Dr. John H. Jackson: Billions for Public School Equity: Let’s Celebrate this Historic Win! | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Billions for Public School Equity: Let’s Celebrate this Historic Win! | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Billions for Public School Equity: Let’s Celebrate this Historic Win!

Change takes time. Change takes trust. 

It takes sticking with a grassroots organization, building their capacity over time, continuing to fund courageous organizers through the inevitable ups and downs. 

Schott was founded at the beginning of a 30-year battle that just won a landmark victory for the children of New York. We were at the strategy table and an early funder as the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) and then the Alliance for Quality Education (AQE) organized to secure equitable funding for New York schools, particularly the schools in low-income communities, attended predominantly by children of color. The massive, Dickensian difference in funding between schools that sometimes are mere blocks from each other has been a hallmark of New York’s public education system for generations. But with this victory, “The school aid in this year’s state budget has the potential to change the experiences and opportunities our children have in their public schools for years to come,” as AQE Executive Director Jasmine Gripper says. 

The note we received from Zakiyah Ansari, AQE’s long-time Advocacy Director, is the kind of message that we in philanthropy CONTINUE READING: Billions for Public School Equity: Let’s Celebrate this Historic Win! | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Rest in Power, Karen Lewis | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Rest in Power, Karen Lewis | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Rest in Power, Karen Lewis

Today we learned that Karen Lewis — educator, organizer, and pathbreaking labor leader — has passed away. She leaves us with a legacy of unwavering commitment to children, public education, and racial justice.

After teaching chemistry for 22 years, Lewis was elected president of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) along with fellow members of Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE). This new leadership within CTU brought a fighting spirit, an activist orientation, and an expansive framework that placed racial justice at the heart of their work within a still-deeply segregated city.

This shift of power within the union set the stage for the historic and successful Chicago teacher's strike in 2012. The strike was remarkable not only because teachers there hadn’t struck since the 1980s, but because the union laid the important coalitional groundwork to bring community partners into discussion and cooperation. That coalition strategy is widely understood as the key to the strike’s success: because educators, students, parents, and community groups worked together, city officials couldn’t pit them against each other. Much of the inspiring educator activism across the country over the past eight years, including the wildcat educator strikes on 2018-2019, can be linked to the positive example of the 2012 strike.

Bridging together different sectors of the broad education justice movement is at the heart of what the Schott Foundation does. We highlighted the important cross-sector movement work of CTU under Karen Lewis in our 2018 report Keeping Students First: Building Community Labor Partnerships for Strong Schools.

We were also lucky to have Karen Lewis speak on our 2017 webinar When Community and Labor Join Forces: Parent, Student and Teacher Partnerships:

In recounting her time organizing in CTU, Lewis said, "You have to go where people are. You can't just say 'oh, come to our meeting...' You build the movement by finding common ground. And that's what I think we were able to do."

May we continue to gather in her strength, courage and conviction.

pic.twitter.com/X73B8POAdE

— ChicagoTeachersUnion (@CTULocal1) February 8, 2021

Rest in Power, Karen Lewis | Schott Foundation for Public Education

#PhilanthropySoWhite: An Urgent Conversation on Whiteness in Philanthropy | Schott Foundation for Public Education

#PhilanthropySoWhite: An Urgent Conversation on Whiteness in Philanthropy | Schott Foundation for Public Education

#PhilanthropySoWhite: An Urgent Conversation on Whiteness in Philanthropy

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After more than two years of reckoning, uprising for racial justice, a pandemic, and a turbulent election — where do white leaders in the philanthropy sector find themselves and their leadership regarding racial justice in and outside of their organizations? Philanthropy remains so white, but progress has been made, and there have been some interesting learnings on the journey.

This one hour livestream event will be moderated by Schott Foundation's Senior Vice President Edgar Villanueva, author of Decolonizing Wealth.

In 2018, Schott presented the original #PhilanthropySoWhite webinar. While its title raised eyebrows, the conversations that transpired were vulnerable, truth-speaking catalysts to sector-wide discussions about the urgent need to change philanthropy’s approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion. #PhilanthropySoWhite is also a call for white leaders to create anti-racist organizations and giving practices that are representative and inclusive of the communities and cultures they serve. 

Joining Edgar on the panel will be:

• Nick Donohue, President & CEO, The Nellie Mae Education Foundation 
• John Palfrey, President, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation 
• Hilary Pennington, Executive Vice President of Programs, Ford Foundation 

Vanessa Daniel, Founder and Executive Director of the Groundswell Fund, will offer an end-of-session reflection and response to the discussion on confronting whiteness in philanthropy. 

REGISTER TODAY >

#PhilanthropySoWhite: An Urgent Conversation on Whiteness in Philanthropy | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Bishop Dr. William Barber: "We Must Have a Third Reconstruction" | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Bishop Dr. William Barber: "We Must Have a Third Reconstruction" | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Bishop Dr. William Barber: "We Must Have a Third Reconstruction"

Bishop Dr. William Barber’s homily at the Inaugural Prayer Service this morning was a powerful call to “break the chains of injustice,” to move America toward a Third Reconstruction. He proclaimed love is our salvation—love that must be proven in action.

We rejoice in his inspiring words. And in his fierce, movement-building leadership, grounded in love, of Repairers of the Breach and the Poor People’s Campaign.

Barber emphasized Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz’s admonition: “We should not ask how much will it cost to address inequality, but how much has it cost us not to.” Schott has documented the deep disparities undergirded by systemic racism in our Loving Cities Index — and we know that the human and societal toll of denying opportunity to children of color and their families magnifies even further the egregious economic toll. As Bishop Barber put it this morning, as he called for a Third Reconstruction:

We cannot accept the racial disparities and racial violence and breaches that impact Black, Brown, Native, and Asian CONTINUE READING: Bishop Dr. William Barber: "We Must Have a Third Reconstruction" | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Dr. John H. Jackson: The Malice of One and the Silence of Many: January 6th is the Emblematic Expression of America's Historic Tension | Schott Foundation for Public Education

The Malice of One and the Silence of Many: January 6th is the Emblematic Expression of America's Historic Tension | Schott Foundation for Public Education

The Malice of One and the Silence of Many: January 6th is the Emblematic Expression of America's Historic Tension

The violent attack on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021 was a stark reminder of America’s historic tensions and struggles. The storming of the Capitol came amid a Pro-Trump protest, by a predominately white and male group of domestic terrorists. Their white privilege assured they could go beyond the police barriers of perimeter and enter the Capitol Building. In the end, many people were injured and five killed, including a Capitol police officer.

What happened is reminiscent of this nation’s historic struggles with race, racism, power, and privilege. For instance, over 150 years ago, a group of southern, Confederate flag-carrying insurgents led the nation into a Civil War. Years later, America is once again met with a similar group of Confederate flag-toting individuals who would rather have no America than exist in an evolving one.

While the pretext for the Capitol riot was to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, the protesters’ words proved that this was less about their candidate losing an election and more about their collective sense of losing their America.

While there is a clear history of violence on American shores, scores of elected officials claimed that the events on Jan. 6 did not represent America or the people of America. While I firmly believe there are indeed more people committed to love and justice in America, what happened at the Capitol last Thursday — as well as the violence that greeted Black Lives Matter demonstrators in D.C. this summer — is evidence of society's clear hierarchy of human value and tolerance for white CONTINUE READING: The Malice of One and the Silence of Many: January 6th is the Emblematic Expression of America's Historic Tension | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Soon-to-be Secretary Miguel Cardona, the Time is Now for an Education Stimulus | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Soon-to-be Secretary Miguel Cardona, the Time is Now for an Education Stimulus | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Soon-to-be Secretary Miguel Cardona, the Time is Now for an Education Stimulus

Originally published in USA Today.

Congratulations on your nomination to be U.S. education secretary, Miguel Cardona. You are poised to take this position at a critical point in American history. As you know well, for generations we have lived through a system of separate and unequal education. COVID-19 has greatly exacerbated the learning loss disparities experienced by children of color. Now, with Congress failing to deliver to schools, educators, students and parents the much needed learning and PPE resources, and states cutting their 2021 budgets, things are primed to get a lot worse.

When one couples the historic impact of structural racism on education with the challenges brought on by COVID-19, it is clear we are in a maze without a clear exit. But in times of uncertainty, the past can be a guiding light. One important lesson from the past: the positive impact of targeted economic stimulus packages.

Importance of stimulus packages

We know stimulus packages can make a difference. For example, according to the Department of Education, President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act “helped save or create an estimated 325,000 education jobs.” The stimulus needed now must go well beyond protecting teachers’ jobs, which are undoubtedly important, and extend to transforming learning and investing in families and community-based institutions. The bottom line is we cannot facilitate change and remedy years of divestment without an infusion of stimulus resources.

A stimulus moves us away from the scarce resources frame that too often dominates when confronting the need to invest in children. The bipartisan Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which created the Troubled Assets Relief Program, a $700 billion fund to purchase toxic assets from banks, didn’t force banks or their CEOs to compete for needed resources to stabilize their operations. Instead, it provided them with well-calculated, targeted resources needed to do the job. Likewise, we are at a moment when the public education system, its students and educators are in dire need of resources to stabilize operations and eliminate the toxicity of racial disparities. 

A targeted, multi-year $1-2 trillion Education Stabilization Program is a vital part of a larger Racial Equity Stimulus Package proposed by  one of us, John Jackson, and other civil rights leaders. This education-focused stimulus would allow for the critical racial equity investments needed from birth and throughout the public preK-12 education system. It would serve as a stabilization fund for states whose education budgets are challenged by COVID-19-caused revenue shortfalls, while also requiring a maintenance of effort by states. It would also include investments to enable the expansion of community schools, address student mental health and socio-emotional needs, support states moving toward tuition-free community college, and make significant investments in Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other institutions that serve minorities and lead the nation in graduating students of color.  

Stimulus resources are especially needed to address the significant learning loss caused by the pandemic, felt most deeply in communities of color. These targeted funds can contribute to making gains on eliminating racial disparities in education by liberating learning, upending the constraining structures and paradigms in the educational system which have led to learning disparities identifiable by race and ethnicity.  

Inequality in education

Black students and other students of color have long faced a host of challenges where education is concerned — disproportionately under-resourced schools, school closures, criminalization in schools, a lack of teachers who look like them and curricula too often not culturally relevant to them. These biased policies and practices undeniably continue to limit education outcomes for Black and brown students and those from tribal communities. While most students have access to free public education, they remain shackled in achieving their learning potential. As such, it is impossible to address the systemic learning gaps without addressing the racially disparate learning constraints within the education system or, said another way, without liberating their learning.

In this moment of far-reaching change, we must pause to examine whether we are committed to investing in the future. That is the question we must pose to elected officials and those on whom the hopes of children and families rest.

If the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and structural racism experienced in 2020 have shown us anything, it is that there must be a radical shift in how we interact with those around us, and that should force us to rethink how we invest in and educate all students. It has exposed not only past education inequities but the danger of prolonged future disinvestment. While leadership by Congress and the president are needed to move the Racial Equity Stimulus package, your leadership is needed, Secretary Cardona, to target education investments to ensure that we liberate learning for all students and flatten the curve of structural racism so damaging to student learning in America. 

John H. Jackson (@DrJohnHJackson) is president and CEO of the Schott Foundation for Public Education. Derrick Johnson (@DerrickNAACP) is the president of the NAACP.

Soon-to-be Secretary Miguel Cardona, the Time is Now for an Education Stimulus | Schott Foundation for Public Education

The Time for a Federal Racial Equity Stimulus Package is Now | Schott Foundation for Public Education

The Time for a Federal Racial Equity Stimulus Package is Now | Schott Foundation for Public Education

The Time for a Federal Racial Equity Stimulus Package is Now

This abridged op-ed was originally published in The Grio. Click here to read the full essay.

The story of America is the power of common people coming together around a vision of opportunity, democracy, and a better way of life for generations to come. However, from our earliest beginnings, that vision was executed with instruments of brutal and legalized oppression, heavily fueled by racial bias, which for centuries has metastasized through every system of American life: healthcare, education, employment, policing, faith, technology, and infrastructure. 

Over the past several years, the Schott Foundation’s Loving Cities Index has documented the racial disparities in support for children in families in major cities across the country. The link between structural racism and the opportunity for children of color to learn and thrive is so interwoven that aggressively reducing racial disparities is the clearest pathway to ensuring their educational opportunities, social mobility, and democratic participation for generations to come.

Out of the urgent need to decouple America’s vision of opportunity from America’s historic systemic racism and oppression, this moment calls for Congress to advance a multi-year, $10-12 trillion federal racial equity stimulus package focused on investments in states, urban, rural, and tribal communities, and most importantly in our people as a new reconstruction investment in building one America. This bold fiscal effort could only be aided by a Cabinet-level advisor to the president on racial justice, equity and advancement, a recent proposal made by the NAACP and other civil rights groups. 

Four major events in our nation’s history immensely increased America’s wealth, but equally imposed a system of racism on generations to come: 

• the genocide and forced relocation of Native Americans
• the slave trade, which began in 1619 and continued to 1865
• the 1848 Mexican Cession of Land following the Mexican-American War
• federal policies like segregation and redlining that locked Black people out of the benefits of the New Deal

These events were essentially down payments on the wealth and growth of the nation. Yet, the people who were the victims of this oppression have never been re-centered in the national vision.

While these events were pivotal, other laws and practices also undergirded centuries of systemic racism, including: it was a crime for slaves to learn to read and write; the U.S. Constitution considered enslaved people as three-fifths human until 1868; Plessy v. Ferguson ruled that separate but equal schools and accommodations were constitutional; the war on drugs and sentencing vastly increased the number of Black people incarcerated for non-violent offenses. Simply stated, racism and oppression have been the operating system in America based on whiteness as the dominant power structure. 

Though many of these acts were implemented centuries ago, evidence of their impact is all around us. Consider this: white, non-Hispanics make up 60% of the U.S. population, and yet:The ten richest Americans are 100 percent white and the U.S. Congress is 78 percent white. 

These and many other abnormal statistical outcomes are clear evidence that America has not achieved a system where there is a fair opportunity to succeed regardless of race. To the contrary, both qualitative and quantitative data clearly indicate success and failure are too often predetermined by race. You don’t get heavily slanted, racially identifiable outcomes without the preferential treatment and head start that whiteness was given from America’s early beginnings. 

Systemic racism has been braided in America’s history and growth, but it is not a problem that is insurmountable or unsolvable. There is nothing wrong with our nation that eliminating systemic racism won’t fix. Systemic racism, which creates outcomes that are racially identifiable, can be weakened, unraveled, and eliminated. We can achieve a time when our children’s success or failure can no longer be predicted by race.  

There is Precedent

From the 1950s through the 1970s, the U.S. began to use the legal lever to tackle systemic racism and its disparities with the passage of Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, fair housing laws, etc. While none of these policies completely eliminated disparities, they helped address some inequities impacting Black children and families. 

It is undeniable that we have seen progress in the presence of Black people in political and corporate offices, yet while CONTINUE READING: The Time for a Federal Racial Equity Stimulus Package is Now | Schott Foundation for Public Education