Going “Black to School” With Counselors Not Cops!: An interview on the victory for #PoliceFreeSchools with Minneapolis student leader Nathaniel Genene – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Going “Black to School” With Counselors Not Cops!: An interview on the victory for #PoliceFreeSchools with Minneapolis student leader Nathaniel Genene – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Going “Black to School” With Counselors Not Cops!: 

An interview on the victory for #PoliceFreeSchools with Minneapolis student leader Nathaniel Genene

Minneapolis students demonstrate the day before Superbowl 2018 for cops out of the schools. (Photo: Unicorn Riot)

An interview with Minneapolis student leader Nathaniel Genene about the uprising for Black lives, the victory of removing police from public schools, and the need to rethink what school looks like.

By Jesse Hagopian

On June 2, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a police officer, the Minneapolis Public Schools school board voted to terminate the Minneapolis Police Department’s contract, removing all police from their schools. The board also directed Superintendent Ed Graff to come up with a new plan for school safety by August 18, the date of the board’s next meeting.

While the uprising in response to the murder of George Floyd was the immediate catalyst to the removal of police from MPS, many youth had been working toward this goal for years. A 2018–19 survey by Minneapolis Public Schools survey showed that school cops had more interactions with black students than with their peers. MPS will save $1.1 million annually by not contracting with the police department.

On June 7, Seattle high school teacher and author Jesse Hagopian interviewed Minneapolis Public School student Nathaniel Genene about the uprising in Minneapolis against police violence and the movement to remove police from the schools. Nathaniel is the current student representative on the Minneapolis Board of Education and an officer on the citywide Youth Leadership Council for the Minneapolis public schools.

A version of this interview was originally published in The Nation magazine.

Minneapolis Public Schools Expel the Police!

Jesse Hagopian: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Nathaniel. I know with the uprising at your doorstep, you have a lot going on. I want to talk with you about the dramatic victory to remove police from the Minneapolis schools. But before we get there, let’s start with your experience as a black student in the school system. Can CONTINUE READING: Going “Black to School” With Counselors Not Cops!: An interview on the victory for #PoliceFreeSchools with Minneapolis student leader Nathaniel Genene – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Teacher Tom: Pretty Good Parenting

Teacher Tom: Pretty Good Parenting

Pretty Good Parenting

When you hear someone use the term "adulting," it's usually used as the punchline to a sarcastic joke about having tackled a responsibility that is associated with being a grown-up, like changing a tire, folding laundry, or paying the monthly bills. It's sometimes used to refer to the day-to-day grind, such as having conscientiously undertaken irritating, but necessary tasks, but just as often, it's a kind of self-effacing boast about having accomplished some relatively petty thing that we perceive of as uniquely adult. We didn't use the term back then, but "adulting" is how I felt the first time I belly crawled through the dust under our first house to change the furnace filter. It's how I felt when I grew my first edible tomato. And it's how I felt almost every day as a new parent.

How much better "adulting" is than "parenting." Both refer to the assumption of responsibilities, but the first, at least the way it is most commonly used, has a sort of light-heartedness to it, a wink that says that you can feel proud of having at least done your best even if it falls short of perfection. Whereas the second word, parenting, refers to a weighty business. There are so many tragic ways one can fail, and those failures will "shape" your child, "damage" them, causing them to grow into adults who are incapable of adulting. Adulting might still be stressful and challenging, but it's nothing compared to dead seriousness of parenting, which carries with it the connotation that you are responsible for manufacturing a whole human being and falling short is not an option. 

I've often noted here on these pages that we have seen a disturbing and steady rise in the incidence of childhood CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: Pretty Good Parenting

SSPI THURMOND STUFF TODAY FROM THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

California Department of Education

SSPI THURMOND

STUFF TODAY FROM THE

CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Big Education Ape: September 6, 2020 Statewide Emergency: Fires - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education) - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/09/september-6-2020-statewide-emergency.html

Public Safety Power Shutoff Event September 2020

4h

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE) have announced that public safety power shutoffs are in progress due to extreme weather and fire danger.

Summer Food Service Program Annual Update 2020-21

4h

The California Department of Education (CDE) has opened the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) Annual Update in the Child Nutrition Information and Payment System (CNIPS) for School Year (SY) 2020–21 (October 1, 2020, through September 30, 2021).

California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom Free Two Day Virtual AgVentura

4h

The California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom (CFAITC) is offering a free two day virtual AgVentura in lieu of the 2020 California Agriculture in the Classroom Conference.

Youth Mental Health First Aid Virtual Training 2020

20h

Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) No Cost Professional Development Virtual Training 2020 digital flyer.

Thurmond Issues Statement in Response to Trump

21 1d

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Issues Statement in Response to President Trump's Threats Directed at California Schools

Parent Engagement Modules Series

5d

The presents information and strategies for parents to develop their capacity to support their children at school and at home.

Serie de módulos sobre la participación de padres

5d

La tiene información y estrategias para que los padres desarrollen la capacidad de apoyar a sus hijos en la escuela y en su casa.

California Department of Education

Antiracist Reading

 Antiracist Reading

Antiracist Reading

Shortly after George Floyd was murdered, openly,  in front of the nation’s eyes, Tre Johnson said this, in the Washington Post:
‘when things get real — really murderous, really tragic, really violent or aggressive — my white, liberal, educated friends already know what to do. What they do is read. And talk about their reading. What they do is listen. And talk about how they listened.

What they do is never enough. This isn’t the time to circle up with other white people and discuss black pain in the abstract; it’s the time to acknowledge and examine the pain they’ve personally caused. Black people live and die every day under the burdens of a racism more insidious than the current virus that’s also disproportionately killing us. And yet white people tend to take a slow route to meaningful activism, locked in familiar patterns, seemingly uninterested in really advancing progress.’

You should read all of what he said. Because it’s important. And while you’re at it, take a look at this, as well:

‘while the crafters of anti-racist reading lists are mostly making an earnest effort to educate people, literature and dialogue cannot supplant restorative social policies and laws, organizational change, and structural redress. When offered in lieu of actionable policies regarding equity, consciousness raising can actually undermine Black progress by presenting increased knowledge as the balm for centuries of abuse.’ 

So—I realize that I am, relative to the antiracist discourse happening right now, at square one or two, and can’t read myself into full partnership. I have to act.

Mentioning things I used to do, in the classroom, would be nothing more than empty CONTINUE READING:  Antiracist Reading

2020 Medley #20 | Live Long and Prosper

2020 Medley #20 | Live Long and Prosper

2020 Medley #20 | Live Long and Prosper

WHAT’S ‘BROKEN’? THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OR AMERICA ITSELF?

Trump exploits Biden’s charter school silence

Margaret Fortune of the Freedom Coalition for Charter Schools calls out the President for lying about former Vice President Biden’s plan for charter schools. The comment by the current occupant of the White House that Biden wants to close all charter schools has been debunked over and over again, though this will hardly stop him lying about it…nor will it stop his base from believing him.

In any case, Fortune continues by making a misstatement of her own when she talks about public schools in Black neighborhoods being “broken.”

It’s true that public schools in high-poverty neighborhoods, especially neighborhoods filled with Black and Brown children, are generally not as successful as schools in higher-income areas, but the problem is the larger society’s inability (or unwillingness) to overcome poverty. The problem is the racism and classism inherent in the social structure of the US. Why is it that test scores in low-income schools are lower than in wealthy schools? Are all the schools in low-income neighborhoods bad and all the schools in high-income neighborhoods good?

No. It’s because…

• the US is one of the very few countries in the wealthy, industrialized, capitalist world that spends more money on the education of wealthy children than poor children (see here, here, here, and here).

• standardized testing which we use to “grade” our schools are culturally and racially biased (see here, here, here, and here).

• poverty affects children’s ability to learn and achieve (see here, here, here, and here). 

Children of color in the US have been denied equal opportunities compared to CONTINUE READING: 2020 Medley #20 | Live Long and Prosper

Who Should Be the Next Education Secretary at This Critical Juncture in History?

Who Should Be the Next Education Secretary at This Critical Juncture in History?

Who Should Be the Next Education Secretary at This Critical Juncture in History?

Bloggers have been speculating about a Biden/Harris education secretary. During this critical time in American history, that individual should be a black or brown woman, who has been a teacher of young children, and who understands child development. She should hold an education degree and have an additional leadership degree and experience that will help her run the U.S. Department of Education.

Children deserve to see more teachers who look like they do, who will inspire them to go on and become teachers themselves. A black female education secretary will bring more diverse individuals to the field and set an example. This will benefit all students.

Many individuals, including accomplished black men, have brilliant minds, and understand what we need in the way of democratic public education. Leadership roles should await them in the U.S. Department of Education, in schools, universities, or states and local education departments.

But with the fight for Black Lives to Matter and for an end to gender inequality, a knowledgeable black woman with a large heart to embrace these times should take this spot. The majority of teachers have always been women, and while men are critical to being role models for children and teens, it is time for a black woman to lead.

We have had eleven education secretaries, and only three of them have been women, including Shirley Hufstedler, Margaret Spellings, and Betsy DeVos. None of CONTINUE READING: Who Should Be the Next Education Secretary at This Critical Juncture in History?

Measuring the Unmeasurable: Racism by the Numbers + Uncritical Erase Theory Seminars: Presented by Trump University and Khan Academy – radical eyes for equity

Measuring the Unmeasurable: Racism by the Numbers – radical eyes for equity

Measuring the Unmeasurable: Racism by the Numbers

Several years ago, women faculty at my university raised concerns about gender inequity across hiring, retention, and pay. The data suggested those concerns were valid so the university brought in an outside team to examine if gender inequity, in fact, existed at the university.

The university faculty was composed of fewer than 40% women (well below the percentage of women in society) and women faculty had been leaving the university at a higher rate than men faculty for several years. Although the university culture discouraged the sharing of salaries, women faculty were able to establish that women did in fact make less than men—in part, because there was also inequity of rank by gender.

These gender imbalances are common across higher education in the U.S. as well.

The external review gathered more data, mostly interviewing across campus different stakeholders in the university. That report confirmed gender inequity and offered reform strategies to address the imbalances.

Almost immediately upon its release, white male faculty questioned the review on the grounds that it did not meet the high standards of scientific inquiry (quantitative experimental/quasi-experimental research).

This scenario is playing out nationally in a similar way, but focusing on racial inequity (racism) in policing, specifically in the use of deadly force by police officers.

First, it is important to start a consideration of statistic and quantitative data CONTINUE READING: Measuring the Unmeasurable: Racism by the Numbers – radical eyes for equity

Uncritical Erase Theory Seminars: Presented by Trump University and Khan Academy [Satire] – radical eyes for equity - https://wp.me/p2GmBR-9Eb via @plthomasEdD

CHECK IT OUT: DIANE ON A ROLL TODAY - Join #ScholarStrike in Solidarity Protest Against Racial Injustice | Diane Ravitch's blog

Join #ScholarStrike in Solidarity Protest Against Racial Injustice | Diane Ravitch's blog

CHECK IT OUT: DIANE ON A ROLL TODAY 

Join #ScholarStrike in Solidarity Protest Against Racial Injustice | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-rKH via @dianeravitch

NYC: Parents at Success Academy Worry about Stress of All-Remote “No Excuses” Discipline | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-rKZ via @dianeravitch

Victoria Theisen Homer: The Tyranny of Remote Learning | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-rKw via @dianeravitch

Laura Chapman: EdTech Is Driven by the Profit Motive | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-rr4 via @dianeravitch

Big Education Ape: DID YOU MISS DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG TODAY? A site to discuss better education for all - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/09/did-you-miss-diane-ravitchs-blog-today.html

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all - https://wp.me/2odLa via @dianeravitch