Page 21 - Florida Sentinel 1-20-17 Edition

News Around The Nation
‘We’re Out:’ Black Americans Leaving The Country Before Trump Takes Office
President Obama Wants To Give $1 Billion To Low Income Students
As this administration draws to a close, Audrey Edwards is packing as fast as the Obamas.
By January 20th, Inaugu- ration Day, she'll be nearly 6,000 miles away from Brooklyn not watching the festivities in Paris.
A journalist and real es- tate agent, she first got the idea to leave the U. S. when former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani ran for president in 2008. But when Trump rode down that gilded escalator, called Mexicans rapists and an- nounced his candidacy for Commander-in-Chief, Ed- wards put friends on no-
tice: "If somebody as crazy as
this guy gets in, I'm out of here."
She plans to spend a good deal of the next four years traveling with New York as home base. Her first stop is the City of Lights, where she spent three months in 2008, after three people close to her died in the course of a year.
"I was also turning 60," she recalls, "and I didn't re- alize 'til I took a break how badly I needed it." This time around she'll turn 70 in Paris, which she'll celebrate with her roommate from college, who's lived there for decades, and friends she made last time around.
The Obama administra- tion is considering a major last-minute policy shift that could force hundreds of school districts to cut spend- ing at well-financed elemen- tary and secondary schools and move nearly $1 billion dollars to schools with large numbers of low-income stu- dents.
The policy, written by the Department of Education, is under review by the White House budget office and has drawn fierce opposition from Republican lawmakers and school administrators.
It was first proposed in September, but the depart- ment appears to have rushed to adopt it since Donald Trump won the presidential election. Adopting the regula- tion before Friday at noon would bind the incoming Trump Administration un- less Congress overturns it.
Republicans on Capitol Hill have pledged to oppose many "midnight regulations" from the Obama White House, and the issue could also come up at the nomina- tion hearing Tuesday for Donald Trump's Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.
The regulation would dra- matically increase federal control over spending at many of the nation's 14,000 school districts and force some districts to increase spending at low-income schools.
Districts could achieve the
increase by diverting money - - a total of $800 million na- tionwide -- from more-affluent schools, or by spending an additional $2.2 billion in state and local funds, the Education Depart- ment says.
The regulation would apply only to school districts that have both low-income schools that get Title I federal funds and higher-income schools that are not eligible for the money.
The National School Boards Association called the regulation "unnecessary" and "unwarranted federal over- reach" that would constrain school districts.
Moving quickly
After accepting public comments for 60 days, until early November, the depart- ment took just four weeks to send a final version of the regulation to the White House budget office for re- view.
Departments and agen- cies typically take at least sev- eral months -- and sometimes years -- to write a final rule after receiving public com- ments.
The budget office has given no indication of when and if it will approve the reg- ulation. The Education De- partment has not released its final version, although ex- perts expect it will closely re- semble the initial proposal.
Audrey Edwards on Election Day 2016, on her balcony in Brooklyn. Cour- tesy Audrey Edwards.
Ebony Magazine Reveals Stunning Cover As The Trump Era Begins
On Wednesday, Ebony Magazine re- vealed its February cover featuring some truly beautiful art: a reimagining Grant Wood’s American Gothic as a Black family bracing themselves for a world where Donald Trump is the President of the United States.
Kadir Nelson provides the artwork, and the issue asks how the Black families and the larger Black community can sur- vive the Trump era.
Black Americans are one of the many vulnerable groups worried about the im- pacts of a Trump presidency, especially considering Trump has a history of racism against Black people and contin- ues to be extremely racist on a regular basis.
The issue features commentary from
The Root’s Kirsten West Savali, Je- lani Cobb, Isabel Wilkerson and more.
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