girl, your white dad was not a "slave"
… let’s just dive straight into the hellfire, shall we.
Rep. Jennifer Decker — the white GOP architect of the House’s anti-DEI bill — proudly, albeit kinda lowkey nervously, shared that she (allegedly) took a Black studies course in college a few weeks ago on KET. And the writings she studied were “not DEI concepts at all” — a statement that should inspire some level of hope, but not security.
When I — white girl from NKY — designed my college major, I purposefully built Black studies into it so I could better cover Louisville’s Black community and the racial inequities it faces. Incredibly, I feel as if I’ve spent more time applying what I learned to covering political culture wars than to actual issues around inequity and the systemic problems that sparked them.
(Happy belated three year anniversary to The Last Stop, the nationally recognized project I co-wrote that literally played a critical role in ending busing for desegregation in Louisville, btw, so yeah, I know a thing about reporting on racial equity.) (And yes, it has been three full years since that series dropped. I don’t believe it either.)
But all that said, I’m not quite sure if our girl truly understands that her bill would significantly chill, if not outright end, the coursework she holds so dear.
Zooming right on past the point that her own legislation could render such courses obsolete (even though she doesn’t agree), just at what point in that course (or her life) did she get the idea that it was even remotely accurate to call her white father — who existed predominantly in the 20th century — a “slave,” I do not know. She apparently considers such clarifying details “irrelevant.”
I have a feeling we’ll need to spend some time in the coming weeks unpacking this, but, for now, if your dad was a white guy born in the USA in the 20th century, don’t tell a bunch of Black people during Black History Month he was a “slave.”
To the shock of (hopefully) no one, GOP lawmakers filed twin resolutions in the House and Senate Monday to launch a task force to explore the ~efficiency and effectiveness~ of public school districts, but only the districts with more than 75K students — aka just you, big boy JCPS.
I had a lengthy Twitter thread breaking down the resolutions Monday night, so for your sake but especially mine, I will just point y’all to that thread instead of rewriting it now. TL;DR: While we knew this was coming, that doesn’t make it a better idea — especially given how it is so narrowly tailored because judges don’t tend to really love that.
Thankfully, JCPS really capitalized on the situation by … focusing its Tuesday school board meeting on how it may no longer provide transportation to students heading to its well-regarded, disproportionately white/well-off magnet schools because it currently cannot seem to get kids to school in a reasonable, timely fashion.
(As read by the GOP: JCPS is publicly admitting it can’t get all of its students to school.)
This is not an education newsletter, but I am who I am, and I did not spend months and months of my life focused on studying JCPS’ assignment plan to lose a Pulitzer pass up such a great opportunity to run my mouth, so just a few points:
Some of the longest bus rides in JCPS are not tied to “forced busing,” but are actually taking generally white/well-off kids from the East End suburbs to Manual and Male.
Again, JCPS’ magnet schools have some hardcore diversity and access and equity problems, and they’ve had those for years. School transportation may be the only way low-income students can access said schools, should they overcome the aforementioned barriers, thus potentially creating yet another barrier.
Board Chair Corrie Shull said Tuesday: “I want to say openly in a full-throated way: We don't need to move forward with any option that has concerns around racial equity. That undermines our commitment as a district.”
Senate Ed Chair Sen. Stephen West, R-Paris, filed a bill that would let kids go to school part-time in Kentucky.
Monday’s Kentucky Tonight episode on KET focused on education policy and school choice. I’ll be honest, I haven’t watched it yet, but I’m sure it was an absolute rager. You can watch the rerun here.
SB 6 — the Senate’s anti-DEI in higher ed bill — passed out of the Senate on a party line vote Tuesday.
The vote came hours after a new poll signaled nearly three-fourths of Kentuckians think businesses and institutions should determine their own diversity, equity and inclusion policies — not the government.
And the day after it passed, UK President Eli Capilouto shared in a letter to campus that he’s not particularly thrilled rn: “We don’t speak as an institution on public policy unless the issues will impact our entire community in potentially significant ways. This is one of those moments.”
SB 6 now heads to the House, which has its own, more far-reaching measure on the topic, HB 9. Which one will win out? Looks like it is … A Time For Choosing. (Sorry, I had to, TBT to the CRT scare of 2022, iykyk)
The nonpartisan folks who make the legislature sing dropped a new report earlier this week on Kentucky’s staff shortages in education. Again, I did not fully read it yet, because I’m fully aware the teacher shortage is, like, a thing, but here it is, in all of its nearly 200 pages of glory.
SB 4, the bill I mentioned that changes how Kentucky handles teachers’ sick leave when they retire, passed out of the Senate Wednesday afternoon.
HB 387, the bill to significantly relax the requirements to be a substitute teacher, cleared the House, as did HB 300, the “please EPSB hurry up” bill.
Thursday:
Tons of committee meetings, but not seeing anything as of rn that really demands a crazy amount of attention.
Gov. Andy Beshear’s weekly Team Kentucky presser is at 12:30 p.m.
House and Senate gavel in at 2 p.m.
Friday:
As always:
The Gallery Pass. Tell your friends to subscribe and/or upgrade to a paid subscription — once I hit 2,000 subscribers, I’ll do a special mailbag edition of The Gallery Pass.
Live updates go on Twitter.
TikTok is for bill explainers + answering questions.
Instagram is very much for the aesthetic.
LEO Weekly will be home for all of my full-length, original reporting.
One last thing: If you’ve stumbled across this Substack by some way other than getting it emailed to you because you subscribed, now is a great time to ~subscribe~ plz and thx!
ok, byeeee!
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