WASHINGTON – Falling short of requirements under President Bush’s education law, about 1,750 U.S. schools have been ordered into radical “restructuring,” subject to mass firings, closure, state takeover or other moves aimed at wiping their slates clean.

Many are finding resolutions short of such drastic measures. But there is growing concern that the number of schools in serious trouble under the No Child Left Behind law is rising sharply Ñ up 44 percent over the past year alone Ñ and is expected to swell by thousands in the next few years.

Schools make the list by falling short in math or reading for at least five straight years.

In perspective, the total amounts to 3 percent of roughly 53,000 schools that get federal poverty aid and face penalties under the No Child Left Behind law.

“It’s just a matter of time before we see upwards of 10,000 schools in restructuring,” said Michael Petrilli, a former enforcement official at the Education Department.

“Unless all of these schools suddenly turn themselves around, or the states continue to find ways to finagle the system, you’re going to see the numbers accelerate,” said Petrilli, now vice president for policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a school change advocate.

The Associated Press reported last month that schools were deliberately not counting the test scores of nearly 2 million students, mostly minorities, when they measure progress by racial groups. Those exclusions have made it easier for schools to meet their yearly goals.
news.yahoo.com

The Furor Over the “Colored Mind Doubles”

…Ms. Martin’s interview with Cynthia McKinney came to my attention originally after I received an email from the brilliant young social and media critic, Joseph Anderson, one of those who was offended by it. After viewing the interview at the ABC website, I agreed with Anderson that Ms. Martin was curt, rude and sarcastic to Ms. McKinney. I sent him an email saying that if she had used this tone during an interview with a white male congressman she would have received the Connie Chung treatment. Fortunately, readers may consult the show online and decide whether they agree. Ignored during this interview was the fact that it’s Ms. McKinney’s political views, not the hair or her minor altercation with a capitol policeman that has earned her persecution from one of Washington’s most powerful lobbies and her round the clock ridicule from places like CNN, whose president views dissing blacks as a way of raising the fledgling ratings of the network. Had It not been for the O.J. trial, CNN would have tanked long ago, and they’ve spent much time since then, searching for an O.J. or a Michael Jackson, or Clarence Thomas, Kobe Bryant or another black male who would attract a viewer lynch mob to their product.

They celebrated their 25th anniversary with a visual montage, which I have saved. This montage was supposed to include photos of the most important events of the last twenty-five years. A photo of Anita Hill was larger than the rest.

Does CNN believe that the Anita Hill Controversy, however significant, was the most important event of 25 years- years that included natural disasters, wars and an attack on the American homeland and the impeachment of a president? Does this mean that the morbid excessive fascination with blacks involved in scandals borders on a sickness, something that needs to be examined in a clinic room? Are those who furnish the public with this material, sick, or the market that craves this junk?

Why, asked the late Rick James, during an interview with a CNN bimbo, was the Michael Jackson trial more interesting to the public than the war in Iraqi? Good question.
counterpunch.org

For nearly two decades a part of the city’s jails known as Area 2 was the epicenter for what has been described as the systematic torture of dozens of African-American males by Chicago police officers. In total, more than 135 people say they were subjected to abuse including having guns forced into their mouths, bags places over their heads, and electric shocks inflicted to their genitals. Four men have been released from death row after government investigators concluded torture led to their wrongful convictions.
democracynow.org

COLUMBUS, Ohio — When J. Kenneth Blackwell took the stage here on May 2 to claim the Republican nomination for governor, he became something more than his party’s standard-bearer in a bellwether state.

The Ohio secretary of state — a crusading conservative with an appetite for political combat — also assumed a leading role in his party’s latest effort to break the Democrats’ decades-long grip on the black vote.

Blackwell, who will face Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland in November, is now the third prominent African American on a statewide Republican ballot this fall. In Maryland, Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, whose candidacy has benefited from his friendship with two Republican National Committee chairmen, is the party’s nominee to fill the seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes. In Pennsylvania, former Pittsburgh Steelers star Lynn Swann is challenging Democratic Gov. Edward G. Rendell.
washingtonpost.com

WASHINGTON President Bush’s approval rating has slumped to 31% in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, the lowest of his presidency and a warning sign for Republicans in the November elections.

The survey of 1,013 adults, taken Friday through Sunday, shows Bush’s standing down by 3 percentage points in a single week. His disapproval rating also reached a record: 65%. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.
usatoday.com

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tried to rewrite history last week when he denied making prewar claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Rumsfeld’s latest effort at backtracking on his prewar statements came Thursday at a contentious public forum in Atlanta when he faced a handful of hecklers and an anti-war questioner in the audience, who charged that he had lied about Saddam having weapons of mass destruction, which was President Bush’s chief rationale for invading the country and starting the war.

The Pentagon chief denied he had lied and said he had relied on official intelligence reports about Saddam’s weapons.

His questioner persisted: “You said you knew where they were.”

Rumsfeld: “I did not. I said I knew where ‘suspect’ sites were.”

The record shows that in the weeks preceding the war, Rumsfeld flatly claimed to know the whereabouts of Saddam’s WMD arsenal.

On March 30, 2003, 11 days into the war, Rumsfeld was asked in an ABC News interview if he was surprised that American forces had not yet found any weapons of mass destruction.

“Not at all,” Rumsfeld said, according to an official Pentagon transcript. “The area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.”

His comments in Atlanta were in line with an earlier attempted revision.

Six months after the invasion, on Sept. 10, 2003, Rumsfeld revisited the WMD issue in remarks at the National Press Club.

“I said, ‘We know they’re in that area,’ ” referring to the weapons. “I should have said, ‘I believe we’re in that area. Our intelligence tells us they’re in that area,’ and that was our best judgment.”
seattlepi.nwsource.com

Monday’s nomination by U.S. President George W. Bush of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to take over the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from the hapless Porter Goss has predictably intensified speculation over what is really going on behind the scenes.

Most analysts see the shifts as the latest battle between the director of national intelligence (DNI), John Negroponte, and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld in the war over control of the multiple functions of the sprawling, $40-billion-a-year intelligence community.

But opinion appears deeply divided over which bureaucratic titan will emerge as this round’s winner, although few doubt that the unceremonious dismissal of a CIA director who served less than 20 months on the job Ð particularly by a president who has proven dogged in retaining loyal servants despite strong evidence of incompetence Ð is filled with portent.
antiwar.com

BAGHDAD, 8 May (IRIN) – Local aid agencies warn that families displaced immediately following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 still remain homeless.

“We urge international aid agencies to help us support the displaced, especially in terms of food and shelter,” said Waleed Rashdi, a spokesman for the Aid Agencies Association in Iraq. “Because all the aid is now being sent to the recently-displaced, while other groups are suffering seriously.”

Dina Abou Samra, a Middle East analyst at the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) agreed with this assessment. “The media has focused much attention on those displaced within the last weeks [victims of sectarian violence],” she said. “But it’s urgent that the needs of many other groups of displaced people are also addressed.” She went on to say that such people Ð many of whom have remained homeless for almost three years Ð be provided with shelter, food and access to clean water and health services.
alertnet.org

More than half of Israelis think the government should encourage its Arab citizens to emigrate from Israel, according to an annual survey by the Israel Democracy Institute.

A poll published Tuesday on the state of democracy in Israel found that 62 percent of Israelis support government-backed Arab emigration, compared to the 40 percent detailed by Geocartography Institute poll in March.
haaretz.com

GAZA CITY (AFP) – Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya vowed not to allow a civil war to break out after clashes between his Hamas movement and the rival Fatah faction left three dead and 11 wounded.

The clashes, the worst since Hamas trounced the former ruling Fatah in January’s election, broke out near the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis following a series of tit-for-tat kidnappings, police and witnesses told AFP.

Two followers of Fatah and one Hamas activist, all in their 20s, were killed in the violence in the village of Abasan, according to hospital officials.
news.yahoo.com

VIDEO: Civil War in Gaza