OPINION: Importance of Educators of Color for Black & Brown Students

NNPA ESSA AWARENESS CAMPAIGN — This month, my organization, the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools released its highly-anticipated report, “Identity and Charter School Leadership: Profiles of Leaders of Color Building an Effective Staff” which examined the ways that school leaders of color’s experiences and perspectives influence how they build school culture, parent and community relationships, and effective staff.

Profile in Education Equity: Sharif El-Mekki

El-Mekki is answering his own “nation building” call. In May, he announced that after 11 years as Shoemaker’s principal and 26 years of being inside schools as a teacher or administrator, he was devoting his full attention and time to launching a new Center for Black Educator Development to help address the urgent need to bring more Black educators into Philadelphia’s classrooms and across the nation. “If I’m going to be serious about trying to change the lives of Black educators and hence the lives of Black children, then it just can’t be my night and weekend job,” he said.

COMMENTARY: Is There More to Teaching and Learning Than Testing?

In order for education to capitalize on the strengths and talents of learners and the skills and professionalism of their teachers, what kinds of additional progress measures might be employed?

OP-ED: Black Studies becomes major factor in social advancement

OUR WEEKLY NEWS — The Black Power movement of the late 1960s helped to redefine African American identity and establish a new racial consciousness. As influential as this period was in the study and enhancement of the African Diaspora, this movement spawned the academic discipline known as Black Studies on our college and university campuses.

Marion S. Barry Summer Youth Employment Program: A Personal Essay

WASHINGTON INFORMER — Barry’s program changed the outcome of many teenagers’ lives, allowing them to build a work history that would afford better chances of future employment. I have been able to reap many benefits from my experience as an MBSYEP worker.

What We Can Learn from Schools that Educate Military Children

A unique program in Virginia Beach public schools includes 28 Military Family Life Counselors, who work closely with schools’ staff and families to support students. One mother we spoke with, talked about the fears her five-year-old daughter had while her father was deployed.

Educator Spotlight: Donald Hense

Three-quarters of the students enrolled in Friendship schools in D.C. are from Wards 7 and 8, the city’s two poorest areas, and nearly all are African-American. Their achievement is reflected in their continuous improvement on standardized tests. Most recently, Donald Hense and his team celebrated, when five of Friendship’s 12 D.C. schools were rated Tier 1 by the Public Charter School Board – the highest of three ratings a charter school can earn.

Lakisha Young, Oakland Reach

Young knows firsthand the aggravation of dealing with the Oakland school lottery. She also understands the anxiety parents feel not knowing whether their children will have to enroll in a low-performing neighborhood school should there not be enough seats available at quality schools. Her personal experience led her to organize other parents and teach them how to advocate for their children.

Florida Education Plan Lacking in Both Promise and Practice

According to Dr. Rosa Castro Feinberg, who serves on the committee for LULAC Florida, an advocacy group serving all Hispanic nationality groups, Florida’s “current plan includes features that contradict common sense, expert opinion, popular will, and the intent of the ESSA. Contrary to the purposes of the ESSA, the Florida plan denies attention to struggling subgroups of students. Without attention, there can be no correction.”

COMMENTARY: Assembly Workers and Widgets

Well, how can we feel more professional and less like factory workers producing widgets? First, we must clarify our mission. Students are not widgets. There can be no reject bins for human beings with different needs and varied learning intelligence!

COMMENTARY: Color “Blindness”

Our perceptions of the value of ourselves and others often determine our treatment of and reactions toward those we view as less than or not as valued. Wars are fought over cultural and religious differences. Regardless of the injury, all people’s blood is red and all of us can hurt or grieve, regardless of color.

COMMENTARY: Classroom Culture Clashes

…in answer to the question when cultures clash in the classroom, who suffers, we all do! Poorly educated students make for a society that alienates its young, one that is unable to retain skilled and experienced teachers, and a country frustrated with unemployment, under-employment, and an ever-growing culture of violence, fear, and intolerance. Court systems and privatized prisons, along with mortuaries, result when the classrooms act as prep schools for these expensive alternatives.

COMMENTARY: Is There More to Teaching and Learning Than Testing?

NNPA ESSA MEDIA CAMPAIGN —In order for education to capitalize on the strengths and talents of learners and the skills and professionalism of their teachers, what kinds of additional progress measures might be employed?

Racial discrimination lawsuit filed against Bronx private school

NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS — A student at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, a K-12 private school in the Bronx, announced that he and his parents filed a lawsuit against the institution Monday, April 1, in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, with the demand that the Head of the School Jessica L. Bagby and other administrators resign or be terminated.

Demystifying Student Performance Via Parental Engagement

Although parental engagement has a strong correlation to student academic performance and achievement, why is it that African American parents appear disproportionately less engaged than parents of other races?

A New Year’s Resolution for Children in New York: School Improvement

AMSTERDAM NEWS — If we want to improve education outcomes and strengthen our state, we need to improve our schools and assure that every child has access to a high-quality education, no matter their zip code or the color of their skin.

Irving students take flight to new adventures

NNPA NEWSWIRE — “The industry is trying to grow, and it can’t grow because there are not enough people coming in the front door to match the people who are going out of the back door,” said Craig Heckel, program coordinator for Irving High School of aviation science. “…they were going to the colleges to do recruiting but that wasn’t good enough. So now they are going to the high schools to start these programs to get people interested, and let them know there is a huge umbrella of aviation that you can work in: electronics, computer programming, or be a fireman under aviation.”

Developing a universal enrollment system for all Memphis public schools

NNPA NEWSWIRE — “I started in 1995 when I was asked to help open a Family Resource Center in a high school and students without involved parents in their lives took to me. Parents would stop me and say, ‘They are passing my son on to High School and he can’t even read.” — Sarah Carpenter

Telling Black Stories Through Poetry

LA DATA NEWS — As a child, in between born into an interracial family, Poet Michele Reese knew she wanted to write about the Black experience with works that delved into African American history, from very early on.

S.B. School Fights Racist Hate

PRECINCT REPORTER GROUP — A recent hate message to former principal Crecia Robinson, a three-time victim of racist messages at Lankershim Elementary School in San Bernardino, raised parental concerns from parents on both sides over the potential for discrimination in the classroom.

Creating Equality Through Education

THE SEATTLE MEDIUM — On my mousepad is a picture of African American students at work in a segregated classroom in 1945. Above that picture is the word OPPORTUNITY. Below, it reads, “Being able to see past traditional barriers and having an intense belief in your ideas and abilities will help you take advantage of any opportunity.”

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Inside the ESSA Plans: What Are States Doing About Goals and Timelines?

EDUCATION WEEK — This week, Education Week is bringing its trademark analysis to the remaining state plans for fulfilling requirements of the Every Student Succeeds law. On Monday, we had a look at the states’ proposed “school quality” indicators, €”the required but nonacademic portion of each state’s plan to judge schools. Today, we’re going to take a look at states’ goals for raising student achievement and their timelines for doing so in the plans awaiting federal approval.

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Barbershop Books hopes to bring reading to more children

More than 85 percent of black male fourth-graders in the United States are not proficient in reading, according to the 2013 U.S. Department of Education Nation’s Report Card. A program recently instituted by the DeKalb County Public Library (DCPL) will attempt improve that number by bringing books into the barbershop.

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Rev. Dr. DeForest B. Soaries keynote speaker at MLK Day event

NORTH DALLAS GAZETTE — While the nation remembers Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday, nearly 50 years after his assassination, former Civil Rights Activist Rev. Dr. DeForest B. Soaries, Jr. will close out the Urban Specialists MLK Day “Course Correction Conversation” event in Dallas by calling for a new leadership that unifies our nation one neighborhood at a time.

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Indiana Department of Education Releases 2017 Graduation Rates

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Department of Education today released the 2017 state graduation rate. In 2017, Indiana’s waiver graduation rate across the state was 87.19 percent, and the non-waiver rate was 80.10 percent. In 2016, the waiver graduation rate was 89.07 percent with a non-waiver graduation rate of 82.36 percent. Since 2006, Indiana has increased its graduation rate by nearly 10 percentage points.

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We must grasp the fierce urgency of now

MINNESOTA SPOKESMAN-RECORDER — “We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., quote from his “I Have a Dream” speech, August 28, 1963.

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5 Reasons Why Every Policymaker Should Fight To Save Title IIA – Learning Forward’s PD Watch – Education Week Teacher

Their point of view is grounded in the U.S. Constitution, which places control over education firmly in the hands of states. It also finds expression in the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which reversed what many saw as the No Child Left Behind Act’s efforts to assert federal control over everything in K-12 education, from school accountability measures to definitions of highly qualified teachers.

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