Teacher Tom: If Our Goal is to Help Our Fellow Humans Rather Than Merely Control Them

Teacher Tom: If Our Goal is to Help Our Fellow Humans Rather Than Merely Control Them

If Our Goal is to Help Our Fellow Humans Rather Than Merely Control Them

Yesterday, I arrived home from walking the dog, to find police cars, fire trucks, and an ambulance filling the city block just below my apartment window. Last weekend, the seven square blocks just north of the building were completely shut down for an entire morning due to a gas leak and I wondered if it had something to do with that. In recent years, I've taken it on as a civic duty to get nosy about anything involving police activity, so instead of just staying out of the way, I got out my phone and got it ready to record. As I waited to cross Westlake Avenue, a young man excitedly told me that there was someone on the roof of my building, eleven stories up, threatening to "start a fire and jump." 

My first thought is to wonder if it was was someone from the building I know. One would need to gain access to the building and then use an elevator code to get up there, so it was likely that it was one of the 300 or so people who live in the building. 

I did what we all do, I think, when we consider suicide. I recognized how small my problems were compared to what this person was going through, I despaired about the tragedy of mental illness, I wondered if there was something I should be doing to help. I finally decided that the best thing I could CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: If Our Goal is to Help Our Fellow Humans Rather Than Merely Control Them

De-Gun the Police: A Reader – radical eyes for equity

De-Gun the Police: A Reader – radical eyes for equity

De-Gun the Police: A Reader

Officer Who Fatally Shot Daunte Wright With ‘Accidental Discharge’ Is Identified

The police officer said to have fatally shot Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man killed in what started as a traffic stop on Sunday, has been identified as Kim Potter.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in a statement on Monday evening described Potter as a 26-year veteran of the Brooklyn Center, Minn., Police Department, now on administrative leave.

The department offered no other details about Potter’s career, saying, “Further personnel data are not public from the BCA under Minnesota law during an active investigation.​”

However, a report from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office dated Aug. 5, 2020, indicates that at the time Potter also served as the Brooklyn Center Police Union president.

Police officials called Wright’s death the result of an “accidental discharge” of a gun by a police officer.

OFFICER WHO FATALLY SHOT DAUNTE WRIGHT WITH ‘ACCIDENTAL DISCHARGE’ IS IDENTIFIED, BECKY SULLIVAN AND VANESSA ROMO

OPINION: To Lessen Police Violence, Remove Cops From Traffic Stops

The largest predictor of police violence in America is not poor training, lack of discipline, or militarization. The largest predictor is simply contact with the police — and the most common contact Americans have with police is traffic stops. There are at least 20 million traffic stops per year in the United States. Racial bias pervades traffic enforcement, enabled by its largely discretionary nature; there are more drivers speeding and violating other traffic laws than police have the capacity to pull over and ticket, so who are police disproportionately targeting? People of color.

TO LESSEN POLICE VIOLENCE, REMOVE COPS FROM TRAFFIC STOPS, ALESSANDRA BIAGGI

Inside 100 million police traffic stops: CONTINUE READING: De-Gun the Police: A Reader – radical eyes for equity

If Schools Don’t Overhaul Discipline, ‘Teachers Will Still Be Calling The Police On Our Black Students’ | HuffPost #BLM #BLACKLIVESMATTER #BLACKHISTORYMONTH

If Schools Don’t Overhaul Discipline, ‘Teachers Will Still Be Calling The Police On Our Black Students’ | HuffPost

If Schools Don’t Overhaul Discipline, ‘Teachers Will Still Be Calling The Police On Our Black Students’

As districts across the country cut their school resource officers, advocates warn it won’t be enough to end overly harsh discipline of Black students.

Shyra Adams vividly remembers the days after the death of Tony Robinson, an unarmed Black teenager killed in 2015 by police in her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin. 

Angry and distraught over the injustice, Adams, then a high school sophomore, staged a walkout with hundreds of other students, who filled the state Capitol to protest Robinson’s death. She joined weekly protests and helped organize sit-ins at her school. Then, she cried quietly in class as she watched the Dane County district attorney announce on TV that no charges would be filed against the officer who shot and killed Robinson.

“It felt kind of hopeless at that point,” Adams, now 21, said. 

But this summer, after five years of testifying at nearly every Madison school board meeting about the importance of removing police from schools, Adams found herself crying for a different reason. This time, she said, the tears came from her renewed hope that fighting for young people of color could lead to change. In June, she and other members of the Freedom Youth Squad, a group of Black and Southeast Asian activists, gathered to watch the Madison school board’s unanimous vote to cancel its contract with municipal police and remove all officers stationed at its high schools.

“A lot of people in different states were winning, but I thought, ‘In Madison? No way. They’ve been ignoring us for years,’” Adams said. “But that’s changing now. We finally got CONTINUE READING: If Schools Don’t Overhaul Discipline, ‘Teachers Will Still Be Calling The Police On Our Black Students’ | HuffPost

OPINION: What math class and police brutality have in common

OPINION: What math class and police brutality have in common

What math class and police brutality have in common

An obsession with rule-following cuts short Black students’ opportunities

Last May, a 15-year-old Black girl in Michigan known only by her middle name, Grace, was put in juvenile detention for not completing her homework. Teens not turning in their homework is hardly an anomaly. Other teens are scolded, lose marks or, at worst, get detention for this offence. But Grace was incarcerated. The difference? She’s Black.

Grace’s story is just one example of how the American education system and American policing tactics converge.

The education system has a dangerous obsession with rule-following for Black children that cuts short opportunities, just as policing has a dangerous obsession with rule-following for Black people that cuts short lives.

This is particularly evident in math class.

Black students often receive compliments in math class for rule-following. In lower-income schools (which are often predominately Black), students are encouraged to follow math rules and formulae without questioning the teacher or the math itself, leaving them no room to ask questions or screw up.

Teachers are more likely to judge their Black students’ math abilities based on non-academic qualities, such as behavior and physical characteristics. A decade ago, Common Core math was introduced to emphasize understanding over rote learning, but the delivery of standards varies across schools, classrooms and teachers, depending both on who is being assessed and who is doing the assessing.

Related: White and female teachers show racial bias in evaluating second grade writing

In higher-income schools (which are often predominately white), understanding is often prioritized over procedure, and students learn math in more abstract ways, such as understanding why one uses a certain formula, instead of just being told to use it “because that’s the formula.” They also are shown how these abstract concepts contribute to the higher CONTINUE READING: 

“Ultimatum”: A searing challenge to institutional racism by Gerald Lenoir from his new book of poetry, “United States of Struggle: Police Murder in America” – I AM AN EDUCATOR

“Ultimatum”: A searing challenge to institutional racism by Gerald Lenoir from his new book of poetry, “United States of Struggle: Police Murder in America” – I AM AN EDUCATOR

“Ultimatum”: A searing challenge to institutional racism by Gerald Lenoir from his new book of poetry, “United States of Struggle: Police Murder in America”

ast week, my dad, Gerald Lenoir, released his brand new book of poetry, United States of Struggle: Police Murder in America. Gerald also released a video of one of the poems, “Ultimatum,” that will knock you off your feet (be aware that the evocative imagery and strong language can be triggering especially for victims of state violence).

After attending the book launch event where my dad read many of his poems aloud, I can tell you with conviction that if you love justice and Black people you need this book.

Gerald’s poetry is animated by his lifetime of dedication to building movements for racial and social justice. In the 1960s, he was part of the student uprisings at the University of Madison, WI, that won the Black Studies program. In the 1960s and 70s he was part of the movement against the war in Vietnam. In the 1980s–1990s he was a leader in the international campaign to end apartheid in South Africa. He helped lead campaigns against police brutality, racist violence, gentrification and for affirmative action in the 1970s and 1980s; the Rainbow Coalition and the Jesse Jackson for President campaigns in the 1980s; the HIV/AIDS response in the 1980s and 1990s; and the immigrant rights, Palestine solidarity, peace and Black Lives Matter movements in the 2000s and CONTINUE READING: “Ultimatum”: A searing challenge to institutional racism by Gerald Lenoir from his new book of poetry, “United States of Struggle: Police Murder in America” – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Cops In Schools Are Dangerous to Black Children - Philly's 7th Ward

Cops In Schools Are Dangerous to Black Children - Philly's 7th Ward

COPS IN SCHOOLS ARE DANGEROUS TO BLACK CHILDREN

Earlier this year, Dr. Tamar Klaiman, member of the Abington Board of School Directors, came under fire for saying the following:

We know that the Black and Brown students are much more likely to be shot by the officer, especially school resource officers, than other students, and I have serious concerns about anybody in the building having firearms, regardless or not of whether they are police.

Some parents called for Klaiman’s removal from the board and while Abington Township Police Chief Patrick Molloy forgave the comments, he said they were hurtful to his officers, their family and the law enforcement community.

However, hurtful doesn’t mean untrue.

Chief Molloy said himself,

“There are instances and the data supports some of this stuff that they were suggesting about African American males being more likely shot by police.”

What I wonder if the focus of any on-going dialogue between Abington Police and the Abington School District is on Klaiman’s comments being hurtful or CONTINUE READING: Cops In Schools Are Dangerous to Black Children - Philly's 7th Ward

The Hazards of a Police State Education During COVID-19 | Dissident Voice

The Hazards of a Police State Education During COVID-19 | Dissident Voice

The Hazards of a Police State Education During COVID-19

Virtual School Dangers

There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
— George Orwell, 1984

Once upon a time in America, parents breathed a sigh of relief when their kids went back to school after a summer’s hiatus, content in the knowledge that for a good portion of the day, their kids would be gainfully occupied, out of harm’s way, and out of trouble.

Back then, if you talked back to a teacher, or played a prank on a classmate, or just failed to do your homework, you might find yourself in detention or doing an extra writing assignment after school or suffering through a parent-teacher conference about your shortcomings.

Of course, that was before school shootings became a part of our national lexicon.

As a result, over the course of the past 30 years, the need to keep the schools “safe” from drugs and weapons has become a thinly disguised, profit-driven campaign to transform them into quasi-prisons, complete with surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs, school resource officers, strip searches, and active shooter drills.

Suddenly, under school zero tolerance policies, students were being punished with suspension, expulsion, and even arrest for childish behavior and minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight.

Things got even worse once schools started to rely on police (school resource officers) to “deal with minor rule breaking: sagging pants, disrespectful comments, brief physical skirmishes.”

As a result, students are being subjected to police tactics such as handcuffs, leg shackles, tasers and excessive force for “acting up,” in addition to being CONTINUE READING: The Hazards of a Police State Education During COVID-19 | Dissident Voice

Institute for Policy Studies: Reimagining School Safety | Diane Ravitch's blog

Institute for Policy Studies: Reimagining School Safety | Diane Ravitch's blog

Institute for Policy Studies: Reimagining School Safety

This valuable report analyzes how money could be better spent to protect students at school. It’s findings are stunning. We as a nation are spending vast sums on police in schools but insignificant amounts on mental health services and counselors who interact directly with students.

KEY FINDINGS & OBSERVATIONS

*Since 2018, states have allocated an additional $965 million to law enforcement in schools.

*According to a 2019 ACLU study, 1.7 million students have cops in their schools, but no counselors; 3 million have cops, but no nurses; 6 million have cops, but no school psychologists; and 10 million have cops, but no social workers.

*As of 2020, nearly 60 percent of all schools and 90 percent of high schools now have a law enforcement officer at least part time.

*The $33.2 million “school security” budget allocated for 2021 in Washington, D.C., could instead fund up to 222 psychologists, 345 guidance counselors, or 332 social workers.

*The $15 million “school security” budget approved for 2021 in Chicago could instead fund up to 140 psychologists, 182 guidance counselors, or 192 social workers.

*The $32.5 million “school security” budget allocated for 2021 in Philadelphia could instead fund up to 278 psychologists, 355 guidance counselors, or 467 social workers.

The report describes “militarized schools”:

As of 2019, there were nearly 50,000 school resource officers patrolling the hallways of America’s schools.

In schools that serve predominantly Black student populations, it is often much more than hallways that are patrolled.

For example, D.C. police are deployed to nearly all high schools to monitor cafeterias, auditoriums, hallways, stairwells, restrooms, entrances, and exits, as well as provide security for school-sponsored events. Such schools promote a learning environment that is more akin to that of a correctional institution than an educational one

Institute for Policy Studies: Reimagining School Safety | Diane Ravitch's blog

DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT

VIDEO–“Expel The Police”: TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” hosts Monique Morris, Jesse Hagopian, Dream Cannon, & Nathaniel Genene to talk about #PoliceFreeSchools! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

VIDEO–“Expel The Police”: TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” hosts Monique Morris, Jesse Hagopian, Dream Cannon, & Nathaniel Genene to talk about #PoliceFreeSchools! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

VIDEO–“Expel The Police”: TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” hosts Monique Morris, Jesse Hagopian, Dream Cannon, & Nathaniel Genene to talk about #PoliceFreeSchools!

The popular late night comedy news show, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, just ran a powerful expose on the brutality of police against students in school. As they wrote of the program,

Correspondent Mike Brown gets an education from Dr. Monique Morris, Dream Cannon, Nathaniel Genene, and Jesse Hagopian in all the reasons School Resource Officers should be in schools. Just kidding, there aren’t any!

Check out this episode and then join the Black Lives Matter at School movements new campaign, the “Year of Purpose.” Part of BLM at School’s campaign is to demand, “Fund Counselors, Not Cops.” Also learn more about police in schools from The Advancement Project and Dignity in Schools.

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VIDEO–“Expel The Police”: TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” hosts Monique Morris, Jesse Hagopian, Dream Cannon, & Nathaniel Genene to talk about #PoliceFreeSchools! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Sarah Lahm: The Hijacking of Police Reform by Wealthy Opportunists Resembles the Harm Done to Public Schools | Ed Politics

Sarah Lahm: The Hijacking of Police Reform by Wealthy Opportunists Resembles the Harm Done to Public Schools | Ed Politics

SARAH LAHM: THE HIJACKING OF POLICE REFORM BY WEALTHY OPPORTUNISTS RESEMBLES THE HARM DONE TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The Minneapolis City Council voted to disband the city’s police department on June 26, a little more than a month after George Floyd died after a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes. Chauvin, along with three other officers who were there when Floyd was killed, has since been fired from the force and is now awaiting trial for Floyd’s death.

The city council vote does not automatically mean Minneapolis will no longer have a police department, of course. After a series of steps, the public will be asked to vote in November on an amendment regarding whether or not this course of action is the right one.

n June, a competing vision of police reform had been on the table in Minneapolis. Just as community-led initiatives were gaining traction, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo announced in June that his department would be using “real-time data” to overhaul its operations.

The work would be driven not by local grassroots groups, but instead by a Chicago-based company called Benchmark Analytics. Chief Arradondo announced on June 10 that the Minneapolis Police Department “would contract with Benchmark Analytics to identify problematic behavior early,” according to local NBC affiliate KARE 11.

Red flags flew up instantly, however, when this arrangement was made public.

For one thing, Benchmark Analytics is a private firm that promises to deliver an “all-in-one solution to advance police force CONTINUE READING: Sarah Lahm: The Hijacking of Police Reform by Wealthy Opportunists Resembles the Harm Done to Public Schools | Ed Politics

I Can’t Breathe, But You're Breathing Fine. We Need to Confront This! - Philly's 7th Ward

I Can’t Breathe, But You're Breathing Fine. We Need to Confront This! - Philly's 7th Ward

I CAN’T BREATHE, BUT YOU’RE BREATHING FINE. WE NEED TO CONFRONT THIS!

Growing up in South Central Los Angeles, I, like many black children, was raised by my single mother. Our fathers weren’t there for us; some by choice, and others in prison or dead. Since childhood, I have watched uniformed police abuse their power in poor neighborhoods. As a black man, I have learned to just shut up, put my head down, and put my hands up. My experience is not unique. Ask any black man. We have a shared experience. We have shared trauma. We are mistreated by the police. We are judged based on the color of our skin. We are seen as a threat simply for being. 

In the United States, black people are three times as likely to be killed by the police than white people. Racism, both overt and subtle, is woven into the fabric of our country. From slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation to housing and health inequities, the achievement gap in education, and the wage gap, racial discrimination is alive and well in the United States. Americans across the country are now bearing witness to the injustice and cruelty against people of color, that have existed for years, like never before. 

Divided Country

Our country is deeply divided, and the division is further highlighted by the CONTINUE READING: I Can’t Breathe, But You're Breathing Fine. We Need to Confront This! - Philly's 7th Ward

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Teacher talk has shifted from cops to corona

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Teacher talk has shifted from cops to corona

Teacher talk has shifted from cops to corona

Two weeks ago, the battle was raging over cops in the schools. Who should decide whether Chicago schools get to keep or lose their SRO -- the school board or the city council? Or should it be left up to each local school council to opt-in or out, as the mayor had argued?

Should the $33M contract between CPS and the CPD be broken or renewed? And if it were broken, could that money be better spent on vital school needs like nurses, social workers, and peer mediation counselors?

Things got hot and at times personal, which is the Chicago way, it seems. As the late, great Harold Washington used to say in response to his own council wars, "Politics ain't beanbag."

While I was hoping that the school board would vote to ditch the contract, I've been more inclined to leave decisions like this one to the individual school community. Having said that, I thought the board members had a pretty good, spirited debate, with open hearings and protests taking place outside, before voting narrowly (4-3) to keep the contract and leave the decision up CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: Teacher talk has shifted from cops to corona

“Defund the Police,” and, “Defund the Billionaires,” Create a Job-Friendly, Equitable Economy for All | Ed In The Apple

“Defund the Police,” and, “Defund the Billionaires,” Create a Job-Friendly, Equitable Economy for All | Ed In The Apple

“Defund the Police,” and, “Defund the Billionaires,” Create a Job-Friendly, Equitable Economy for All

In the early 2000’s I was at the New School University listening to Reverend Floyd Flake, senior pastor at the 23,000 member Greater Allen African Methodist Episcopal Cathedral. Reverend Flake served as a member of Congress (1987-97) and is a strong supporter of charter schools.

Flake was critical of public schools, the level of education was sub par, staffs don’t live in the communities and were not engaged with the community. I asked Floyd if he agreed that the police were not engaged with the community, didn’t live in the community and oftentimes unfairly targeted members of the community: he nodded in agreement.  I asked whether Floyd agreed that in addition to charter schools we should have “charter” police departments.

Flake demurred, and his handlers hustled him out of the meeting.

Maybe I was prescient?

In middle class and white communities the police were looked upon as crime fighters protecting the community from the evil doers, in communities of color: feared. In the 1920’s and 30’s crime was rampant; the 18th Amendment, “… the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors … is … prohibited” was widely ignored, Murder Incorporated . operated with impunity, the police both ignored or were complicit.

In communities of color the police have been the foot soldiers of local and state CONTINUE READING: “Defund the Police,” and, “Defund the Billionaires,” Create a Job-Friendly, Equitable Economy for All | Ed In The Apple

NYC Educator: The School Safety Shuffle

NYC Educator: The School Safety Shuffle

The School Safety Shuffle

There's a recent Post article that suggests it's a bad idea to take school security from the police and assign it to the DOE. They trudge out Mona David and her mysterious parent organization, and offer two examples of bad behavior before the officers were under the supervision of NYPD. David, of course, is the woman who thinks teacher tenure will lead us to Armageddon. I'm sure she's good for a quote here and there.

The two examples are the kind of argument frequently used against us. This teacher is awful, and that teacher is awful, and therefore all teachers are awful. It's exactly the sort of argument people like Campbell Brown and Mona David like to use. Take away teacher tenure, and have them depend on the tender mercies of Joel Klein and Mike Bloomberg, or every single teacher will be terrible. They take a few sensational examples, a quote here or there from one questionable source or other, and the case is closed.

I don't know about you, but I could tell stories about rogue police officers and write a similar story. I could cite examples of rogue reporters and write a similar story. We have a President who tells stories about reporters who tell the truth and condemns them for it. If you want to make an argument against a group, you don't do it effectively via a few sensational arguments about outliers. Arguments of that sort are called stereotypes. I'm offended by them, and you should be too. They can be used against any and all of us.

Will the DOE do a terrible job supervising school safety officers? Of course they will. The DOE does a terrible job at everything. It's a monument to blithering incompetence, a master of bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake. I don't know how much time I've wasted over the last decade fighting with idiots employed by Tweed. Any chapter leader who CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: The School Safety Shuffle