December 6, 2010 and encourage everyone, if at all possible, to NOT RIDE THE-T BUSES. We are also calling on all Christians to pull their ad business from the buses. It is time for the Body of Christ to come together and let the world know that Billion Are Doing BETTER WITH GOD. http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/120210-ministers-threaten-boycott-over-atheist-ad

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2010/12/02/bus-billboards-say-atheists-good-without-god/

Join the Movement:
BETTER WITH GOD
c/o Pastor Kyev Tatum
P.O. Box 60700
Fort Worth, Texas 76115
fortworth4him@yahoo.com

SCLC President Fort Worth ousted for taking a STAND for kids

2010-10-30T16:48:00.000-07:00

Fort Worth School Board President Ray Dickerson Needs to be Investigated for his support of Fort Worth Superintendent Dr. Melody Johnson and her Official Oppression of Civil Rights Violation under Title VI of the United States Civil Rights Act of Discrimination and Racism against African-Americans within the Fort Worth Independent School District. It is widespread within the Fort Worth ISD. We need new leadership in Fort Worth.

SCLC President Fort Worth ousted for taking a STAND for kids

Dr. Melody Johnson is the Worst Superintendent in America

2010-10-30T15:11:00.000-07:00

Dr. Melody Johnson is considered by many as the "Worst Superintendent in America" for African American children living in poverty, especially African-American males. The One Accord Coalition and the Ministers for Education are demanding new leadership in Fort Worth that does not officially oppress racism and discrimination against our black students in the Fort Worth Independent School District.

Join us on, Thursday, November 11, 2011 at 6p.m. at the Hillside Park for our first Black Education Summit. We need everyone to support our efforts to reshape the education system in Fort Worth to send more children to college than prison. For more information contact Brother Isiah Woods at 817-655-5626 or Brother Cecil Cecil Collier at 817-915-0685. Check the One Accord Coalition on facebook at the One Accord Coalition.

FORT WORTH SCLC SUPPORTS MLK NATIONAL MEMORIAL

2010-04-06T12:07:00.000-07:00

We at the Fort Worth Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)encourage each and every freedom loving person to support the MLK National Memorial.

Dr. King's message of faith, hope and love continues to transform our society and bring people together from different faiths, backgrounds, and countries.

We owe a great deal of thanks to Dr. King's generation.

Please support today:

http://www.mlkmemorialnews.org/

http://www.buildthedream.org/

Sincerely,

Rev. Kyev Tatum, Sr.,
President
Fort Worth SCLC
P.O. Box 60700
Fort Worth, Texas 76115
817-966-7625
kyevtatum@yahoo.com

SCLC: FORT WORTH IS ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS CITIES IN AMERICA

2009-11-18T23:01:00.000-08:00

"Fort Worth, Texas is one of the most dangerous cities in America if you are a black male." Reverend Kyev P. Tatum, Sr.
Supportive video link:
http://cbs11tv.com/local/taser.grand.jury.2.1315659.html

SCLC calls for National Ban on Tasers: http://www.christiansopposewar.com/Jacobs-death-SCLC-says--Ban-Tasers

FORT WORTH, TEXAS - The president of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) has declared Fort Worth, Texas as the most dangerous city in America for black males after a grand jury no billed a Fort Worth Police officer of the murder of an unarmed black man with 54 seconds of taser torture.

"Fort Worth has a long history of justifying the mistreatment of African-American men in our community," says the Reverend Kyev Tatum. president of the Fort Worth Tarrant County Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

"The Michael Patrick Jacobs, Jr., taser shock death of 54 seconds and the refusal of the local authorities to do anything about it is just another example of the city sending a message that the Fort Worth way is to control, condemn, and or kill if necessary to keep its black men in their place," Rev. Tatum said.

The SCLC is calling on the US Justice Department Criminal Section to file federal civil rights charges against the Fort Worth Police officers involved in what has been called a "pattern of taser torture abuse."

The white female Fort Worth Police who tasered Michael Jacobs for 54 seconds has been cleared of all criminal charges locally.

"Michael Jacobs was not a criminal, was not armed and needed medical help. The City of Fort Worth and the Fort Worth police department continues to allow too many rouge officers to terrorize the black and brown community and we are tired of the excessive use of force and call upon President Barack Obama's Administration to help provide us with some relief from home grown terror and torture before someone else is killed," says, Reverend Tatum.

For More information, contact the SCLC at 817-966-7625 or sclctarrantcounty@yahoo.com

SCLC MARCH FOR DIGNITY, NOT TASER TORTURE

2009-11-11T16:13:00.000-08:00

Dozens march on downtown Fort Worth, protesting use of Tasers
Posted Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009
By TRACI SHURLEY
tshurley@star-telegram.com

More than 50 people marched through downtown Fort Worth on Saturday calling for police to stop using Tasers and punish an officer involved in the April death of a mentally ill man.
The protest was organized by supporters of the family of Michael Jacobs, 24, who died after a Fort Worth police officer shot him twice with a Taser to subdue him. Jacobs’ death was ruled a homicide by the Tarrant County medical examiner and will be reviewed by a grand jury.
"I’m really grateful to this big old crowd for speaking on behalf of my son," said Charlotte Jacobs, Michael’s mother.

The protesters walked from the Fort Worth municipal building to the Tarrant County Courthouse carrying U.S. flags and signs, some of which read "Lazy Cops Taser" and "Tasers trample the Constitution."

The death occurred after police responded to a call from Jacobs’ parents that he was being disruptive. Police said the officer used the Taser after Jacobs became combative.
In his report, Medical Examiner Nizam Peerwani found that Officer Stephanie A. Phillips shocked Jacobs twice with a Taser — once for 49 seconds and once for five seconds. According to the report, the officer told a detective that the first jolt was longer because "she unknowingly kept the Taser trigger engaged." She remains on active duty.

Jacobs’ family has filed a wrongful-death suit. Last month, an attorney for the family said witnesses have disputed claims that he fought with police.

On Oct. 16, Police Chief Jeff Halstead announced that his department had finished its investigation of Jacobs’ death and provided copies of the report to the FBI and Justice Department. He said officers would get more training in how to deal with mentally ill people and in the use of force.

The Rev. Kyev Tatum, president of the Fort Worth Tarrant County chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and organizer of Saturday’s march, said that Tasers inflict cruel and unusual punishment on the community and that their use must stop.

Marching with Jacobs’ family on Saturday were several members of the League of United Latin American Citizens and the family of Noah Lopez. Lopez, 25, died after a Fort Worth police officer used a Taser on him in 2006. The medical examiner ruled that Lopez died from acute cocaine intoxication. His family sued the city last year, asserting that the Taser shock interfered with Lopez’s medical treatment and resulted in cardiac arrest.

"There’s got to be a safer way to subdue somebody regardless of what the situation is or isn’t," said Debra Lara, Lopez’s cousin.

This report includes material from the Star-Telegram archives.
TRACI SHURLEY, 817-390-7641
Looking for comments?

A MARCH FOR DIGNITY ON NOVEMBER 7TH IN FORT WORTH, TEXAS

2009-11-02T15:54:00.000-08:00

FORT WORTH, TEXAS - THE FORT WORTH CHAPTER OF THE SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE (SCLC) IS CALLING ON 10,000 ANGELS TO MARCH FOR DIGNITY ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2009 AT 12 NOON, STARTING AT THE FORT WORTH CITY HALL TO THE TARRANT COUNTY COURTHOUSE!

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT THE SCLC AT 817-966-7625!

IT IS TIME TO STOP THE TASER TORTURE IN AMERICA.

PRAY FOR PEACE

2009-05-12T14:53:00.000-07:00

The community, Clergy, leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and several family members of victims of taser shock deaths by Fort Worth Police came together to pray for peace and ask the City of Fort Worth, State of Texas and the USA Government to Toss the Tasers in our disadvantaged and under-served communities.

WFAA NEWS 8:
http://www.wfaa.com/video/chawes-index.html?nvid=358374

DEAD IN SIXTY TWO MINUTES

2009-05-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

Michael Patrick Jacobs died in 62 minutes after his mother called for help. Here is the WFAA News 8 Video

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa090420_mo_taser.f4cd769c.html

TOSS THE TASER RALLY!

2009-04-27T07:54:00.000-07:00

Dear Beloved Community:

We are currently planning a May 4, 2009 "Toss the Tasers" Rally at Fort Worth City Hall, 1000 Throckmorton Street at 5:30 pm to support Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Bob Ray Sanders' call for a moratorium on the use of Tasers until there is another thorough review of the department's policies on the stun guns and until there can be more independent analyses of theireffectiveness versus their danger. As Brother Sanders has stated, "for the most part, we've depended on the manufacturer's analysis."

I agree with Brother Bob Ray 100% and encourage the entire community to do the same.

That is the least we can do for the family of Michael Patrick Jacobs, Jr., who died after he received a taser shock by Fort Worth Police on April 18Th. Some rally for a tea party, we will rally for justice. Dr. King was right when he said, "the time to do right is now, and the time is always RIPE to do right." Hope to See you all on May 4th at City Hall.Michael Patrick Jacobs, Jr., who was mentally challenged, did not have to die this way. Lets "Toss the Tasers - There Must Be A Better Way."

In Harmony,

Rev. Kyev Tatum

7510 John T White Road

Fort Worth, Texas 76120

817-966-7625

New Fort Worth police chief has critical test with handling Taser death

2009-04-27T07:51:00.000-07:00

WFAA Video:
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa090420_mo_taser.f4cd769c.html

SANDERS: New Fort Worth police chief has critical test with handling Taser death

BOB RAY SANDERSbobray@star-telegram.com

Fort Worth’s new police chief, Jeff Halstead, has been receiving high marks while making himself known in the community since taking the job last December.

But the chief needs to understand that no matter how well he has been personally accepted, and even praised, over the past few months, he will be graded meticulously on his handling of an incident last weekend in which a 24-year-old mentally ill man died after a Fort Worth police officer shocked him with a Taser.

That grade might haunt him, or bolster him, for the remainder of his career here.

With that in mind — forgetting, for the moment, the simple demand for truth and justice — the Police Department must be as forthcoming and as transparent as possible in this matter, not retreating to the old fortresses of "code of silence," delay tactics or, as one community activist put it, "the old Cowtown cover-up."

I understand the need for caution and for deliberate analysis of what happened Saturday morning after the parents of Michael Jacobs Jr., a known sufferer of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, called for help.

It may take a while for us to know all of the facts.

What we do know is that the 5-foot-5-inch, 150-pound Jacobs is dead, and that he died after a police officer used a Taser on him. He was unarmed.

Authorities are saying that it might take from 60 to 90 days to determine the exact cause of death.

While that seems like a long time, we do want the medical examiner’s office to get it right.
Halstead promised Tuesday that "this matter will be fully and fairly investigated by our department."

Good, but in the meantime, the police chief should do something I’ve been calling for since 2004, after a rash of deaths involving Tasers.

He should issue a moratorium on the use of Tasers until there is another thorough review of the department’s policies on the stun guns and until there can be more independent analyses of their effectiveness versus their danger. For the most part we’ve depended on the manufacturer’s analysis.

Since 2001, according to Amnesty International, 351 people have died after being shot with a Taser, which emits a 50,000-volt charge to the body.

The Rev. Kyev Tatum, a community activist speaking for the dead man’s family, said that Jacobs was handcuffed when police used the Taser on him. (I have not seen the official police report and, as of Tuesday afternoon, had not received a return phone call from the police spokesman.)

Some departments have policies that forbid Taser use on handcuffed people.
Four years ago, I asked Fort Worth police several questions, and I still don’t have answers:
At what point in a confrontation should police use a Taser?
Is it a weapon of first resort or last resort?
Should any person be shocked more than once?
Has the Taser become a substitute for calling for backup?
Is the Taser more lethal than some police admit?
Should a person in restraints ever be shocked?

Tatum said most police officers are good, but that some have "the mentality of being judge, jury and executioner."

The Jacobs family and the community, he said, are most upset because emergency medical technicians arrived at the east-side home at the same time as police, but the police sent them away.

The family believes that police should have allowed the EMT personnel to remain and help out and that, with several officers on the scene, Jacobs should have been subdued without being shocked.

"It was a case of incompetence and poor judgment at the minimum," Tatum said. "Some in the community are calling it murder."

He said representatives of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a national civil rights organization, would be looking into the case. In addition, he said, a wrongful death and excessive force complaint would be filed with the U.S. Justice Department under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

I don’t like to think it necessary for outside forces to come to town to deal with an issue that we ought to be able to handle here.

But, as Tatum said, at the moment the community is not trusting police and city officials to deal fairly with this situation. He criticized the police for not apologizing to the family for the incident — "or at least offering regrets."

The police chief must know this is one of those cases that can easily escalate out of control. We expect him to handle it honestly, openly and with all deliberate speed.

Fort Worth police use of Taser questioned after man's death

2009-04-27T07:46:00.000-07:00

WFAA Video:
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa090419_mo_taserdeath.f07b919f.html

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

By MITCH MITCHELLmitchmitchell@star-telegram.com

FORT WORTH — Relatives are questioning the actions of Fort Worth police officers after a 24-year-old mentally ill man died Saturday shortly after being subdued with a Taser stun gun.
Police were called to a house in the 6200 block of Ava Court Drive in east Fort Worth about 10:30 a.m. by the parents of Michael Jacobs Jr., who said their son was causing problems, according to a statement from police.

When they arrived, Jacobs was in the front yard and uncooperative. When he became combative, an officer stunned him with a Taser, police said.

The officers planned to take Jacobs to John Peter Smith Hospital for a mental detention. He was handcuffed but began to have difficulty breathing, police said. He was taken to JPS, where he was pronounced dead about noon, according to the police statement.

Police are investigating the incident, and the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office will determine what caused Jacobs’ death.

Family members said police officers used excessive force to subdue Jacobs, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Charlotte Jacobs, Michael’s mother, says that her son was writhing on the ground and foaming at the mouth while he was being stunned and that she begged the officers to stop. Charlotte Jacobs also told police that her son was taking medications for his mental illness, relatives said.
"They have been to the house many times before, and they know Charlotte," said Helena Wigfall, 37, a cousin of Michael Jacobs. "That’s why we don’t understand why today was so different."

Kyev Tatum, pastor, said the Jacobs family would like an outside investigation as well as an autopsy from someone unaffiliated with the medical examiner’s office.

"The family believes it was a wrongful death," Tatum said. "The mother was making a cry for help, and it has turned into a Tasing death. There have been no answers as to why police used a Taser instead of the manpower that was available to them."

Wigfall said her cousin Michael was a small man, about 5 feet, 5 inches and about 150 pounds. The police had nothing to fear from him, Wigfall said.

"He was a very loving person," said Carol Morris, another cousin. "He was about my size. They could have thrown him to the ground and handcuffed him."

Fort Worth Police Chief Jeffrey Halstead said Saturday evening that he could not comment on the incident until he is briefed by investigators, which he expects to happen Monday.
The use of Tasers, which deliver a 50,000-volt charge, has been controversial in Fort Worth and around the country.

Amnesty International reported this year that 351 people have died after being stunned with Taser guns since June 2001.

Taser International has been sued at least three times in Tarrant County for wrongful deaths. In two of those deaths, Medical Examiner Dr. Nizam Peerwani has said he could not rule out the weapon as a contributing factor.

Peerwani has said he believes that Taser devices are safe when used on healthy people, but he has called for more studies of their effect on those who are on drugs, agitated or having heart problems.

This report includes material from the Star-Telegram archives.

Man dies after being subdued by police with stun gun

2009-04-27T07:42:00.000-07:00

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

April 18, 2009

Mitch Mitchell

mailto:MitchellMitchellmmitchell@star-telegram.com

FORT WORTH -- Parents were grieving the death of their 24-year-old mentally impaired son who died on Saturday after being subdued by Fort Worth police with a Taser stun gun.
Police arrived at a house in the 6200 block of Ava Court Drive in east Fort Worth about 10:30 a.m. after receiving a call from the parents of Michael Jacobs Jr., who said he was causing problems, according to a statement from police.

Jacobs met officers in the front yard, and was described by officers as uncooperative and agitated. When he became combative, an officer stunned him with a taser device, the police said.

The police planned to take Jacobs to John Peter Smith Hospital for a mental detention. But after he was stunned, Jacobs was handcuffed and began to have difficulty breathing, police said. He was taken to JPS, where he was pronounced dead about noon.

Police are investigating the incident and the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's office will make a determination of what caused Jacobs' death. Family members said they believe that police officers used excessive force to subdue Jacobs, who had been diagnosed with mental illness.
Charlotte Jacobs, Michael's mother, told relatives that her son was writhing on the ground and foaming at the mouth while he was being stunned, and she begged for the officers to stop.

"They have been to the house many times before and they know Charlotte," said Helena Wigfall, 37, a cousin of Michael Jacobs. "That’s why we don’t understand why today was so different."
Kyev Tatum, a Fort Worth pastor who spoke for the family on Saturday, said the parents are asking for an outside investigation as well as someone other than the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's office to perform an autopsy.

"The family believes it was a wrongful death," Tatum said. "The mother was making a cry for help, and it has turned into a tazing death. There have been no answers as to why police used a Taser instead of the manpower that was available to them."

Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative

2009-03-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

The Insight Center for Community Economic Development (www.insightcced.org) has produced an excellent report on the wealth gap between the races.

Hopefully the current administration will be able to correct the many years of bad public policy that has created such a wide gap in the land of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We can and we must do better as a nation.

Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative:http://www.insightcced.org/index.php?page=Closing-RWG

A NATION OF COWARDS?

2009-02-20T14:27:00.000-08:00

Maybe the US Attorney General may know something we do not know. Stay tune.

Link to his speech:

http://www.lonestarpowerpages.com/feb-21-2009--special-report-commentary.html

Holder: 'Nation of cowards' on race
Andy Barr Andy Barr Wed Feb 18, 1:50 pm ET

Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that despite advances, the United States remains “a nation of cowards” on issues involving race.

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been, and we, I believe, continue to be, in too many ways, a nation of cowards,” Holder said in remarks to his staff in honor of Black History Month. His comments appear on a transcript provided by the Justice Department.

“Even as we fight a war against terrorism; deal with the reality of electing an African-American, for the first time, as the president of the United States; and deal with other significant issues of the day, the need to confront our racial past and to understand our racial present, and to understand the history of African people in this country — that all endures,” the attorney general added.

“Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial.”

Holder said that the Department of Justice, in particular, bears a singular responsibility.
“And we, in this room, bear a special responsibility,” he said. “Through its work and through its example, the Department of Justice — this Department of Justice — as long as I'm here, must and will leave the nation to the new birth of freedom so long ago promised by our greatest president. This is our duty, this is our solemn responsibility.”

Holder said that the country is now a “fundamentally different” place than it used to be, but that the nation “still had not come to grips with its racial past, nor has it been willing to contemplate, in a truly meaningful way, the diverse future it is fated to have.”

“To our detriment, this is typical of the way in which this nation deals with issues of race,” he said.

FROM EGG THROWING TO BULLET-POINT

2008-10-31T11:05:00.000-07:00

FROM THROWING EGGS TO BULLET-POINT TEXAS A&M YOUNG CONSERVATIVES REACTS TO NATIONAL COVERAGE
By: Teri Ruland
Posted: 10/31/08

http://www.thebatt.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=6e8a477b-60d1-429a-b0a4-ff2afad51f46

COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS - Young Conservatives of Texas had an Anti-Obama carnival Wednesday in Rudder Plaza to demonstrate Sen. Barack Obama's economic policies.

"There were two events or two activities for the carnival. Throw away your nest-egg with Obama's policies to offer the opportunity for students to throw an egg representative of a retirement nest-egg that Americans try to build up," said Young Conservatives of Texas Chairman Tony Listi, a senior political science major.Making students aware of the policies is what YCT is all about, Listi said."We just want to make sure that students understand what Obama's policies are, and what they will do to the American economy, which is already suffering," he said.

There was another event, titled socialist-on-a-stick ring toss, in which students were encouraged to throw rings around the Halloween masks of Sen. Hillary Clinton and Obama."These events were meant to encourage political discussion among A&M students," Listi said.

"Quite a bit of political discussion happened. In that regard, we view the event as a success. Unfortunately, the crowd grew larger around our event, became out of control and the heckling of YCT members effectively shut down our event."

The event was intended to be a metaphor for what voters would be doing if they voted for Obama."I guess the concept of a nest-egg really was not emphasized enough and was not grasped by those in the crowd because that was what the egg represented," he said. "I don't know how many college students understand what a nest-egg means. It's saving up for retirement." The subject of race was never an issue according to Listi."Everything was centered around Senator Obama's policies. My opinion is that race was injected by the critics and the crowd," he said. "Furthermore, we had Clinton in our socialist-on-a-stick ring toss. So this was clearly not about race."Several students gave their opinions about the Carnival."I'm very conservative, but I thought it was a little ridiculous. They could have passed out the pamphlets. It makes them look bad," said Jenny Burchett, a senior psychology major.

Though some claimed conservative as their political views, another student didn't care one way or the other."It's embarrassing that we had something set up where we were throwing eggs at a potential Commander-in-Chief. It's disrespectful, I mean there are more constructive ways to express opinions than throwing eggs," said Drew Stallard, a senior psychology major.While some students regarded the event as ridiculous, another expressed the silliness of people's concerns.

"To me, it's a picture. I wouldn't make a big big deal about it. It has nothing to do with me voting one way or another. They're making it be turned into race. It does exist, I know, but people like to pull that card a lot," said David De Leon, a junior kinesiology major.

"If I would have been there and the eggs were free, I would have thrown it. Most probably didn't care who it was. I think it sucks that we're not allowed to throw [eggs] at a picture. Everyone just needs to relax a little bit and just not care so much." Though, YCT will retool the event and try to run it again on Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., YCT's director Jay Cunningham said. He said the pictures will be changed and that there will be a bullet-point display of Obama policies that YCT supported and disagreed with."We got a lot of feedback," Cunningham said. "But the most effective criticism we got is that we have a picture of Obama and [Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe] Biden, and outline the policies that we disagree with. Hopefully, they won't shut us down again and we can exercise our freedom of speech."
© Copyright 2008 The Battalion

ANOTHER DRAGGING DEATH IN TEXAS

2008-10-25T10:14:00.001-07:00

IS PARIS, TEXAS ANOTHER JASPER?

Saturday, Oct 25, 2008

Another dragging death in Texas raises tensions
http://www.star-telegram.com/804/v-print/story/996192.html

By JEFF CARLTON - Associated Press Writer

PARIS, TEXAS - In a gruesome case with powerful echoes of the dragging death of James Byrd a decade ago, a black man was killed underneath a pickup truck in East Texas and two white men have been charged with murder.

Black activists and the victim's mother are calling last month's killing of 24-year-old Brandon McClelland a racist attack. But prosecutors cast strong doubt on that Friday.

McClelland died after going with two white friends on a late-night beer run across the state line to Oklahoma, investigators said. Authorities said he was run over and dragged as far as 70 feet beneath the truck. His torn-apart body was discovered along a bloodstained rural road on Sept. 16. His mother said pieces of his skull could still be found three days later.

The case has raised racial tensions in Paris, a town of 26,000 with a history of fraught relations between blacks and whites.

To some, it sounded like the Byrd case, in which a black man in the East Texas town of Jasper, about 200 miles south of Paris, was chained by the ankles to the back of a pickup by three white supremacists and dragged for three miles. Two of the killers are now on death row; the third is serving a life sentence.

Prosecutors in the McClelland case said they are looking into whether one of the defendants, Shannon Keith Finley, was in a white supremacist gang while in prison for killing a friend.

But they said they have seen no evidence so far that McClelland's slaying was racially motivated. And they noted the three men had been friends for years.

"This is a group of guys who had black friends and white friends," said Allan Hubbard, a spokesman for the Lamar County district attorney's office. He added: "Any comparison to Jasper and James Byrd is preposterous."

Autopsy results are expected back next week. While investigators don't believe McClelland was tied to the truck, they planned to look closely for marks on the body that would indicate precisely how he was dragged.

Community activist Brenda Cherry said authorities have not seriously considered the possibility this was a hate crime. "There's a problem in Paris, Texas," she said. "I don't see a difference in getting dragged behind a truck and getting dragged under a truck."

A flier advertising a Saturday memorial service for McClelland said he was "the victim of a brutal and racist hate crime." The New Black Panthers met with investigators and held a news conference at the courthouse promising to examine the killing.

"I truly feel that race played a part in it," said the victim's mother, Jacquline McClelland. "It is a racist town, and Paris has always been a racist town."

The city is perhaps best known for its 70-foot Eiffel Tower replica topped by a giant red cowboy hat. Paris, which is 73 percent white and 22 percent black, was in the news last year after a black girl was sentenced to up to seven years in a juvenile prison hundreds of miles from her home for shoving a teacher's aide at school, while a white girl was sentenced by the same judge to probation for burning down her parents' house.

At the town square, decorated with pumpkins and hay bales for Halloween, the mother of the black girl said Friday that she began to feel Paris was a racist town after moving there from Oklahoma.

"There's a certain amount of fear that is pressed into black people when they live in Paris," said Creola Cotton.

According to court papers, Finley and Charles Ryan Crostley, both 27, told police they left the dry town to get beer in Oklahoma, and on the way back, the three men, all apparently drunk, argued about who was sober enough to drive. McClelland, an unmarried maintenance worker, decided to walk home, taking some beer with him, the men told police.

But Finley's estranged wife and one of his friends said they had been told by the two defendants that Finley began to bump McClelland with the front of his truck until McClelland fell, and Finley drove over him, according to court papers. Crostley and Finley then allegedly drove to a car wash to clean off the blood.

Crostley and Finley are jailed on charges of murder and evidence-tampering. Finley's attorney did not immediately return a message. There was no answer at the phone listing for Crostley's lawyer.

As in many small towns, some of the players are connected. The district attorney, Gary Young, was once the court-appointed lawyer for Finley, who was charged with murder in 2003. Finley eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to four years.

In that same case, McClelland pleaded guilty to perjury for providing a false alibi for Finley. He was sentenced to five years' probation but served some jail time when he violated its terms, prosecutor Bill Harris said.

McClelland's mother said that on the day her son died, he had called Finley to ask for his help on a home repair project at another friend's house.

"For the life of me, I cannot understand it," she said. "They didn't have to run over and kill my baby. They could have brought him home."

This is how many Black People Feel about how White Privilege is impacting this election.

2008-10-23T06:45:00.000-07:00

This is how many Black People Feel about how White Privilege is impacting this election.

Article By Tim Wise

http://www.redroom.com/blog/tim-wise/this-your-nation-white-privilege-updated

This was sent to me by one of my former students, Olivia D. Thanks.

Pray, March and Vote AGAINST THE BAILOUT!

2008-10-01T06:15:00.000-07:00

Pray, March and Vote AGAINST THE BAILOUT!

The Black Caucus voted AGAINST the bailout. We need to March and Pray. As Pastor Tom Franklin would say, "the only two things we have left is the land and the people."

Saturday, October 4, 2008 at 9:00 a.m.

211 US Courthouse

501 Tenth Street

Fort Worth, Texas 76102

We are moving from Civil Rights to Human Rights.

http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=228

Be Blessed,

Rev. Kyev P. Tatum, Sr.,

Ministers for Education

P.O. Box 60700

Fort Worth Texas 76115

817-966-ROCK (7625) or 817-615-8681

http://pktatum.blogspot.com/

NOBODY BUT GOD!!

GOD'S WORD, GOD'S GLORY! Matthew 16:18

GIVEN HALF A CHANCE

2008-08-21T04:36:00.000-07:00

The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males.
http://www.blackboysreport.org/

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS - For over five years, The Schott Foundation for Public Education has tracked the performance of Black males in public education systems across the nation.* Past efforts by Schott were designed to raise the nation’s consciousness about the critical education issues affecting Black males; low graduation rates, high rates of placement in special education, and the disproportionate use of suspensions and expulsions, to name a few.

The 2008 edition, Given Half a Chance: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males, details the drastic range of outcomes for Black males, especially the tragic results in many of the nation’s biggest cities. Given Half a Chance also deliberately highlights the resource disparities that exist in schools attended by Black males and their White, non-Hispanic counterparts. The 2008 Schott report documents that states and most districts with large Black enrollments educate their White, non-Hispanic children, but do not similarly educate the majority of their Black male students. Key examples:

· More than half of Black males did not receive diplomas with their cohort in 2005/2006.

· The state of New York has 3 of the 10 districts with the lowest graduation rates for Black males.

· The one million Black male students enrolled in the New York, Florida, and Georgia public schools are twice as likely not to graduate with their class as to do so.

· Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, South Carolina, and Wisconsin graduated fewer Black males with their peer group than the national average.

· Illinois and Wisconsin have nearly 40-point gaps between how effectively they educate their Black and White non-Hispanic male students.
These trends, and others cited in Given Half a Chance, are evidence of a school-age population that is substantively denied an opportunity to learn, and of a nation at risk.

* Black students are defined by the U.S. Department of Education as “students having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa as reported by their school.” Data in the Report are based on information from the U. S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights, state departments of education and local school districts. © Copyright 2008 The Schott Foundation for Public Education.678 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 301, Cambridge, MA 02139

NO MORE EXCUSES: COUNT EVERY STUDENT!

2008-08-21T04:09:00.000-07:00

FOR TEXAS PUBLIC SCHOOLS, STATE RATINGS DON'T ALWAYS TELL THE WHOLE STORY.

http://www.texaspolicy.com/pdf/2008-01-PP03-accountability-bt.pdf

"These are the kids that will then have the highest dropout rates," said the Rev. Kyev Tatum, an education advocate. "We’re telling kids there’s zero tolerance, and then they’re going to give schools exceptions on educating students?"

By EVA-MARIE AYALA

FORT WORTH, TEXAS - This year Keller High School reclaimed its "recognized" status on the Texas accountability chart. But is the school as good as the second-best rating suggests?

Dunbar Middle School in southeast Fort Worth is "academically acceptable" in the state’s eyes, but it would have been "unacceptable" — the lowest rating — had it not gotten a bump because many more students passed the science Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills than last year.

The story is similar at Knox Elementary in east Arlington, where Hispanic passing rates overall dropped 16 points. Still, the school was rated "recognized," even though those students didn’t hit the benchmark for that ranking.

State ratings are not always what they seem because of the complex system of exceptions and provisions that grade campuses on a curve, allowing them to earn higher ratings than test results alone would merit.

Without such provisions, an additional 36 Tarrant County schools would have been "unacceptable," including Fort Worth’s Southwest High School and Arlington High School, a Star-Telegram analysis shows. In Fort Worth alone, exceptions and other provisions allowed 19 schools to escape "unacceptable."

About 60 Tarrant County schools were "recognized" or "exemplary" after the state gave them exceptions — passes in certain testing areas — or because they made "required improvement" within specific student groups.Some schools also received a break this year after the state changed the way it defines dropouts.

Critics say the exceptions need to stop.

"It’s presenting a false picture of where public education is today," said Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Business Association in Austin.
Educators, however, say the provisions give schools with diverse student populations and lower-income students a chance to succeed in a system that favors small, less diverse schools.

"We don’t judge businesses on their lowest-performing areas," Fort Worth schools Superintendent Melody Johnson said. If one group is struggling in one area, she said, "it is not acceptable, no. But it doesn’t convey the right message about what is going on at that school, either."

TAKS exceptions

All schools are running a race.

A smaller school with only one or two kinds of students has fewer hurdles to overcome than larger schools more diverse in ethnicity and income. The more hurdles, the more areas a school is graded on for ratings. The more areas graded, the more exceptions the state gives to schools to help boost their ratings.

"The exceptions level the playing field for larger districts," said Suzanne Marchman, a Texas Education Agency spokeswoman.

The 79,000-student Fort Worth school district, for example, is graded on 27 measures. The 165-student Dime Box school district, southwest of College Station, is graded on 12, she said.
Morningside Elementary in near southeast Fort Worth, for example, moved up this year from "unacceptable" to "acceptable" after the state granted the school an exception for passing rates in reading and English language arts. Only 69 percent of students overall and 67 percent of African-American students passed those tests; 70 percent was required for "acceptable."

The Rev. Kyev Tatum, pastor of Friendship Rock Baptist Church in Fort Worth, said the provision hurts minorities most because it obscures whether schools are truly educating those students.

"These are the kids that will then have the highest dropout rates," said Tatum, an education advocate. "We’re telling kids there’s zero tolerance, and then they’re going to give schools exceptions on educating students?"

Gene Buinger, superintendent of the Hurst-Euless-Bedford school district, rejects Tatum’s argument.

Six of H-E-B’s eight exemplary schools won top ratings because of TAKS exceptions. Four hit the mark because some passing rates for African-American or Hispanic students were not counted against them.

Exceptions, Buinger said, are granted only when schools are within a few points of benchmark passing rates. Schools or districts must be within 5 points of a rating to receive an exception, which the state automatically applies.

Take Wilshire Elementary in Euless, one of H-E-B’s exemplary schools. The state says 90 percent of students must pass the math TAKS for a school to win the top rating. That didn’t happen at Wilshire this year. It got a pass on its African-American students’ passing rate in math, which was 89 percent.

Buinger said the rating system holds schools accountable for achievement in each student group, including minorities, a drastic change from when he started working in Texas schools many
years ago.

Differences in minority and Anglo students’ performance were "dramatic and indefensible," he said. "Now over the years, under three different testing systems, we’ve seen dramatic improvement in closing the achievement gap."

Wally Carter, the Arlington district’s longtime research and testing director, said ratings don’t accurately tell parents how their children’s schools are doing. He said the state should move toward an accountability system that shows how much students grow over time.

He said that at Knox, for example, the overall passing rate for Hispanic students went from 88 percent to 72 percent. But those results are based on a different group of students who could have started much further behind the last group of students tested, he said.

"When society makes all things truly equal and equitable, then we can all have the same standard," Carter said. "But until then, it’s about how much you are bringing students forward. Fairness is complex. Equity is complex."

Giving credit

One provision rewards schools for making significant gains.

The improvement provision allows parents and other community members to see which schools performed better on TAKS this year. At least 38 Tarrant County schools were rewarded this year for making "required improvement" when the ratings were released early this month.

At Keller High School, only 70 percent of low-income students passed the math test, though for "recognized," the state requires a 75 percent passing rate in all areas. But Keller High’s scores showed a 7-point improvement for low-income students from last year, the gain that boosted the school’s rating.

The community should be proud of that progress, said Deana Lopez, Keller’s assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

"Go and found out how many 5A schools out there can call themselves,” Lopez said. "The accountability system itself is based on your 'recognized,’ lowest-performing group instead of on growth."

Blanton Elementary in Arlington also reached "recognized" for the first time since 2004. It just missed the mark in science for Hispanic and poor students, but 30- and 27-point jumps, respectively, among those students allowed it to get the rating.

At Dunbar Middle School in Fort Worth, 37 percent of students passed science on the 2007 TAKS. But that was an 11-point gain from last year, so the campus is "acceptable." The passing rate on science for an "acceptable" school is supposed to be 45 percent.

Johnson said it is unacceptable to have any school, no matter how it’s labeled, performing below standards.

But it’s harder for schools with large numbers of limited-English speakers or low-income students to pass the TAKS, she said.

Students in every grade level in Fort Worth made gains this year, particularly in science, Johnson said. And that has happened as the state has toughened standards for passing the TAKS, she said.

"Many schools are making incredible progress, but they are still so far behind," she said.

WHAT ABOUT THE BLACKS?

2008-08-12T17:25:00.001-07:00

STUDY: TEXAS PUBLIC SCHOOLS MORE LIKELY TO LOSE TRACK OF BLACK STUDENTS: African American students represent nearly a quarter of students who have fallen through the cracks

By Molly Bloom
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, August 12, 2008

AUSTIN, TEXAS - The annual dropout rates for African American students in Texas , already higher than dropout rates for white and Hispanic students, might be even higher than previously reported, according to a Texas Education Agency report released last week.

As part of the state's effort to reduce the dropout rate, districts must account for each student in seventh through 12th grade who does not return to school in the district the next fall — whether the student has graduated, moved to a different district, enrolled in private school, left the district for other reasons or dropped out.
Districts can be sanctioned under the state's accountability system if more than 5 percent of their students, or more than 200, are unaccounted for.

The report includes what is essentially an audit of whether districts have actually tracked students, correctly entered their names and other identifying information, and indicated a reason for their departure in reports to the state.

The report shows that school districts, particularly charter schools, are more likely to lose track of African American students, relative to the proportion of African American students statewide, than students of any other racial group. State officials say they can't explain the trend.

African American students make up about 15 percent of Texas students but are a quarter of all unaccounted-for students. Overall, less than 1 percent of the state's more than 2 million seventh- through 12th-graders are unaccounted for in dropout reporting, down slightly from last year.

If the unaccounted-for African American students were counted as dropouts, the African American dropout rate would rise from about 4.1 percent to 5 percent.

Two-thirds of Texas ' 49 districts with unacceptably high numbers of unaccounted-for students under state standards are charter school operators.

For example, the state says that KIPP Austin College Prep, a charter school that had about 300 students in grades five through eight in the 2006-07 school year, didn't report the status of 20 of its 171 seventh- and eighth-graders in 2007-08, a rate of almost 12 percent.

KIPP Austin College Prep Director Jill Kolasinski said the school will find out the names and ethnicities of unaccounted-for students later this year. About 86 percent of KIPP Austin's students are Hispanic; about 13 percent are African American, and about 1 percent are white.

Last year, the school also had a relatively high number of unaccounted-for students: 15. Of those students, two went to public schools, and data entry errors — such as would be caused by students using a different first name — caused them to be listed as unaccounted-for, Kolasinski said. The other 13 students enrolled in private schools in the fall but didn't tell KIPP which ones before the school had to submit data to the state in the summer.

Kolasinski said KIPP Austin plans to ensure that students are identified and tracked correctly this year.

"We know where these kids are; just somewhere along the way, the data got inputted incorrectly on somebody's end," she said.

The Austin school district in the 2006-07 school year failed to report the status of 74 of its approximately 34,500 students in seventh to 12th grades, a rate of less than 1 percent, which is on par with other large urban districts including those in Dallas , Fort Worth and Houston .

Several urban districts had unacceptably high numbers of unaccounted-for students, according to the state education agency, including Irving , near Dallas ; North Forest in Houston ; Ysleta in El Paso ; and El Paso , none of which could tell the state what happened to more than 200 students who were no longer enrolled.

The 2006-07 statewide dropout rate for African American students — the percentage of students who should be enrolled but aren't, not including those who were unaccounted-for — was 4.1 percent, slightly higher than that of Hispanic students, 3.7 percent, and more than three times as high as that of white students, 1.3 percent.

The statewide gap between tracking African American students and students of other races has existed since the state began reporting the data by race and ethnicity 10 years ago.

Linda Roska, director of the Texas Education Agency's division of accountability research and a co-author of the report, said she couldn't say why the gap exists.

"At the state level, all we see are the numbers," she said.

Nancy Smith, deputy director of the Data Quality Campaign, a national effort to improve education data collection and use, said it was not surprising that some charter schools didn't meet state data quality standards. But the gap in Texas between the percentage of unaccounted-for African American students and the percentage of other unaccounted-for students is surprising, she said.

"Theoretically, if there was a problem with tracking students, it should hit all students the same," Smith said. "It should be a systemic issue, not a racial or ethnic issue."

Southern Regional Education Board spokesman Alan Richard said Texas ' methods of tracking students and dropout rates are among the best in the region. Texas is one of a handful of states that track unaccounted-for students by district. But, Richard said, "It's difficult to get a handle on the problem without knowing the extent of it."

"And no matter how you count them, graduation rates are way too low," he said.
mbloom@statesman.com; 445-3620

ROOTS ACADEMY BEGINS ON A HIGH NOTE!

2008-08-08T05:55:00.000-07:00

“This is one of the greatest callings in the world,” says, Rev. Kyev P. Tatum, Sr.

FORT WORTH, TEXAS - Victor Hugo once said, “There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come." This summer, Rev. Kyev P. Tatum put his heart together with other Pastors and community leaders to establish an academic program concept to help change the lives of many of our most at-risk children.

Rearing Our Own to Succeed Academy or ROOTS ACADEMY opened its doors on to serve students from several school districts, including Crowley, Fort Worth, Arlington, Austin, Mansfield, Everman, Houston, Dallas, and Hurst-Euless-Bedford.

An accelerated learning program for students in K-12 education, ROOTS Academy targets at-risk students who are serious about “excellence in learning” and will dedicate themselves daily to activities that will enhance the student’s academic performance, improve reading, writing, communication, and critical thinking skills and promote Abstinence and Achievement.

ROOTS ACADEMY’s mission is to educate and prepare students to become thoughtful active citizens who have an appreciation for the basic values of our culture and national heritage and who can understand and productively function in a free enterprise society.

National research clearly shows that students who spend the summer actively reading and writing daily are better prepared and less likely to engage in unhealthy sexual activities.

Each child participated this summer in healthy daily activities that improved their academic skills, improve their self-discipline and esteem, and further their spiritual growth and leadership development.

“We recognized that our children are in need of additional support and that the Church is a great place to offer supplemental support services,” says, Rev. Tatum, pastor of Friendship Rock Baptist Church and founder of ROOTS ACADEMY.

Housed on the campuse of Sycamore Center Villas, ROOTS ACADEMY served over 250 students through its academic enrichment and summer food programs.

“We were blessed to serve many children and summer meals on a shoestring budget this summer to students who otherwise would not have had a hot breakfast or lunch,” says Rev. Tatum

“This is the miracle, ” he said.

Leaders for ROOTS ACADEMY are optimistic about future program developments. Officials are currently exploring opportunities to collaborate with other institutions and agencies within the community to begin an after-school initiative and a research-based charter school to address the mental health of these students.

“Many of our children in these communities need the proper diagnosis and services that are necessary for them to grow into healthier and smarter adults,” Rev. Tatum says. “We are committed to making sure they receive the best in quality care from the right providers,” he said.

In a short period, the ROOTS ACADEMY has received recognitions for its innovation in program ideas from local, state and national leaders. Fort Worth Councilwoman Kathleen Hicks has invited the students and staff from the ROOTS ACADEMY down to City Hall for special recognition. Former United State Secretary of Education Dr. Rod Paige has endorsed the program and has agreed to serve as the honorary chair of the ROOTS ACADEMY advisory board.

“The time has come for everyone in the community to take back the responsibility of rearing our children to succeed,” says Pastor Tatum.

“We may have lost some of our children in the past, however, we believe we are called by God to reach out to the least, last and the lost and most of these are our children,” Rev. Tatum said.

In order to create an environment of excellence and establish high expectations for our participants, each student and parent are required to complete an interview before they can enroll into the after school program.

“This is one of the greatest callings in the world,” says, Pastor Tatum.

Parents are encouraged to contact ROOTS ACADEMY officials at 817-966-7625 to discuss enrollment into the after-school program.

ROOTS ACADEMY is a member of the America’s Promise Alliance.

DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE! SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS ARE GIFTED TOO!!

2008-04-24T15:14:00.000-07:00

JetBlue and Kinko’s Founders: ADHD didn't stop these creative types
http://www.star-telegram.com/health/v-print/story/592222.html

By SUE SHELLENBARGER, The Wall Street Journal

While many viewers get emotional watching Ty Pennington deliver remodeled homes to deserving families on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, his mom, Yvonne Pennington, cries for different reasons. After being told years ago that her unruly son was the worst kid in his school, she says, "my tears come from the joy at how far he has come."

That's because Pennington has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Some 7.8 percent of children ages 4 to 17 have been told by a doctor or other health professional that they have or might have ADHD, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

The behavior disorder, which often causes children to struggle mightily in school and in life, can be "impairing," says Mark Wolraich, lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics' clinical guidelines on diagnosing ADHD.

Many frazzled parents of hyperactive kids are looking for the silver lining.

Clearly, ADHD didn't cripple such noteworthy sufferers as JetBlue founder David Neeleman or Kinko's founder Paul Orfalea. How can you tell whether all that splintered energy will help your own child succeed? We asked a few famous ADHD sufferers and their parents for answers.

1. Look for the creativity
Neeleman's family refused to regard his hyperactivity as an impairment. "We always thought ADD was a plus," says his father, Gary.

He advises "looking at the kid as somebody who has a different way of looking at things, and maybe a more creative way." Then, he says, put your arms around them and tell them, "You're smart, and you can handle this."

Adolescence was a fog of watching Gilligan's Island reruns. But as an adult, Neeleman was able to see opportunities others missed. He is credited with inventing electronic airline ticketing, he founded two airlines and is working on a third start-up in Brazil.

He still has trouble sustaining a conversation for more than a few minutes, must delegate administrative tasks and got fired as JetBlue's CEO after service foul-ups. But he continues to focus on new ideas.

"If you're doing something you love," he says, "you'll be the best."

2. Emphasize the positive
Pennington says the negative messages from school can be overwhelming for a child with ADHD.
Asked as a small child to work at his desk, Ty would "wear it" instead, Yvonne Pennington says, separating the chair from the desk, popping the connecting assembly over his shoulders, and running around the room screaming.

Both say life improved after Yvonne started using behavior-modification techniques to reward Ty when he did something right. Also, Ty says his life turned after he started medication in his teens and gained maturity and the freedom to develop his creativity.
3. Never despair

Orfalea's mother came home in tears after he was expelled from school for the fourth time; a school official told her he'd do well to become an unskilled laborer, says the Kinko's founder, who also has dyslexia.

But she didn't allow it to shape her regard for Paul.

"My mother had a good saying: 'Look at your five fingers. All five are different for a reason. School wants to make you all the same,'" he says. Her support instilled his faith in himself. When he got the idea, while waiting in line for a copy machine in college, to start his own copying business, he trusted it in the face of criticism from others. The company he opened in a storefront, named for his kinky red hair, later grew to the 1,200-store giant that was acquired in 2004 by FedEx.

Online: SmartKidswithLD.org; CHADD.org; LDOnline.org

CRISIS IN THE CITIES

2008-04-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

School districts fare poorly in graduation-rates report

http://www.star-telegram.com/metro_news/v-print/story/559078.html
By Diane Smith and Martha DellerStar-Telegram Staff Writers April 1, 2008

FORT WORTH, TEXAS Slightly more than half the ninth-graders who entered Fort Worth district schools in 2000 went on to graduate in 2004, a rate below the national graduation rate of 70 percent, according to a report on schools in the nation's 50 largest cities by an organization founded by former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Fort Worth's graduation rate for the Class of '04 was 56 percent, Arlington's was 62.7 percent, and Dallas' was 44.4 percent, according to Cities in Crisis: A Special Analytic Report on High School Graduation, which was prepared for America's Promise Alliance.

The report shows a graduation-rate gap of an estimated 19 percentage points between urban and suburban schools in the Arlington-Fort Worth-Dallas metropolitan region during that school year, according to the findings.

"It's bad news, but it's welcome so we can be responsible for our assignment," said Chuck Hoffman, assistant superintendent of student support services for Fort Worth schools.
Who conducted the study?

The alliance, led by Powell's wife, Alma Powell, was scheduled to release the report today. It is billed as one of the first attempts to compare the performances of urban school districts in different states.

The data were compiled by Editorial Projects in Education Research Center.
Sponsors for the alliance's dropout prevention campaign include State Farm Insurance. The campaign hopes to "develop workable solutions and action plans for improving our nation's alarming graduation rates," according to a news release.

Dropout prevention summits are being scheduled, including a Texas summit and events in Fort Worth and Arlington, according to the alliance.

Key findings

Arlington schools ranked 13th among the 50 largest U.S. urban districts, Fort Worth schools ranked 25th and Dallas schools ranked 44th.

The Mesa district in Arizona was No. 1 with a 77 percent graduation rate.

"It's good to know we're not at the bottom," Arlington Superintendent Hector Montenegro said. "But a 62 percent graduation rate means that 38 percent of our children are not being successful. That's the tragedy of it all. We've known many of these reasons for many years, and yet they're still happening."

Montenegro said the Arlington district is taking steps to reduce the number of dropouts.
"We're going to be creating a more collaborative culture between the faculty and staff and a more inclusive culture in which youngsters are afforded more co-curricular and extracurricular opportunities," he said. "Too many of our children are being left out."

Seventeen of the nation's 50 largest cities had a graduation rate lower than 50 percent in the largest district serving the city, including Dallas schools. Detroit ranked the lowest, with a 25 percent graduation rate.

Seventeen metropolitan areas had a gap between urban and suburban graduation rates of more than 20 percentage points, including Baltimore, which showed a 47 percentage-point gap. The Arlington-Fort Worth-Dallas disparity gap of 18.9 percentage points is the highest in Texas. The second-highest Texas gap is in the Austin metropolitan region, at 12.9 percentage points.
Why do suburban districts have better graduation rates?

Cathy Anderson, assistant superintendent of Everman schools, said students in urban districts tend to move more. "It's hard for schools to work with students when they come in the middle of the year and they haven't been able to work with them the whole time," she said. "The study doesn't really address that."

Methodology

The national study used a different method to calculate the graduation rate than that used by the Texas Education Agency. Using one method allowed researchers to compare "apples to apples" among states that calculate dropout rates differently, researcher Chris Swanson said.

The researchers used the cumulative promotion index, which multiplies ratios of students promoted each year by the number who received diplomas in 2004. The data came from the Common Core of Data, an annual census of public schools and school districts compiled by the U.S. Education Department.

Texas' formula calculates the percentage of ninth-graders who graduate in four years. In 2004, that calculation excluded students who transferred out of the district, could not be tracked to another school or completed graduation requirements but failed all or part of the TAKS. That changed in 2006, when the state began counting students who failed the TAKS as dropouts, not graduates.

What was the 2004 graduation rate for Fort Worth schools under the TEA's formula?

Eighty percent.

Why is the study important?

"From an economic development perspective, it's very important to the area that all students are well-educated," Swanson said. "To remain competitive in the world, you need everybody to contribute, and you can't do that unless they have opportunities."

Swanson said the report's sponsors hope that educators will use the findings to reduce the urban-suburban gap and improve the graduation rate in the largest urban areas as well as nationwide.

Swanson noted "little pockets of high performance" in Arlington-Fort Worth-Dallas.
"That kind of example calls attention to the stark disparity," he said. "For a country that prides itself on educational opportunity for all students, those are not patterns we want to see."
How can districts help one another?

Methods used by "states or districts that are successful can be used in other districts. Detroit, for example, could find a district with similar demographics and a higher graduation rate, see what they're doing differently and try to implement it in Detroit," said Tammy Castleberry, spokeswoman for the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw district.
Staff writer Shirley Jinkins contributed to this report.

RACE RELATIONS IN AMERICA

2008-03-31T19:15:00.000-07:00

"What I would like understood as a black American is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them and that's our legacy." Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice

March 28, 2008 By Nicholas Kralev

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the United States still has trouble dealing with race because of a national "birth defect" that denied black Americans the opportunities given to whites at the country's very founding. "Black Americans were a founding population," she said. "Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together â€” Europeans by choice and Africans in chains.

That's not a very pretty reality of our founding." As a result, Miss Rice told editors and reporters at The Washington Times, "descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that." "That particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today," she said.

Race has become an issue in this year's presidential campaign, which prompted a much-discussed speech last week by Sen. Barack Obama, one of the two remaining contenders for the Democratic nomination. Miss Rice declined to comment on the campaign, saying only that it was "important" that Mr. Obama "gave it for a whole host of reasons." But she spoke forcefully on the subject, citing personal and family experience to illustrate "a paradox and contradiction in this country," which "we still haven't resolved." On the one hand, she said, race in the U.S. "continues to have effects" on public discussions and "the deepest thoughts that people hold." On the other, "enormous progress" has been made, which allowed her to become the nation's chief diplomat.

"America doesn't have an easy time dealing with race," Miss Rice said, adding that members of her family have "endured terrible humiliations."

"What I would like understood as a black American is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them and that's our legacy," she said.

Miss Rice also said that what "attracted" her to candidate George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign was not foreign policy, but his "no child left behind" initiative, which she said gave equal opportunities to black and white students. The proposal, much criticized by Mr. Obama and his Democratic rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been successful, Miss Rice said.

CRISIS! 1 in 2 Black Girls has a STD!

2008-03-22T05:17:00.000-07:00

AN AMERICAN CRISIS!

About 1 in 4 teenage girls in the United States - and nearly half of black girls - has at least one sexually transmitted disease, according to a study released, providing the first national snapshot of infection rates among this age group.

Those numbers translate into an estimated 3.2 million adolescent females infected with one of the four most common STDs - many of whom may not even know they have a disease or that they are passing it to their sex partners.

"What we found is alarming," said Dr. Sara Forhan, a researcher with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the study's lead author. "This means that far too many young women are at risk for the serious health effects of untreated STDs, including infertility and cervical cancer."

The study's authors analyzed data on 838 girls between ages 14 and 19 who participated in the 2003-04 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, an annual study that assesses a broad range of health issues. For the analysis, the teens were tested for human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, trichomoniasis, and herpes. By far, the most common sexually transmitted disease was HPV. Of those infected, 15 percent had more than one STD.

"It shows that what people have always suspected is true," said Dr. Emily J. Erbelding, an infectious diseases specialist at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. "Sexually transmitted infections have been called a hidden epidemic because a lot of these conditions are going to be asymptomatic when they're diagnosed, but they're highly common."

The overall figures could be slightly higher because other sexually transmitted diseases - syphilis, HIV, and gonorrhea - were not included in the study, although epidemiologists say the prevalence is low for those infections among adolescents. The study did not include teenage boys.

The paper was being presented this week at a CDC conference on STD prevention in Chicago.

Forhan said she was surprised to see how readily the risk to young women appears. Of those in the study who said they had just one sexual partner in their lifetime, the prevalence of STDs was 20 percent, she said.

While parents may be surprised by the study, it's a reflection of what doctors have been seeing in their practices in recent years, said Dr. Ligia Peralta, chief of the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at the University of Maryland Hospital for Children in Baltimore. In a small study done among girls in her university clinic in 2000, primarily black teens, 90 percent of the sexually active teens had HPV.

She called the CDC study "critical information for parents" and encouraged them to use this knowledge to be sure their daughters are being properly screened and taught about protection and prevention.

There are 19 million sexually transmitted diseases in the United States - costing the healthcare system $15 billion a year - and almost half occur among the 14-to-25 age group, said Dr. Kevin Fenton of the CDC. Officials called sexually transmitted diseases a public health epidemic and said efforts must be made to improve screening, education, and other prevention strategies for sexually active teens.

Poor Texas Students Deserve Their Fair Share.

2008-02-07T19:05:00.000-08:00

TEXAS - The Education Trust is out with a new report showing a big gap in teacher quality among Texas schools.

Heather Peske, with the Trust, says poor and primarily minority schools get the most UN-certified teachers, the most lower-paid rookie teachers, and have the most turnover. In Fort Worth 1 in 5 teachers of the high minority schools have fewer than 3 years teaching experience. That's twice the rate of novice teachers in more affluent Fort Worth Schools.

In Dallas, superintendent Dr. Michael Hinojosa says they're trying to fix that by giving a six thousand dollar stipend to experienced, successful teachers who move to low-performing schools.The Education Trust is launching a new website so parents can check out the number of uncertified, inexperienced, underpaid teachers in each school in the 50 school largest school districts.

“This is a travesty,” says the Rev. Kyev Tatum, president for Ministers for Education, a grassroots advocacy group for education reform. “This takes me back to the separate but equal mentality of the past. This is unacceptable in the 21st Century. Governor Rick Perry should do more for reform in Texas. Especially for poor kids who deserve better,” Tatum said.

For more information go to their website at http://www.theirfairshare.org/.

THE TEXAS DROPOUT FACTORY CRISIS

2007-11-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

“184 Texas Schools Deemed "Dropout Factories"
By, Peggy Venable, Texas Director, Americans for Prosperity

AUSTIN, TEXAS - More than 180 Texas high schools are listed as "Dropout Factories," meaning they retain only 60% of their students from grades 9 through 12. Only 18 of the 184 are not predominantly minority schools. The retention rate in some schools hovers at only 30% - meaning 70% of students drop out. Texas is home to 10% of the nation's schools deemed "dropout factories."

Rev. Kyev Tatum, President of Ministers for Education of America (MEA) sent this staggering and deeply disturbing information this week. It is hard to believe that we accept this level of failure when it comes to our children.

The challenge policymakers face is to find a way to end this cycle of poverty, failure and despair. School choice is not about picking winners and losers. It is about children.

Any child in a failing school should not be sentenced to that institution, but should have the ability to take their education dollars to the educational institution where their parents think they would have the greatest opportunity to succeed. It is not about money. Some inner city, predominantly minority schools are not on that list, and they are not any better funded.

Rev. Tatum wrote, "This, in my humble opinion, is why we must pass meaningful school choice here in Texas next session. Many of our schools are nothing more than a dropout factory."

The Ministers for Education of America promotes school reform and serves as the sponsor of former Secretary of Education Dr. Rod Paige’ Texas HOPE Tour that promotes his new book, “A War Against Hope.”

We agree, Rev. Tatum. It is unacceptable. Click here and Find the story here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON MEA CONTACT REV. TATUM AT 817-966-7625 OR kyevtatum@yahoo.com

DON'T MOURN BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION

2007-07-05T00:30:00.000-07:00

New York Times Op-Ed Contributor
Don't Mourn Brown v. Board of Education
By JUAN WILLIAMS
Published: June 29, 2007

WASHINGTON DC - LET us now praise the Brown decision. Let us now bury the Brown decision. With yesterday's Supreme Court ruling ending the use of voluntary schemes to create racial balance among students, it is time to acknowledge that Brown's time has passed. It is worthy of a send-off with fanfare for setting off the civil rights movement and inspiring social progress for women, gays and the poor. But the decision in Brown v. Board of Education that focused on outlawing segregated schools as unconstitutional is now out of step with American political and social realities.

Desegregation does not speak to dropout rates that hover near 50 percent for black and Hispanic high school students. It does not equip society to address the so-called achievement gap between black and white students that mocks Brown's promise of equal educational opportunity. And the fact is, during the last 20 years, with Brown in full force, America's public schools have been growing more segregated even as the nation has become more racially diverse. In 2001, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that the average white student attends a school that is 80 percent white, while 70 percent of black students attend schools where nearly two-thirds of students are black and Hispanic. By the early 90s, support in the federal courts for the central work of Brown's racial integration of public schools began to rapidly expire.

In a series of cases in Atlanta, Oklahoma City and Kansas City, Mo., frustrated parents, black and white, appealed to federal judges to stop shifting children from school to school like pieces on a game board. The parents wanted better neighborhood schools and a better education for their children, no matter the racial make-up of the school. In their rulings ending court mandates for school integration, the judges, too, spoke of the futility of using schoolchildren to address social ills caused by adults holding fast to patterns of residential segregation by both class and race. The focus of efforts to improve elementary and secondary schools shifted to magnet schools, to allowing parents the choice to move their children out of failing schools and, most recently, to vouchers and charter schools.

The federal No Child Left Behind plan has many critics, but there is no denying that it is an effective tool for forcing teachers' unions and school administrators to take responsibility for educating poor and minority students. It was an idealistic Supreme Court that in 1954 approved of Brown as a race-conscious policy needed to repair the damage of school segregation and protect every child's 14th-Amendment right to equal treatment under law. In 1971, Chief Justice Warren Burger, writing for a unanimous court still embracing Brown, said local school officials could make racial integration a priority even if it did not improve educational outcomes because it helped to prepare students to live in a pluralistic society. But today a high court with a conservative majority concludes that any policy based on race no matter how well intentioned is a violation of every child's 14th-Amendment right to be treated as an individual without regard to race.

We've come full circle. In 1990, after months of interviews with Justice Thurgood Marshall, who had been the lead lawyer for the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund on the Brown case, I sat in his Supreme Court chambers with a final question. Almost 40 years later, was he satisfied with the outcome of the decision? Outside the courthouse, the failing Washington school system was hypersegregated, with more than 90 percent of its students black and Latino. Schools in the surrounding suburbs, meanwhile, were mostly white and producing some of the top students in the nation.

Had Mr. Marshall, the lawyer, made a mistake by insisting on racial integration instead of improvement in the quality of schools for black children? His response was that seating black children next to white children in school had never been the point. It had been necessary only because all-white school boards were generously financing schools for white children while leaving black students in overcrowded, decrepit buildings with hand-me-down books and underpaid teachers. He had wanted black children to have the right to attend white schools as a point of leverage over the biased spending patterns of the segregationists who ran schools both in the 17 states where racially separate schools were required by law and in other states where they were a matter of culture.

If black children had the right to be in schools with white children, Justice Marshall reasoned, then school board officials would have no choice but to equalize spending to protect the interests of their white children. Racial malice is no longer the primary motive in shaping inferior schools for minority children. Many failing big city schools today are operated by black superintendents and mostly black school boards. And today the argument that school reform should provide equal opportunity for children, or prepare them to live in a pluralistic society, is spent. The winning argument is that better schools are needed for all children black, white, brown and every other hue in order to foster a competitive workforce in a global economy.

Dealing with racism and the bitter fruit of slavery and separate but equal legal segregation was at the heart of the court's brave decision 53 years ago. With Brown officially relegated to the past, the challenge for brave leaders now is to deliver on the promise of a good education for every child.

Juan Williams, a senior correspondent for NPR and a political analyst for Fox News Channel, is the author of â Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America.

DL HUGHLEY BOYCOTT A SUCCESS!!

2007-07-04T17:08:00.000-07:00

FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM

Posted on Sun, Jun. 17, 2007

“WE HAVE PREVAILED HERE!”
Over 1100 “No Shows” at DL Hughley’s Performance at Fort Worth Bass Hall
http://www.star-telegram.com/live//v-print/story/139973.html

By MALCOLM MAYHEW- Special to the Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH -- Tom Franklin was one of the first to arrive for comedian D.L. Hughley's concert Saturday night at Bass Hall -- not to see the show, but to protest it.

"What he did was wrong," said Franklin, 70, a pastor at New Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Fort Worth. "He makes me ashamed to turn the TV on." Franklin was one of about 20 people who marched outside Bass Hall to protest comments that Hughley, a nationally known comedian and actor who had his own sitcom, made this month on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Discussing comments made by shock jock Don Imus about the Rutgers University women's basketball team -- comments that led to Imus' termination -- Hughley said, among other things, that the players were "some of the ugliest women" he had ever seen.

Hughley's comments have not gained as much national attention as Imus', but they have set off another round of free-speech debates on the radio and the Internet. Footage of Hughley's Tonight Show appearance has been viewed nearly 22,000 times on YouTube.

And on Friday, Hughley spent much of the day at local radio stations, discussing the controversy with community leaders and listeners. The controversy gave Hughley source material for Saturday's show. Seconds into his performance, he jokingly acknowledged the protest. "There's technology, people," he said. "Send an e-mail."

Audience members greeted Hughley with a standing ovation. But a heckler was removed by police and Bass Hall management and was issued a citation for criminal trespass, according to a Bass Hall spokesperson. "Thanks for your money!" Hughley said as the heckler was being escorted out of the building. Organizers said the protest was a success.

"We have prevailed here," said organizer Kyev Tatum, a pastor at Servant House Baptist Church in Fort Worth. "His performance is not well-attended. This is proof that this type of behavior will not be accepted." The show drew about 900 people, according to Bass Hall management. The venue holds 2,056. Many ticket holders said they were unfazed by Hughley's comments.

"He's a comedian. He's supposed to say things that may be offensive to some people," said Alexandra Hunt, 22. Chris McClure, 29, said he agrees -- to an extent. "This is America. You have a right to say whatever you want," he said. "But you do have to be careful now. ... If you're going to offend people, you better offend everyone."

FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM

Posted on Fri, Jun. 15, 2007
COMEDIAN’S SHOW BOYCOTTED!
Fort Worth Black Ministers Tired of the Doubled Standards
By ANDREW CHAVEZ, Star-Telegram staff writer, Friday, June 15, 2007

FORT WORTH, TEXAS - As Juneteenth celebrations kick off across Texas, some local minority leaders plan to boycott an appearance by a comedian to express their disapproval of comments he made recently about African-Americans.

Comedian D.L. Hughley created an Internet buzz when he appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and discussed comments by Don Imus, a radio shock jock who was fired for comments he made about the Rutgers women's basketball team.

"He literally said the same thing" as Imus, said Eddie Griffin of Fort Worth, a self-proclaimed "old-school activist" who plans to participate in the boycott. "It was just heartbreaking."
Hughley will perform Saturday at Bass Hall as Juneteenth celebrations across North Texas go into full swing. The holiday is Tuesday. Hughley is unapologetic and said through his publicist that freedom of speech is "a zero sum proposition."

"Too many times I have watched clowns like these pretend to speak for the masses," he said. "Isn't there a child you can help teach to read, a war to help stop, an unjustly accused man you can help out of jail? I will not apologize for telling a joke about the world as I see it." Local leaders say the message is bad for the community. "It's their humanness that he's belittling and degrading and it's not just a joke," said the Rev. Kyev Tatum of Fort Worth, a pastor at Servant House Baptist Church. "Words hurt, especially when they're coming from someone of their own race."

Tom Franklin of Fort Worth, a pastor at New Mount Calvary Baptist Church, said Hughley represents a double standard for black and white comedians.

"This is not funny and we will not support a double standard in the name of free enterprise," Franklin said in a statement. The group plans a news conference today at noon at Servant House Baptist Church in Fort Worth. Hughley was scheduled to address the situation during an appearance on The Rickey Smiley Show at 6 a.m. today on KBFB/97.9 FM, according to a spokeswoman for Bass Hall.

Texas Coalition Protests D. L. Hughley Visit to Bass Hall

2007-06-16T14:09:00.000-07:00

"As Juneteenth celebrations kick off across Texas, some local minority leaders plan to boycott an appearance by a comedian to express their disapproval of comments he made recently about African-Americans," says staff-writer Andrew Chavez of Texas' Star Tribune.

"Comedian D.L. Hughley created an Internet buzz when he appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and discussed comments by Don Imus, a radio shock jock who was fired for comments he made about the Rutgers women's basketball team."

"He literally said the same thing" as Imus, said Eddie Griffin of Fort Worth, a self-proclaimed "old-school activist" who plans to participate in the boycott. "It was just heartbreaking." Star Tribune.

So, Texas' Black religious community is helping to lead a boycott of D.L. Hughley's Juneteenth appearance in Texas, and they are asking the AfroSpear to spread this boycott nationwide and internationally. So, I received the following press release from the Rev. Pastor Kyev P. Tatum, Sr. in Fort Worth, TX:

The MILLICOM Group
Professional Consultants
Houston – Los Angeles – Atlanta
P. O. Box 270836
Houston, Texas 77277
713-256-6243 / 713-320-7788
www.themillicomgroup.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 15, 2007
Contact: Donald Fields
713-256-6243

PROMINENT BLACK TEXAS MINISTER CALLS FOR NATIONAL BOYCOTT OF BLACK COMEDIAN D.L. HUGHLEY FOR RACIST, INSENSITIVE AND DEMEANING “IMUS-LIKE” REMARKS

Fort Worth, TX - In what he is calling “inhumane, belittling and degrading” of the recent remarks made by popular Black comedian D. L. Hughley on national television and radio appearances regarding black women and other African-American’s, Fort Worth Black Minister Rev. Kyev Tatum has joined many other Fort Worth ministers in calling for a national boycott of Hughley and has issued a warning to national networks and other entertainment companies to cancel any and all Hughley appearances out of respect for African-American’s in general and of Black Women in particular.

“Words hurt”, states Tatum, “especially when they’re coming from someone of their own race, and they’re directed maliciously and viciously towards members of their own race, or towards anyone for that matter. This national culture of disrespect and incorrectness is a national disgrace and must stop."

This is especially a sensitive matter, as many statewide celebrations commence in Texas in observation of Juneteenth, a revered and historic date (June 19) commemorating the date that blacks in Texas learned of the Emancipation Proclamation.
As such, many local minority leaders plan to boycott an appearance by Hughley to express their disapproval of comments he made recently about African-Americans. Comedian D.L. Hughley created an Internet buzz when he appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and discussed comments by Don Imus, a radio shock jock who was fired for comments he made about the Rutgers women's basketball team.

Hughley is scheduled to perform Saturday at Bass Hall as Juneteenth celebrations across North Texas go into full swing. The holiday is Tuesday. Hughley is unapologetic and said through his publicist that freedom of speech is "a zero sum proposition."

In his statement, Hughley said, "too many times I have watched clowns like these pretend to speak for the masses," he said. "Isn't there a child you can help teach to read, a war to help stop, an unjustly accused man you can help out of jail? I will not apologize for telling a joke about the world as I see it." Local leaders say the message is bad for the community.

What Hughley said was unacceptable and the fight will continue beyond the Texas event until Hughley realizes that Black people are sick and tired of being insulted, regardless of where the insults are coming from.

Call or email the Bass Hall and ask them to cancel the show. Share with others in your network.

We can not support a double standard.

Contact:

Mr. Paul Beard- Manager
pbeard@basshall.com
Toll Free 1-877-212-4280