When the Every Student Succeeds Act was signed into law two years ago, leaders from both sides of the aisle hailed it as a rare and remarkable display of bipartisanship. The measure represented a significant rollback of the federal government’s footprint in education policy and the dawn of a new era of state autonomy. Both of us see the new law as an opportunity for states to sidestep the gridlock that has overwhelmed Washington and to take charge in determining a new path forward.
We have been watching the action closely in states, and there’s no point in sugarcoating: ESSA has gotten off to a rocky start. Turnover in leadership at both the federal and state levels wasn’t a surprise, but complicated matters. In many states—including the states where we helped shape education policy, North Carolina and Indiana—the process of drafting new accountability plans surfaced tensions among the multiple entities responsible for putting the new law into effect.
In spite of this turmoil, states—to their credit—have come to the table to fix things with a sense of urgency. Every state has now submitted an ESSA plan. Some have already been approved, and it shouldn’t be long now before the rest follow suit.
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President Donald Trump is seeking a roughly 5 percent cut to the U.S. Department of Education’s budget for fiscal 2019 in a proposal that also mirrors his spending plan from last year by seeking to eliminate a major teacher-focused grant and to expand school choice.
In order to achieve those proposed spending cuts, the president copied two major education cuts he proposed last year: the elimination of Title II teacher grants and the 21st Century Community Learning Centers. Those two cuts combined would come to about $3.1 billion from current levels. Overall, 39 discretionary programs would be cut, eliminated, or “streamlined.”
“Decades of investments and billions of dollars in spending have shown that an increase in funding does not guarantee high-quality education,” the Office of Management and Budget states in the budget document. “While the budget reduces the overall federal role in education, the budget makes strategic investments to support and empower families and improve access to postsecondary education, ensuring a future of prosperity for all Americans.”
On the other side of the ledger, Trump is seeking $1 billion for new private and public school choice programs called Opportunity Grants. This new funding could also help schools that go for the weighted-funding pilot. He also wants $500 million in federal charter school funding, an increase of roughly 50 percent from current spending levels, which is also the same as his first budget blueprint.
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By Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. (President and CEO, NNPA)
All parents want the best for their children. We all acknowledge that attaining a high-quality K-12 education is probably the single most important factor that will determine the future life success of a student in the public school systems throughout the United States.
Yet, the reality for millions of Black American parents in the U.S. is that there is a lingering educational achievement gap between Black students and White students. This is why I believe that raising awareness about the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) among all parents, especially Black parents, is vital.
This should be a national priority for all who stand for equality in effective high-quality public education for all students. Now that states have begun the tedious process to refine and submit their ESSA state plans to the U.S. Department of Education, Black parents should increase their input into these plans in each state.
Recent national studies have pointed to what some researchers have concluded as “low expectations” about the academic achievement levels of Black students being a major contributing factor to their underachievement in the classroom. Unfortunately, sometimes these predictions based on external research about Black America can become self-fulfilling prophecies and mere justifications for the current educational disparities and inequities between Black students and White students.
Black parents do not have low expectations about their children’s academic potential to achieve excellence and scholarship. Most Black parents encourage and expect their children to do well in school. Black parents do have, however, low expectations about the priorities that state boards of education, as well as county and city boards of education, have presented thus far in response to the inclusive accountability mandates of ESSA.
Inclusion presupposes involvement. Parental involvement is a key factor that determines the effectiveness of our public school system. The National Newspaper Publishers Association is, therefore, pleased to join and to support all efforts that will increase Black American parental involvement concerning ESSA and its implementation at both the state and federal levels.
Yes, Black student K-12 educational achievement gaps that now exist in too many school districts in the U.S. can be bridged going forward, if there is a substantial and measurable increase in the consistent involvement of Black parents at all levels of decision-making and public policy implementation of ESSA. Please pass this message to others that you may know who are likewise concerned about these issues.
The future of our families and communities is at stake. Our collective awareness and involvement can help to make a positive difference in improving K-12 education in America. I have faith that Black American parents will once again rise to this challenge.
Learn more about how you can get involved with the Every Student Succeeds Act in your state at NNPA.org/essa.
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. is the President and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and can be reached at dr.bchavis@nnpa.org. You can follow Dr. Chavis on Twitter @drbenchavis.
With the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, Congress tossed the keys for K-12 education back to states and school districts. However you feel about the expanded federal role in K-12 education since No Child Left Behind was signed in 2002 — whether you saw it as a necessary nudge or federal overreach — that era has officially ended. Our schools need state and local leaders to take the education wheel now. But after 15 years of complying with federal regulations, their driving skills may be a little rusty.
Now is not the time for steering clear of the hard stuff. Now is the time to rekindle local leadership, to invite superintendents, principals, and teachers to think ambitiously about ways to improve schools. Now is the time to foster collaboration among local districts when they confront similar challenges, and to work together to identify what’s working and what’s not. With the evidence needed to bring others on board, we can finally break the cycle of faddish starts and stops, and generate staying power for effective reform.
The most valuable parting gift that Congress included in ESSA was the opportunity for state leaders to allocate certain federal dollars competitively, rather than by formula. By exercising that option, state leaders can use federal dollars both to jump-start a new wave of local educational innovation and to identify more impactful ways to spend their own taxpayer dollars in the future…
Thomas Kane is the Walter H. Gale Professor of Education and Economics at Harvard University and faculty director of Center for Education Policy Research. Through its Proving Ground project, CEPR will be supporting districts to find solutions to chronic absenteeism and improving the use of educational software.
It just figures that National School Counseling Week starts the day after the Super Bowl. The country gorges on guacamole-covered chicken wings on Sunday, and when America’s most misunderstood group of educators asks for three nacho chips and a high five on Monday, the country is too tired to party.
In some ways, we don’t mind. The last time we made headlines, most people surveyed felt that school counselors were more of a hindrance than a help in applying to college. Before that, we were the punch line of a car ad — “Your guidance counselor drives a minivan” — or we were known as the washed-up teachers who were given offices close to the principal so he could keep an eye on us.
But Jenny doesn’t see us that way.
Jenny was the quiet, slender girl who didn’t cause anyone trouble, except herself. When two or three students saw Jenny needed help, they went straight to the school counselor, who called Jenny into that office close to the principal to talk about it in a safe, confidential place. Jenny got help, and became an even more beautiful person.
Steve doesn’t see us that way either. Three weeks into school, he had his fifth unexcused absence, and was on his way to flunking a required course. He told his school counselor he was working late to support the newborn son no one knew he had. His counselor asked the teacher to give Steve one last break, but never mentioned why. Steve got it, graduated, and got a full-time job that paid enough to take care of his young family.
If you didn’t know that, you’re not supposed to. When someone’s life slips or they don’t know where to turn, school counselors give them the space for grace and dignity to rebuild and strengthen their lives, all without fanfare. Sometimes, if you don’t know we’re doing our job, we’re doing our job pretty well.
Of course, we aren’t perfect. Most of us work with 450 students at once, and some have twice that number. Since many principals think we should change schedules instead of lives, we don’t have as much time to help students as we’d like, and most of us were never — never — trained how to help students apply to college.
I bet you didn’t know that either.
Old habits die hard — school counselors know that for sure — but if you have a minute this week, stop by and thank your school counselor for everything you don’t know they’re doing, and put in a good word for them with the principal. We might not score winning touchdowns or drive fast cars, but when the goal is to drive 450 students to win their own big game, the minivan really rocks it.
Patrick O’Connor is a 2017-18 School Counselor Ambassador Fellow at the U.S. Department of Education.
MINNESOTA SPOKESMAN-RECORDER — “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” is the signature slogan at the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), led by President and CEO Michael L. Lomax.
Local UNCF offices across the country are mandated to raise funds for the Washington, D.C. office where scholarship funding for students is distributed. Funding comes from varying sources including special events, workplace campaigns, and individuals who are committed to the mission of UNCF.
Laverne McCartney-Knighton took on the initiative of helping UNCF raise scholarship funds in June 2017 as the new regional development director of the Minneapolis location. With 24 office locations in the Twin Cities, each is poised to bring in substantial funding to help students across the nation attend colleges. Since raised funds are distributed through the Washington, D.C. office, local offices can focus on fundraising.
McCartney-Knighton says, “Most of what we do is relational. We build relationships with key executives within corporations such as Medtronic Foundation, Cargill, 3M and so forth.” McCartney admits that this is her first time as a development director but points out that her previous positions have been in developing relationships with companies.
After 13 years at Target Corporation as a community relations executive for cities such as Chicago, Seattle and Detroit, McCartney went to work for a small nonprofit organization in the Twin Cities before taking the position at UNCF.
Here in the Twin Cities, UNCF’s two major funding events are, first, the Marin Luther King breakfast, a fundraiser through a partnership with General Mills that happens yearly on MLK Day. The other major fundraiser is the Twin Cities Masked Ball, which takes place in May of each year and in 2016 raised $770,000 in scholarship funds for students in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. In other states this is called the Mayor’s Masked Ball, and even with these large amounts raised, according to UNCF’s website the funds provide scholarships to only one out of 10 students who apply.
UNCF is clear on its brochure that African Americans continue to show among the lowest rates of college attendance “…due to high costs of college compared to lower African American income levels and to the fact that many African Americans are not given the education before college for success in college.” Students not only receive funding to pay for tuition but can also earn scholarships towards textbooks, housing and other college expenses.
The myth of UNCF, founded in 1944, is that it only provides scholarships to students attending HBCUs. Although it significantly supports students attending one of its 37 member HBCUs, UNCF provides its scholarships to any low-income students regardless of race or ethnicity. In 2017 at the MLK Legacy Scholarship dinner, six students received funds to attend their college of choice.
One recipient, Shamarr McKinney-VanBuren, knew she wanted to stay close to home for college as the first in her family to attend. McKinney-VanBuren applied to three other in-state colleges and chose Augsburg College in Minneapolis to study computer science.
Born and raised in the Twin Cities, McKinney-VanBuren said, “This is a brand new journey for me and my family. As a first-generation college student, I was looking for ways to pay for college and came across UNCF online.”
The Gates Millennium Scholars Programs, one of UNCF’s largest funders, supports all students of color attending any college in the United States. Another myth about UNCF, due to lack of graduate-level programs at its 37 HBCUs, is that scholarships aren’t given out towards master’s and doctoral programs. Koch Scholars started in 2014 at UNCF with a $25 million dollar grant from Koch Industries, Inc.
UNCF has a national program called the Empower Me Tour that kicks off yearly in September coinciding with the school year; the Minneapolis Empower Me Tour is held at the Minneapolis Convention Center. In 2016 Caine Knuckles, a graduate of Southwest High School, left the Convention Center with a $50,000 scholarship to Philander Smith College and is now in his freshman year after being accepted at three HBCU, according to Southwest Journal.
Many students who attend this event across the nation get accepted to HBCUs on the spot, having done work prior to the event through their public high schools in making sure they are armed with their résumés and academic transcripts.
UNCF provides a host of scholarship funds for students of color who want to attend a college in the United States at any level of their academic career.
Visit www.uncf.org to scroll through all scholarships and requirements. For more information, visit Health Fair 11’s website at www.healthfair11.org. This story is made possible by a grant from the Medtronic Foundation.
According to the most recent federal data, more than 13.2 million children — one in five — live in poverty; six million live in extreme poverty; 14.8 million children live in food-insecure households; more than one million homeless children are in our schools; 3.9 million children still lack health insurance; the majority of public school students of all races cannot read or compute at grade level; nearly 700,000 children are abused and/or neglected; nearly 50,000 children are in juvenile justice facilities or adult jails and prisons; and 3,128 children and teens were killed with a gun in 2016, enough to fill 156 classrooms of 20 children.
All these distressing outcomes disproportionately affect children of color who will be the majority of children in our country by 2020 and already are the majority of our children under five. Ensuring high quality foundations for them must be a top national priority.
These children will lead our nation forward if we ensure them a healthy, head, fair and safe start in life and successful transition to adulthood.
It is a national disgrace that children are the poorest Americans and that the younger they are the poorer they are. The Children’s Defense Fund’s new report, The State of America’s Children 2017, details the immoral, costly and preventable poverty, homelessness, hunger, health problems, poor education, and violence plaguing millions of children who deserve better.
We highlight that the United States, with the most billionaires and the highest gross domestic product among the 35 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, ranks a shameful 32nd among these countries for income inequality, meaning the U.S. has one of the largest gaps between rich and poor.
Your 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act rewarded wealthy individuals and corporations and it is now urgent for you to attend to “the least of these” — our children, our future workers, military personnel, and leadership pool. We urge you to reject policies that worsen hardships for struggling hungry and homeless children and families and stop cutting or adding restrictive eligibility requirements to programs of proven effectiveness that protect our poorest children and families.
They deserve help not cuts or bureaucratic barriers. They should be helped to move forward with hope not pushed deeper into deprivation and despair.
We need new investments in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to fight hunger no child deserves, in affordable housing to escape the overseers of cold and instability, in quality child care and Head Start to ensure children have a chance to start school ready to succeed, in quality education to ensure they are ready for college and work, in safe avoidance of the child welfare and juvenile justice systems whenever possible, and in family-like community care when placement becomes necessary.
Investments in each of these areas can help strengthen children’s futures and enable them to contribute to America’s future. I also urge you to commit to substantially increasing investments in the opioid crisis ravaging families and children’s futures that could set countless way of our vulnerable young back decades.
Finally, I urge you to recommit to supporting a bipartisan legislative fix for the futures of the nearly 800,000 Dreamers whose lives have been enriched by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program and are now threatened with deportation, and that extends to other Dreamers along with a path to citizenship.
The words of one Dreamer captures the sentiment of many. He learned at age 14 when he was denied a work permit that he was not a citizen because he came to our country with his parents at age five: “It was very hard dealing with,” he said, “because I always saw myself to be an American. It killed me inside.”
But when DACA was created, “I felt like I was finally accepted.” Now without DACA, “for me personally, my voice would be taken away. My dreams would be shattered.” We are a nation of immigrants and the DACA protections and other protections for Dreamers must be preserved.
A nation that does not stand for children does not stand for anything and will not stand blameless before God when asked to account for every sacred child entrusted to our care and protection.
Marian Wright Edelman is founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund.
(From left-right) Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the NAACP; Leon Russell, the chairman of the NAACP; Dorothy Leavell, the chairman of the NNPA, and Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., the president and CEO of the NNPA sign a strategic partnership agreement to join forces in focusing on key issues that affect the Black community, during the 2018 NNPA Mid-Winter Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Freddie Allen/AMG/NNPA)
By Stacy M. Brown (NNPA Newswire Contributor)
THE DALLAS POST TRIBUNE — The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a trade group representing more than 200 Black-owned media companies, signed a historic, strategic partnership with the NAACP, one of the most influential civil rights group in the world, during the NNPA’s Mid-Winter Conference in Las Vegas.
“Sometimes you have to take a step back and reconnect in order to move forward,” said NAACP chairman Leon W. Russell. “Signing this agreement is taking that step back and it says it’s time for us to recommit to each other and work together to move our people forward.”
NNPA President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., who once served as president of the NAACP, called the partnership historic.
“This [signing] consummates a working relationship of two of the world’s largest organizations focused on the empowerment of Black people,” said Chavis.
NNPA National Chairman Dorothy Leavell added that she’s very pleased with the new partnership.
“I attempted to do something similar in the nineties and I’m very determined now,” said Leavell. “We are going to set a precedent and I hope we will be able to repeat this with many other national organizations, because if we solidify our strength, things will be different for all of us in the United States of America.”
Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the NAACP, said one of the things he and Russell share in common is the rich tradition of the NAACP.
“Anytime we move away from that [tradition], we lose our way,” he said. “The NAACP would not be here, if not for William Monroe Trotter, a civil rights activist, newspaper editor and real estate businessman based in Boston, Massachusetts; the NAACP would not be here today, if not for Ida B. Wells, a newspaper writer…the NAACP would not be here today, if not for W.E.B. DuBois and his “Crisis’ magazine. I commit today, that we will be joining the NNPA.”
Johnson added that the NAACP is as strong as its volunteers and the Black Press is as strong as its readers, many of whom are NAACP members.
The signing, which took place on Friday, January 26 was attended by a number of NNPA members, staffers from both organizations and Gary, Indiana Mayor Karen Freeman Wilson, the first African American woman to hold the office of mayor in the state of Indiana.
“We have to take the resources that we have in our collective communities and we have to use these resources in a way that educates our children and benefits our people,” Wilson said. “We also have to support [Black] businesses.”
Wilson added that Black consumers have to let go of the stereotype that Black businesses are inferior to White businesses.
Wilson also noted that African Americans aren’t receiving a fair shake from the federal government and, in her city, finances are a challenge she’s trying to meet head-on.
“Many of the answers depended on the state, but last night, a light bulb went on and it was that we can’t wait on the Republican governor to save Gary,” she said. “So, I said to my team that whatever the governor does or doesn’t do, we are going into the war room and we will stay there and not come out until we have a plan.”
Wilson joined Russell, Johnson, Chavis and Leavell in advocating for a strong relationship between the NAACP and the Black Press.
“If Black newspapers didn’t tell our stories, no one ever would have,” said Russell, echoing the founders of the Black Press, Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm who stated 191 years ago: “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us. Too long has the public been deceived by misrepresentations, in things which concern us dearly.”
Today, more than ever before, parents, educators and stakeholders around the country are learning about the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the opportunities it presents for school districts to innovate learning in their classrooms and to address academic achievement gaps—through the pages and websites of the Black Press.
“It’s critical for [Black] parents to be involved and the Black Press is strategically embedded in our communities, so that we have more opportunities to get the word out about ESSA,” said Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., the president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA). “The NNPA is pleased to partner with and applauds the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for working to raise public awareness throughout the United States about equity in education.”
Chavis continued: “Bridging the academic gap in education, in particular for African American students and others from disadvantaged communities, is of critical importance.”
Dr. Elizabeth V. Primas, the project manager for the NNPA ESSA awareness campaign and a life-long educator, said that ESSA was established to help increase the effectiveness of public education in every state.
ESSA, which reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary School Act (ESEA) and replaces the No Child Left Behind Act, received bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Obama on December 10, 2015.
Under ESSA, states have more flexibility to craft elementary and secondary education programs designed to improve educational outcomes in the nation’s public schools. The law also ensures that every child, regardless of race, income, background, or where they live, has the opportunity to obtain a high-quality education.
“Education is the pathway out of poverty,” Primas said.
Since receiving the Gates Foundation grant, the NNPA has engaged its 211-member publications in more than 60 markets across the country in a campaign designed to heighten public awareness about ESSA, and to focus on efforts and policies aimed at closing the achievement gaps for students of color and low-income students.
Due to the importance of education in the Black community, NNPA members have paid particular attention on the NNPA ESSA awareness campaign; three NNPA members were rewarded for that engagement at the Mid-Winter Conference for their relentless reporting on ESSA.
“I do believe that the last chance anybody has to hold anybody down is education,” said Bobby Henry, the publisher of the Westside Gazette in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who was one of those publishers that received an award for his engagement with the awareness campaign. “The state of Florida is not doing too well in educating our children, so I thought it was out of duty and respect that we do our due diligence to bring awareness to our readers.”
Henry added that the ESSA law and reporting on it helps to hold school districts accountable and he said that it’s also important that more teachers of color are recruited and hired.
Brandon Brooks, the managing editor of the Los Angeles Sentinel, said that education is the key to helping to end poverty in the Black community and all NNPA members are a testament to that.
Danny Bakewell, the publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel was also rewarded for his newspaper’s engagement with the NNPA ESSA awareness campaign, and Brooks accepted the reward on behalf of the Sentinel.
For numerous reasons, Brooks said he didn’t hesitate to run articles about ESSA and educational equality in the Los Angeles Sentinel—in print and online.
“The content [produced by NNPA Newswire] was there and it was rich and educational and informative. Running the articles has never been too much of a directive, especially when I got the green light,” Brooks said.
Brooks continued: “The goal of the Black Press has always been to advocate for justice for Black people. ESSA is a campaign for social justice and equality in education. It’s our duty to reach out to our students, our kids and to make sure that they have the information to succeed. If I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t be doing my job.
Freddie Allen, the Editor-In-Chief of the NNPA Newswire, called NNPA publishers “MVPs” of the NNPA team for their work in publishing stories about ESSA.
“Education is a civil rights issue and we must be engaged,” said Allen. “Imagine the Civil Rights Movement without the Black Press. Where would we be today? So, imagine the future of education without the Black Press. That’s why we have to get involved and stay involved with this issue.”
The Bureau of Indian Education recently wrapped up its tribal consultation process on its latest proposed strategic plan “to guide its work and service delivery to [Native] students, schools, and tribes.” While the BIE creates plan after plan intended to restructure, realign, reform, redesign, revise, and redo their education system, in actuality these plans are rarely carried out. The necessary changes to schooling simply remain words written on paper. Meanwhile, tribes, schools, educators, parents, and students continue to wait for the federal government to meet its legal trust responsibility to provide a quality education to American Indian students.
For over a century, the federal government has proven that attempting to control and oversee a nationwide network of schools leads to an ineffective and disheartening system of education that fails to address the cultural, linguistic, and overall learning needs of American Indian children. If the BIE’s record of failure reflected on any other group of students, there would be a national outcry.
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Commentary, By June Atkinson & Dale Chu
