CHECK IT OUT: NewBlackMan (in Exile) The Digital Home for Mark Anthony Neal

NewBlackMan (in Exile)

CHECK IT OUT: 

NewBlackMan (in Exile) 

The Digital Home for Mark Anthony Neal

YESTERDAY

Forest Whitaker Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

' Forest Whitaker breaks down his most iconic characters, including his roles in Fast Times at Ridgemont High , The Last King of Scotland , Rogue One: A Star Wars Story , Arrival , The Color of Money , Bird , Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai , Lee Daniels’ The Butler , Platoon , The Crying Game and Godfather of Harlem .' -- GQ

Tarana Burke on The Two-Year Anniversary Of #MeToo

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

'Following the second anniversary of #MeToo , Tarana Burke gets real about the movement and its future.' -- ESSENCE

Tracy Sharpley-Whiting on The Other Americans

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

'Drawn from Bricktop’s Paris and its exploration of Black women expats in Paris, this talk explores the centrality of black women in our cultural imagination, despite their erasure, and Dr. Tracy Sharpley-Whiting ’s own attempts to recover them, beginning with the volume, Black Venus . Dr. Tracy Sharpley-Whiting is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor of African American and Di

Why Are We Still Struggling with Diversity Today? Pamela Newkirk Discusses Her Book 'Diversity, Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business'

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

'Author and Journalist, Pamela Newkirk joins Black America with Carol Jenkins to discuss her latest book, Diversity, Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business and takes a look at this issue in corporate America, academia and Hollywood.'

Pages from Prince's Life

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

'Begun just months before his death in 2016, a memoir by the legendary singer-songwriter Prince is now being published as The Beautiful Ones . Jamie Yuccas reports on how the manuscript by Prince Rogers Nelson came to light, and talks with editor Dan Piepenbring , who helped Prince tell his story, including how the people in Prince's life made him the artist he was. Yuccas also talks with represe

Jazz Bassist Esperanza Spalding Talks About Her Album, '12 Little Spells'

by Mark Anthony Neal / 15h

' Esperanza Spalding has always resolutely, intuitively, deftly expanded upon both her art and herself as a world-renowned genre-bending composer, bassist and vocalist. Her latest album, 12 Little Spells , explores the healing power of art and how music and the body interact, with each song-spell inspired by a different part of the body. Spalding took the BUILD Series stage to tell us about the L

"Step Aboard" Performed by Harriet Star Cynthia Erivo

by Mark Anthony Neal / 15h

Cynthia Erivo , star of the film Harriet , performs "Step Aboard"

Discrimination in Housing Laws & What Needs to Change

by Mark Anthony Neal / 15h

'How does your identity and community impact your ability to find housing? What needs to change to make housing more accessible and limit discrimination in the housing market? Andre Perry , from the Metropolitan Policy Program at The Brookings Institution; Melvina Ford , Executive Director of The Equal Rights Center; Lisa Rice , CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance; and Sarah Mickelson , Sen

What's in My Bag: KAYTRANADA

by Mark Anthony Neal / 16h

'Hip-hop DJ & Producer KAYTRANADA goes shopping at Amoeba Music in Los Angeles. His latest single 'DYSFUNCTIONAL' is available from XL Recordings.'

After Windrush – Paulette Wilson's Visit to Jamaica, 50 years On

by Mark Anthony Neal / 16h

"A letter from the British government classifying Paulette Wilson as an illegal immigrant shook her sense of identity and belonging. ‘Hostile environment’ policies years in the making meant that Wilson and other victims of the Windrush scandal had their right to residency in the UK called into question. She had been detained for a week pending imminent deportation though she had done nothing wron

OCT 26

Dick Gregory and the History of Black Comedy: A Conversation with Bassey Ikpi author 'I’m Telling the Truth but I’m Lying'

by Mark Anthony Neal / 2d

Bassey Ikpi , the author of the New York Times bestseller, I’m Telling the Truth but I’m Lying joins Duke Professor Mark Anthony Neal at the North Star Church of The Arts in Durham, NC as part of the course Dick Gregory and the History of Black Comedy . The course is offered with the support of Dr. Christian C. Gregory , executor of the Estate of Dick Gregory and the Estate of Jenny Lillian Seman

What Naomie Harris Had To Do To Be So 'Black And Blue'

by Mark Anthony Neal / 2d

'The new movie Black and Blue is a thriller about a woman who tries to straddle a divide between two groups of people: African Americans and the police. This is a very American story — and yet Naomie Harris , who carries it, is British. In an interview, she described her preparation for the part, playing her first leading role and how she relates to the themes of police violence and mistrust.' --

Left of Black S10:E5: Historian Jakobi Williams on The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago

300+by Mark Anthony Neal / 2d

Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal (@NewBlackMan) is joined in the studio by Dr. Jakobi Williams ( @jakobiwill ), an associate professor at Indiana University Bloomington in the Department of History and Department of African 

NewBlackMan (in Exile)

Jeff Bryant: Wait, It Gets Worse: Eli Broad’s School Corruption Legacy | OurFuture.org by People's Action

Wait, It Gets Worse: Eli Broad’s School Corruption Legacy | OurFuture.org by People's Action
Wait, It Gets Worse: Eli Broad’s School Corruption Legacy

Billionaire charter-school boosters like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Eli Broad and have turned school leadership into a cartel system focused on advancing careers and enriching businesses. One can see, in the track record of Broad-infused school leaders like John Covington, the workings of this cartel.

In leadership positions in both Kansas City and Detroit, Covington is considered by many observers to have had an impact on student achievement that was minimal or negative. Yet, in both Kansas City and Detroit, his impact on the community disruption was profound.

During his tenure in Kansas City, Covington generally angered teachers and parents and focused on leadership imperatives more familiar in the business community, such as “right-sizing.” Student scores on standardized tests declined under his tenure, and after he left, the Kansas City district lost its accreditation due to continuing low achievement. In a 2014 article, Kansas Star reporter Joe Robertson wrote, “Most of the classroom reforms Covington started in Kansas City were subsequently dropped.”

Covington also left his Michigan position under a cloud of controversy over the lack of academic progress in the schools and questions about tens of thousands of dollars a month spent on travel expenses by his administration. The state-operated district he led was regarded as a failure and was shut down in 2017.

But what Covington brought with him from Kansas City to Detroit was his connection to Broad and his relationships with private businesses—most notably, a software company called Agilix, its Buzz learning platform, and the School Improvement Network (SINET) consulting firm.

As was reported in the Detroit Metro Times by Curt Guyette, the same journalist who would later break the Flint water crisis story, after Covington was instrumental in bringing Agilix and its software platform to Kansas City, he then promoted the product to the Education Achievement Authority (EAA) as a critical component of “student centered learning.” Under the EAA’s direction, CONTINUE READING: Wait, It Gets Worse: Eli Broad’s School Corruption Legacy | OurFuture.org by People's Action

The Walton Family: Ungrateful Graduates of Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Walton Family: Ungrateful Graduates of Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Walton Family: Ungrateful Graduates of Public Schools

No philanthropy has spent more money to undermine and privatize public schools than the Waltons. The Waltons are the richest family in the U.S., possibly in the world, with a net worth in excess of $200 billion.

The Walton Family Foundation claims credit for launching at least one of every four charter schools in the nation. The foundation aims to eliminate public education, crush teachers’ unions, and destroy the teaching profession. The foundation has given nearly $100 million to Teach for America to supply inexperienced, ill-trained teachers to public and charter schools.

It is hard to understand the Waltons’ animus towards public schools, since the patriarch Sam Walton, his wife Helen, and all of his children were graduates of small-town public schools.

Sam graduated from David H. Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri. His wife Helen was the valedictorian of her public high school in Claremont, Oklahoma.

John Walton (who died in a plane crash in 2005) graduated from the Bentonville High School in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Alice Walton, the richest woman in the world, graduated from Bentonville High School in 1966.

Jim Walton, net worth exceeding $40 billion, graduated CONTINUE READING: The Walton Family: Ungrateful Graduates of Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

FYW Students Respond to Warner’s The Writer’s Practice: Progress, Not Perfection | radical eyes for equity

FYW Students Respond to Warner’s The Writer’s Practice: Progress, Not Perfection | radical eyes for equity

FYW Students Respond to Warner’s The Writer’s Practice: Progress, Not Perfection

When John Warner released The Writer’s Practice: Building Confidence in Your Nonfiction Writing soon after his Why They Can’t Write, I highly recommended both volumes for those teaching writing (here and here). Of course, a much better barometer of the value of books on how to write and how to teach writing is to put them in the hands of students and teachers.

A bit past midway through this fall semester of 2019, my first-year writing students have just finished reading and reflecting on The Writer’s Practice; the final reflections and our in-class debrief yesterday revealed high praise and key lessons we who teach writing can learn from what my students valued about the book, and how they framed those lessons for them as students and writers.

One student began her reflection as follows:

As I opened up The Writer’s Practice to read the final section, I felt myself experiencing emotions similar to those when I am about to finish a really wonderful piece of fictional writing. This feeling for me is more guttural, and it comes about when I am truly sad or upset to be finishing a piece. Most of the time it is because there is a change in the plot that I didn’t enjoy, or I just truly don’t want the happily ever after to conclude. But I was genuinely confused as to why I experienced this feeling when reading the final few sentences of this piece. Never in my life has I been saddened by the conclusion of reading a book for school, fiction or nonfiction, besides The Catcher and the Rye and now this book. Because of this, I have come to the conclusion that I truly did enjoy reading this book. And I believe it was mostly because of the informal language used throughout. The way in which Warner speaks to the audience is something very intriguing to me, and it made me feel like I was holding a conversation with an actual person instead of reading a boring and monotonous book for school.

In the two sections of FYW I teach, I read in reflections and heard in our discussion some powerful patterns throughout the student endorsements of Warner’s book as an effective textbook for teaching writing. Those CONTINUE READING: FYW Students Respond to Warner’s The Writer’s Practice: Progress, Not Perfection | radical eyes for equity

NANCY BAILEY: The Haunted Third Grade Classrooms Children Fear: Enter and… Stay Forever!

The Haunted Third Grade Classrooms Children Fear: Enter and… Stay Forever!

The Haunted Third Grade Classrooms Children Fear: Enter and… Stay Forever!

Children fear third grade retention. It doesn’t motivate them to learn. They don’t read earlier because of it. Retention is not effective. It’s scary and could haunt a child forever.

Third grade retention laws are real for children in nineteen states. NEA Reports noted in 2017 that 16 states and Washington D.C. make it mandatory that students who don’t read at a certain level by the end of third grade will fail. Some exceptions are made for students with disabilities, ELL students, and students of color. Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma and West Virginia permit retention, but don’t mandate it.

It’s hard to imagine legislators so uninformed they would encourage, let alone mandate laws that are harmful to children!

Schools have always used retention, especially in earlier grades, but it was not mandatory, and not based on one test. Parents and teachers determined whether it might help a child. Even then, it wasn’t always a good strategy. The stigma attached to retention is often hurtful.

A year is eternity when a child is left behind. In some places, children have been kept back twice! Aside from the hurt of watching your friends move forward, most children CONTINUE READING: The Haunted Third Grade Classrooms Children Fear: Enter and… Stay Forever!