Teachers Are Not the Problem, They Are the Solution – So Work With Them

Teachers Are Not the Problem, They Are the Solution – So Work With Them

Teachers Are Not the Problem, They Are the Solution – So Work With Them

By Colleen O’Connor

Time to be blunt.  Teachers, students and children are the new electoral battering rams amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Just as I wrote in June of last year, the 2020 Presidential election it was “not Biden v. Trump, but COVID-19 v. Trump).”  And the GOP’s own confidential postmortem report (as quoted on Politico), confirms it.

“The autopsy says that coronavirus registered as the top issue among voters, and that Biden won those voters by a nearly 3-to-1 margin. A majority registered disapproval of Trump’s handling of the virus.

“Most voters said they prioritized battling the coronavirus over reopening the economy, even as [Trump] put a firm emphasis on the latter. And roughly 75 percent of voters — most of whom favored Biden — said they favored public mask-wearing mandates.”

Now, the Republicans hope to flip the script and blame all the COVID ills on the Democrats.

Thus, the 2022 Governor’s and Congressional elections will not be about Democrats v. Republicans, or San Diego’s Mayor, Kevin Faulconer v. Governor Newsom (plus the recall effort) but Democrats v. COVID-19’s effects on schools, children and teachers.

As GOP leader, Senator Mitch McConnell telegraphed the drive last week, “The obstacle is a lack of willpower. Not among students. Not among parents. Just among the rich, powerful unions that donate huge sums to Democrats and get a stranglehold over education in many communities.”

Back to being blunt.  New likely GOP bumper stickers.  “Save the Children.  Blame the Teachers.  Defeat CONTINUE READING: Teachers Are Not the Problem, They Are the Solution – So Work With Them

Locals – Including NAACP – Oppose Biden’s Pick of Cindy Marten

Locals – Including NAACP – Oppose Biden’s Pick of Cindy Marten

Locals – Including NAACP – Oppose Biden’s Pick of Cindy Marten

Ken Stone over at Times of San Diego published a piece Monday that included critiques and opposition to President-Elect Biden’s choice of San Diego Unified schools chief Cindy Marten for a federal education post. Marten was nominated for a Deputy Secretary of Education post.

Locals who are not happy with Biden’s nomination include the NAACP’s San Diego chapter and community activist Tasha Williamson, the former mayor candidate.

Amidst the wide-spread praise for Marten, Stone writes – and he ticks off praise from everybody from Mayor Gloria to Assemblywoman Weber to former mayor Faulconer – he adds that the NAACP and Williamson oppose her nomination:

Katrina Hasan Hamilton, the local NAACP’s education chair, said:

“Educators at all levels must have a track record of dismantling the harmful practices of Anti-Black Racism that occur in schools. Cindy Marten has a historical pattern of allowing CONTINUE READING: Locals – Including NAACP – Oppose Biden’s Pick of Cindy Marten

Right Wing Disinformation Targets San Diego Schools

Right Wing Disinformation Targets San Diego Schools

Right Wing Disinformation Targets San Diego Schools

An error filled online posting, devoid of context, with misleading assumptions has led to death threats and vile messages aimed at staff in the San Diego Unified School District, according to Board of Education Vice President Barrera.

Efforts to create awareness of racism as a systemic rather than an individual problem have stoked indignation in far right circles during the Age of Trump. Authors and publications seeking to educate the public and provide previously unheard historical context have been denounced as being racist themselves and part of a left wing conspiracy.

Now San Diego has its own mini-scandal, which should be laughable, except that threats and violence from right wing extremists have become normalized. Ninety percent of extremist-related killings in 2019 were attributable to right wing groups, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

What’s at issue here is a segment of an SDUSD staff development program concerning racial injustice, based on the Racial Healing Handbook by A.A. Singh, which was wildly misrepresented in a “drum up the outrage” article by the Discovery Institute’s Christopher F. Rufo.

The story has been picked up by Murdoch’s New York Post, The Daily Wire (the top right-wing publisher on Facebook), the San Diego County Republican Party’s “News Desk,” and spread via social media nationwide.

KUSI-TV interviewed Barrera, and -to their credit– gave him a decent amount of time to discuss the issues CONTINUE READING: Right Wing Disinformation Targets San Diego Schools

Helping Black Students Shine

Helping Black Students Shine

Helping Black Students Shine

by Ernie McCray

Lately I’ve been thinking of Black kids, Black students, specifically. Thinking of all the teachable moments out in the universe that I would call on to help them shine if I were in the classroom during these times.

And the first thought that came to mind is I would turn them on to what it means to be Black at this very time.

We’d talk about what we’d all just seen this past NBA season, superstars flying through the air slamming monstrous dunks and shooting rainbow 3’s with “Black Lives Matter” sewn into their jerseys.

We’d talk about the significance embedded in a Black woman taking on the role of Vice-president of the United States, the first of her gender to serve in such a capacity.

We’d talk about how Black voters showed up in large numbers, essentially rescuing a drowning democracy.

All to get them to look at themselves and think of how and where they fit in the scheme of things.

And I’d dive right in there with them as a co-learner, for sure, as we, in our studies, embrace our Blackness and continue the process of overcoming the systemic anti-Blackness colonialism that has plagued our journey for centuries.

I can see us looking into how expressions like “Eeenie meenie miney mo” or call “a spade a spade” or the “black sheep of the family” got popularized; how Black music came to be seen as “urban,” in reference to “thug life” in so many White people’s eyes.

I’d want to know if they had ever been told how “articulate” they are just because they speak grammatically?

We’d wade in the water of other cultures to get more of a sense of who we are, seeing that Native people CONTINUE READING: Helping Black Students Shine