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NewBlackMan (in Exile)

CATCH UP WITH NEWBLACKMAN (IN EXILE)

Duke University's Department of African & African American Studies Celebrates 50th Anniversary with Speaker Series Highlighting Black Studies Alumni | NewBlackMan (in Exile) - https://www.newblackmaninexile.net/2019/10/duke-universitys-department-of-african.html

GQ: DMX Breaks Down His Most Iconic Tracks

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3h

'Rap legend DMX breaks down his most iconic tracks, including 'X Gon' Give it to Ya,' 'Ruff Ryder's Anthem,' 'What's My Name?,' 'Party Up (Up in Here),' and 'Where the Hood At?''-- GQ

Angélique Kidjo Explains Celia Cruz's Rhythmic Singing Style

by Mark Anthony Neal / 4h

'In the course of her career, Celia Cruz recorded over 70 albums and received a dozen Grammy nominations. Her powerful voice and charisma made her one of the most popular Latin musicians of the 20th century, earning her the title the "Queen of Salsa." She always carried her African roots into her music, says singer Angélique Kidjo — and that was especially evident in the uniquely rhythmic way she

The Big Book: Thoughts on Creativity from Lyrical Powerhouse Rakim

by Mark Anthony Neal / 4h

' Sweat the Technique: Revelations on Creativity from the Lyrical Genius in the new memoir from Rakim , who joins Marketplace's Kai Ryssdal .

The Smithsonian's Lonnie Bunch: Learning from History

by Mark Anthony Neal / 4h

' Lonnie G. Bunch III is enamored of American history. Last June he was named Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, which he calls "part of the glue that holds the country together." Bunch, who oversaw the creation of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, is in charge of 19 museums, 21 libraries, the National Zoo, 7,000 employees, and a budget of $1.5 billion – and is o

Imagine Room: Rapsody Delivers Dynamic Performance Of "Nina" & "Cleo" from 'EVE'

by Mark Anthony Neal / 4h

Rapsody delivers performances of her songs, "Nina" and Cleo" from her critically acclaimed album Eve on BET's Imagine Room .

SEP 29

Left of Black S10:E2: Kaneesha Parsard on the Literature and Visual Culture of the English Speaking Caribbean in the Aftermath of Slavery and Indentureship

by Mark Anthony Neal / 1d

Left of Black co-host Sasha Panaram ( @SashaPanaram ) is joined in the studio by Kaneesha Parsard ( @ kaneeshaparsard ). Parsard is a Provost Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago where she will begin as an Assistant Professor in 2020. She received her PhD in American studies and African American studies from Yale University in 2017.

SEP 26

Do Or Die: Using Art To Resist Stereotypes Of Black Masculinity

33by Mark Anthony Neal / 4d

'Artist Fahamu Pecou has been wrestling with stereotypes of black masculinity for his entire life. No matter how many degrees he earned or what job he had, he had the sense that he was only seen as a black body. He has always used art as a way to push back, but for a long time he did not touch one particularly charged topic: police-involved shootings of black men. That changed in 2015, after a po

Emmanuel Pratt, Urban Designer | 2019 MacArthur Fellow

by Mark Anthony Neal / 5d

' Emmanuel Pratt is an urban designer. He is integrating agriculture, education, and design in a resident-driven approach to community development and turning neglected urban neighborhoods into places of growth and vitality.' -- macfound

'Always in Season' Explores the History of Lynching Through a Layered Lens

by Mark Anthony Neal / 5d

'"Experts don't really have a consensus on the definition of lynching, but generally it's agreed that a lynching occurs when three or more people gather for a public, racialized murder," filmmaker Jacqueline Olive told WNYC 's cultural critic Rebecca Carroll , on the subject of her new documentary film, Always in Season . The film, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year and earned a specia

SEP 25

#BackChannel: Chappelle Punches Down, Billy Porter & Jharrel Jerome Stand Tall and A Black Lady Sketch Show Takes Risk

33by Mark Anthony Neal / 5d

On this episode of #BlackChannel featuring State of Things contributors Natalie Bullock Brown and Mark Anthony Neal , the duo discuss the Emmy Award winning performances of Billy Porter ( Pose ) and Jharrel Jerome ( When They See Us ), as well as the marginalization of Black women in the television industry. Bullock Brown and Neal also highlight new recordings from Missy Elliot ( Iconography ) an

Kelly Lytle Hernández, Historian | 2019 MacArthur Fellow

300+by Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

' Kelly Lytle Hernández is a historian. She is challenging long-held beliefs about the origins, ideology, and evolution of incarceration and immigrant detention practices in the United States.' -- macfound

Saidiya Hartman, Literary Scholar and Cultural Historian | 2019 MacArthur Fellow

3Kby Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

' Saidiya Hartman is a literary scholar and cultural historian. She is tracing the afterlife of slavery in modern American life and rescuing from oblivion stories of sparsely documented lives that have been systematically excluded from 

NewBlackMan (in Exile)

Alert: Early Bird Registration Ends Today! - Network For Public Education

Alert: Early Bird Registration Ends Today! - Network For Public Education

Alert: Early Bird Registration Ends Today!

Don’t let the Early Bird fly away! 

Register now and take advantage of our Early Bird reduced rate by clicking here and then entering this code: NPEAction2020EB. Today is the last day for the special rate.

After you sign up for the conference, be sure to register for a reduced rate room ($169) at our conference hotel. Our rooms will go fast! To reserve your hotel room click here.

Your registration fee will include breakfast and lunch on Saturday and brunch on Sunday.

To get that Early Bird rate, use this special code: NPEAction2020EB when you register today.

Alert: Early Bird Registration Ends Today! - Network For Public Education

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Please tune in tomorrow at 10:00 EST when I speak with Jennifer Levin of the Education Law Center and Katherine Dunn of the Southern Poverty Law Center on the new initiative they are leading to stop vouchers called Public Funds Public Schools​.  Call in during the show and enter the dialogue on this important topic. You can listen Wednesday Oct 2, 2019 10:00 AM est on WBAI 99.5 fm & online at www.wbai.org.

Thanks for all that you do!

Alert: Early Bird Registration Ends Today! - Network For Public Education

Louisiana Educator: BESE Takeover Effort Intensifies

Louisiana Educator: BESE Takeover Effort Intensifies

BESE Takeover Effort Intensifies

We predicted that as it got closer to election day, the out-of-state contributors who support the takeover of BESE would dump in massive amounts of contributions to LABI controlled candidates.
We are now witnessing a massive advertising campaign financed primarily by out-of-state reformer groups that are acting in cooperation with the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) to continue their total control of education in Louisiana. See this blog post by Mercedes Schneider, who I believe is the most effective investigative reporter of educational issues in Louisiana. Schneider describes how a faction of the Louisiana Democratic party called Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) is backing candidates for BESE using out-of-state money.

Schneider also describes here how other groups including Stand for Children are coordinating their efforts in Republican majority BESE districts. Brigitte Nieland who recently worked for LABI, is now the political action staffer for Stand for Children. Again, the goal is to provide LABI with totally committed candidates in both Republican and Democratic districts to do their bidding on all major education issues. What does this mean for our children and their teachers?

Election of these LABI controlled candidates will insure that John White remains State Superintendent for as long as he cares to do so. It will also mean that teachers and children will continue to spend most of their class time getting drilled and rehearsed in how to take the state standardized tests. Teachers are now being required to teach "scripted" lessons "with fidelity". This means that White and his reformers consider teachers nothing more that CONTINUE READING: Louisiana Educator: BESE Takeover Effort Intensifies

Big Education Ape: Louisiana Educator: Help Break the Grip of Special Interest Lobbyists Over BESE! - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/09/louisiana-educator-help-break-grip-of.html

Big Education Ape: Education Reform Now: Manufacturing Grass Roots Support for La. BESE Candidates Castille and Orange-Jones | deutsch29 - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/09/education-reform-now-manufacturing.html

Big Education Ape: Stand for Children: Using Its Oregon Money to Influence Louisiana’s 2019 BESE Election | deutsch29 - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/09/stand-for-children-using-its-oregon.html

The California Charter School Association Purposefully Puts Students In Danger

The California Charter School Association Purposefully Puts Students In Danger

The California Charter School Association Purposefully Puts Students In Danger

Students are absolutely safer in a Field Act [school building] when an earthquake happens, no question about it.”– Tom DuffyCoalition for Adequate School Housing

Whenever legislative bodies attempt to force accountability on the charter school industry, the California Charter School Association (CCSA) cries “#KidsNotPolitics.” However, while claiming to put Kids First, there are CCSA charters that are among the worst-performing schools in the state. One of their member schools was caught violating the state labor code and illegally charging students to attend summer school. Still another engaged in construction practices so flagrant that the results endangered “the health and safety of students”. According to a recent KCBS News report, there are hundreds of charter school facilities that do not have to comply with the Field Act, the law that ensures that school buildings are safe during an earthquake.

As shown in documents uncovered by Michael Kohlhaas dot org, the CCSA feels that one of the “greatest threats” that they face is requiring that their schools “comply with [the] Field Act.”

So much for Kids First.

After 230 schools collapsed during the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, the state of California passed the Field Act, “which mandated rigorous CONTINUE READING: The California Charter School Association Purposefully Puts Students In Danger

Jeff Bryant: Our Schools: Another School Leadership Disaster: Private Companies Work an Insider Game to Reap Lucrative Contracts | National Education Policy Center

Our Schools: Another School Leadership Disaster: Private Companies Work an Insider Game to Reap Lucrative Contracts | National Education Policy Center

Our Schools: Another School Leadership Disaster: Private Companies Work an Insider Game to Reap Lucrative Contracts

In July 2013, the education world was rocked when a breaking story by Chicago independent journalist Sarah Karp reported that district CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett had pushed through a no-bid $20 million contract to provide professional development to administrators with a private, for-profit company called SUPES Academy, which she had worked for a year before the deal transpired. Byrd-Bennett was also listed as a senior associate for PROACT Search, a superintendent search firm run by the same individuals who led SUPES.

By 2015, federal investigators looked into the deal and found reason to charge Byrd-Bennett for accepting bribes and kickbacks from the company that ran SUPES and PROACT. A year-and-a-half later, the story made national headlines when Byrd-Bennett was convicted and sentenced to prison for those charges. But anyone who thought this story was an anomaly would be mistaken. Similar conflicts of interest among private superintendent search firms, their associated consulting companies, and their handpicked school leaders have plagued multiple school districts across the country.

In an extensive examination, Our Schools has discovered an intricate web of businesses that reap lucrative school contracts funded by public tax dollars. These businesses are often able to place their handpicked candidates in school leadership positions who then help make the purchasing decision for the same businesses’ other products and services, which often include professional development, strategic planning, computer-based services, or data analytics. The deals are often brokered in secrecy or presented to local school boards in ways that make insider schemes appear legitimate.

As in the Byrd-Bennett scandal, school officials who get caught in this web risk public humiliation, criminal investigation, and potential jail time, while the businesses that perpetuate this hidden CONTINUE READING: Our Schools: Another School Leadership Disaster: Private Companies Work an Insider Game to Reap Lucrative Contracts | National Education Policy Center

Misdirected Evaluation and Intimidation in Wake County, North Carolina | Truth in American Education

Misdirected Evaluation and Intimidation in Wake County, North Carolina | Truth in American Education

Misdirected Evaluation and Intimidation in Wake County, North Carolina

n this post, I am going to attempt to address a number of issues related to the situation in Wake County, NC where the school district adopted the Mathematics Vision Project (MVP).  The three main issues I hope to address have to do with the evaluation of the implementation of the Mathematics Vision Project (MVP), MVP’s lawsuit against a parent, and the parent voice in Wake County (as well as across the country).  And for good measure, or bad, I’m likely to hit on other issues.  I keep hearing, “It’s complicated,” being said about so many things.  While this whole situation may be complicated, it doesn’t have to be and it shouldn’t be.  Are the parents the only ones involved in this situation who have not lost sight of what’s important—the students, their education, and their future?

For more information see the linked articles and legal documents provided at the end of this post.

The Wake County Public School System (WCPSS or Wake County) adopted MVP as the math program to be used throughout the district.  WCPSS appears to be the fifteenth largest school district in the country so the adoption of this program impacts a lot of students.  In short, parents and students have expressed concerns in a variety of ways.  In response, the school board hired MGT of America Consulting, LLC (MGT) to conduct an evaluation.  MVP filed a defamation lawsuit against a Wake County parent.  For more detailed information see the links at the end of this post CONTINUE READING: Misdirected Evaluation and Intimidation in Wake County, North Carolina | Truth in American Education

See how closely Ohio school report card grades trend with district income - cleveland.com

See how closely Ohio school report card grades trend with district income - cleveland.com

See how closely Ohio school report card grades trend with district income

CLEVELAND, Ohio - The latest set of Ohio school report cards not only provided a scorecard for each district statewide - they once again drove home the point that wealthier districts do better on such reports.

For example, incomes in the "A" districts were three times higher  than those in the "F" districts, and the child poverty rate was 13 times higher in the worst performing districts, cleveland.com found.

To get an idea of how closely report card grades from the Ohio Department of Education follow demographic factors, cleveland.com compared those grades to U.S. Census Bureau community data for household income, child poverty and the education level of the adults.

In nearly every key report card category, the trends followed census data closely.

For example, taking the median household income for each district, the average among those getting "A" overall grades was $95,423. It was $65,307 for B-graded districts, $54,058 for C-graded districts, $44,428 for D-graded districts and $32,658 for F-graded districts.

In the A districts, 58.5% of the adults age 25 and older have at least a bachelor's degree. That share drops to 17.1% for D-graded districts and 16.3% for F-graded CONTINUE READING: See how closely Ohio school report card grades trend with district income - cleveland.com

Big Education Ape: CURMUDGUCATION: OH: Meaningless School Grades And Money - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/09/curmudgucation-oh-meaningless-school.html

CURMUDGUCATION: Are School Vouchers A Path To Religious Freedom?

CURMUDGUCATION: Are School Vouchers A Path To Religious Freedom?

Are School Vouchers A Path To Religious Freedom?

Let me make a confession-- I am not at all unsympathetic to many Libertarian beliefs. I am wary of government involvement in many arenas, and the bigger the government, the warier I am. Additionally, I know some Libertarians personally, and they are perfectly nice human beings. But when you start turning general Libby philosophical notions into specific policies, particularly in areas where my exercise of my liberty crashes into your exercise of your liberty-- well, that never seems to work out well-- or even consistent.  At a minimum, I find some of these conclusions puzzling.

Let's take the new Libby talking point on school vouchers, as articulated in many venues by CATO Institute's Education Guy Neal McCluskey. 

The argument that to have "equality under the law," religious folks need to be able to fully exercise their beliefs, including sending their children to a private religious school, and so taxpayers should fund vouchers for just that purpose. 

This is a close cousin of the argument that this administration has put forth in a variety of forms, which boils down to this: if your personal faith says you should discriminate against certain classes of people, but federal law says you can't, then federal law should step aside for your personal beliefs. This point of view has scored a victory or two, and it's important because it marks the first time that the battle between the free exercise clause (you should get to exercise whatever religious beliefs you hold) and the establishment clause (the government should not choose a side in the world of unending religious debates) is being decided in favor of the exercise clause.

You have, of course, always been free to send your chid to a religious school. What's new here is the argument that the government should pay for it. 

I'm confused at finding this argument coming from conservative Libby folks. These are the same CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Are School Vouchers A Path To Religious Freedom?