NewBlackMan (in Exile) TODAY

NewBlackMan (in Exile)

NewBlackMan (in Exile) TODAY

Looking Back On A 'Decade Of Fire'

by Mark Anthony Neal / 16h

'In the 1970s, a string of devastating fires would help make the South Bronx a symbol of urban decay. In her documentary Decade of Fire , co-director Vivian Vázquez Irizarry , who grew up in the South Bronx, tries to dissect and counter that negative image through a personal lens. The documentary analyzes how the city, state, and federal governments abandoned the Bronx in the 1970s, and how despi

On The Frontlines Of Autism Research: North Carolina Professors Study Early Detection, Treatment

by Mark Anthony Neal / 16h

'Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill say they can detect autism spectrum disorder before it manifests in some young children, and they’re even developing treatments for some of the conditions that go hand-in-hand with autism. Professors Mark Zylka and Joe Piven work among more than two dozen scientists at UNC focused on autism spectrum disorder, and the National Institu

'Franchise' Tracks The Rise And Role Of Fast Food In Black America

by Mark Anthony Neal / 16h

'History professor Marcia Chatelain 's new book, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, tracks what she calls the hidden history of the relationships between the struggle for civil rights and the expansion of the fast food industry.' -- All Things Considered

Finding Strength In Fragility: Meet Maya Freelon

by Mark Anthony Neal / 16h

'Durham artist Maya Freelon ’s large tissue paper installations have hung in the halls of the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building and the North Carolina Museum of Art. She has received commissions from Google and Cadillac and was recently named one of five young artists to watch during Miami Art Week 2019. Her techniques transform tissue paper from schoolhouse craft to fine art and create co

The Barriers to Finding Mental Healthcare While Black

by Mark Anthony Neal / 16h

'There are many barriers to mental health care in the United States, including insurance, cost, and availability of therapists or psychiatrists. For people of color, these barriers can be much higher. Only around 4% of therapists are Black, and Black Americans are less likely to seek out mental health care. Dr. Joy Harden Bradford is the host of the podcast Therapy for Black Girls , and she recen

Carrie Mae Weems: 'How Do You Measure a Life'

by Mark Anthony Neal / 17h

'Artist and MacArthur fellow Carrie Mae Weems recites a piece called, “How Do You Measure a Life.” An excerpt from the MLK celebration hosted by Jami Floyd, Alison Stewart and WQXR’s Terrance McKnight at the Apollo. This year’s theme was “The Strategic King: MLK's Visionary Leadership' -- All Of It

How a Lost Recording Became a Philadelphia Soul Classic

by Mark Anthony Neal / 17h

'Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studios recorded more than 200 gold and platinum records before closing its doors in 2003, eventually donating 7,000 tapes to Drexel University, including recordings by Stevie Wonder , David Bowie , Gladys Knight and hundreds of other unknown artists. Christoper Booker reports on the search for hidden gems in one of the city's most comprehensive musical archives.' -- P

Imran Mohammad on Genocide, Detention, and Refugeehood

by Mark Anthony Neal / 17h

'Taking advantage of his visit in Chicago, Léopold Lambert talked with our past contributor Imran Mohammad . In November 2017, he wrote a text for us about the Rohingya genocide that he fled while he was living his fourth year of detention in an Australian camp detaining hundreds of exiled people on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. A few weeks later and while many detainees organized forms of revo

NewBlackMan (in Exile)

Another attempted cash grab by the corporate ed crowd in Washington State: House Bill 2788 – Seattle Education

Another attempted cash grab by the corporate ed crowd in Washington State: House Bill 2788 – Seattle Education

Another attempted cash grab by the corporate ed crowd in Washington State: House Bill 2788

The League has opposed charter schools because they don’t have boards elected by the voters but instead the corporation running the schools appoints the board.

Even though charter schools have been a big fail in Seattle, as we said they were in other states ten years ago, the corporate education advocates still want money for what has shown to be simply one big cash grab by taking away money from PUBLIC schools.

There is a bill, HB (House Bill) 2788, if approved,  would allow charter schools to receive levy funding raised by the City of Seattle. This funding has been used previously for PUBLIC schools to supplement state funding.

State House Representative Eric Pettigrew, who has no problem selling his own people down the river, is the lead sponsor of this bill. For examples of his untiring bidding for the moneyed few, see Rainier Beach High Schools responds to the League of Education VOters Attack on its Shool and Community, Apartheid House Bill 1860: No one wants to split Seattle in two except for Reps. Santos, Pettigrew and oh yeah… Magendanz. Remember him?, and House Rep. Eric Pettigrew, House Bill 1497, mayoral control and the money.       

Testimony will be heard in the House Appropriations Committee today at 3:30 PM.

Catherine Ahl, the Education Chair for the League of Women Voters of Washington, CONTINUE READING: Another attempted cash grab by the corporate ed crowd in Washington State: House Bill 2788 – Seattle Education

2020 Medley #3: Are we planning for the future? | Live Long and Prosper

2020 Medley #3: Are we planning for the future? | Live Long and Prosper

2020 Medley #3: Are we planning for the future?

WHAT MESSAGE ARE WE SENDING THE FUTURE?

U.S. appeals court tosses children’s climate lawsuit

I won’t be here to see the next century when today’s infants will be “the elderly.” It’s my responsibility, however, to do what I can to help keep the Earth habitable for my children, and for their children.

…and for their children…and for their children.

Currently, the world’s adults have been unable to let go of fossil fuels and the political and social control that billions of dollars of oil and gas money provide.

Some of our children have become aware of this, so they are trying to take control of the fight against fossil fuels in a quest to save the Earth’s life-friendly climate. It was disappointing, then, to read the ruling that children — who will live on the Earth long after the Koch brothers and the current administration are gone — could not show “standing” to sue to protect their own future.

The term, “standing,” in its legal sense, is “the ability of a party to demonstrate to the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged to CONTINUE READING: 2020 Medley #3: Are we planning for the future? | Live Long and Prosper

School Choice Plus Student Based Budgeting: Destroys Public Schools in Poor Neighborhoods | janresseger

School Choice Plus Student Based Budgeting: Destroys Public Schools in Poor Neighborhoods | janresseger

School Choice Plus Student Based Budgeting: Destroys Public Schools in Poor Neighborhoods

Those who favor school privatization and school choice through the expansion of charter schools and school voucher programs frame their advocacy by privileging individual choosers.  They assume that the mass of individual families’ choices in an educational marketplace will improve services for and protect the rights of a city’s children.  These assumptions are wrong.

In a major 2016 report for the Economic Policy Institute, Bruce Baker, the education finance expert at Rutgers University, rejected the contention that the expansion of school choice will improve educational opportunities overall. Baker argued that what matters is the balance of educational opportunity across the school district: “If we consider a specific geographic space, like a major urban center, operating under the reality of finite available resources (local, state, and federal revenues), the goal is to provide the best possible system for all children citywide… Chartering, school choice, or market competition are not policy objectives in-and-of-themselves. They are merely policy alternatives—courses of policy action—toward achieving these broader goals and must be evaluated in this light. To the extent that charter expansion or any policy alternative increases inequity, introduces inefficiencies and redundancies, compromises financial stability, or introduces other objectionable distortions to the system, those costs must be weighed against expected benefits.”

Washington, D.C. is the latest example of a place where it is becoming clear that school choice for some children is damaging the overall operation of public education. This is the conclusion of new research conducted by Johns Hopkins University for the Office of the D.C. Auditor.

The Washington Post’s Perry Stein explains: “When D.C. families choose a school that is not their assigned neighborhood campus, they tend to select schools that educate fewer students CONTINUE READING: School Choice Plus Student Based Budgeting: Destroys Public Schools in Poor Neighborhoods | janresseger

NYC Educator: No NY Teacher Should Have More than Two Co-teachers

NYC Educator: No NY Teacher Should Have More than Two Co-teachers

No NY Teacher Should Have More than Two Co-teachers

It's tough keeping up with the geniuses in Albany. They have so many ideas, and they are so smart that each one must be followed to the letter. They are not to be criticized because they are the Regents, the closest thing NY State has to popes, or saints, or statues so sacred birds won't poop on them.

In their infinite wisdom, they rewrote CR Part 154 so that students who don't know English would get less English instruction. Though they gave them no more time, they decreed that if some ESL teacher sat his or her posterior in a subject class full of ELLs, the students would magically learn not only the subject, but also all the English and culture associated with it. If it takes 45 minutes for a native English speaker to learn about chapter one of To Kill a Mockinbird, an ELL can learn not only that, but also all the vocabulary, idioms, background info, and everything else a native American English speaker can learn.

How does that happen? No one knows, but since the Regents say so, that should be good enough for anyone. So people scream at me that I'm not kind enough to the geniuses in Albany, that they are experts, and that they know.

Here's the thing, though. On this astral plane, there are consequences. Yesterday I spoke to a high school teacher who had five co-teachers. I'm acquainted with an elementary teacher who has nine. Now how do you co-plan with five teachers? How do you co-plan with nine teachers. The short answer is you don't. You walk in those classrooms and hope for the best. You can't possibly anticipate what the teachers will do.

Even if you could, you're a third wheel. Teachers may think you don't belong in the classroom. After all, they're there each and every day and CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: No NY Teacher Should Have More than Two Co-teachers

Lessons Learned from Technology-powered School Reform | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Lessons Learned from Technology-powered School Reform | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Lessons Learned from Technology-powered School Reform

On June 13, 2018. I was a member of a panel held at Mission High School during San Francisco Design Week. Software developers, and others who see themselves as designers of ed-tech products that will improve schools attended this panel discussion. The moderator asked each of us to state in 7-8 minutes “what hard lessons have you learned about education that you’d like to share with the ed-tech design community?” My fellow panelists were two math teachers–one from Mission High School and the other a former teacher at Oakland High School, three product designers (one for the Chan/Zuckerberg Initiative, another for Desmos, and the lead designer for Khan Academy) who have been working in the ed-tech industry for years. In attendance were nearly 60 young (in their 20s and 30s) product designers, teachers, and ed-tech advocates .

Elizabeth Lin, a designer for Khan Academy, organized and moderated the panel. She began with a Kahoot quiz on Pokemon and Harry Potter. Audience members had the Kahoot app on their devices and entered the pin number to register for the quiz. For the record, I knew none of the answers having never played Pokemon or, as yet, cracked a Harry Potter book. 

When my turn came to speak, I looked around the room and saw that I was the oldest person in the room. Here is what I said.

Many designers and school reformers believe that in old age, pessimism and cynicism go together. Not true.

As someone who has taught high school history, led a school district, and CONTINUE READING: Lessons Learned from Technology-powered School Reform | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Letter to Seattle Public Schools Leadership Demands Accountability for Abuse in its Schools — & the District’s Silence – Seattle Education

Letter to Seattle Public Schools Leadership Demands Accountability for Abuse in its Schools — & the District’s Silence – Seattle Education

Letter to Seattle Public Schools Leadership Demands Accountability for Abuse in its Schools — & the District’s Silence

It seems very quiet at the offices of the Seattle School District’s John Stanford headquarters, in spite of a bombshell story about the district’s tolerance of student abuse in the classroom by the adults in charge.

The mismanagement of the district was on display and in the news recently with the School Board’s Jan. 22 vote to begin the process of dismantling its Highly Capable education program (see here, here, and here). This action ignored opposition from families, students and the recommendations of its own Advanced Learning Task Force.

And now a new outrage has emerged. The next day, on Jan. 23, Ann Dornfeld, a reporter for KUOW (94.9 FM), broke a lengthy story about rampant abuse in the classroom at Washington Middle School and in other places:

“A KUOW investigation found that Seattle Public Schools often allows teachers who harm students to stay in the classroom. Some are allowed to keep teaching even after multiple offenses. 

The district has also, on at least one occasion, removed evidence of misconduct from a teacher’s personnel file after forcing them out of the district.  Through a public records request, KUOW obtained records for 10 cases in which teachers CONTINUE READING: Letter to Seattle Public Schools Leadership Demands Accountability for Abuse in its Schools — & the District’s Silence – Seattle Education

On Data Privacy Day, please contact your state Attorney Generals and urge them to investigate the selling of student data by the College Board | Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

On Data Privacy Day, please contact your state Attorney Generals and urge them to investigate the selling of student data by the College Board | Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

ON DATA PRIVACY DAY, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR STATE ATTORNEY GENERALS AND URGE THEM TO INVESTIGATE THE SELLING OF STUDENT DATA BY THE COLLEGE BOARD

Today, January 28th is Data Privacy Day, the international annual day of action and awareness to promote the privacy of our personal data.

The College Board and ACT sell personal student data at a profit.  Yet twenty one states prohibit this practice by school vendors, operators or service providers,  under any  conditions; see list   below.  Most every district or state contracts with one of these organizations to administer the PSAT, SAT, AP or ACT exams to students in school.

The College Board sells student data for 47 cents per student  to colleges and other organizations, including some for-profit companies, but have refused to make the list public. They offer them student test scores within a range, and other  personal information deceptively gathered from students via surveys administered before their exams.  As the Wall Street Journal explained, one reason colleges buy the data is to lower their acceptance rates and selectivity, by luring far more students to apply than they have any intention to accept. Most outrageously, the College Board falsely claims they don’t sell student data on their privacy policy, instead saying they “license” the data, a difference without a distinction.

This needs to stop.  Please contact your state Attorneys General today, and ask them to investigate these illegal practices, which violate state student privacy laws and the laws that most every state has that bar deceptive practices.  Thanks!

On Data Privacy Day, please contact your state Attorney Generals and urge them to investigate the selling of student data by the College Board | Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

First of a Series on Project-Based Learning | The Merrow Report

First of a Series on Project-Based Learning | The Merrow Report

First of a Series on Project-Based Learning

In hopes that your children or grandchildren will be doing school projects later this year, for the next few weeks I will devote this space to project-based learning and some ideas for projects.  

Project-based learning has significant benefits.  First of all, students become producers of knowledge, not mere consumers of information that others decree they must know.  They own what they learn, and they reap the satisfaction of possessing expertise.  Moreover, they develop (or sharpen) a skill the adult workplace values: the ability to work with others. 

The best projects meet these five criteria: 

     1) The topic is of interest to whoever’s adopting it;

     2) The issue is significant, not trivial; 

     3) The project follows ‘The Goldilocks Rule.’  Neither huge and grandiose (“Solving the Middle East crisis”) nor tiny and trivial (“Comparing the rate of growth of avocado pits under different conditions“).  Instead, it’s “Just Right” so that students can get their CONTINUE READING: First of a Series on Project-Based Learning | The Merrow Report