Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

You Can’t Legislate Away Black and Gay Educators and Students

Rafael Walker, Education Week

This academic year, conservative states have asked students and teachers to keep their politics and their identities—but not their germs—to themselves. Many have followed Tennessee’s example of attempting to block mask mandates and yet have demanded another kind of masking—an ideological muzzling that threatens untold numbers of teachers and students. I’m referring to the curricular purges sweeping conservative state legislatures, all emblematic of the current culture war. The first target of these purges was critical race theory (or, rather, strawman versions of it). You’ve likely read how states have proposed penalties for educators who teach CRT, with Tennessee suggesting fines as steep as $5 million. The second target is LGBTQ history, already banned in Tennessee and on the chopping block in its cousin states—from Alabama to Arizona.

Teachers are driving force behind ‘global education recovery’ from COVID-19

Staff, UN News

“Today we celebrate the exceptional dedication and courage of all teachers, their capacity to adapt and to innovate under very challenging and uncertain conditions”, said UNESCO head Audrey Azoulay, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) chief Henrietta Fore, top International Labour Organization (ILO) official, Guy Ryder, and Education International’s leader, David Edwards, in a joint statement. World Teachers’ Day, celebrated annually on 5 October, provides an important opportunity to call on Governments and the international community to spotlight teachers and their challenges, and share effective and promising policy responses. “They are the principal actors of the global education recovery efforts and are key in accelerating progress towards inclusive and equitable quality education for every learner, in every circumstance”, the statement continued.

Inside one California school’s approach to reading as a ‘civil right’

Ali Tadayon, EdSource

For Richmond’s Nystrom Elementary School, students’ longstanding struggle with reading is not only an academic issue but one about civil rights. The Bay Area school began the year with a proclamation that acknowledges that systemic racism has led to disproportionate outcomes in reading skills for children of color for generations. It asserts that every student is capable of reading and that it’s the school’s responsibility to ensure every child leaves Nystrom a skilled reader. The school committed to overhauling its literacy program with a new curriculum and research-based classroom practices in an effort to bring every student to grade-level reading.

Language, Culture, and Power

Teaching Poetry in the Palestinian Apocalypse

George Abraham, Guernica

I gave my first lecture, at my first academic job, behind a wall of plexiglass, speaking to an awkwardly spaced out group of masked students who had maybe already given up – and honestly, who could blame them? I walked in sweating and late because my building’s social distancing protocol required me to run up five floors and down two to get to my third floor classroom. Leaning into the mic, I opened with the joke: “Welcome to apocalyptic poetry!” My students chuckled nervously. Maybe the joke was that it was day one of the fall semester, and who really wanted to be in a required advanced poetic form class? Or maybe it was my way of cutting the tension of our gathering, united by the sole purpose of discussing poetry in a time that, back then, felt newly apocalyptic to some. Soon, apocalypse became a tired punchline. Languishing through mere existence, I did what any young Palestinian instructor of literature would likely do: I returned to Audre Lorde, who reminds us “poetry is not a luxury,” and June Jordan, who gives us models for writing against and despite the state.

Learning Bengali and Comparing Notes with Jhumpa Lahiri’s “In Other Words”

Anandi Mishra, LA Review of Books

Before being even five percent confident in uttering bare Bengali words, I thought they would come out too crude, funny, even gauche from my unpracticed mouth. In my head, I kept comparing myself to the wizard of words, Jhumpa Lahiri, and how she had legitimized her love affair with Italian, writing an entire book in it, giving interviews, going out in the world with so much gravitas about her love for the new tongue. I, on the other hand, had barely started picking up the language after I moved in with my partner in mid-2018. My partner M was born and brought up in Kolkata (erstwhile Calcutta) an only child. I was my parents’ second born in the north Indian town of Kanpur (erstwhile Cawnpore). Apart from the shared colonial past, these two parts of India have also shared a thick Bengali population.

New law will identify preschoolers’ home languages

Staff, EdSource

A new law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom Tuesday requires all state-subsidized preschool programs to identify the languages children speak at home and the language spoken by program staff. The bill, AB 1363, authored by Assemblymember Luz Rivas, D-North Hollywood, requires preschool programs that receive state funds to serve low-income children to identify the language spoken at home of every child enrolled, as well as the languages used in the classroom and spoken by the preschool teachers. In addition, the bill requires programs to show they support children in developing both their home language and English in order to be considered a “quality” program by the state.

Whole Children and Strong Communities

Few Masks. Sick Kids. Packed ERs. How One District’s First Four Weeks of School Went Bad

Nicole Carr, Pro Publica

For the mother of two in suburban Atlanta’s wealthy East Cobb, the breaking point came the first Friday of the school year. It was two months after Cobb County School District, Georgia’s second-largest, announced it was revoking its mask mandate, two days after the district ditched its quarantine protocol for a far more lenient one, and 10 minutes after she had decided to cold call a local school official to ask a few questions. “Sure, it’s more contagious,” Cobb County School Board Chairman Randy Scamihorn told her on that Aug. 6 call, after she raised concerns about the district’s preparedness for the delta variant. “But it’s less lethal and, uh, probably it’s more like a head cold.” “My point is,” he said, “we look at it from a statistical point of view. Kids are pretty well immune to it, and we’ve always known that.”

Boys of color were hit hard by the pandemic. What do they need now?

Mila Koumpilova, Chalkbeat Chicago

As students across the country wrestled with pandemic stress last winter, sophomore Nathaniel Martinez logged on to a virtual retreat. Forty mostly Black and Latino teens in Chicago were getting a crash course on gauging how their peers were coping. They also opened up about pressures they faced amid the COVID-19 outbreak and an uptick in gun violence, from depression to disengagement from school.Nathaniel spoke about struggling to focus in  virtual classes as he grappled with isolation and insomnia. The project offered Nathaniel a support group of sorts as he returned to full-time in-person learning this fall, short on credits but bent on regaining his footing. It also gave him an active role in reimagining how schools can better help teens of color.

Middle school minds: Figuring out who you are in the midst of global turmoil

Reniqua Allen-Lamphere, Hechinger Report

Isabella Juma turned 13 on February 19, 2020, just weeks before Covid-19 changed the world forever. The first year of teenagerhood would have been a milestone any year, but for Isabella and her peers, a global pandemic, a contentious election and racial conflict forced them out of childhood abruptly. Gone were the days when she could be just “happy” and “jolly,” she said. She matured, became cautious and started worrying about the years ahead. “For my friends and me, I feel like it will just change the future. It will just change, really, our perspectives about life. We can’t always really be so carefree,” said Isabella, who attended a public middle school in Brooklyn last spring. “We really have to enjoy every second we have, because one day can be easily taken away by something small, like an illness, or something big, like a gunshot.”

Access, Assessment, Advancement

Newsom signs California education budget with universal pre-K, college savings accounts [VIDEO]

Joshue Tehee & Ashleigh Panoo, Sacramento Bee

Speaking to teachers and students at Fresno’s Sunset Elementary School on Tuesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a trio of bills; part of a $123.9 billion legislative package that delivers record-level investments in public schools. The package promises universal pre-kindergarten, expands dual immersion language programs, and seed money for college savings accounts for millions of students. The package has been in the works in the state’s budget plan since at least May as part of Newsom’s California Comeback Plan. It will give public schools the highest level of state school funding in California history.

Is A Tuition-Free Community College Plan Enough?

Rebecca Kelliher, Diverse Issues in Higher Education

Congress is still debating the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package, which includes a tuition-free community college plan called America’s College Promise (ACP). While this plan could be a game-changer in federal-state partnerships in higher education, one estimated to help millions of historically underserved students if all states participate, some experts and advocates warn ACP might not go far enough. “Right now, whether you have a tuition-free path to community college or college in general depends on where you live,” said Dr. Michelle Miller-Adams, senior researcher at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization focused on labor markets.

‘Playing Long Ball’

Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Education

Twenty-eight historically Black colleges and universities have joined an initiative to “scale experiential learning and leadership development” across their campuses and help students prepare for future careers and achieve economic success. The initiative, which was announced today, is the result of a partnership between the HBCUs and the Strada Education Network, a nonprofit organization focused on student economic mobility. Strada will invest $25 million to create a scholarship program across the HBCU campuses and bolster the institutions’ existing support services for student interns and leadership-development programming for students. Students attend HBCUs because “they’re really trying to change their life trajectory,” said Tony Allen, president of Delaware State University and a member of the project’s advisory council.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

The Inevitability of Racial Bias and Exclusion: Implications for Identity-Based Education and Practice [Video]

Sylvia Hurtado, AERA

Racial/ethnic identity groups have endured racial profiling, are targets of hate crimes, and are often viewed not as individuals but as a faceless mass on a daily basis—even in classrooms. Dr. Hurtado personalizes “facelessness” using research on campus racial climates and Latinx experiences, articulating how our tendencies for recognition bias are perpetuated and reinforced at the individual and institutional levels in education. She articulates the need for identity-based education, re-humanizing practices, and increased specificity to target racial equity aims in higher education.

Gifted programs can slight minorities and don’t accelerate kids. So why have them?

Jay Matthews, Washington Post

A remarkable dissection of gifted education in Ohio that was just released reveals disturbing gaps in long-term learning for Black and impoverished students who were in the top 20 percent on third-grade tests. Before I describe the report, I want to explain how I first learned four decades ago how deeply flawed our gifted programs were. One day a student who had been officially designated as gifted by the Los Angeles Unified School District walked into the classroom of Jaime Escalante, a math teacher at a mostly low-income high school who then later became famous for being portrayed in the film “Stand and Deliver.” School was over, but as usual the 50 desks in his large room were full of students from every grade helping one another with homework. The gifted student was not in any of Escalante’s classes but thought that he could help her with a math problem. “I’m gifted,” she informed him.

The Universal Laptop Program Helping One State Narrow the Digital Divide

Vanessa Peter-Hinton, EdSurge

When this school year began, parents, teachers and students rejoiced over the long-awaited return to in-person instruction. But just when the pandemic   appeared to be over, the Delta variant has caused districts to rethink their plans for bringing students and staff back to school. In some states, the seven-day rate of new coronavirus cases is twice as high as it was this time last year. As a result many states have reintroduced virtual and hybrid learning options as new COVID-19 cases continue to soar. And one, Mississippi, has made important strides in closing the digital divide through a pandemic response plan that took each school district’s unique needs and challenges into account.

Democracy and the Public Interest

Garland asks FBI to address recent ‘disturbing spike’ in threats against educators

Timothy Bella & Devlin Barrett

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday ordered the FBI to work with local leaders nationwide to help address what he called a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against educators and school board members over highly politicized issues such as mask mandates and interpretations of critical race theory.  In a memorandum to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and federal prosecutors, Garland wrote that the Justice Department will hold strategy sessions with law enforcement in the next 30 days and is expected to announce measures in response to “the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel” in the nation’s public schools.  “While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views,” he wrote.

Erie School Board candidate: Education is the cornerstone of democracy and success in life

Zakaria Sharif, Go Erie

My name is Zakaria Sharif and I am running for Erie School Board. I was born in Somalia and my family left there due to war brewing. We arrived in Kenya where we were in a refugee camp for five years until we arrived in 1996 in Erie, the place I now call home. I am a poster child for the Erie public schools and a proud graduate of East High School, which is now a middle school. I went on to get my bachelor’s degree from Penn State. I am currently employed at Erie County Department of Health as a public health educator. This position has allowed me to serve our city and county immensely, especially during peak of the pandemic. My passion has always been advocating for those without voice or representation and giving back to the community that has raised me. I truly believe, as Nelson Mandela said, “education is the most powerful weapon for changing the world” and I want to make sure we give our teachers, students and parents the accommodations and resources to be successful. Join me on our “Erie Can’t Wait Campaign” with Erie County United to build a campaign that invests in our children now and creates a vibrant future for Erie.

Why charter schools are not as ‘public’ as they claim to be

Kevin Welner, The Conversation

Proponents of charter schools insist that they are public schools “open to all students.” But the truth is more nuanced. As an education policy researcher – and as author of a new book about charter schools I wrote with fellow researcher Wagma Mommandi – I have discovered that charter schools are not as accessible to the public as they are often made out to be. This finding is particularly relevant in light of the fact that charter school enrollment reportedly grew at a rapid rate during the pandemic. Specifically, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, enrollment increased 7% from 2019-20 to 2020-21. The organization says that is the biggest enrollment jump in a half-decade. In our book, we identify and describe 13 different approaches that charters use to bring certain types of students in and push other kinds of students out.

Other News of Note

Msgr. John Powis, Champion of Brooklyn’s Downtrodden, Dies at 87

Sam Roberts, New York Times

Msgr. John Powis, whose kinetic street ministry and civic leadership helped revive some of Brooklyn’s most troubled neighborhoods, died on Sept. 29 at a nursing home in Manhattan. He was 87. The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, his sister Katherine Powis said.

He belonged to a generation of clerics committed to social justice — a cohort profoundly affected by the liberalization of church policies and practices approved by the Second Vatican Council, which was convened by Pope John XXIII in 1959, the same year that Father Powis was ordained. As the Roman Catholic pastor of Our Lady of the Presentation Church in Brownsville in the 1960s, Father Powis was a figure in the fight to improve neighborhood schools through local control. He was elected to a newly created local school board, an experiment in decentralization, in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, a mainly Black district.

A Mind at Work: Remembering Mike Rose [Audio]

Have You Heard?

In this special episode, Have You Heard remembers the extraordinary Mike Rose. Special guests Erika Kitzmiller, Janelle Scott, Chris Buttimer, Michael Moses and Rema Reynolds help us recall Mike as a scholar, mentor and builder of worlds.