The Impact of Poverty, Race on Educational Opportunity: materials
On Sunday, April 26, PAA presented a comprehensive workshop on “The Impact of Poverty, Race and Cultural Bias on Educational Opportunity” at the Network for Public Education conference. In addition to our power point presentation, we shared printed materials with many of the key points, charts and data from the presentation. These materials may be used freely – we just ask that you leave PAA’s name on them. We want to thank Dr. Paul Thomas for bringing most of this information to our attention, and for sharing many of the charts we have included.
The Impact of Poverty, Race and Cultural Bias on Educational Opportunity (written materials)
Here is a link to the original power point presentation which took place on March 2, 2015.
So, what can we do about the problems of poverty, race and cultural bias? Here are some ideas that we shared at the workshop:
What can we do to address these injustices? Here are 13 ideas!
Use social media
- Get acquainted with and share the great materials from the National Education Policy Center which debunks corporate reform propaganda. http://nepc.colorado.edu/
- Follow Dr. Paul Thomas’s blog, https://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/
- Go after the idea that there are “two sides” to each argument even when one is nonsense and the other has strong research behind it. Spread the truth – you know how!
Speak out on social policy
- Work for a living wage and guaranteed employment.
- Advocate for needed student and family services.
- Demand an end to high-stakes testing and support for quality multiple assessments in ESEA and local policies.
- PAA’s Testing and ESEA position paper can be found at http://tinyurl.com/q9cnpfx
- An alternative annual report card focused on teachers, students and parents is at http://tinyurl.com/odkrz8w.
- Support school restorative justice programs.
- Demand that public officials provide more support for schools, not closure.
Take action!
- Boycott WalMart and other funders of privatization (more here:http://pureparents.org/?p=20594).
- Opt out of standardized testing.
- Get involved in the current ESEA reauthorization – oppose testing, school interventions, fund portability.
- Share PAA’s ESEA position paper here: http://parentsacrossamerica.org/paa-reforming-esea/
- Run for office: get inspired by PAA founding member Helen Gym
- Sign up for the PAA newsletter which includes an action of the week – join our news list (the subscription box is on our home page) and consider starting a PAA chapter or affiliate (also on our home page).