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Thursday, August 21, 2014

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Schools play a big role in the Ferguson story. It's a teachable moment in time.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Schools play a big role in the Ferguson story. It's a teachable moment in time.:



Schools play a big role in the Ferguson story. It's a teachable moment in time.

Fergson teachers would rather be with their students in their classrooms. Instead, they spend the day picking up debris, including tear gas canisters, from local streets. 

SELMA, Alabama -- A sixth grade teacher at a Selma elementary was placed on administrative leave after having students reenact the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown that took place Aug. 9 in Ferguson, Mo. -- AL.com 
Ferguson schools remain closed today, 11 days after the killing of a local student and the ensuing protests. Why? It seems that the district leadership has abandoned its students completely to the streets. For many Ferguson students, school is where they get their only hot meal of the day. The Washington Post reports that a teacher in North Carolina has raised more than $80,000 in order to pay for food for kids in shuttered schools.

Ferguson-Florissant is considered a high-poverty school district because many of its students qualify for free and reduced-price lunches — 68% of them last year, though it is likely that the real percentage is higher as some families never filled out the paperwork.

CLASS WARFARE...The police shooting of Michael Brown and the ensuing protest is but one dramatic chapter in a much larger story of the widening black/white, Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Schools play a big role in the Ferguson story. It's a teachable moment in time.: