can’t-miss UK/NAACP Education & Civil Rights Initiative VIRTUAL CONFERENCE | Cloaking Inequity

can’t-miss UK/NAACP Education & Civil Rights Initiative VIRTUAL CONFERENCE | Cloaking Inequity

CAN’T-MISS UK/NAACP EDUCATION & CIVIL RIGHTS INITIATIVE VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

Talk with National Leaders and Experts! Register now for this can’t-miss virtual conference hosted by the University of Kentucky’s Education & Civil Rights Initiative May 7-8, 2021 Register here by Thursday, May 6, for Education & Civil Rights for the New Decade!

Explore some of the most pressing issues of our time in this two-day, virtual conference. You’ll have the opportunity to take part in multiple tracks hosted by expert community partners.

The conference is provided through a partnership between the Education and Civil Rights Initiative at the University of Kentucky College of Education, the UK Rosenberg College of Law, the NAACP, and the Kentucky Community and Technical College System. The conference is free and open to all, through the generous support of WesBanco. View Agenda & Register You won’t want to miss featured speakers and panel events such as: Friday, May 7 Conference Keynote 10:45 – 11:15 a.m. EST Derrick Johnson, President and CEO of the NAACP, will open the conference. President Johnson formerly served as vice chairman of the NAACP National Board of Directors, as well as state president for the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP. A longstanding member and leader of the NAACP, Mr. Johnson has helped guide the Association through a period of re-envisioning and reinvigoration. Saturday, May 8, 10-11 a.m. EST Opening Keynote Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings will open the second day of the conference. As the former Kellner Family Distinguished Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Dr. Ladson-Billings is known for her work in the fields of culturally relevant pedagogy and critical race theory. Saturday, May 8, 5:45-6:45 p.m. EST Closing Keynote Raymond Pierce, CEO of the Southern Education Foundation, will close the conference with a keynote. In his work with the Southern Education Foundation (SEF), Pierce leads the organization’s historic mission of advancing educational opportunities for African American and low-income students in the southern states. Since joining SEF in January 2018, Pierce has focused the organization on policy research, education legislation and leadership development. SEF has also launched a workforce development initiative and is expanding its efforts to strengthen parental engagement in support of improving student learning. Saturday, May 8, 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. EST Plenary: A Conversation with National Education Leaders Dr. Walter Bumphus, President and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges Dr. Norma Cantú, Commissioner of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and Professor of Law and Education at the University of Texas-Austin Dr. Belle Wheelan, President of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. Thank you to our KCTCS partners for making this plenary possible.Register by Thursday, May 6 to reserve your spot! Conference tracks will include:  ● Law & Justice* ● K-12 Education* ● Community Organization ● Post-Secondary ● Financial Literacy *Continuing education credit is available upon request. Law and Justice continuing education credit is pending CLE approval.Housed in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation, the Education and Civil Rights Initiative is a research collaboration with the NAACP, the nation’s largest and most preeminent civil rights organization. The focus of this collaboration is to ensure that every child in America experiences equitable access to education. Learn more about the initiative on our website.

can’t-miss UK/NAACP Education & Civil Rights Initiative VIRTUAL CONFERENCE | Cloaking Inequity

Kentucky governor vetoes pension theft and voucher bills. Will the legislature vote to override pension bill? – Fred Klonsky

Kentucky governor vetoes pension theft and voucher bills. Will the legislature vote to override pension bill? – Fred Klonsky

KENTUCKY GOVERNOR VETOES PENSION THEFT AND VOUCHER BILLS. WILL THE LEGISLATURE VOTE TO OVERRIDE PENSION BILL?

Olivia Krauth Louisville Courier Journal

Calling them a “direct attack” on Kentucky’s public schools, Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed a set of controversial education bills Wednesday. 

Chief among the vetoed bills is House Bill 563, which would allow state funding to follow students who attend a public school outside of their home district and create a form of scholarship tax credits that would siphon millions from Kentucky’s general fund.

“Can we expect more from public education? Absolutely,” Beshear said Wednesday. “But the way to do that is not to defund it.”

The measure is “unconstitutional” on multiple fronts, Beshear said, and he expects it to face a legal challenge should his veto be overriden. 

The legislation landed on his desk after passing through the House on the slimmest CONTINUE READING: Kentucky governor vetoes pension theft and voucher bills. Will the legislature vote to override pension bill? – Fred Klonsky

Bad News in Kentucky: Legislature Passes Voucher Bill | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bad News in Kentucky: Legislature Passes Voucher Bill | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bad News in Kentucky: Legislature Passes Voucher Bill

Kentucky Republican legislators passed a voucher bill, which now goes to Democratic Governor Andy Bashear. The Governor will likely veto the bill, but the legislature can override his veto with a simple majority. This is the ultimate vengeance against teachers, who organized in 2018 to fight the Republican plan to change teachers’ pensions.

The rightwing group EdChoice, formerly the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation, was thrilled:

Public school supporters normally fight back in-person when pension reform and school choice are up for votes in Frankfort. But this year, Kentucky’s Capitol is closed to the public because of COVID-19, so the halls are empty. However, the bills dealing with those issues are still moving through.

“It’s a really big day,” said Andrew Vandiver with EdChoice Kentucky, a group that supports school choice.

After years of fighting for school choice, EdChoice Kentucky hoped to see it become law Tuesday.

“It’s just about fairness,” said Vandiver. “Trying to make CONTINUE READING: Bad News in Kentucky: Legislature Passes Voucher Bill | Diane Ravitch's blog

Kentucky back at cutting teacher pensions. – Fred Klonsky

Kentucky back at cutting teacher pensions. – Fred Klonsky

KENTUCKY BACK AT CUTTING TEACHER PENSIONS

In 2018 the Republican Kentucky legislature and their Republican governor went after teacher pensions which resulted in a massive spontaneous revolt among their already low-paid teachers.

The pension cutting bill passed but the court tossed it out.

And the Republican governor, Matt Bevins was also tossed out in the next election, replaced by the state’s Attorney General, Democrat Andy Beshear.

A rare Democratic win in red state Kentucky.

Thousands of Kentucky teachers march on the state capitol during the 2018 Red State Teacher Revolt.

Teacher pensions are under attack again in Kentucky,

The legislature is about to pass a bill that would deny new Kentucky teachers the benefits of current retirees.

Today the Kentucky legislature will start to take action on a bill intended to create a CONTINUE READING:Kentucky back at cutting teacher pensions. – Fred Klonsky

Play an online board game with me TODAY at 5pm! | Cloaking Inequity

Play an online board game with me TODAY at 5pm! | Cloaking Inequity

PLAY AN ONLINE BOARD GAME WITH ME TODAY AT 5PM!

Honored that the University of Kentucky College of Education is sponsoring Give Health For Kentucky Kids. The donation page is: Extra-Life.org/GiveHealthKY We will be playing Jackbox- an online board game. Join us and play LIVE with me and Esports stars for free on your phone Friday 10/30 at 5pm: Twitch.tv/universityofky

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Play an online board game with me TODAY at 5pm! | Cloaking Inequity

Tonight: How can we bridge the digital and health divide for students of color during the pandemic? | Cloaking Inequity

Tonight: How can we bridge the digital and health divide for students of color during the pandemic? | Cloaking Inequity

TONIGHT: HOW CAN WE BRIDGE THE DIGITAL AND HEALTH DIVIDE FOR STUDENTS OF COLOR DURING THE PANDEMIC?

Expert panelists from the National Medical Association and the NAACP will share their ideas in a free webinar taking place Thursday, Oct. 29.

The discussion will be moderated by the University of Kentucky College of Education’s Dr. Gregory Vincent, executive director of the college’s Education and Civil Rights Initiative in collaboration with the NAACP. The initiative is based in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation, where Vincent is a professor.

Participants will have an opportunity to ask questions of the panelists and engage in this discussion.

Coronavirus Impact on Students and Education Systems
6:30 to 8 p.m. (ET) Thursday, Oct. 29

> Register in advance at https://uky.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1k4xZBYtQlCWLlQzVBmRIQ

Featured speakers:
Dr. Greg Vincent: UK Education and Civil Rights Initiative Executive Director
Leon W. Russell: NAACP Chairman of the Board
Yumeka Rushing: NAACP Chief Strategy Officer
Adora Obi Nweze: NAACP Education Committee Chair
Dr. Cedric M. Bright: Physician, National Medical Association

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

Check out and follow my YouTube channel here.

Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Click here for Vitae.

Tonight: How can we bridge the digital and health divide for students of color during the pandemic? | Cloaking Inequity

College of Education Dean Uses New Mode of Research to Analyze Educational Equity Issues | UKNow

College of Education Dean Uses New Mode of Research to Analyze Educational Equity Issues | UKNow

College of Education Dean Uses New Mode of Research to Analyze Educational Equity Issues

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 12, 2020) — A unique digital media study focused on educational equity issues surrounding Teach For America has been published by University of Kentucky College of Education Dean Julian Vasquez Heilig. The study is thought to be the first in educational policy to use a new form of research — digital ethnography — to analyze participant responses.

Published online first by Urban Education, it will appear in an upcoming print issue of the journal. The study analyzed podcast interviews with former Teach For America corps members who shared their personal experiences working with the organization. They provide a counter narrative to the ways Teach For America is commonly characterized in public discourse, helping to give a more complete representation and fuller understanding of the program and its impact.

The interviews aired on the podcast "Truth for America," hosted by Vasquez Heilig and T. Jameson Brewer, an assistant professor at the University of North Georgia and one of the study’s co-authors. Additional co-authors were Amber K. Kim, an equity literacy coach and consultant, and Miguel Sanchez, a doctoral candidate in educational leadership at California State University, Sacramento.

“We have, essentially, invented a new way of doing research. By using publicly available podcasts, anyone can go back and listen to participants’ conversations in full and make CONTINUE READING: College of Education Dean Uses New Mode of Research to Analyze Educational Equity Issues | UKNow

Morning in America: Civil Rights Front and Center | Cloaking Inequity

Morning in America: Civil Rights Front and Center | Cloaking Inequity

Morning in America:

Civil Rights Front and Center

Julian Vasquez Heilig and Greg Vincent discuss the brand new civil rights and education collaboration between the University of Kentucky College of Education and the NAACP on The Tom Ficklin Show.

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

Check out and follow my YouTube channel here.

Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Click here for Vitae.

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Morning in America: Civil Rights Front and Center | Cloaking Inequity

Call in and let’s talk | Cloaking Inequity

Call in and let’s talk | Cloaking Inequity

CALL IN AND LET’S TALK

Join us Monday August 31, 2020 at 11 am EST to learn more about @ukcollegeofed new civil rights and education collaboration with @naacp Listen live and call in at https://www.facebook.com/wnhhradio/

Call in and let’s talk | Cloaking Inequity

Leadership committed to excellence and social justice | Cloaking Inequity

Leadership committed to excellence and social justice | Cloaking Inequity

LEADERSHIP COMMITTED TO EXCELLENCE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

The semester has started! In the midst of twin pandemics of racism and Covid-19, we must lead and be committed to excellence and social justice. We must demand that is of our educational leaders and our policymakers! I recently gave an opening address to the faculty and staff at the UK College of Education. Here are the thoughts I shared:

I have been honored to serve the faculty, staff, students and alumni of the College of Education for nearly 14 months.

Dickens once said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity”

On the one hand, according to US News, we are ranked the #1 College of Education in Kentucky. We are top 30 among Publics— our highest ranking in the history of the college. We are also ranked top 20 Online Education Masters Degrees and UK College of Education Department of Early Childhood, Special Education and Counselor Education leads the way with a top 10 departmental ranking.

Despite the best of times in term of recognition by our peers and the education community, we are dealing with the twin pandemics of Covid and racism.

To address twin pandemics of Covid and racism that rose to the fore that past several months, our courage, our tenacity, our intellectual curiosity, and our compassion has come to the fore.

Back in 2011, I remember buying and watching the movie Contagion. We are living in a real life plot that is eerily similar to a movie. It’s an unprecedented time not only for our political leaders, but also our academic leaders.

We spent the entire summer in design with remodeling our buildings, modifying our courses and physically reconfiguring classrooms.

Your college leaders spent many, many hours seeking to safely and responsibly open this week based on university guidelines. We are doing our best to follow their guidelines to ensure physical and emotional safety for our community.

Our values demand that we keep our community safe and we have sought to innovate out of the problems that Covid has presented us.

We are learning to work and teach in entirely different ways. We have all had to change our work and work differently.

We aspire to be the most innovative and nimble leadership team not only on campus, but in our state and nation. During times of crisis, we often see what people are made of. I heard in a political speech recently that commitment resides in every heart — and ours is fierce and clear.

The aforementioned staff and faculty attributes were also highly visible this summer, during the many months of racial unrest in our country. Many in the college galvanized to brainstorm what we can do toward more racial harmony, here on campus and in our communities.

But your college was preparing for the moment before it arrived. For a year, we had been working behind the scenes to create a first of its kind Education and Civil Rights Initiative with the national NAACP, the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organization. When it was announced in the Washington Post, the UK College of Education officially became the center of the national discourse via this groundbreaking collaboration. We are incredibly grateful to have Greg Vincent and Sarah Lacour leading the work. We are also having discussion with other nationally renowned scholars who have reached out and would like to join the work.

We have taken a variety of other steps to address the pandemic of racism. We held a symposium series, named the College’s first Associate Dean of Diversity and Student Success, create a social justice student advisory committee, and have sought to integrate the Inclusiveness Committee in new ways. Furthermore, last fall I published a law review article that examined faculty diversity across higher education. We found that higher education has failed to move the needle appreciably. But not at UK. This summer we announced the diverse, dignified, dynamic dozen— 2/3 of our hires are people of color and 1/3 of our hires are African American— 100% are game changers for their field.

I submit to you that the College of Education is leading in UK’s efforts to address the racism pandemic. Candace Hargons is conducting anti-racism training for the leadership of the University. Dr Steven Watkins is leading the new $10 million UNITE initiative focused on research for historically marginalized communities. The administration and other deans have looked to us to lead in this moment… we will.

The twin pandemics are wearing on us. We are fortunate that most of the faculty hiring work was completed before the COVID hiring freeze. However, that didn’t save us from the loss of staff from two departments and shortages in two others. So we spent 6 weeks brainstorming and listening to our community on how to address the dire staffing needs created by the pandemic. At the end of that process, a taskforce of 4 staff and 3 faculty created a team model with a fiscal team, academic team and Department Support Specialists to prototype this year.

We understand that the world is rapidly evolving and coming at us from all angles. Let’s have each other back.

I also want to say that I learned the news this week about one of our own. As a community we need to step up and support Justin Bathon and his family in this challenging time. We are family and family cares for each other.

We continue to be grateful for you, our alumni and friends. Your commitment, tenacity, and generosity has made it possible for us to continue our important mission— impact for the children and families in our Commonwealth, nation and beyond. We WILL leave a legacy.

Leadership committed to excellence and social justice | Cloaking Inequity

Some Days You Feel Nostalgic and Sad | Cloaking Inequity

Some Days You Feel Nostalgic and Sad | Cloaking Inequity

SOME DAYS YOU FEEL NOSTALGIC AND SAD

It was a honor to serve on the Board of the The NEA Foundation. I’m sad and disappointed to term out. We had our final meeting this week via Zoom and honestly I didn’t want to hang up as the board bantered at the end of the call— it was quite emotional for me after serving 7 years on the Board. It became real for me today when the departing board member “good-bye vase” that I have seen so many other board members receive over the years showed up on my doorstep via FedEx.

However, I am heartened. There is an evolving conversation on the Board about how the NEA Foundation will move forward with a vision for community-based education policy and initiatives that are the anti-thesis of what Walton, Gates, Broad and Arnold Foundations are always funding. The new strategies are incredibly promising and I wish I could say more about what the NEA Foundation board is planning.

The only thing that doesn’t change is change.

Alas, I will also be joining two new boards in the coming weeks. In those new roles I will continue to seek to impact the lives of children from historically marginalized communities.

Please take a walk down memory lane with me from the NEA Foundation Gala 2014-2020.

Sharing is caring: Some Days You Feel Nostalgic and Sad | Cloaking Inequity

Breaking News: THe NEW UK and NAACP Education and Civil Rights Initiative | Cloaking Inequity

Breaking News: THe NEW UK and NAACP Education and Civil Rights Initiative | Cloaking Inequity

BREAKING NEWS: THE NEW UK AND NAACP EDUCATION AND CIVIL RIGHTS INITIATIVE

This is a blog I’ve been looking forward to writing for more than a year.

I can finally share with you that the College of Education has entered into a groundbreaking, history-making collaboration with the NAACP, the nation’s largest and most preeminent civil rights organization.

Housed in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation, this education and research initiative will focus on educational equity, civil rights and social justice. As NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson pointed out, this is the first time the NAACP has partnered with university-based scholars in the education field to help address the racial inequities that continue to plague our education system.

Since the summer of 2019, we have turned ideas into action, laying the foundation for this work.  We welcomed Gregory Vincent, an acclaimed civil rights attorney and university professor, as director of this initiative; Sarah LaCour, arriving from the University of Colorado Boulder to serve as an assistant director; Mariama Lockington, a celebrated author and voice for equity and inclusion, who will help support the work of the initiative; and Cheryl Matias, a nationally-recognized scholar who studies culturally responsive education practices, who will contribute to the initiative as well as serve as a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. They are among a number of new faces who will add to the breadth of expertise and energy in the College of Education

But it doesn’t stop there.

Danelle Stevens-Watkins, who is also director of graduate studies in the Department of Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology, has been named Assistant Vice President for Research in Diversity and Inclusion. She has agreed to chair the UNITed in racial Equity (UNITE) research priority area.

And today, UK President Eli Capilouto announced that senior administrators will undergo anti-racist training as a first step in UK’s campus-wide initiative to change our culture as a community united against systemic racism. The training will be led by Candice Hargons, Ph.D., an assistant professor in theDepartment of Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology. Hargons is a counseling psychologist with a national reputation in the field of anti-racism training.

The world is taking notice. We’re hearing from news media and colleagues from far and wide. One example is the Washington Post article from Thursday, Aug. 6.

You can read more about our work at the links below:

• Civil Rights Initiative
• UK’s Research Initiative
• Anti-Racism Training
• New Faculty Bridge Divides

There is much more work to do, and no doubt, there will be more challenges ahead, but I am convinced that we will refuse to allow adversity to stop us from pressing forward and making an unmistakable and lasting impact.

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

Check out and follow my YouTube channel here.

Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Click here for Vitae.

Breaking News: THe NEW UK and NAACP Education and Civil Rights Initiative | Cloaking Inequity