Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

Why we love our teachers

The Editors, Atlantic Monthly

Many years ago, as a tenth grader at Malverne High School, in New York, I made the mistake of asking my English teacher, Charles Messinger, why he was forcing us to memorize Shelley’s “Ozymandias.” We were already memorizing, and reciting, much of Hamlet, and I was in the middle of preparing my lines for the spring musical he directed. The Bronx-born Messinger made short work of my complaint. “It’s better to be literate than illiterate,” he said. “You’ll thank me later.” Mr. Messinger died three years ago, and I never did properly thank him, even though he changed my life. Soon after he died, I called my social-studies teacher, Douglas Sheer, the other teacher who changed my life. Mr. Sheer is much younger than Mr. Messinger, but I told him I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. Mr. Sheer had come to Malverne shortly after finishing a tour on the Marshall Islands as a Peace Corps volunteer. It was Mr. Messinger—who, along with my parents, teachers both—taught me how to use words. And it was Mr. Sheer who taught me to see the world beyond the South Shore of Long Island.

Oakland teachers threaten strike to raise some of state’s lowest salaries

Diana Lambert and Daniel Willis, Ed Source

Markedly higher pay tops an ambitious list of contract demands by Oakland teachers who could hit the picket lines early Thursday, potentially closing schools and classrooms to more than 34,000 students. The district on Monday countered with a new salary schedule that would give TK-12 teachers varying pay increases depending on their experience and education level, as well as an ongoing 10% raise retroactive to November of last year, and a one-time $5,000 bonus. According to the district, first-year teachers would see their pay increase from $52,905 this school year to $63,604 next school year, with most teachers receiving at least a 13% salary increase.

Veteran teachers: Why some stay in tough classrooms

Joe Hong, Cal Matters

It’s an old story: New teachers in California start their careers at schools with many low-income students, spend a few years, then transfer to more affluent communities. It’s a pattern that leaves these schools with fewer experienced teachers. At these schools, teachers confront towering obstacles before they can even get to instruction. Students living in poverty are more likely to come to school hungry and without enough sleep. They might not have permanent housing. Students living in those conditions are more likely to be behind grade level in reading and math and less likely to graduate high school and attend college.

Language, Culture, and Power

Future Fest [Video]

Manuel Espinoza, University of Colorado, Denver

I am here to say a few words about Auraria forever.  It is fall, 1991.  And there I am in the southwest most corner of the Auraria Library.  More boy than man, I am crouched over a book, outnumbered by volumes that I yanked off the shelves, like a madman.  I am probably ditching class to read—to feed myself something other than discouragement.  Fall, 2021.  I jump off at the Colfax stop.

First Nations students are engaged in primary school but face racism and limited opportunities to learn Indigenous languages

Jessa Rogers, Kate E. Williams & Kristin R. Laurens, The Conversation

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ school experiences are often inaccurately described through what researchers call “deficit perspectives”. This means their experiences are spoken about by others in ways that aren’t representative of lived experience. It is rare to hear from Indigenous students and young people directly in research and reports. Indigenous students, their parents and their teachers shared their experiences as part of the federal government’s ongoing “Footprints in Time” study.

Space as Liberation: Liberatory Narratives in Emerging Black Theater

Saphia Suarez, Nonprofit Quarterly

Space is emerging as a frontier for liberation. How often have you heard a struggling mom, when asked what they need, answer that they just need a bit of “space”? Or a friend in crisis, perhaps recently laid off and unsure which direction to take, say that they need “space” to figure out what they want, who they are? We may not always be acutely searching for a path toward liberation when vocalizing our needs for space, but our liberation does necessitate it. a.k. payne’s (she/they) professional debut play Amani, which closed at Rattlestick Theater in New York City last month, grapples with this very concept. It articulates an inherent need for space in the quest for liberation while playing with what that space looks like. Do we need to reach outer space in our quest for liberation? Or an inner space, deep inside us, which allows us to dream? Or space with one another, to heal and be seen? “Yes,” payne says.

Whole Children and Strong Communities

Gilbert High School Mercadito opens as district’s first permanent pantry

Amairani Hernandez, CALÓ News

On April 20th, the Anaheim Union High School District opened the first permanent food pantry at Gilbert High School in partnership with the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County. AUHSD defines a community school as a place where students, staff and families can connect to work together and maximize opportunities. To support the “whole child,” the AUHSD Community Schools Program partners with community organizations, like the Second Harvest Food Bank. Jose Lara, principal of Gilbert High School, said that “Gilbert Mercadito” will replace monthly food distributions. Lara believes, “this is a big change for Gilbert High School and the larger community as a whole.” “Having a place where they can have consistent access to dignified, equitable, nutritious food, creates a foundation for community health for our school and community,” Lara said.

The Mind-Expanding Value of Arts Education

Ginanne Brownell, New York Times

Awuor Onguru says that if it were not for her continued exposure to arts education as a child, she never would have gotten into Yale University. Growing up in a lower-middle-class family in Nairobi, Kenya, Ms. Onguru, now a 20-year-old junior majoring in English and French, started taking music lessons at the age of four. By 12, she was playing violin in the string quartet at her primary school, where every student was required to play an instrument. As a high school student on scholarship at the International School of Kenya, she was not only being taught Bach concertos, she also became part of Nairobi’s music scene, playing first violin in a number of local orchestras.

Political Anger Directed at LGBTQ+ Youth Is Stressing Them Out. How Schools Can Help

Arianna Prothero, Education Week

The mental health of LGBTQ+ teens and young adults continues to suffer as political debates over banning discussion of LGBTQ+ issues in schools add more stress, concludes a new survey by The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ+ youth suicide prevention organization. The Trevor Project’s fifth annual survey of LGBTQ+ teens and young adults includes responses from 28,000 13- to 24-year-olds from across the country, and it highlights how much more vulnerable they are to suicide as well as the important role schools can play in supporting their mental health.

Access, Assessment, Advancement

The impact of Alabama governor’s ouster of early childhood education chief

Valerie Strauss, Nonie K. Lesaux and Stephanie M. Jones, Washington Post

In a new shot in the culture wars, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) recently forced the resignation of Barbara Cooper, the secretary of the state’s Department of Early Childhood Education, because of a well-regarded book about developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs.

Ivey appointed Cooper in 2020, saying: “With her vast experience in various administrative positions, Dr. Cooper is more than qualified, and I have no doubt that she will continue the impressive work of the Department of Early Childhood Education. I am confident that Alabama will continue leading the nation with the best early-childhood education system.”

Undocumented students qualify for financial aid in California. Why aren’t more of them using it?

Carmen González, CalMatters

When Deysi Mojica received her acceptance to UC Riverside, she was excited. Not only had she overcome her high school’s lack of resources to help undocumented students like herself apply to college, but the university was offering a financial aid package that would make her college dream possible. “Even though I am undocumented,” said Mojica, now a first-year student, “the amount of money that they gave me was basically covering all my expenses.”  But an unexpected $13,000 charge from the university just before she was due to start classes quickly changed her excitement into confusion, leaving her wondering where the money she was awarded had gone. It was only after repeated calls to the financial aid office, Mojica said, that a helpful student assistant who was also undocumented gave her the information that saved her from dropping out: Her aid package was held up because a signature was missing from one of her application forms.

How the US military used magazines to target ‘vulnerable’ groups with recruiting ads

Jeremiah Favara, The Conversation

In his forthcoming book, “Tactical Inclusion: Difference and Vulnerability in U.S. Military Advertising,” Jeremiah Favara, a communication scholar at Gonzaga University, examines military recruitment ads published in three commercial magazines between 1973 – when the federal government ended the military draft – and 2016. The three magazines are Sports Illustrated, Ebony and Cosmopolitan. In the following Q&A, Favara explains the rationale behind his book and discusses some of its key findings.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

Schools ended universal free lunch. Now meal debt is soaring

Kate Grumke, NPR

Pat Broz has been serving meals to students in the Mehlville School District outside of St. Louis for almost 30 years. On a recent day at Oakville Elementary School, the kindergarteners sliding trays toward the register were all dressed up for school pictures. She complimented their outfits as she rang up their lunches. Yet this year, Broz said fewer students have been coming through her line compared to when in-school meals were free for all students for two school years during the pandemic.

California’s Farmworkers and Their Children Are Vulnerable to Food Insecurity

Paulette Cha, Public Policy Institute of California

Farmworkers play a key role in state and federal food supply chains, but are vulnerable to food insecurity because of their low incomes, unstable work, and immigration status. In recent decades, farmworkers have become more likely to live in the US year-round with spouses and children. Since children are especially susceptible to the negative health consequences of food insecurity, their presence elevates the importance of identifying and alleviating hunger in farmworker families. Farmworkers have access to a patchwork of assistance programs and community resources such as food banks for many, this patchwork does not include all of the nutritional assistance programs that help reduce poverty across the state. Many farmworkers—about 90% of whom are immigrants—are not eligible for CalFresh (California’s version of SNAP), which provides debit cards for buying food. The California Food Assistance Program (CFAP) provides equivalent benefits for documented immigrants who do not meet CalFresh’s requirement of five years of permanent residency or US citizenship. Unlike CalFresh/CFAP, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) does not tie eligibility to immigration status. But WIC is a more limited nutrition program, serving pregnant or postpartum individuals, infants, and children under the age of 5.

Inequality you can taste: Low wages, instability make fast food workers susceptible to homelessness

Ethan Ward, Salon

Fast-food workers represent a startling portion of California’s unhoused population, making up 11% of all unhoused workers in California, 9% in Los Angeles County and 8% in the city of Los Angeles, according to a new report on the intersection of poverty wages and homelessness. The authors of the report, published by the Economic Roundtable, estimate that there would be 10,120 fewer unhoused workers in California, 3,595 fewer in L.A. County and 1,889 fewer in the city of L.A. if the fast-food industry provided stable employment and paid workers enough to maintain secure housing. Daniel Flaming is president of the Economic Roundtable and co-author with Patrick Burns of the report, “Hungry Cooks: Poverty Wages and Homelessness in the Fast Food Industry.” Flaming said the organization looked into the connection between income, jobs and homelessness after data from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority showed that over half the unhoused who were surveyed said their biggest struggles were tied to a lack of work and affordable rent.

Democracy and the Public Interest

Why We Should Teach the History of the Black Panther Party

Young Whan Choi, Rethinking Schools

On Sept. 28, 2020, the Oakland City Council convened to discuss a resolution pertaining to the legacy of the Black Panther Party (BPP), which had been founded in Oakland more than 50 years prior. That evening, the members discussed whether or not to “approve plans to install a memorial to Huey P. Newton and the Black Panther Party outside the Alameda County Courthouse” and to use “the iconic photograph of Huey Newton seated in a wicker chair with a rifle in one hand and a spear” as the basis for the memorial.  The council members engaged in a lively debate as to the significance of the BPP — was it armed struggle, community programs, or something else? One council member passionately argued against using funds for a statue and instead proposed that the city establish “a fund, named for the Panthers, to support the types of programs . . . that they put into practice.”

Texas guts ‘woke civics’. Now kids can’t engage in a key democratic process

Asher Lehrer-Small, The Guardian

Many states have restricted how schools can teach race and gender, but only Texas has banned student interaction with elected officials. The defining experience of Jordan Zamora-Garcia’s high school career – a hands-on group project in civics class that spurred a new city ordinance in his Austin suburb – would now violate Texas law. Since Texas lawmakers in 2021 passed a ban on lessons teaching that any one group is “inherently racist, sexist or oppressive”, a little-noticed provision of that legislation has triggered a massive fallout for civics education across the state.Tucked into page 8 is a stipulation outlawing all assignments involving “direct communication” between students and their federal, state or local officials – short-circuiting the training young Texans receive to participate in democracy itself.

Book Talk with Donald Cohen, co-author of “The Privatization of Everything” [Video]

Donald Cohen, Lizbeth Cohen, Archon Fung

Join the Ash Center for an online conversation with Donald Cohen, co-author of “The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We can Fight Back” (The New Press, 2021). Lizabeth Cohen, the Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies in the History Department at Harvard University, will serve as moderator.

Other News of Note

Cinco de Mayo and the Rise of Modern Mexico [Audio]

Rund Adbelfatah, NPR

We’re in the historic center of Mexico’s capital, Mexico City, a massive city of over 8 million people with tour guide Ismael Rivera.  “My name is Ismael Rivera. I was born in Mexico City.”

I can’t help but go on a historic tour of pretty much everywhere I visit now. “Underneath here, there’s three Aztec temples dedicated to the sun, to the wind and …” Ismael guides us through winding streets, past towering Gothic churches, ancient Aztec temple sites, ornately engraved Spanish colonial arches, a salsa class in one square and a busy market with taco vendors every 2 feet – the smell is delicious, like, unreal. And then we find ourselves in a quieter place, surrounded by tall trees, fountains with statues of Greek gods and these vibrant purple flowers called jacarandas.

May 5: Rethinking Cinco de Mayo

Sudie Hofman, Zinn Education Project

I recently came across a flier in an old backpack of my daughter’s: Wanted: Committee Chairs for this Spring’s Cinco de Mayo All School Celebration. The flier was replete with cultural props including a sombrero, cactus tree, donkey, taco, maracas, and chili peppers. Seeing this again brought back the moment when, years earlier, my daughter had handed the flier to me, and I’d thought, “Oh, no.” The local K-6 elementary school’s Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) was sponsoring a stereotypical Mexican American event.” There were no Chicana/o students, parents, or staff members who I was aware of in the school community and I was concerned about the event’s authenticity. I presumed the PTSA meant well, and was attempting to provide a multicultural experience for students and families, but it seemed they were likely to get it wrong.