Chalkbeat

These high school students are the caretakers of one of America’s dark chapters

2026-02-19T20:14:53+00:00

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GRANADA, Colo. — The black-and-white photographs show neat rows of young men wearing old-fashioned football uniforms and leather helmets. As elementary students jostled around the museum display, Granada High senior Emersen Hernandez explained that the Amache Boys’ Club team only ever played one home game, against nearby Holly.

Amache won that game. But most other teams in the region did not want to play at Amache — or play against them at all.

“Why?” one boy interrupted.

Emersen paused before answering. But she didn’t shy away from the reason. “At the time, there were a lot of racists in the area, and they did not want anything to do with the Japanese Americans.”

Cheraw School students gather around a panel at the Amache Museum during a field trip on Oct. 22, 2025.

The younger students, many in their purple Cheraw Wolverines T-shirts, had traveled an hour by yellow school bus for their October field trip to Amache. Located in southeast Colorado just outside the tiny town of Granada, it was one of 10 sites where the U.S. government imprisoned tens of thousands of its own citizens during World War II.

Under the leadership of teacher John Hopper, the site and its stories have for more than three decades had an unusual set of caretakers: Granada High School students like Emersen.

Students have sifted through dirt to find discarded children’s toys and broken glass bottles of lithium-laced Cheer Up soda. They’ve recorded firsthand stories from survivors and their families. They’ve mowed the grass and tended the cemetery.

Amache represents the kind of difficult American history that many teachers are wary of broaching in the classroom. Addressing it wasn’t popular back in the 1990s either, when Hopper first had his students send questionnaires to survivors.

“I had a lot of pushback from locals. ‘Leave it alone,’” Hopper recalled. “I was getting letters. I was getting phone calls. I was not very well-liked.”

Over time, Hopper’s Amache course became a sought-after elective at Granada High School, and the Amache Preservation Society became an elite club with its own letter jackets.

Members of the Amache Preservation Society clean glass display cases after a field trip leaves the museum. "You'd be surprised how many fingerprints get on those glass containers," said Tanner Grasmick, a Granada High School teacher who has taken over running the program.

The Amache Museum collection includes posters ordering people of Japanese ancestry to report for evacuation and suitcases that community members carried on the journey. Granada students research artifacts and write interpretive text with support from graduate students and faculty from the University of Denver.

The work done by Hopper’s students helped lay the foundation for Amache officially becoming a national historic site in 2024. That put the federal government in charge of the site. Hopper ensured Granada students would keep control of the small independent museum they run out of a converted bank in town. At this de facto visitor center, they give tours to school groups and tourists filling their National Parks Passports.

This is sensitive work. Few people today believe this history should be ignored. But exactly how it should be told, and what lessons this episode holds for the current political moment, have divided people for decades.

The Granada students have always steered clear of partisan politics while sharing those stories. But the Trump administration’s push for schools and national parks and museums to present a positive view of America’s past has made politics more challenging for students to sidestep.

QR codes went up last summer at Amache and every National Park Service site advising visitors to report anything “negative about either past or living Americans.”

The National Park Service has since removed a slavery exhibit from a Philadelphia home where George Washington lived, though a federal judge ordered it restored. The Pride flag came down at Stonewall National Monument, though New Yorkers promptly raised it again. The park service has plans to remove signs at more than a dozen other sites.

Hopper is getting questions again, from both visitors and locals. “What are you going to do about your museum? It’s mostly DEI.”

The reconstructed water tower is a signature feature of Amache and visible for miles around. After the camp closed, the tank was used to water cattle.

Amache museum tells story of Japanese American internment

Today at Amache, you can find a reconstructed water tower, community center, barracks building, and watchtower. Sage and blue grama have reclaimed much of the site, though elms planted by those incarcerated here still dot the landscape.

But between 1942 and 1945, this site was the 10th largest city in Colorado. In total, roughly 10,000 people of Japanese descent, most of them U.S. citizens, lived here behind barbed wire and under constant military guard, in hastily constructed barracks that afforded little privacy or protection from the wind and dust and cold.

“It just scared the living daylights out of me when we went by it on the highway,” said Sandra Ellis, who grew up in a nearby town. “We assumed they were locked up because they were dangerous.”

Plans to round up people of Japanese descent in the event of a war had been laid years earlier. After the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt invoked the Alien Enemies Act to arrest non-citizen immigrants and community leaders.

Then on Feb. 19, 1942, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing exclusion zones from which military authorities could order the removal of civilians. Military officials first imposed curfews only on Japanese Americans, then encouraged them to leave the West Coast voluntarily, and then ordered their removal and detention in the U.S. interior.

The Amache Museum tells this story. There are posters ordering people of Japanese ancestry to report for evacuation and suitcases into which they crammed what they could carry.

Three young boys play baseball at Amache. The photo was taken by Jack Muro, a Japanese American man incarcerated there, sometime between 1943 and 1945. Cameras initially were banned at incarceration sites. U.S. citizens eventually were allowed to apply for the return of confiscated cameras.

“Little kids, like you guys, they couldn’t bring their toys,” Emersen, her dark hair pulled back in small braids, told the Cheraw students. “They had to take things that their families needed, so extra sheets, extra jackets, sweaters.”

Faculty and graduate students from the Amache Community Archeology Project, based at the University of Denver, helped Granada students learn how to catalog artifacts and display them in meaningful ways.

There are kimonos and traditional Japanese instruments, cards produced by Amache’s silk screen shop, and a wedding cake topper that was used again and again. There are loyalty tests that marked some for transfer to harsher camps and passes that allowed those deemed low-risk to leave the camp for work.

These items shape students’ discussions with visitors. Emersen recalled one person who questioned whether people at Amache were truly incarcerated.

“I was explaining how they could leave with permission and get passes and IDs to go into town, so one man asked me, ‘If they can leave and go in and out, they’re not really prisoners, right?’”

“But if you have to get permission to leave and you have to come back,” Emersen said she told him, “you’re not free.”

Carlene Tanigoshi Tinker, right, sifts through soil during an excavation at Amache in 2022. Tanigoshi Tinker was incarcerated at Amache as a very young child and participates in the University of Denver's archeology field school every summer. She met local resident Sandra Ellis on one of these trips and invited her to an open house at the end of the field season, the beginning of a lasting friendship.

Students let Amache visitors make up their own minds

A large group had just left the museum last summer when the students found something alarming tacked up in a semi-private cubicle where survivors and their descendants leave handwritten remembrances.

Next to note cards describing how one person’s mother had to report for removal a week after giving birth, and how another’s parents met at Amache, were the words “WE HAVE LEARNED NOTHING” and articles and photos about “Alligator Alcatraz,” the immigrant detention center recently built in the Florida Everglades.

The students don’t know if someone from that group put up the Alligator Alcatraz display, or if any visitors saw it.

“The person probably thought, ‘Oh, the people who work here or the people who are coming to visit, they would agree with what we’re putting up,’” Emersen said. “But the museum is supposed to be about the Japanese Americans, and putting up stuff like that takes away from what people are trying to learn.”

Out at the camp, next to the QR code, another visitor left their sarcastic take on what a positive version of the incarceration story might look like.

“It was the Spring of 1942 and President Roosevelt decided to treat people of Japanese descent to a fabulous free vacation at one of ten fantastic luxury resorts built just for the occasion,” it began.

Students worried that visitors might take it at face value.

“When people go there, they don’t expect something sarcastic,” said Destiny Garcia, also a senior at Granada High School and a member of the Amache Preservation Society. “So some people might have taken it serious, and that’s misinformation being spread.”

Granada High School junior Dayzriana Quintana leads Cheraw School students on a tour of the Amache Museum. Cheraw teachers bring the older elementary students to Amache every few years. Students learn more about Japanese American incarceration when they study Colorado history in fourth grade.

Granada students don’t see their work as political. They also believe Amache has lessons for today. “This can happen again,” Emersen said. “The Constitution hasn’t changed. Everything you see here, it could happen to another person again.”

A former Japanese American incarceration site at Fort Bliss in Texas has been reopened as an immigrant detention site. Several states are using an obscure law, last used to identify Japanese immigrants for relocation, to bring criminal charges against unauthorized immigrants who fail to register.

Today a majority of Granada students are Hispanic. Destiny said she worries about people being questioned or detained based just on their appearance. But the goal of the Amache Preservation Society is to present historical facts, not tell people what to think.

“We leave political opinions for the visitors to conclude,” Destiny said.

Amache offers students the chance to be historians

Hopper knew about Amache back when very few people talked openly about it. He grew up about an hour away, and a friend of his parents had been interned there. And whether people talked about it or not, signs of that history were everywhere.

The town used portions of the Amache site as a landfill and a fairgrounds. The physical materials of Amache, auctioned off after it closed, were scattered around the region. The Amache hospital laundry became the school district’s bus barn. Some residents grew up eating out of Amache’s soup bowls.

Hopper, who sports a mustache, has a quality particular to the best teachers, who can command kids’ attention and get them to do things they didn’t think were within their reach. But when he was young and inexperienced, he was looking for ways to make history more engaging. He was also curious about Amache, so he put his students on the case.

Starting with just a few addresses, they sent questionnaires to survivors. These interviews expanded the historical record of what happened there and slowly built trust with people who had not always been welcomed back when they started making pilgrimages in the 1970s.

Dayzriana Quintana shows Cheraw students a scale model of Amache. Earlier that morning, the students had visited the camp site, where there are a few reconstructed buildings and hundreds of barracks foundations.

Working with the school’s math teacher, students built a scale model of Amache. They calculated the slope of the site and measured barracks’ foundations to get it right. Drawing on his graduate school archeology experience, Hopper taught the students how to build sifters and took them to look for artifacts.

Students loved the chance to be historians and not just read about history. They formed bonds with survivors and their descendants, who entrusted them with artifacts and sought their help in researching family stories.

“It’s not just state standards this, state standards that,” Hopper said. “It’s practical knowledge of how to do things and how to do it correctly and how to use critical thinking skills to figure it out.”

Hopper got a tip after a local rancher died that the camp’s old water tank was in a field some 20 miles away, where it had been used to water cattle. But the estate was tied up in probate, and things were getting ugly.

Hopper gave the job to a student because he knew it would be harder to say no to a kid.

“He had to call 43 different people from that family,” Hopper said. “He called cousin Eddie and cousin Betty. He called this person and that one to get to the right person. And that person said, ‘It’s yours, but you got to get down there now and get it off.’ So that’s what we did.”

The restored water tower is now one of the site’s defining features.

Ellis, who felt scared when she drove past as a child, can see it from her window. Now it fills her with awe.

“They got to have been very strong and courageous people to be plunked down in the middle of that prairie and do what they did,” she said. “And then to find out they were American citizens.”

A guard tower is reflected in the window of a reconstructed barracks building at Amache National Historic Site. Amache was considered one of the less restrictive and better administered incarceration sites, but residents still lived under armed guard at all times.

Granada students’ work changed minds at home

When the Army ordered Japanese Americans to leave the West Coast, Mitch Homma’s grandfather Kyushiro Homma lost a thriving dental practice in Los Angeles that served Hollywood actors and University of Southern California football players. He died in Amache, most likely of a heart attack or stroke, at just 44 years old.

Homma’s father, Hisao, was 8 years old at the time.

Homma is now the president of the Amache Alliance, a California-based group that represents survivors and descendents. He didn’t learn much about his family’s story until his grandmother died in 2004, and he uncovered a trove of photographs — prewar family photos that church friends had saved and camp images his grandfather had taken with cameras smuggled in with his dental equipment.

Digital copies of those photographs — a rare find in a community forced to abandon family albums and restricted from taking new photos in camp — are now part of the Amache Museum’s collection. A panel tells the Homma-Wada family story.

Exploring that story wasn’t easy. Homma’s first trip to Amache with his father opened old wounds.

“When Dad got off the bus, and I saw the look on his face, I thought I was the worst son in the world,” Homma said. “You could see all the memories coming back. When I pushed and probed, he would remind me: ‘Amache took my father.’”

Hisao Homma, left, and Kumiko Hasegawa, right, look at the Amache Remembered memorial during a 2008 visit. The marker commemorates soldiers from Amache who died in combat as well as people who died while incarcerated. Hisao Homma was 8 years old when his father died at Amache.

President Ronald Reagan apologized for Japanese American incarceration in 1988 — the result of decades of Japanese American activism that sometimes divided the community.

But anti-Japanese sentiment from the war years remained widespread when Hopper started this work.

Then-Granada mayor Alan Pfeiffer told the alternative weekly Westword in 2001 that he didn’t see much value in learning about Amache. Pfeiffer’s father had been at Pearl Harbor and “didn’t have a good taste for the Japanese up to the day he died,” he said.

At one point, Hopper said, a woman came all the way from Idaho to confront him while he was working with students at the cemetery. She demanded to see his curriculum. He told her it was public knowledge, and she was welcome to review it.

In the face of skepticism and hostility, Hopper urged his students to stick to the facts. Their presentations were backed by primary source documents and vetted by survivors. Everything they told people about Amache, they could explain how they knew it to be true.

Slowly, attitudes changed. When Amache became a national historic site, Granada Mayor Argie Thrall Jr. issued a statement of support.

“It was the kids who changed the minds of their parents and other people in their region,” Homma said. “I always refer to them as little educators.”

Amache story remains in the hands of students and descendants

So far, no changes have been made at any of the six Japanese American incarceration sites in the NPS system, according to both parks supporters and the Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service.

An Interior Department spokesperson denied that changes underway at other sites involve diluting or rewriting history. In an email, the spokesperson said the National Park Service is doing routine reviews and maintenance “to ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values” to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order on “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

Visitor comments in response to the QR code reviewed by Chalkbeat overwhelmingly supported telling the full history of Amache.

“I think our country is strong enough to understand the history of our nation in its totality, and I think that anything less than that makes us weak,” one person wrote.

Changes are coming for Amache, though. Existing signage includes a mix of materials put up by the Amache Preservation Society, Colorado Preservation Inc., and others over the years. Some signs are sun-bleached and hard to read.

Now that Amache is a national historic site, Japanese American organizations, academic experts, and others are working with the National Park Service on planned updates. Homma worries about the park service’s larger educational mission, but he said initial reviews of new material have gone well.

Advocates for Amache are choosing their language carefully. They don’t want to sanitize the story and risk people “thinking it was a YMCA summer camp,” Homma said. Nor do they want to “jab the government in the eye.”

“The site’s not there to make people feel horrible about what happened,” Homma said. “It should never happen again. I’m not trying to water that down. But there are great stories of resiliency.”

Granada social studies teacher and coach Tanner Grasmick poses for a portrait outside the Amache Museum on Oct. 22, 2025. Grasmick has taken over day-to-day operations of the Amache Preservation Society.

Those incarcerated at Amache coaxed vegetables from the soil with farming techniques brought from California. They published newspapers and formed dozens of clubs. Young men and women volunteered for military service at the highest rate of any camp.

That perseverance is a message Tanner Grasmick also hopes to impart on visitors. As a student, talking directly to people who were “uprooted from their home and had to move to the middle of nowhere and make the best of it” made a deep impression on him.

Inspired by Hopper, Grasmick became a teacher and returned to Granada. Hopper is officially retired, though he still works part-time, and Grasmick has taken over running the Amache Preservation Society. Students are already talking to him about wanting to join next year.

The museum remains in the control of the Amache Preservation Society, so the federal government won’t dictate the stories it tells. And as Grasmick steps up to guide students, Hopper said he’s playing the role of the superintendent who had his back when he was a young teacher. If there’s any heat to be taken, he’ll take it.

Grasmick said he feels supported by a community that once wanted Hopper to back off.

“We tell the story as it is, regardless of how uncomfortable it might be, regardless of anything,” Grasmick said. “If that’s the story that happened, we’re going to tell it how it was.”

Between 1942 and 1945, Amache was the 10th largest city in Colorado. After World War II ended, the building materials were auctioned off, leaving concrete foundations, the road grid, and elms planted by Japanese Americans confined here.

Teaching Japanese American incarceration

Arrange a visit to the Amache Museum and Amache National Historic Site.

Visit other Japanese American incarceration sites in the National Park system.

Densho offers lesson plans and video interviews with former incarcerees. Densho preserves oral histories, images, and other historical documents related to Japanese American incarceration and promotes civil liberties.

Heart Mountain Japanese American Confinement Site offers classroom resources and in-person and virtual field trips. This Wyoming incarceration site is managed by a private foundation independent of the National Park Service.

Japanese American National Museum offers a summer teacher training program and virtual workshops about the Japanese American experience, including incarceration. JANM is a Smithsonian-affiliate museum in Los Angeles.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor covering education policy and politics. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC parents push for statement from schools chancellor opposing Trump executive order on race, gender

2025-02-04T01:43:25+00:00

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Five days after President Donald Trump issued a sweeping executive order seeking to limit how schools support gender nonconforming students and teach about racism, New York City’s educational leaders have yet to issue a systemwide public response, sparking concerns from some parents and educators.

The executive order targeting “radical indoctrination” threatens to withhold federal funding from schools that support students in gender transitions or that teach about the prevalence of racism in American life.

Some education lawyers have questioned whether the order is lawful or enforceable, given the significant power of states and localities to control their own curriculum. Several states and districts have already sent out communications to families and educators pushing back on the order.

New York’s state Education Department issued a statement Monday sent to school staffers saying the executive order is “antithetical” to the U.S. Congress’ history of protecting vulnerable students through legislation. “We denounce the intolerant rhetoric of these orders,” the statement continued. “Our children cannot thrive in an environment of chaos; they need steady and stable leadership that we will endeavor to provide.”

But the response in the nation’s largest district — long a national leader in efforts to teach about racial inequity and support gender nonconforming students — has so far been more muted. The city Education Department has not sent any systemwide communication to families or educators, and it hasn’t issued specific guidance for administrators about the executive order, according to families and school staff.

Brooklyn mom Eliza Hittman, whose fifth-grader identifies as nonbinary, said she’s in multiple parent chats where there is a “tremendous amount of agitation” over the lack of communication from administrators.

“The silence is alarming,” Hittman said.

Asked at two recent parent town halls what the city is doing to protect LGBTQ+ students, New York City schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos reaffirmed that city schools do not tolerate any kind of hate.

“Our schools are expected to be safe spaces,” she said Monday at a town hall for District 30 in Queens.

Mark Rampersant, the chief of safety and prevention partnerships, added that New York City is one of the only school districts that has hired someone overseeing ways to foster inclusion for LGBTQ students. “Regardless of what happens on the top, we remain committed to ensuring the physical and well-being of every single one of our students,” he said.

But some parents and educators said the Education Department has not circulated that message widely enough at a time when fear is spreading quickly.

“What we need from our city leadership is … to give clarity and certainty and comfort in this time of chaos,” said Justin Krebs, the parent of a nonbinary child in Brooklyn’s District 15. “Instead, we’re hearing nothing from city leadership on this front.” He added that the city periodically sends notices to all families and he would “love to get that email” reiterating the city’s protections for LGBTQ+ students.

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Bronwstein didn’t say whether the agency plans to issue a systemwide statement, but said, “We are evaluating the Executive Order to determine if it will have any impact on New York City Public Schools.”

Brownstein said, “we remain steadfast in our commitment to fostering a safe, inclusive, and affirming environment where every student can thrive.” She added that the Education Department will ensure ”our school environment remains free from harassment, intimidation, and/or bullying, and free from discrimination of any kind.”

When asked whether she was concerned about the potential loss of federal funding, Aviles-Ramos said at a town hall last week, “We do not know what lies ahead in terms of federal funding,” which makes up about $2 billion of the Education Department’s annual budget.

Some parents and teachers want stronger message of support

Jo Macellaro, a Bronx teacher who identifies as nonbinary, said the lack of a clear public statement from the city sends educators “the message … that we don’t have your back, we’re not going to protect you.”

Absent that assurance, some teachers may decide they can’t take the risk of violating the executive order, Macellaro added. The Parent-Teacher Association from P.S. 139, a Brooklyn elementary school, wrote in a Monday letter to Aviles-Ramos that it’s “disconcerting that we have not received any sort of statement from you or other city or state leadership about this.”

Some parents suspect the city Education Department’s response is constrained by Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted last fall on federal corruption charges. Trump has said he’s open to the idea of pardoning the mayor, and the U.S Department of Justice is reportedly weighing dropping the prosecution against Adams, who has pledged not to publicly criticize Trump’s policies. Adams has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.

Gavin Healy, a Manhattan parent and member of the Community Education Council in District 2, said he thinks Adams’ political situation may be limiting the Education Department’s ability to respond. “I think doing what’s right for the students is hostage to the mayor’s legal issues and courting of the Trump administration.”

Existing policies offer strong protection for transgender students

The city Education Department’s policy on transgender and gender expansive students, which dates back more than a decade, instructs staff to address students by their preferred pronouns at school. It gives schools some discretion not to inform parents when a student is socially transitioning in cases where a family doesn’t accept their gender identity and allows students to use bathrooms and join sports teams that are consistent with their gender identities.

When Manhattan’s community education council in District 2 passed a resolution last year urging the city to reconsider its sports policy for transgender students, then-Chancellor David Banks rebuked the proposal as “despicable” and reaffirmed the city’s policy.

Krebs, the Brooklyn parent of a nonbinary student, said he’s not worried about his own child’s school. But in a system this large, without clear instructions from city leadership, some schools and educators might be reluctant to run afoul of the executive order, he said. Krebs drew an analogy to reports that NYU’s Langone Hospital halted gender-affirming medical care for some patients following a separate executive order banning the practice for people under age 19.

Some schools may “start complying in advance, the same way NYU Langone has,” he said, “when a school says, ‘You know what, to be on the safe side, we’re going to stop calling kids by their pronouns.’”

Johanna Miller, director of the education policy center at the New York Civil Liberties Union, noted that Trump’s executive order charges federal agencies with developing an enforcement plan, and it’s hard to say for sure how the order would be carried out until that happens. The executive order specifically mentions practices like using students’ preferred pronouns, referring to students as nonbinary, and allowing them to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identities as ones that may run afoul of the order. It also targets concepts like white privilege and unconscious bias.

But Miller said that state laws preventing bullying and harassment remain on the books.

“If an educator in New York State reads this executive order from Trump and decides on their own that they’re not going to comply with New York laws, they would be legally liable in that situation for not complying with the law,” she said.

Taking matters into their own hands

Some parent leaders are trying to push the city to issue a more forceful response.

Faraji Hannah-Jones, a member of the Community Education Council for District 13, told Aviles-Ramos at a town hall last week that he doesn’t “think that this office is ready for the shitstorm that is coming.

“I want to know, does your office have a backbone on these issues?” he asked.

Aviles-Ramos responded it’s “very sad to hear there’s a lack of faith in this administration.” She pointed to its work developing new curriculum including Black studies curriculum, for example.

Reached by phone Monday, Hannah-Jones said he’s been sounding the alarm about Trump’s education plans for months and has gotten little response from city officials. The Education Department is more “concerned about bringing us in a back room to have a conversation than having one in public,” he added.

Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a parent in East Harlem and former member of the Panel for Educational Policy, an oversight panel for the city Education Department, drafted a mock resolution opposing the executive order that she hopes local Community Education Councils will modify and adopt.

“It’s our time to raise our voices,” she said.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Leaked draft report found anti-Black racism at a Newark high school: Here are 3 things to know

2025-01-13T20:43:50+00:00

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Editor’s note: This story, and a draft report linked to in the story, include references to racist, Islamophobic language and bigoted views that are violent in nature.

The Newark school district has faced controversy over documented claims of racist harassment that occurred at one of its high schools and its fight to block the public from viewing a report, commissioned by the school board, that assessed the fallout.

Chalkbeat began chronicling student complaints of racial bias and religious insensitivity at the Newark School of Global Studies in 2022. Subsequent public outcry prompted the school board in January 2023 to commission a report from Creed Strategies, a consulting firm, to evaluate the school’s culture and provide recommendations that would promote more culturally inclusive dynamics at the school.

Despite continued calls from parents, students, advocates, and school board members to see the findings of the report, district officials have not publicly released it. Instead, Superintendent Roger León has said that the report will remain under review and serve as an internal document, keeping it from public scrutiny. The district previously denied public records requests for the report from Chalkbeat and others, including the Newark Teachers Union.

Read the full analysis of the draft report obtained by Chalkbeat here.

In 2023, the union sued to make the report public. However, the union ultimately settled with the district without the report ever seeing public view.

Chalkbeat has obtained a draft copy of the Creed report, dated May 2023, which is not the most recent iteration of the report. In response to a request for a more recent version, a district spokesman last week did not provide one and said that it was “privileged and confidential.”

Attorneys for the district have argued elsewhere that the report remains a draft document, making it exempt from New Jersey’s open public records law.

Meanwhile, the situation at Global Studies has continued to cause controversy. The school board attempted to oust an elected member whose daughter, a former student at the school, is seeking to sue over her treatment there. A judge recently rejected the board’s bid to unseat that member.

As Chalkbeat continues to report on this story, we want to hear more from Newark School of Global Studies former and current teachers, staff, and students. Reach us at newark.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Here is more background about the situation at Global Studies and brief takeaways from the draft report.

What happened at the Newark School of Global Studies?

In the fall of 2022, a group of Global Studies students spoke out during a Board of Education meeting about the racist and religious harassment they were facing from peers at the school and what they felt was an insufficient response from school staff and administration. The students and their parents demanded attention and a stronger response from district leaders, saying they felt unsafe at the school. Some called for the removal of school principal Nelson Ruiz.

Two Black teachers at the school, who also claimed they were subjected to racial harassment and hostility, resigned from their roles and filed legal claims with the state Division of Civil Rights. They have since sued the district in a lawsuit filed in Superior Court of Essex County that alleges school and district leaders created a hostile work environment where they experienced racial discrimination and retaliation. That lawsuit is ongoing.

For more background, catch up on these related stories:

Racist slurs, parent pleas: Emails reveal long battle to address harassment at Newark’s Global Studies

Battle continues a year after Newark Global Studies’ students first described pattern of racism

The racist bullying at school was unbearable, so I decided to speak out

What is the Creed report?

In January 2023, the Newark school board commissioned Creed Strategies, a consulting firm focused on educational and racial justice and led by Lauren Wells — who previously served as chief education officer for Newark Mayor Ras Baraka — to evaluate the school culture at Global Studies.

The evaluation took months to complete as reviewers conducted classroom observations and extensive interviews with staff, teachers, and students. The firm reviewed a range of metrics, including enrollment, attendance, state test scores, suspension rates, and more.

In the fall of 2023, León shared limited information about the recommendations outlined in the report, withholding from the public further details or findings.

For more, catch up on these related stories:

Report on racial, cultural dynamics at Newark’s Global Studies to remain internal, Superintendent Roger León says

Newark schools must assess effects of ‘anti-Blackness,’ identify cultural gaps, Global Studies report recommends

Major findings from the report: Limited response to racist incidents, patterns of anti-Blackness, need for professional development

The draft report had a number of findings about the culture at Global Studies and the administration’s response:

The report found that the school didn’t act quickly or consistently to address claims of racist, bigoted, and biased incidents, which had been ongoing at the school since its inception in the fall of 2020, when students were learning remotely, according to the draft report.

School leaders’ responses to the alleged incidents ranged from having students do written apologies to suspensions, the draft report stated. The school also took a restorative approach to the alleged racist incidents, but those practices “alone did not create a school culture where Black students and teachers felt psychologically safe and protected from racist incidents and other incidents of biases,” the report detailed.
Since the school opened in the fall of 2020, Latino students have made up the majority of the student body and Black students were less likely to be enrolled, according to the draft report. Black students and teachers also transferred out of Global Studies at disproportionate rates than comparison schools, the draft report found.

“The sharp distinction between being Black and Latino in the racial dynamics of Newark seeps into the school, resulting in the types of racial incidents brought to the public attention.”
Draft report on the Newark School of Global Studies

Through student interviews and observations, reviewers found that some Latino students expressed anti-Black sentiments but would deflect their significance by saying that they’re kidding around or by claiming they identify as Black, according to the draft report.
The superintendent, the report stated, held an assembly for the junior class where, according to the draft report, students said they were told they could leave the school if they felt uncomfortable. The principal also held an assembly, according to interviews cited in the draft report, where he told the entire school “not to use the N-word or they would be suspended,” the draft report stated.
Those interviewed in the draft report noted the school had a “sudden burst of activities around Black History Month” and acknowledged the focus seemed to be “a reactive effort to appease students and quell the tension,” according to the draft report.
School administration failed to identify patterns of anti-Blackness to inform professional development activities, the draft report found. “There was a missed opportunity to address the professional learning needs of instructional staff to be responsive to these issues as a part of student learning,” the report read.

Catherine Carrera is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Newark. Contact Catherine at ccarrera@chalkbeat.org.

Leaked draft: Global Studies unreleased report found students endured anti-Black racism

2025-01-13T20:42:34+00:00

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Editor’s note: This story, and a draft report linked to in the story, include references to racist, Islamophobic language and bigoted views that are violent in nature.

Newark Public Schools leaders failed to “quickly and consistently” respond to racist and bigoted incidents against Black students and teachers at a city school designed to embrace world cultures, according to a draft of a scathing report that district officials have sought to keep private.

A copy of the 39-page draft, obtained by Chalkbeat Newark, details harrowing examples of how Black students and teachers at the Newark School of Global Studies were “subjected to acts of anti-Blackness and anti-Black racism.” The review also highlighted how the school’s response failed to address the problems, and in some cases, magnified racial issues.

The May 2023 draft of the report written by the consulting firm Creed Strategies is the public’s first look into the firm’s review of the cultural, racial, and religious dynamics at Global Studies that pushed some Black students to transfer and teachers to resign. The draft obtained by Chalkbeat is not the latest version of the report. But the district has fought to keep all versions of the report private, nearly two years after Newark school board leaders commissioned it.

Attorneys for the district have argued in court filings that the report is a “predecisional draft document” and therefore exempt from the state’s public records law. If portions of the report were disclosed, “it would have a chilling effect” on the district’s ongoing efforts “to improve dialogue and sensitivity practices” at Global Studies and other schools, according to a court record outlining the district’s opposition to the Newark Teachers Union lawsuit seeking the release of the report.

In 2023, the Newark Teachers Union filed two lawsuits against the district over the release of the report, but the union agreed to settle the lawsuits last fall without its release.

The draft report paints a picture of a campus where Black students and teachers reported being called racial slurs by Latino students, the N-word was commonly used among non-Black students, and where complaints by Black students were often dismissed or minimized by administrators and non-Black staff. A male student was repeatedly called an anti-gay slur in class while a teacher was present, and other students made threats to “take off” and “stomp on” the hijabs of Black and Arab Muslim female teachers, according to the review.

Read takeaways from the draft report here.

Many of the allegations in the draft report have been brought up in public, substantiated in Chalkbeat interviews, and are mentioned in lawsuits against the district. The issues also caught the attention of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who hosted a town hall to discuss unity among Black and brown communities months after students spoke publicly about their experiences.

Former Global Studies teachers filed a lawsuit against the district alleging that school and district leaders created a hostile work environment where they experienced racial discrimination and retaliation, according to the lawsuit filed in Essex County Superior Court last spring. The lawsuit is ongoing.

The former teachers also filed claims with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The department opened an investigation into the claim on Dec. 21, 2023, and it is ongoing.

Paul Brubaker, the district’s communications director, did not respond to Chalkbeat’s request to provide a copy of the full Global Studies report. Instead, in an emailed response, he reiterated the district’s stance that the report is “privileged and confidential.” Brubaker said the school board “reserves the right to take any and all appropriate action to prevent or redress injury to itself,” district staff, school or students.

Brubaker did not respond to questions about the district’s efforts to fix the problems at the high school, how it changed its policies to address racial problems, and the professional support it has provided teachers with since the incidents at the school surfaced.

Newark Global Studies draft report finds students, teachers subjected to acts of anti-Blackness.

Do you have more information, tips, or insights about the Newark School of Global Studies?You can reach us at newark.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Superintendent Roger León promised to fix the problems

Staff, parents, and students were interviewed by Creed Strategies’ six-member review team about their experiences at the high school and were anonymously quoted throughout the draft report. The research team was made up of professors and education experts with experience in school leadership and representative of the demographics at Global Studies.

In interviews with Creed researchers, Black students described a “sense of betrayal” when their peers and adults used racial slurs, according to the draft report. Most Black students “felt stunned, at a loss for words, or angry” when the incidents occurred, the report read.

When asked by researchers about the reported incidents, some of the staff responded defensively, while others said they did not know about the issues until students spoke publicly in 2022, the review found. Teachers reported that the lack of transparency about the issues at Global Studies limited their ability to understand what was happening and eroded morale, the report read. Other staff said the aftermath of the issues becoming public caused “some upheaval” at Global Studies with “very few” attributing the chaos to the racist incidents Black students and teachers had described in 2022, the draft report stated.

But emails obtained by Chalkbeat revealed that school administrators had known about the issues before they became public, and a parent begged state and district officials for an end to the harassment against her son. School leaders missed an opportunity “to address the professional learning needs” of teachers to be responsive to the incidents and create “culturally responsive” learning, according to the draft.

Some interviewees cited in the report also framed “Black women and girls” as “easily triggered and angry” when discussing the incidents at the school, the review notes. “Instead of focusing on the systemic racism that Black women and girls are speaking up against, there was a sense of defensiveness,” the draft report says. In claims filed by former Global Studies teachers, they alleged they “suffered harassment and racial hostility by students and supervisors” and felt their “worth as a teacher and human being has been diminished.”

Newark school board leaders commissioned the review of Global Studies at the start of 2023 in response to Black students speaking publicly about a pattern of racist harassment on campus. The May 2023 draft provided the district with three recommendations, which were released publicly, and meant to be “proactively implemented” to tackle anti-Blackness and build Global Studies’ understanding of diversity, the draft read.

A mix of Global Studies parents, students, teachers, some board members, and community advocates have been calling on Superintendent Roger León to release the full report on the high school and address the problems. León promised students he would fix the problems at the school but he has not said what changes or efforts have been made at Global Studies, one of the district’s top magnet schools. Deborah Smith Gregory, president of NAACP Newark, is one of the advocates who has called on León to release the Global Studies report but has been ignored, she said during a school board meeting last month.

“It seems that the rule of the superintendent is being sanctioned by the board with little oversight and question,” said Smith Gregory in December.

Despite calls for transparency, the Newark school board last month quietly sent a petition to the state to remove one of its longest-serving members after her daughter filed a legal claim against the district alleging racial harassment and discrimination during her time as a student at Global Studies. A New Jersey judge denied the petition but the state’s commissioner of education will issue a final decision by February.

School leaders did not communicate seriousness of harassment

Students reported racist incidents at the high school since the school opened during remote learning in 2020, while the number of Black students has decreased steadily since then, according to the draft.

According to the draft report, Global Studies’ leaders had a “limited response” to the harassment reported by students and “centered impact rather than intent” of the incidents. Interviews found that some school staff learned about the incidents through their relationships with students and the teachers involved. A “very small group” said “they had no knowledge of the incidents before the students' public comments” in November 2022, the report read.

Staff interviewees also said “the effect of the public reports and media” on the school environment led to “chaos” and “ill feelings,” the draft states. Some suggested that the feelings were “intensified by the lack of clear communication about why students were complaining and leaving the school,” the report read.

“I think that has made some students more like, upset, angry ... Unraveled things a little bit. So that’s like an unfortunate thing that it’s like kind of causing some upheaval,” said one interviewee in the report.

As part of the review, teachers and administrators told researchers about 11 reported incidents. Discipline for those incidents ranged from written apologies and cultural sensitivity training to mediation and suspensions, according to the draft. Of the consequences, 22 students had in-school detention, seven received out-of-school suspensions, seven had a parent conference, six received mediation, four participated in out-of-school counseling, three received after-school detention, and three more had a conflict resolution session, according to the draft.

With one exception, Black adult interviewees expressed their belief that Black students experienced racial harm at the high school, while six out of the seven non-Black, non-Latino adults interviewed said “they believed the students and expressed concern about their well-being,” according to the report.

Some said they were also aware of racist incidents against Black and Asian American teachers in the building, the report found. The former teachers who filed a lawsuit against the district claimed they also suffered “severe emotional problems” leading them to seek “psychological counseling” after experiencing racial harassment at the high school. But nine interviewees also suggested the reports of Black students and media coverage “were exaggerated and wanted to set the record straight,” according to the report.

Others lamented the school’s approaches to addressing the incidents and “lack of communication about them were eroding teacher morale,” according to the draft. One teacher specifically suggested that because of the public scrutiny, “administrators started to backtrack reports stated about one of the formally reported incidents,” the report read.

“I want to say that when I hear these recordings about what people are saying and including the students that are in the school, to me, it feels like they’re talking about another school. Because I do not see that. You know, I have not heard that,” an interviewee told researchers.

Missed opportunity to support staff, teachers at Global Studies

One of the main draws of Global Studies was that it promised students would “develop a global perspective” through second-language immersion, exploration of different cultures and career pathways that emphasized international relations in business and diplomacy.

But the overall environment at the school – and the way it was run – led to administrators “missing the opportunity to represent the diversity of its students’ lived experiences and aspirations within the environment and their learning,” according to the report.

When Global Studies opened its doors in 2021 following remote learning, the school was newly renovated and well maintained with college-related signs throughout hallways. But researchers found that the overall tone of the school lacked “the spirit and vitality typical of a high school,” with much of it resembling an elementary and middle school, according to the report.

Most classroom walls were decorated with word walls and inspirational posters or pictures, the report found. Wall displays “rarely demonstrated” how students grappled with topics like geographical and linguistic diversity and global political institutions, the report found. The main theme of the school, which highlights students as global citizens, was often tied by staff to specific celebrations such as Hispanic Heritage and Black History months and notable figures, according to the report.

Additionally, most teachers lacked previous high school teaching experience, according to the report. Students spent “extended periods of time sitting silently” and had a lack of dialogue in classrooms, the report found.

Early on, the school and district administration had not cultivated an environment that encouraged staff to examine and challenge their assumptions of implicit bias and other forms of racism, according to the report.

When Black students spoke about their experiences of racial harassment, school administrators hosted a staff discussion of a book called “Courageous Conversations About Race,” according to the report. But staff members weren’t clear about why they were attending the discussions and told Creed researchers the conversations felt “surface-level” and “lacked transparency and support, and limited their capacity to understand and address the issues” that were happening, the report read.

“There was a missed opportunity to address the professional learning needs of instructional staff to be responsive to these issues as a part of student learning,” the report said.

Response did more damage, leading to transfers, resignations

After Black students spoke out publicly, district leaders held assemblies largely viewed “as insufficient and ineffective” by others, according to the report.

During the 2022-23 school year, Global Studies principal Nelson Ruiz held an assembly for the entire school where he told all students not to use the N-word or they would be suspended, according to the report. The school’s zero-tolerance for the N-word was “not only viewed as harming victims, but it also policed the language and speaking practices of Black students,” the report read.

Interviewees also discussed a pizza party for Black students that some students felt “was an attempt to drive their attention away from the issue,” according to the report. During the January 2023 school board meeting, a former Global Studies student said school administrators called members of the Black Student Union “and gave us pizza, candy and even soda,” in what she felt was an attempt to silence students. Ruiz did not respond to calls, a text, or emailed questions from Chalkbeat about his response to the incidents.

León also held an assembly during the 2022-23 school year, specifically for the junior class, where students were told, “If they don’t feel comfortable [at NSGS], basically they can leave,” a student interviewee said. Students interpreted León’s comment as “If you don’t like it, you can leave,” according to the report. Student interviewees also felt as if school staff were not facilitating their transfer requests because of a lack of communication between León and the school, while others said it was because the school “did not want to lose high-achieving Black students,” the draft report stated.

Those findings echo what students had told Newark school board members. During the January 2023 board meeting, three students said they were being told by guidance counselors that they couldn’t transfer. One student told board members that Leon’s speech “didn’t feel like it had any empathy and it gave very much, ‘if you don’t like it, then go home.” Another student said “a vast amount of students” lined up outside of the guidance counselors’ offices the day after León’s assembly. A third student said guidance counselors told her multiple times that she couldn’t transfer and if she left “how would that make us feel.”

Staff interviewees also said high-performing Black students were the first students to try to transfer out and some considered how that would impact the school’s image, according to the draft report.

The transfer rates of Black students have “significantly increased” each year at Global Studies in comparison to all other student groups, according to data included in the draft report. Black students have been less likely to complete an academic year at the school than their peers at Newark School of Data Science and Information Technology, Newark Fashion and Design, and Newark Vocational, the report stated.

At the end of the 2021-22 school year, six Black students transferred out of Global Studies and in the following school year, another seven Black students had transferred as of March 15, 2023, according to the report. During the 2022-23 school year, three Black female teachers resigned, all from the same department, and two Latino students were transferred out, the report notes.

Throughout the report, researchers also found that the school’s restorative approach to the issues did not adequately address “the persistence or saliency” of racist comments by students. To address the incidents, administrators called for parent conferences and time of reflection with students that led Black students to feel emotionally unsafe about being forced to work with students who used racist language toward them and were allowed to remain in classes, according to the report.

The practices also “created an atmosphere where some Latino students felt they could use racist language toward Black students and teachers without consequence,” the draft reads.

Staff members who were interviewed said they were following district policy and “employing a restorative approach” to discipline students while others acknowledged they had an “educative role” to address the use of racial language by non-Black students, the report found.

One teacher acknowledged that education “on the background of why some of the things [students] say to each other are so hurtful” would be useful.

“I think especially for recent immigrants, they come here, and they hear that kind of dialogue, and they adopt it thinking like they’re gonna be proud and part of American culture and have no background for it, and don’t realize that for them, it’s not appropriate to talk that way,” according to the teacher.

The report recommended the district build school staff’s capacity to identify cultural gaps, create a racially conscious and inclusive environment, foster conversations about race, and assess the effects of anti-Blackness on the school system.

Researchers also noted that “the courage and resilience” of Black students at Global Studies who assumed leadership positions in school organizations, participated in extracurricular activities, and are high achievers demonstrated a level “of social awareness and activism” by challenging racial discrimination.

Their efforts were aligned with the Global Studies theme, the report found.

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

State judge denies Newark school board petition to unseat Dawn Haynes over legal conflict

2025-01-07T11:00:00+00:00

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A state judge has denied the Newark Board of Education’s petition to remove one of its longest-serving members over her daughter’s attempt to sue the school district.

The December decision by State Administrative Law Judge William J. Courtney is a setback in the district’s attempt to unseat six-year board member Dawn Haynes and exclude her from participating in board business and activities. Acting State Commissioner of Education Kevin Dehmer will review the case and must make a final decision on the petition by Feb. 3, 45 days from the judge’s ruling, according to Courtney’s decision obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request.

The district’s petition, also obtained through a public records request, argued that Haynes had an “irreconcilable conflict of interest” and keeping her on the board would cause “irreparable harm” after her adult daughter filed a legal claim against Newark Public Schools. In the claim, Akela Haynes alleges that she experienced religious, racial, and gender discrimination and other harassment during her time as a Newark School of Global Studies student.

Last month, Akela Haynes, who waited until she was 18 to file her claim, said she wants transparency about the discrimination she says she and her peers experienced at Global Studies. She sent her legal claim to the district in October, and under state law, can file a lawsuit against the district after six months.

The petition, which the Newark school board filed to the state education department in early December, was sent to the New Jersey Office of Administrative Law, which reviews contested cases for state agencies and issues initial decisions.

In his decision, Courtney wrote that “the first weakness” in the district’s argument is that Akela Haynes has not filed a lawsuit against the board and therefore, there is “no evidence” in the district’s assertion that Haynes would cause “irreparable harm.”

“I find no harm to the board as a result of receiving notice of a potential tort claim from respondent’s daughter,” wrote Courtney in last month’s decision.

On Monday, the district’s communications director Paul Brubaker did not respond to emailed questions asking if the district would appeal the judge’s decision, what “irreparable harm” Haynes has caused or could cause, and if it would respond to Akela Haynes’ claim. On Dec. 20, 2024, Brubaker wrote that the district “does not comment on matters in litigation, and we look forward to articulating our position in court.”

“We will happily consider discussing these matters after they have been fully adjudicated,” Brubaker added.

Since 2023, Haynes, her daughter, and community members have been calling on León to release a scathing report from an outside consultant on the racial, religious, and cultural atmosphere at Global Studies. The board commissioned the report in January 2023 after students and teachers first described a pattern of racist harassment at the high school in November 2022.

Emails obtained by Chalkbeat in 2023 showed students and teachers endured months of racial harassment and discrimination before they pleaded to the school board for help. But few details have been released about the district’s efforts to address racial tensions and concerns.

NPS argued that board member could cause “irreparable harm”

Dawn Haynes is a City Hall staffer and was elected to the Newark Board of Education in 2018.

In her claim, Akela Haynes alleges that between September 2020 and December 2022, she “suffered pervasive and consistent” discrimination, sexual harassment, assault, battery, intimidation, bullying, cyber-bullying, emotional distress, and other inappropriate and unlawful treatment. She also alleges León and Global Studies principal Nelson Ruiz are liable for “substantial monetary and non-monetary damages” for violating their obligation to protect the former student from “the physical and psychological harms” she experienced.

But the amount was not specified in her claim because Akela Haynes is “still traumatized and requires the treatment of specialists and medical experts,” the claim read.

The district’s petition to the state, signed by Superintendent Roger León, the district’s attorney Brenda Liss, and school business administrator Valerie Wilson, was discussed by board members in a November 2024 session closed to the public.

In the petition, Liss, the district’s attorney, argued for board member Haynes’ immediate removal ahead of the Dec. 19, 2024 school board meeting, saying she could cause “irreparable harm.” Haynes attended the December board meeting but did not speak about her case.

Liss also argued that Haynes had a “disqualifying interest,” or personal connection to her daughter’s claim because they live at the same address and are members of the same household. Akela Haynes is currently a freshman sociology major at Clark Atlanta University and does not live in Newark, she told Chalkbeat in December.

In addition, Liss argued, Haynes “cannot legitimately claim a substantial interest in continued participation on the board” while her daughter pursues the monetary relief in her claim.

In ruling against the district’s request, Courtney wrote that “there is no reason why” Haynes can’t abstain “from participation in any such discussion or board action” on Akela Haynes’ claim. The board has not voted on a formal action against the claim.

Courtney also decided that a board member’s removal “is not mandatory” when a claim is filed against the district but wrote that “there needs to be a fact sensitive analysis of the alleged direct, or in this case indirect interest” of Akela Haynes’ claim.

Board member Haynes also faced a state ethics complaint last year alleging that she used her position as board president to pressure Global Studies parent liaison Samantha Heer to organize a meeting between parents and the school’s student council.

In an email to Chalkbeat on Dec. 19, 2024, state education department communications director Laura Fredrick said the matter was dismissed in July 2024 after Heer, who filed the complaint, failed to appear for hearings.

Community speaks against board’s effort to remove Haynes

At the December school board meeting, community members spoke out against the board’s attempt to remove Haynes and criticized the district’s response to the allegations of racial harassment at Global Studies.

Former board member Marques-Aquil Lewis said he never “sat on a school board and met about removing a board member.” His board “understood that it wasn’t our responsibility to remove [members] from their seat but the people that elect them,” Lewis added.

“The local control that I remember sitting on that board fighting for was a local control that would point out injustice everywhere despite your color, despite your gender. We point it out, we’ll resolve it, and we’ll handle it,” Lewis said.

Lyndon Brown, whose nephew, a former student at Global Studies, said he was called a racial slur in his English class, “was not pleased with what happened there.”

He commended Haynes and board member Crystal Williams for bringing attention to the school’s issues.

“I do think that the voices of the parents and the transparency of this board is critical in moving this district forward. Our kids deserve better than what they’ve been getting,” Brown said during the board meeting.

Deborah Smith Gregory, president of NAACP Newark, said during the December meeting that she’s been requesting the report on Global Studies detailing racial harassment, hostility, and other problems.

The report was commissioned by the school board in January 2023 and conducted by Creed Strategies. But in June 2023, León said that report was meant to inform the district’s strategy on race and would remain internal. The board has not released the report despite requests from board members to publicize it and public records requests from Chalkbeat.

The district released three of the report’s recommendations that call on the district to assess the effects of “anti-Blackness in schools.” But León nor district leaders have shared details about their efforts to fix the problems.

“For 12 months, I have come to this mic requesting its release every month and I have been ignored,” Smith Gregory said. “When I think about the struggle of returning our schools to local control and the current state of affairs, I am disheartened. It seems that the rule of the superintendent is being sanctioned by the board with little oversight and question.”

Smith Gregory added that Haynes should remain on the board.

“She has had the courage to challenge, she has had the courage of her conviction,”said Smith Gregory. “And her daughter who is now an adult, did what she felt was necessary based on it seeming to be that the issue was swept under the rug by this board of education.”

Last month, the Newark Teachers Union withdrew two lawsuits seeking the release of the report after reaching a deal with the district almost a year after filing its first suit.

Union President John Abeigon, who spearheaded the lawsuit, wouldn’t disclose the terms of the agreement or say if the settlement would require the district to release the report to the union or the public.

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Newark school board seeks to unseat board member after daughter files legal claim against district

2024-12-19T14:22:25+00:00

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A Newark Board of Education member whose family has spoken out about racial harassment and tensions at a controversial district high school may be facing removal from her seat, Chalkbeat has learned.

In November, the school board voted to ask the state education department to recommend the removal of six-year board member Dawn Haynes, according to a source who has seen the petition. The petition, which was discussed in a closed-door session not open to the public last month, has not been made public by the district.

Four board members voted to send the petition to the state, three abstained, and one voted against it.

Paul Brubaker, Newark Public Schools’ communications director, did not respond to emailed questions about why the district is asking the state to recommend Haynes’ removal and why the petition is not public.

The board’s petition, signed by Superintendent Roger León, comes after Haynes’ daughter, Akela Haynes, filed a legal claim in October against the district alleging religious, racial, and gender discrimination and other harassment during her time as a Newark School of Global Studies student. The claim also alleges León and principal Nelson Ruiz are liable for violating their obligation to protect Akela Haynes from “the physical and psychological harms” she experienced at the school.

In a call with Chalkbeat on Monday, Akela Haynes, who waited until she was 18 to file her claim, said she wants transparency on the harassment she says she and her peers experienced at Global Studies and wants to “make it very clear that what happened should never happen again.”

After filing notice of a claim, under state law, an individual must wait six months to file a lawsuit to give a public entity a chance to respond. Akela Haynes sent her claim to Newark Public Schools on Oct. 25.

Brubaker did not respond to an email asking the district for a response to Akela Haynes’ claim or what it has done to address the problems at Global Studies.

Additionally, board member Haynes — who’s currently serving her third term — also faced an ethics complaint in March 2023 alleging she used her position as board president to pressure Global Studies parent liaison Samantha Heer to organize a meeting between parents and the school’s student council, according to the complaint obtained by Chalkbeat via a public records request. Heer filed the complaint, but a decision on it has not been posted online by the state’s School Ethics Commission.

Dawn Haynes is a City Hall staffer and was elected to the Newark Board of Education in 2018.

Haynes’ possible removal from the board is the latest fallout from the ongoing controversy about Global Studies. Since 2022, students and teachers have come forward to describe a pattern of racist harassment at Global Studies and emails obtained by Chalkbeat in 2023 showed they endured months of harassment and abuse before they pleaded to the school board for help.

Incidents at the school led the Newark Board of Education to commission an outside consultant to study the cultural, racial, and religious dynamics on campus and create recommendations – but the board has refused to release the report despite a lawsuit from the teachers union.

Former Global Studies students allege racist harassment

In November 2022, Akela Haynes joined a group of Black students who spoke at a board meeting about the racial harassment they say they experienced at Global Studies. But the tensions at the school persisted without help from the school’s administration, she said, forcing Akela Haynes to transfer out in the middle of her junior year despite being an honor roll student and student body secretary.

During her time as a Global Studies student, Akela Haynes recalled getting into a verbal altercation with a male peer because “he basically walked past me and called me the N-word,” she told Chalkbeat. She also had another encounter with the same student where he called her a terrorist, said Akela Haynes, who is Muslim, as her voice became shaky and cracked with emotion.

But “the final straw” that prompted her transfer was when a student destroyed her headphones, she said. She says she raised the issue with the school’s leadership but “not only did they try to cover it up, they also treated me as if I was the person who destroyed property,” Akela Haynes said.

Some of her peers also transferred out of the high school, including David Allen, former president of the Black Student Union at Global Studies. Allen was a Chalkbeat Student Voices fellow last year and wrote about the situation at the high school that had “escalated from kids teasing each other” to Black students “being the targets of racist harassment and hostility.”

During a press conference last year, León said the district was working on taking “corrective action” at the school but it has not shared specific details about its plan. León added that he wanted to “tap the students at Global Studies” to work with him and help inform the district’s strategy on race.

In March 2023, four months after Akela Haynes went public with allegations of racial harassment at Global Studies, Dawn Haynes received an ethics complaint for “demanding a meeting without following school protocols” at Global Studies in December 2022, according to the complaint filed by Heer, the parent liaison at the high school. The complaint further alleges that Dawn Haynes used her position as board president at the time to pressure Heer to set up the meeting.

“Ms. Haynes did not recognize that authority rests with the Newark Board of Education and took private action after racial tensions at a NBOE meeting on November 22, 2022,” the complaint read.

Community demands the release of Global Studies report

Akela Hayne’s claim isn’t the first time the district has faced a potential lawsuit over allegations of racial harassment at the high school.

In June 2023, former Global Studies English teachers Tammy Davis and Nubia Lumumba said they “suffered severe emotional problems” leading them to seek “psychological counseling” after experiencing racial harassment during the 2022-23 school year. The former Newark teachers filed claims with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over racial discrimination against students and retaliation against Davis and Lumumba for complaining about the harassment, according to a letter from the department sent to León last December. The federal office launched an investigation on Dec. 21, 2023, which is ongoing.

Board members, including Haynes, have also been vocal about calling for the release of a scathing report that details the racial harassment and hostility students and staff experienced at Global Studies. In 2023, Haynes said the report was “traumatizing to read.”

The district has so far released three recommendations provided by the report that call on Newark to assess the effects of “anti-Blackness” on the school system and foster conversations about racial issues. But the report, commissioned by school board members in January 2023 and conducted by the consulting firm Creed Strategies, has remained private despite public records requests from Chalkbeat and calls from the community to release it.

In June 2023, León said the report was meant to inform the district’s strategy on race, but few details have been released about the district’s efforts to address the problems at the high school.

Last month, the Newark Teachers Union withdrew two lawsuits seeking the release of the report after reaching a deal with the district almost a year after filing its first case.

The Newark Board of Education will meet on Thursday, Dec. 19 at 6 p.m. at East Ward Elementary School for its last meeting of 2024.

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

How the NYC high school admissions process sorts kids by race, poverty, disability

2024-10-16T21:16:15+00:00

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In New York City’s cutthroat high school application process, a student’s seventh grade GPA in core classes is the single most important factor for whether they get into a highly competitive screened school.

The district puts students into “tiers” based on that GPA. But these tiers also frequently overlap with students’ race, family income, disability status, housing situation, and fluency with English, according to new Education Department data obtained by Chalkbeat. In fact, this system was more than twice as likely to place many groups — Black and Latino students, English learners, and students from low-income families — into its lowest tier, compared with their counterparts, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

Advocates said the data highlights the role of the city’s selective admissions rules in driving the segregation that has plagued city high schools for years.

“It makes me incredibly angry,” said Nyah Berg, the executive director of Appleseed New York, a group that advocates for school integration and admissions reforms. “We’re limiting opportunities to students because of factors outside of their control … over systemic inequities compounding over years and years.”

Eighth grade applicants are divided into five tiers based on their seventh grade grades in core classes. This year, Tier 1 covers kids who landed in the top 15% citywide, with at least a 94.25% average, or in the top 15% of their school, with at least a 90% average. Tier 5, on the end of the spectrum, comprises the bottom 30% of GPAs, with students who averaged below 76%.

Generally, to have a shot at getting into a highly selective school, students must land in Tier 1. Options for students in the lower tiers grow more constrained, with Tier 5 students losing out to everyone else.

At the top, in Tier 1, only 33% of students were Black and Latino last year, according to the city data, which was first obtained by Bronx parent Tim Smith through a public records request. At the bottom, in Tier 5, 80% of students were Black and Latino. Overall, the eighth-grade applicant pool was 64% Black and Latino.

That pattern persisted across demographic categories, with English language learners, homeless students, kids from low-income families, and students with disabilities generally appearing in higher numbers in the lower tiers.

The disparities were most stark for English learners, who made up just 1% of Tier 1, despite comprising 13% of last year’s eighth grade applicants. English learners made up 27% of Tier 5.

Homeless students and kids with disabilities are also underrepresented in Tier 1 and overrepresented in the lowest tiers.

Specialized high schools, including Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, use a separate admissions exam that is enshrined in state law. But the city’s Education Department controls admission rules for the dozens of screened schools like Townsend Harris, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Millennium, which receive many more applicants than they have seats.

Many selective schools have opted to set aside a portion of seats for students from underrepresented groups. That’s almost certainly boosted the enrollment of those students. But it isn’t enough to fully counteract the segregation baked into the tier system, advocates said.

Some screened schools also give preference to applicants who live in their borough or neighborhood. And roughly two dozen screened schools have permission from the city to use their own admissions criteria, which can include a mix of grades, interviews, and essays.

High school admissions changes again and again

Prior to the pandemic, screened schools had wide discretion to use their own combination of grades, test scores, and other factors, including attendance, to determine admissions. But after the COVID pandemic shuttered schools and upended grades and testing, former Mayor Bill de Blasio centralized the admissions process for screened schools.

He introduced the tier system based on grades, but initially opened Tier 1 to any student with an 85% or higher.

That change put a far greater number of students on equal footing in applying to competitive schools. It helped push the percentage of Black and Latino teens accepted at the city’s 27 most selective screened schools from 28% in 2020 to 40% in 2022.

But when former schools Chancellor David Banks took office in 2022, he opted to tighten access to the top tier, arguing that students with the very highest marks “should not be thrown in a lottery with just everybody.” (Banks did, however, continue the pandemic policy of not including state test scores in high school admissions.)

Following Banks’ changes, 35% of offers to the most selective high schools went to Black and Latino students — down from 2022 but higher than in 2020, according to city data.

Rather than overhauling selective admissions, Banks focused on opening more selective schools in communities with higher concentrations of students who are Black, Latino, and from low-income backgrounds. That effort led to two new Bard Early College High Schools in the Bronx and Brooklyn, and another early college school set to open next year in southeast Queens.

Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle said Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos will continue that approach, along with a push to reform literacy and math instruction to increase the share of historically underrepresented students who qualify for the top tiers.

“Tackling these inequities and under-representations has been a top priority for this administration and will continue to be a priority,” Lyle said in a statement.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of screened high schools have opted to participate in the “diversity in admissions” program, where they can set aside a portion of seats for students from underrepresented groups, including those from low-income families, English learners, and homeless students. If there aren’t enough applicants from Tier 1 who are members of those priority groups, schools grant offers to applicants who are members of those groups from Tier 2.

All screened high schools also set aside a portion of their seats for students with disabilities, a process that works similarly to the diversity in admissions program. Some screened schools have significantly boosted their numbers of students with disabilities, including Queens’ Townsend Harris, which roughly doubled its share of such students from 7% in 2019 to 15% last year.

Berg, the integration advocate, said the growth of the diversity admissions programs has been a positive development but isn’t enough to outweigh the tier system.

Using the analogy of a balance scale, Berg said, “One of those scales is essentially bolted to the ground, and we’re putting two-pound weights on the other side.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org .

Kae Petrin is data and graphics reporter for Chalkbeat. Contact Kae at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org

Indianapolis’ first library for Black residents reopens through school librarian’s leadership

2024-08-19T14:50:51+00:00

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Maurice Broaddus was a writer by trade and became a middle school librarian by accident.

The award-winning Afrofuturist and sci-fi author once filled in at The Oaks Academy middle school, where he was also a teacher, for the librarian going on maternity leave. The librarian never came back.

“Six, seven years later I’m still covering her maternity leave,” he joked.

But what started as mere chance has become an opportunity to mentor young writers, support artists of color, and restore a historic Indianapolis library that was the first in the city established specifically for Black residents.

“It’s been a lesson in collaboration, a lesson in building relationships, a lesson in dreaming alongside our neighbors,” said Broaddus, who is Black. “Ultimately, what does it look like to restore a space and then it be true to its purpose?”

Broaddus led the project to reopen the Paul Laurence Dunbar Library, established within the now-closed John Hope School No. 26 in 1922, to students at The Oaks Academy middle school, a private Christian school in the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood. The library originally existed to serve Black residents in a de facto segregated part of the city. Its restoration after nearly 30 years of disuse will give Oaks students their own library collection, Broaddus said, while memorializing its place in Indianapolis history.

“We are honoring the past, but we’re doing present work,” he said.

The restored library opened last week on the first day of school at The Oaks. Many shelves are still empty — Broaddus is waiting on a major 1,000-book order — but he’s started curating three special collections on the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and Afrofuturism.

Maurice Broaddus, right, explains the history of the library to students, parents, and staff during orientation night last week. The restoration team honored the original feel of the space, he said, with its design and decor.

As parents and new students walked through the building for middle school orientation last Tuesday, they lingered around the library. They saw shelves of rich, dark wood, an ornamental copper ceiling, and a working fireplace.

“It looks like a Harry Potter film in here, you know?” one parent said to her child.

“As well it should,” Broaddus said.

The team behind the project worked to pay homage to the original decor and accents of the space, he said. The library stopped operating in 1997, when John Hope School No. 26 of Indianapolis Public Schools shut down.

The Oaks Academy acquired the building in 2015, according to the school website, and currently has around 270 students in grades 6-8.

Before this year, students relied on the Indianapolis Public Library shared interlibrary system and requested books online that were delivered by Broaddus. They can continue to use that system, but now they also have an internal collection to browse.

Books from the reopened Paul Laurence Dunbar Library. Before the restoration, The Oaks had a limited internal collection, and students mostly ordered books through the Indianapolis Public Library.

In addition to aesthetics, Broaddus wants to honor the legacy of the space by ensuring it benefits the community, not just private school students. He said that’s why he established the Mari Evans Residency for Artists and Authors of Color.

The residency, named for the acclaimed Black poet, writer, and Indianapolis resident Mari Evans, will bring in a renowned author for two weeks to meet with students as well as hold a public-facing event, like a lecture.

The public event is important to Broaddus, who cares about earning the neighborhood’s trust. He said some of the themes of the residency grew out of community feedback.

“If I’m over here operating like, ‘Oh, I know what we should do,’ I’m operating no differently than, frankly, any of the white institutions, just with a Black face in front of it,” he said. “I’m literally no more than a colonizer with brown skin at that point.”

During orientation, the students were intrigued with how the restored library space will be used.

Eighth grader Lazarus Manley said he likes the idea of going to the library after a long day.

“It just feels really cozy to be in, and I’m really excited to use it,” Manley said.

Haley Miller is a summer reporting intern covering education in the Indianapolis area. Contact Haley at hmiller@chalkbeat.org.

Milliken v. Bradley: 50 years later, teachers across the country reflect on the historic case

2024-07-29T15:00:00+00:00

Most of Alisha Washington-Hutton’s history students are familiar with Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1954 that ended state-sanctioned racial segregation in schools.

But few of them know about another decision by the court in a case closer to home that has affected integration efforts in metro Detroit for years.

That’s why she attended a two week institute, Democracy in Education: A View from Detroit, at the Walter P. Reuther Library. The program is giving her tools to teach her students in Royal Oak Schools about Milliken v. Bradley, a case 20 years later that ended plans for cross-district busing to integrate Detroit and suburban schools.

“I’m going to consider the long history of education and Black people’s fight for education. So we often think about Brown v. Board as the end of desegregation, but instead bringing to my kids these slightly more complicated stories I think will be to everybody’s benefit,” said Washington-Hutton, a teacher at Royal Oak Middle School.

She’s among 22 teachers from across the country who gathered at the Reuther library for the two-week program funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Discussions on Tuesday centered on the events leading up to Milliken v. Bradley and its long-term implications for school segregation. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision.

The historic case began when the NAACP filed a lawsuit against the state of Michigan on behalf of then-elementary school student Ronald Bradley. In 1972, U.S. District Judge Stephen Roth ordered 53 school districts, including Detroit, to create a cross-district plan to bus thousands of Black children to suburban schools, and thousands of white children to Detroit schools.

In 1974, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against the plan. Detroit then had to implement its own districtwide desegregation plan.

Thurgood Marshall, the only Black justice on the court at the time, said Detroit could not integrate its schools without working with the suburbs, as white residents fled the city and its demographics shifted to predominantly Black.

Washington-Hutton wanted to better understand the historical context behind the demographic differences between her district, which is largely white, and the Detroit Public Schools Community District, which is predominantly Black.

People often assume segregated schools or neighborhoods “happened organically,” she said. But people often make choices to segregate or integrate.

“Oftentimes when we can kind of just assume that it’s a natural thing, people just decide where to live, just based on, you know, they like the area, it hides a little bit of the structural racism that can go into the makeup of our schools,” Washington-Hutton said.

Inspired by the 50th anniversary of the case, Matthew Kautz, a professor at Eastern Michigan University, worked with his colleagues to form the institute. They wanted to engage educators from across the country in rigorous study of the legal history of school segregation, systemic oppression, and resistance.

Attendants first listened to Rev. Dan Aldridge, a veteran activist, discuss his experiences organizing for community control of Black schools in Detroit and New York. Kautz then walked educators through the history of desegregation efforts in Detroit and across the country that led up to Milliken v. Bradley.

Attendants then watched a documentary-in-progress by Donovan McCarty, a filmmaker and attorney at the Detroit Justice Center. They wrapped up the day with a discussion about the legacy of white flight and failed efforts to integrate city and suburban schools in metro Detroit.

“We wanted folks to be able to think within this institute and then take back to their students how to think about the complicated dynamics of schooling, education, race, and democracy,” Kautz said. “How do we work with students to make sense of that, given these are the places where they learn, and this is the world that we’re asking them to inherit and make sense of.”

Michele Smiley, who teaches U.S. history and African American History and Culture at Plymouth-Canton Educational Park, hopes to apply what she has learned to the curriculum. She already teaches Brown v. Board, but she said she felt there was a missing piece in her curriculum, a gap she hoped this institute would fill.

Lisa Landrum-May, who teaches high school English 10 and Advanced Placement African American Studies in Maryland, connected what she learned with her own experiences being bused to a predominantly white school as a Black kid in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the 1970s.

She remembers people telling her it was a great opportunity for her, but the experience harmed her. She did not feel like white parents and teachers wanted her there.

“This impacted my life for 50 years,” Landrum-May said.

At her old school, where all the faculty was Black, she recalls the teachers treating the children like their own. But things changed when she was bused a lengthy distance out of her neighborhood to a white school.

The new school had more resources, but her first teacher there tried to segregate Black and white students in the classroom and made her feel like she did not have the skills necessary to do well.

“They were thinking about holding me back, then they were saying maybe special ed” – where most of the Black students ended up, she said. “It affected me so deeply. I’m 58 years old, and I’m an English teacher. I’m very literate, I’m very articulate. I was afraid to read out loud up until like seven years ago.”

After hearing the impact busing had on students, Smiley already has ideas on how she will incorporate Milliken v. Bradley into her teaching. She hopes to give students a greater idea of the different opinions about solutions to the inequities caused by school segregation, particularly the push from some in the Black community for community control and equal funding instead of integration.

Tyrek Laing from Burbank, California found the opportunity to look at the connections between education and democracy appealing.

“I’m learning that even though we’re in different locations, there’s some fundamental challenges that we all face,” said Laing, a dean of student inclusion in grades 6-12 at an international private school. “Detroit has such a rich history of protest, of advocacy, and so learning the stories of people who are here and have been on the ground here throughout the years, was something that I felt like would be motivational and giving me strategy as well.”

Washington-Hutton and Smiley agreed that their favorite part of the institute has been connecting with educators from around the country and hearing their experiences. As a co-director, Kautz has appreciated the participants willingness to learn, be vulnerable, and engage with each other.

At one point, there was a moment where school integration seemed like a very real possibility,” Washington-Hutton said. “While learning all this information is great, I think part of it is really important because you learn with the Bradley case why it stops. Why we have all of this progress, progress, progress, and then we kind of just hit against the wall.”

Alex Klaus is a summer intern at Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at aklaus@chalkbeat.org.

A court order forced Fayette County schools to integrate. Will progress continue without it?

2024-05-17T21:17:49+00:00

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As in many school districts across the South, where segregation was once the law, it took protests and a court order to desegregate public schools in Fayette County, Tennessee.

That order came nearly a dozen years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which declared legally mandated racial segregation in schools unconstitutional.

Fayette County, a place where new homes are sprouting like spring grass in towns on its outskirts, is still operating under the 1965 order. The order has led to racially integrated schools, with Black and white students proportionally represented in most of the four elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school. Growing numbers of Hispanic students are also enrolling, and the current superintendent, Versie Ray Hamlett, is Black.

That’s a vast change from what 78-year-old Myles Wilson, a former Fayette County school superintendent and now a school board member, faced in 1963, when he was reading hand-me-down books at all-Black Fayette County Training School.

“The textbooks were terrible,” Wilson recalled. “Sometimes, entire pages would be destroyed. I guess they were tearing pages out because they knew they would be passed down to us.”

But, Wilson added, “We’ve made some great strides. We’ve had seven Black superintendents since 1984.”

Yet Wilson said he and other members of the community are worried that progress, so hard won, could erode once a new consent decree that the Justice Department issued in 2023 is satisfied – and the 1965 court order is lifted.

“A lot of Blacks feel like we shouldn’t be released from the consent decree, because they’ll go back to the old way, because that’s what’s happened in the rest of the country,” he said.

Many school districts across the country still have racially segregated schools, and school segregation has increased in the last three decades.

Sean Reardon, a professor of poverty and inequality in education at Stanford University and Ann Owens, a University of Southern California sociologist, released a study this month showing how an increase in school segregation has been driven by two factors: school districts being released from court oversight and an expansion in school choice policies, particularly the spread of charter schools.

That follows what Reardon and researchers at Stanford found in a 2012 study. According to their analysis, school districts released from desegregation orders in the two decades after 1990 began to resegregate. Ones that continued to be under judicial oversight did not.

“These results suggest that court-ordered desegregation plans are effective in reducing racial school segregation, but that their effects fade over time in the absence of continued court oversight,” the abstract said.

Fayette County’s long fight for civil rights

In Fayette County, the original court order to desegregate the schools was part of a protracted battle for civil rights, one that the New York Times described in 1969 as the “longest sustained civil rights protest in the nation.”

It began in 1959, when John McFerren and Harpman Jameson, both farmers and World War II veterans, attended the trial of Burton Dodson, a Black man who was accused of murder and had escaped a lynch mob.

McFerren and Jameson learned that because few Blacks were registered to vote, it would be impossible for Dodson to get a jury that wasn’t all-white. At the urging of Dodson’s lawyer, James Estes, McFerren and Jameson began to register Black sharecroppers to vote – a move that resulted in many of them being evicted by their white landlords.

Evicted families pitched tents on the outskirts of Somerville, the Fayette County seat, and activists from around the nation joined them.

The tent city disbanded in 1962 after the Justice Department sued the landowners, and the courts ordered them to stop interfering in the rights of Black people to vote or run for office. But the fight for racial justice was far from over – as Wilson would learn.

Myles Wilson poses for a portrait outside the Somerville Elementary School on Thurs., May 16, 2024 in Fayette County, Tennessee.

After graduating from Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, in 1967, Wilson was hired as a teacher at Fayette County Training School, arriving two years after the court order. He later sued the school system when he and all the single, Black male teachers were fired to prevent them from teaching white girls, he said.

The teachers were reinstated, and Wilson would file other lawsuits over the years to fight racial injustice in the system.

With his own battles for racial justice and desegregation behind him, Wilson fears that without the court order, Fayette County could backslide.

While the school district has satisfied many of the requirements of the court order, the new consent decree requires, among other things, that school officials work with the Justice Department and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to “develop an effective and sustainable student assignment policy to further desegregation in its schools.”

More white families are moving from Memphis to Oakland, a town in Fayette County, and demands are growing for a new high school there – even though the county’s only high school, Fayette-Ware High School, is under capacity, he said.

The school can accommodate 1,300 students, Wilson said, but currently enrolls about 833. Of those, 61% are Black, and 30% are white. He fears that the addition of a new high school could drive segregation.

Wilson also fears that the recent push for universal vouchers by Republican lawmakers – a battle that Gov. Bill Lee has vowed to revive next year – could also erode desegregation progress in Fayette County by giving families public dollars to enroll children in private schools.

One private school in the county, Fayette Academy, was established as an all-white school in 1965, as the desegregation order was handed down. In 1971, U.S. District Judge Robert McRae, whose orders led to school desegregation in Memphis and later upheld busing, called the school “a beautiful building sitting on top of a hill as a monument against the black people.”

The private Christian school remains predominantly white.

Daphene McFerren, daughter of John McFerren and whose brother John McFerren Jr. was one of the original plaintiffs in the desegregation lawsuit, said that if the order is lifted, it doesn’t have to mean the end of progress.

“I don’t want to speculate on where this can end up, because who knows?” said McFerren, who is the executive director of the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis.

But, McFerren said, the fact that the school district is abiding by the consent decree means they are cooperating.

“That should be acknowledged,” she said. “But we should be vigilant in that the goal of this is to eradicate any form of discrimination where it exists in the education of our children.”

McFerren, however, described it as a “Catch-22″ situation. Satisfying the consent decree should mean that the district has met its desegregation goals. But will the district continue to maintain those goals once the mechanism forcing it to do so is gone?

“Well, as I always say, a case can always be reopened,” McFerren said.

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Reach her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.

Read Thurgood Marshall’s powerful argument in Brown v. Board

2024-05-15T18:44:42+00:00

Read more of Chalkbeat's coverage of the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

In the months leading up to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision — 70 years ago this month — Thurgood Marshall, arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court, successfully challenged racial segregation in public schools. Then the NAACP’s chief legal counsel, Marshall would go on to become the nation’s first Black Supreme Court Justice. His December 8, 1953 remarks before the high court are below. Chalkbeat has added links for context.

It follows that with education, this Court has made segregation and inequality equivalent concepts. They have equal rating, equal footing, and if segregation thus necessarily imports inequality, it makes no great difference whether we say that the Negro is wronged because he is segregated, or that he is wronged because he received unequal treatment…

I would like to say that each lawyer on the other side has made it clear as to what the position of the state was on this, and it would be all right possibly but for the fact that this is so crucial. There is no way you can repay lost school years.

These children in these cases are guaranteed by the states some 12 years of education in varying degrees, and this idea, if I understand it, to leave it to the states until they work it out — and I think that is a most ingenious argument — you leave it to the states, they say, and then they say that the states haven’t done anything about it in a hundred years, so for that reason this Court doesn’t touch it.

The argument of judicial restraint has no application in this case. There is a relationship between federal and state, but there is no corollary or relationship as to the Fourteenth Amendment.

The duty of enforcing, the duty of following the Fourteenth Amendment, is placed upon the states. The duty of enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment is placed upon this Court, and the argument that they make over and over again to my mind is the same type of argument they charge us with making, the same argument Charles Sumner made. Possibly so.

And we hereby charge them with making the same argument that was made before the Civil War, the same argument that was made during the period between the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Plessy v. Ferguson case.

And I think it makes no progress for us to find out who made what argument. It is our position that whether or not you base this case solely on the Intent of Congress or whether you base it on the logical extension of the doctrine as set forth in the McLaurin case, on either basis the same conclusion is required, which is that this Court makes it clear to all of these states that in administering their governmental functions, at least those that are vital not to the life of the state alone, not to the country alone, but vital to the world in general, that little pet feelings of race, little pet feelings of custom — I got the feeling on hearing the discussion yesterday that when you put a white child in a school with a whole lot of colored children, the child would fall apart or something. Everybody knows that is not true.

Those same kids in Virginia and South Carolina — and I have seen them do it — they play in the streets together, they play on their farms together, they go down the road together, they separate to go to school, they come out of school and play ball together. They have to be separated in school.

There is some magic to it. You can have them voting together, you can have them not restricted because of law in the houses they live in. You can have them going to the same state university and the same college, but if they go to elementary and high school, the world will fall apart. And it is the exact same argument that has been made to this Court over and over again, and we submit that when they charge us with making a legislative argument, it is in truth they who are making the legislative argument.

They can’t take race out of this case. From the day this case was filed until this moment, nobody has in any form or fashion, despite the fact I made it clear in the opening argument that I was relying on it, done anything to distinguish this statute from the Black Codes, which they must admit, because nobody can dispute, say anything anybody wants to say, one way or the other, the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to deprive the states of power to enforce Black Codes or anything else like it.

We charge that they are Black Codes. They obviously are Black Codes if you read them. They haven’t denied that they are Black Codes, so if the Court wants to very narrowly decide this case, they can decide it on that point.

So whichever way it is done, the only way that this Court can decide this case in opposition to our position, is that there must be some reason which gives the state the right to make a classification that they can make in regard to nothing else in regard to Negroes, and we submit the only way to arrive at that decision is to find that for some reason Negroes are inferior to all other human beings.

Nobody will stand in the Court and urge that, and in order to arrive at the decision that they want us to arrive at, there would have to be some recognition of a reason why of all of the multitudinous groups of people in this country you have to single out Negroes and give them this separate treatment.

It can’t be because of slavery in the past, because there are very few groups in this country that haven’t had slavery some place back in history of their groups. It can’t be color because there are Negroes as white as the drifted snow, with blue eyes, and they are just as segregated as the colored man.

The only thing can be is an inherent determination that the people who were formerly in slavery, regardless of anything else, shall be kept as near that stage as is possible, and now is the time, we submit, that this Court should make it clear that that is not what our Constitution stands for.

Thank you, sir.

‘Colorblind’ policies and vouchers could undermine impact of Brown desegregation ruling, professor says

2024-05-15T17:38:38+00:00

Read more of Chalkbeat's coverage of the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

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When Daniel Kiel was a student at Grahamwood Elementary and White Station High School in the 1980s and 1990s, he knew he was getting a good education.

What he didn’t know was whether most of the Black students in his school were receiving the same.

“I was in the optional program at those schools, but it was a school within a school, which meant there was a traditional program alongside it,” said Kiel, now a constitutional law professor at the University of Memphis.

“While Grahamwood and White Station were extraordinarily diverse compared to many Memphis schools at the time, my classrooms were not. My classrooms were 80% to 90% white students, which meant that the other classes were 80% to 90% Black students.”

That experience, plus many others, set Kiel on a mission to explore why his classrooms looked the way they did, the history behind it all, and a system that continues to grapple with how to provide a quality education for all students.

The mission took him to Harvard Law School and to private law practice in Boston before he received a Fulbright scholarship and became a professor at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at the University of Memphis. His scholarly work centers on race and education — work that led him to produce a documentary in 2011 titled “The Memphis 13,” chronicling the stories of the first Black students to attend all-white public elementary schools in Memphis in 1961.

That was seven years after the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, that declared that mandated school segregation was unconstitutional.

This month marks the 70th anniversary of that decision. In recognition of that milestone, Chalkbeat spoke with Kiel about how the ruling influenced his interest in educational equity, the current state of school desegregation, and how new laws and interpretations of racial justice are poised to undermine it.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How did the Brown decision influence your life and decision to pursue constitutional law?

By the time I was graduating college and entering law school, I was a huge admirer of Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Defense Fund, and the idea of lawyers forcing the country to grapple with injustice. So it was that idea that took me to law school.

When I was in law school, it was actually around the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, so there was some interesting coursework that I was allowed to take. We had studied Little Rock, Charlotte and Detroit … . I knew there was a connection to Memphis, and I knew from my experiences there wasn’t education justice in Memphis.

It was at that point that I started digging into the Memphis schools as part of a curiosity project as to why my schools looked like they did.

Describe what happened in the seven years between 1954, when Brown outlawed legal segregation, and 1961, when the first Black children were enrolled in Memphis’ all-white elementary schools.

For the first few years, and not just in Tennessee, there’s this thought (in Southern states) that they won’t have to abide by the ruling. Then the (Tennessee) legislature took race out of school assignments, with freedom of choice (a plan in which schools still had the discretion to deny Black student requests to enroll in all-white schools), but that still allowed local schools to maintain segregation.

That spurred the 1960 Memphis lawsuit Northcross v. Memphis City Schools, and led to the first Black students being allowed to attend white elementary schools in 1961. After the courts ordered desegregation efforts to be stepped up in the late 1960s, the process accelerated.

Still, in the 1970s, most students were still operating in segregated environments.

How do your students react to lessons about school segregation and how it was the law of the land before Brown?

They’re surprised. My students come with a range of familiarity with that story, so there’s definitely students who know that story well and aren’t surprised by it, and know how things unfolded afterward, but there also are those students who think that when the Supreme Court ruled, that was that, and all of a sudden segregation went away.

For some of my students, a lot of unlearning has to happen before they’re learning. In a particular course I teach, Education and Civil Rights, we use the Brown story and narrative as a case study to set up other kinds of pushes toward educational justice that have occurred in the United States, whether they are based on poverty, immigration status, or disability, or sex. It’s a touchstone case that the students enjoy grappling with methodically.

Recently, the Tennessee legislature tried to pass a voucher law permitting anyone, regardless of income, to use public money to pay for private school for their children. What are your thoughts on whether this universal voucher bill — which Gov. Bill Lee has vowed to reintroduce next year — will worsen school segregation?

Vouchers are hard to talk about, because the theory behind them is an attractive one, which is to give every student a chance at opportunity regardless of their circumstances. But there’s a risk involved in disabling the schools that are more likely to serve large numbers of disadvantaged students — especially in Shelby County, and in the state more broadly.

But I think about history and the way things pop up repeatedly in different guises, and in the 1950s, one of the first responses to Brown in Virginia, and one of the ways they resisted the court order, was for the school system to shut down and not have public education anymore. While that seemed awful and shortsighted, what made it worse was that they provided vouchers to students who wanted to attend private schools. But of course, the private schools were openly discriminatory and exclusive, so what vouchers were, in that instance, (was) a mechanism to maintain segregation.

Vouchers, in their 21st century form, aren’t those things precisely, but they are consistent with the idea that it’s not us, the people, the community, that is responsible for education, but that education is an individualized thing. You create an unequal playing field when you give an individual control of those things, because the way that those laws get passed, and the way vouchers typically show up, is that not every school has to take them. Students and families are often responsible for their own transportation, so that’s an access issue, and then the things that happen inside schools once they’re there can be hateful and hurtful and stigmatizing, and there’s no support for that within a voucher program.

I think the theory behind vouchers is an attractive one. It sort of draws me to the work of pushing for education equity more broadly, but in practice it has never served that goal.

What other developments do you believe can undermine the promise of Brown?

It’s not hard to look at the landscape of the way we do education and find disparities that look like the disparities from 70 years ago. They’re not the same in that the law doesn’t specifically mandate them, but it’s easy to find those disparities, and they’re discouraging.

In my space, I look at the way the U.S. Supreme Court has, in particular, transformed the Brown decision not into a decision about remedying historical injustices, but into a decision about colorblindness and government race-neutrality. I feel like neutrality didn’t get it done in 1955, and I don’t think neutrality is likely to get it done today.

The law is moving in a direction where it’s a little harder to see where you can push for the kinds of educational investments that are needed to produce equal education opportunities today. That’s one thing. But I think part of the reason why the disparities still exist is a broader lack of will from all of us that something should be done.

It’s easy to say equal opportunity should exist, but it’s harder to turn that into action and policy and results. It’s not impossible, but one thing I think is important is to lift up teachers and families and community groups and advocates who are pushing for this every day, and who are succeeding.

So, how should we view the Brown decision through today’s lens?

The story that most people want to tell about Brown is one of missed opportunities, and I think there’s something to that. But there’s been a huge increase in educational attainment in our society since 1954.

If we’re looking at high school graduation and college attendance and employment figures, achievements that were unthinkable in Black communities are now the norm. There has been a lot of progress.

I try not to lose sight of the fact that a lot has changed since 1954, and that a lot of people are still working on that.

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Reach her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.

Teachers can challenge Tennessee law limiting instruction on race, gender, and bias, judge rules

2024-05-09T21:45:13+00:00

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Tennessee teachers can move forward with their lawsuit challenging a 3-year-old state law restricting what they can teach about race, gender, and bias.

U.S. District Court Judge Aleta Trauger denied the state’s motion to dismiss the case.

The Nashville judge also sided with educators over questions of whether they have legal grounds to sue the state, plus whether the federal court is the appropriate jurisdiction to take up complaints about the 2021 state law.

And in a 50-page memorandum to explain her single-page order, Trauger was frequently critical of the statute, which restricts teachers from discussing 14 concepts that the Republican-controlled legislature deemed cynical or divisive. She also cited shortcomings of related rules, developed by the state education department, to outline the processes for filing and investigating complaints, appealing decisions, and levying punishment that could strip teachers of their licenses and school districts of state funding.

“The Act simply invites a vast array of potentially dissatisfied individuals to lodge complaints based on their understanding of those concepts and then calls on the Commissioner [of Education], as a sort of state philosopher, to think deeply about what equality, impartiality, and other abstract concepts really mean and enforce the Act accordingly,” Trauger wrote in her May 2 memorandum.

Meanwhile, educators are at the mercy of the personal biases of authorities, which is “exactly what the doctrine of unconstitutional vagueness is intended to guard against,” she said.

The so-called prohibited concepts law was among the first of its kind in the nation that passed amid a conservative backlash to the racial-justice movement and protests prompted by the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis.

Among its prohibitions are classroom discussions about whether “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.”

The law’s defenders note that it permits an “impartial discussion of controversial aspects of history,” or as Rep. John Ragan, the House sponsor, described it: “facts-based” instruction.

But teachers say they don’t know how to be impartial when teaching about the theories of racial superiority that led to slavery and Jim Crow laws. The resulting confusion has influenced the small but pivotal decisions they make every day about how to prepare for a lesson, what materials to use, and how to answer a student’s question, ultimately stifling classroom discussion, many critics of the law assert.

Last July, lawyers for five public school educators and the Tennessee Education Association, the state’s largest teacher organization, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Nashville.

The suit says the language of the law is unconstitutionally vague and that the state’s enforcement plan is subjective. The complaint also says the statute interferes with instruction on difficult but important topics included in state-approved academic standards, which dictate other decisions around curriculum and testing.

Trauger, who taught school for three years before entering law school, suggested that the ambiguity could lead to a lack of due process for educators under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

“That does not mean that a law has to be wise or perfect or crystal clear, but it must mean something concrete and specific that a well-informed person can understand by reading its text,” she wrote in her memorandum.

Kathryn Vaughn, a Tipton County teacher who is among the plaintiffs, called the judge’s decision an important early step in the legal challenge.

“I’m thrilled that the judge listened to our concerns as educators and seemed to understand that this law puts teachers in an impossible position,” she told Chalkbeat on Thursday.

A spokesperson for the state attorney general’s office, which filed a motion for dismissal last September, declined to comment on the new development.

The judge set a June 17 scheduling meeting with attorneys in the case to discuss how to manage the litigation going forward.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to show the state attorney general’s office declined to comment.

A young Memphis student’s letter on gun violence is featured in new Ruby Bridges book

2024-05-08T20:17:15+00:00

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If it wasn’t for Ruby Bridges, Ben Williams’ circle of friends would be smaller — and whiter.

That’s why, when the 11-year-old Grahamwood Elementary School student read about how Bridges endured death threats and racial slurs to attend all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in 1960, he wrote a letter thanking her.

“You changed the world with your courage and your bravery,” Ben wrote. “Without you I might not have the same friends I have today… .”

Ben’s letter is now a work of children’s literature.

In 2022, Grahamwood’s third, fourth and fifth graders wrote letters to Bridges about how they wanted to change the world. After receiving more than 900 letters, a committee sent 10 of those letters to Bridges.

Ben, who was in third grade at the time, wrote about his dream for people to summon the courage to stop gun violence, just as Bridges, as a 6-year-old, summoned the courage to walk into an all-white school in spite of taunts and threats.

Bridges said Ben’s letter resonated with her because her oldest son, Craig Hall, was fatally shot in New Orleans in 2005. It was ultimately featured as one of 12 children’s letters in Bridges’ latest book, titled “Dear Ruby: Hear Our Hearts.”

On May 4, Ben got a chance to read his letter in the book on stage alongside Bridges, who was in Memphis for the Ruby Bridges Reading Festival at the National Civil Rights Museum, where hundreds of books by her and other authors were given away.

“I hope I can help to change gun violence,” Ben’s letter reads. “Even though you can try and change kids’ points of view about gun control, you still need to change adults’ points of view. It’s like some of them do not understand the importance of gun control.

“If everyone had the courage you had, then maybe my dream would come true,” Ben wrote.

Ben said he was excited to meet Bridges, and to have his voice heard— which was why Bridges wrote the book.

For decades, she said, she had been receiving thousands of letters from children who learned of her story, and she thought it was past time to find a way to use them.

“I went through them, and I found letters from kids such as a little girl who said she had to be brave and call 911, ‘because my father was hitting my mom,’” Bridges said.

Bridges said she decided to solicit more recent letters from children on issues that they wanted to fix.

“I can’t begin to tell you how many boxes of letters we got,” she said. “I thought that as parents and as adults, we should hear their hearts, because many times, we underestimate our kids.

“Even at 6, my parents underestimated my thoughts,” she said. “So this was a way of showing the world what our kids were thinking about.”

Ben said one of the reasons he wants to end gun violence is that his mother, a child welfare lawyer, deals with many children who are exposed to gun violence.

It’s a huge problem. Last year, gun violence was the leading external cause of death for children in Tennessee. And in Memphis, by the end of 2023, trauma physicians at LeBonheur Children’s Hospital had treated 165 children for gunshot wounds — a record for a year — according to a report in The Commercial Appeal.

Nonetheless, Ben said he believes that people can fix that — just as Bridges helped to end legal segregation in New Orleans.

“Her story was about how so many people said ‘no,’ but she said ‘yes,’” Ben said. “All it takes is one.”

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Reach her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.

As tensions flare in parent councils, NYC sees a surge in misconduct complaints

2024-03-13T19:19:25+00:00

Fierce debates and in-fighting within New York City’s parent education councils are hardly new.

But as tensions escalated during the pandemic, the Education Department created its first formal process to investigate complaints of harassment and discrimination among these parent leaders and issue sanctions.

That process, after getting off to a slow start, is now facing its first major test amid a surge of misconduct allegations against parents on these boards.

A total of 36 grievances have been filed this school year against parents elected to the city’s Community Education Councils, according to the Education Department. That’s up from five such complaints last year.

Debates in the councils have simmered for years over proposals to strip selective admissions criteria in an effort to racially integrate schools. Conflicts exploded during the pandemic, both locally and across the country, over school closures and masking requirements. And sharp divides have continued this year over rhetoric about LGBTQ youth and the Israel-Hamas war.

“I think what we’re seeing now is a national political fight that has found its way into education,” said Tracy Jordan, the president of Community Education Council 22 in southern Brooklyn, who recently faced accusations of antisemitism from a local City Council member and some parents over a decision to hold a meeting on a Friday night. (Jordan said she cleared the meeting time in advance with all the members of the council, including Jewish members, and that it was a special meeting that didn’t have a public comment portion, so no one was excluded from speaking.)

Jordan doesn’t know for sure if any complaints have been filed against her, but said even the threat of them can “cause concern.”

The spike in grievances, called D-210 complaints, is also a sign that parent leaders are finally making use of the disciplinary process, which was rolled out in December 2021, at the height of the pandemic, and met with deeply divided reactions. Some parents at the time shared personal accounts of racism, harassment, and doxxing at the hands of fellow parent leaders, and they argued it was long past time for city officials to take a stronger role in enforcing behavior norms.

But other parents, including members of PLACE NYC, or Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, a group that supports selective school admissions, argued that the regulation is overly broad, could have a chilling effect on political speech, and gives the Education Department too much power to regulate independent parent leaders.

The resolution ultimately passed, but the process has taken years to get up and running.

City has yet to share outcomes of investigations

When the Education Department receives a complaint, an “equity compliance officer” is supposed to investigate, and within 60 days must turn over their findings to a council of parent leaders elected by their fellow CEC members. That council must then issue recommendations to schools Chancellor David Banks.

The Education Department only hired the equity compliance officer in February 2023, more than a year after the position was created.

Education Department officials said parent leaders recently elected representatives from their home boroughs to the council responsible for reviewing the investigations, though a spokesperson declined to name its members.

Many parents didn’t know about the grievance process or trust that it would yield any results, said NeQuan McLean, the president of District 16′s CEC in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and head of the Education Council Consortium, a group of parent leaders who pushed for the regulation.

“Now that those elements are in place, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the number of discrimination complaints increased,” he said. “The fact that people are filing complaints demonstrates that the regulation and civil rights protections were needed.”

But how the disciplinary process will play out in practice largely remains to be seen.

Potential disciplinary outcomes range from an order from the chancellor to stop the behavior in question to immediate removal if the behavior is criminal, poses a danger to students, or “is contrary to the best interest of the New York City school district.” For lower level offenses, sanctioned council members get an opportunity to reconcile with their colleagues.

An Education Department spokesperson declined to share whether any of the probes have led to discipline.

Camille Casaretti, a member of the Citywide Council on High Schools, said the process “takes too long,” adding that she knows of complaints made during the CEC elections last spring that are still pending.

Meanwhile, some parents are losing their patience.

At a February meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy, multiple parents implored Education Department officials to remove members of the CEC on Manhattan’s District 2 who made comments in a private group text chat that denied the existence of transgender kids and referred in graphic terms to the genitalia of a gay state lawmaker, according to The 74. Maud Maron, one of the CEC 2 members in the private chat, declined to answer questions about whether she is the target of any complaints, but told Chalkbeat that “defending the rights of girls and women is not anti-trans.”

Separately, some students and parents at Stuyvesant High School are pushing for Maron to be removed from the School Leadership Team.

Banks, who makes the final call on discipline for elected parent leaders, called the comments “despicable” and “not in line with our values.”

“One of the things I will tell you in the two years I have been chancellor that has been the greatest disappointment to me is to see on a daily basis an example of parents behaving badly,” Banks said. “I’ve tried to give this some time to allow adults to be adults. But when you realize they refuse to do that … we are going to begin to take action.”

Tensions continue to flare in CECs

The conflict in CEC 2 isn’t the only one to draw significant attention this year.

CEC 14 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has been locked in a dispute over whether to resume in-person meetings, following a backlash to CEC President Tajh Sutton’s support for a student walkout calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Sutton and other CEC members say they’ve received violent threats, including a package containing feces mailed to the council’s office, and don’t feel safe meeting in person. Critics have accused CEC members of blocking pro-Israel speakers from participating in online meetings – an allegation the CEC members deny.

Sutton said she’s filed D-210 complaints, and she knows she’s the target of multiple complaints. She was initially supportive of the disciplinary process, but doesn’t believe it’s working as intended. She faulted the Education Department for watering down language in the original proposal that referenced specific forms of discrimination, including against transgender people. She said it also took too long to get the process in motion, which caused some parents to lose trust in the process.

“They’re going to have to contend with the fact that this regulation written by parent leaders under attack at the time is now being weaponized against parent leaders under attack,” she said.

Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull said “parent input has been considered at every stage of developing this process, which helps us ensure an inclusive and respectful environment for all members of our school communities.”

It’s not just the high-profile conflicts garnering media attention that are spurring D-210 complaints. Parent leaders and Education Department officials said the grievances are coming from a wide range of districts.

“In other councils, yes we have D-210 complaints that have been filed, many of which over the last several months,” said Deputy Chancellor Kenita Lloyd in a February meeting. “That process is ongoing.”

In District 22, CEC president Jordan said she’s still managing the fallout from media coverage of her Friday night meeting flap with local City Council member Inna Vernikov, a vocal supporter of Israel who recently made headlines for bringing a gun to a pro-Palestine student rally.

“It was really disappointing and deflating,” Jordan said of the experience. “When you’re accused of something it’s a blemish and doesn’t go away easily.” The whole process has made her question whether getting involved in her CEC was worth it.

She said she supports the idea of a code of conduct for parent leaders, but worries that the Education Department hasn’t done enough to train CEC members on what the code entails and what accountability would look like.

Still, she hopes that the Education Department can distinguish between frivolous complaints and ones that target clearly out-of-bounds behavior.

“At the end of the day, we should be open-minded,” she said. “But when we start causing harm, that is a problem.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Should kids learn about LGBTQ issues at school? Many teachers and teens say no, new surveys find.

2024-02-23T21:21:25+00:00

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Should elementary schoolers learn that people of the same gender can love each other? Do teens want to learn about how slavery’s legacy matters today? Should parents be able to opt their kids out of lessons they disagree with?

As Republican-dominated state legislatures limit how teachers talk about race and restrict transgender children’s access to bathrooms and sports, and as school board elections turn on book bans and parents’ rights, three new national studies from the Pew Research Center, the research corporation RAND, and the University of Southern California’s Center for Applied Research in Education shed light on how teachers, parents, and students themselves think about these questions.

For all the attention LGBTQ issues receive in national politics, teachers said topics related to gender identity and sexual orientation rarely come up. And many said they don’t believe these topics should be taught in school.

In fact, large swaths of the public also don’t think gender and sexuality should be discussed in school, the studies found. However, there were wide partisan divides, as well as differences along racial and ethnic lines.

Adults and teens felt more comfortable with teachers teaching about racism than LGBTQ issues. They were also more comfortable with teachers talking about past injustices than present-day inequality, and more comfortable with gay rights than trans rights. And they were more comfortable with any of these topics coming up at the high school level — though many teens reported their own discomfort.

So it is perhaps unsurprising that two-thirds of teachers in one study said they decided on their own to limit how they talked about potentially contentious issues. One reason: They feared confrontations with upset parents.

“The topics of race and LGBTQ issues are often lumped together in discussions about these so-called ‘culture wars’ and how that’s playing out in K-12 education,” said Luona Lin, a research associate at Pew. But teachers and students actually “feel very different about these two topics.”

Here are some of the major takeaways of the three new reports:

Many teachers are censoring themselves

More than a third of American teachers work in states with laws restricting how teachers talk about issues that are considered divisive or controversial. But a study released this month by the research organization RAND found local restrictions and teachers’ own fears are having an effect as well.

In a survey of 1,500 teachers taken last year, two-thirds reported deciding on their own to limit how they talked about social and political issues in the classroom. Meanwhile, about half of teachers told RAND they were subject to either a state or local restriction. These limits could be formal, such as a school board policy, or informal, such as a principal’s comments.

More than 80% of those who were subject to a local restriction said they had made changes to their teaching, regardless of state law. That should not be surprising, said Ashley Woo, an assistant policy researcher at RAND.

“If your principal is telling you to do something, that is the person who is there with you at the school and can see what is happening in your classroom,” she said.

At the same time, more than half of teachers who were not subject to any restrictions said they had limited how they talked about certain topics, with self-censoring more common in conservative communities but still widespread in liberal ones.

A major reason teachers cited for limiting instruction, especially in communities with local restrictions, was a fear of confrontation with upset parents and that their administration would not support them if they faced a challenge.

LGBTQ issues raised less often than racism in classrooms

Though LGBTQ issues are prominent in local and national politics, a report released this week reveals a striking finding: Most teachers say gender identity and sexual orientation hardly get discussed in class — and many teachers say they shouldn’t be.

According to a nationally representative survey conducted last fall by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, more than two-thirds of K-12 public school teachers said topics related to sexual orientation and gender identity rarely or never came up in their classroom last school year. Around 3 in 10 said the topics came up sometimes or often.

Half of teachers, meanwhile, said they thought students shouldn’t learn about gender identity at school, with an even higher share of elementary school teachers agreeing with that view.

The findings come as anti-trans legislation creates a more hostile environment for gender non-conforming youth in many states.

In contrast, more than half of teachers said they discussed topics related to racism or racial inequality at least sometimes. Around 4 in 10 teachers said the issues rarely or never came up.

Nearly two-thirds of teachers said students should learn about slavery and how it affects the lives of Black Americans today, while just under a quarter said slavery should be taught only as a component of history — without any bearing on the present.

Lin, the Pew report’s lead author, says it’s likely that school board policies, local politics, and state laws are influencing what teachers discuss, though the survey doesn’t measure those factors.

What should young kids learn about gender and sexuality?

In Searching for Common Ground, a study released this week by a team at the University of Southern California, researchers surveyed a representative sample of 3,900 adults, about half of them parents of school-aged children, and asked them about dozens of scenarios related to race, sexuality, and gender.

Democrats were more comfortable than Republicans with almost every scenario, with independents and others roughly in the middle. But even Democrats were less supportive of discussing gender identity or asking students’ pronouns in elementary school than discussing racism or different family structures.

Nearly half of all respondents thought it was appropriate for an elementary teacher to have a picture of their same-sex spouse on their desk. And almost as many were OK with elementary students reading a book about two male penguins adopting a baby penguin.

But just 30% of respondents and only half of Democrats thought it was appropriate for an elementary classroom to display LGBTQ-friendly decorations, such as a Pride flag.

Democrats were far more likely to want gay or trans children to see themselves reflected at school, while Republicans were far more likely to fear discussing these topics would change children, leading to them thinking they are gay or trans.

“The largest partisan examples seem to have to do with LGBTQ and family issues in elementary school,” said Morgan Polikoff, a USC education professor and one of the study’s lead authors. “Democrats think that kids can handle that and Republicans do not.”

The rollout of Advanced Placement African American Studies reflects widespread interest among some students and teachers in learning more diverse history, but some conservatives have targeted the course.

More students feel comfortable discussing racism than LGBTQ issues

Students in grades 8-12 also tend to feel less comfortable discussing LGBTQ issues than issues of race and racism at school, and are more likely to say they shouldn’t be learning about them, the Pew report found.

In a nationally representative survey of 13- to 17-year-olds conducted last fall, around 4 in 10 teens said they felt comfortable when topics related to racism or racial inequality came up in class.

But only around 3 in 10 said the same about topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity. And just under half of teens said they shouldn’t learn about gender identity at school. That rate was somewhat higher for teens who identified as Republicans than Democrats.

Only 11% of teens, meanwhile, said they shouldn’t learn about slavery. Around half said they should learn about slavery and how it affects the lives of Black Americans today, while 40% said they should learn about slavery only in a historical context.

Black teens and teens who identify as Democrats were much more likely than white, Hispanic, or Republican teens to say they want to learn about how the legacy of slavery affects Black people today — a finding echoed among Black parents and Black teachers in other surveys.

Bridging these divides is tricky

The University of Southern California study found strong support for public education across the political spectrum.

But there’s a gap of nearly 39 percentage points between Democrats and Republicans on whether public schools should teach children to embrace differences. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats said yes, compared with just over a third of Republicans.

This underlying belief was a strong predictor of responses to specific scenarios. Those who said kids shouldn’t be taught to embrace differences also expressed more discomfort with race, gender, and sexuality being discussed in the classroom.

“Democrats on average think schools are exactly the place to do this — it’s one of the last places where everyone comes together regardless of their differences,” Polikoff said. “And Republicans don’t think that is an appropriate role for schools. And they think that because they perceive, in part correctly, that schools are a liberalizing force.”

There was broad support for parents having the right to opt their child out of certain lessons, but when researchers prompted respondents to consider downsides, such as their child missing out on the opportunity to learn critical thinking skills, support fell.

Understanding the values that drive differences and building on common ground, such as agreement that children should read books by authors of color and learn about historic injustices, could lead to a healthier conversation than what’s happening now.

“We need to have this conversation,” he said. “Instead we have Ron DeSantis saying we’ll ban everything, and Democrats sticking their fingers in their ears and saying you’re all bigots.”

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

These Chicago middle schoolers have big ideas for improving their neighborhood

2024-02-01T21:35:08+00:00

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Standing next to a 3D model of the Altgeld Gardens neighborhood spread across a conference room table, eighth grader Rondell Sims gave a call to action to a room of city officials and classmates.

“As development comes to our community, you all will be advocates alongside in creation of a plan that is for us, by us,” Rondell said during a presentation on Wednesday inside the Altgeld Gardens Chicago Public Library Branch.

Rondell and his fellow middle schoolers at Aldridge Elementary were laying out a vision for the future of Altgeld Gardens that would include a grocery store, a new recreation center, public art by a planned new public transit stop, and a museum to honor Hazel Johnson, the “mother of the environmental justice movement” who lived in the neighborhood and fought against air pollution and toxic conditions in the community.

“You can’t really speak on something that you don’t live,” Rondell said after the formal presentation ended. “I feel like by us adding these things to the community and making more things that will be better for the people that’s in the community is just amazing. It will give a better name for our community.”

The project — that allowed middle schoolers to play the role of city planner and propose changes to their community — is the culmination of more than two years of collaboration between Aldridge teachers and the Field Museum.

“The work that we do in schools can’t just be isolated to grades,” said Principal Afua Agyeman-Badu. ”I wanted them to see the power that exists within them to make decisions and create a plan about what it is that they want for this place.”

Built in 1945 by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to house Black veterans returning from World War II, Altgeld Gardens is a planned community made up of mostly three-story townhomes operated by the Chicago Housing Authority.

The neighborhood — near the site of the old steel mills and the Pullman factory — sits 19 miles from Chicago’s Loop at 130th Street and has no access to the city’s public transit system, which ends at 95th Street. City officials have been talking about extending the Red Line for decades, but the project now appears on the cusp of becoming a reality.

Agyeman-Badu said the Red Line extension project is a learning opportunity for Aldridge students.

“I want them to be able to one day see when the ribbon is cut for them to see their ideas as a part of that plan for the Red Line extension,” Agyeman-Badu said.

Raven Mayo, Aldridge’s middle school science teacher, said the students have been working on this project since sixth grade and it’s evolved over time. The news of the Red Line extension prompted engaging discussions in class when students questioned why the community doesn’t have access to public transit and is isolated from the rest of Chicago.

“This created an opportunity for them to share their gripes in a productive way,” Mayo said. “Like this is what we deserve, just like the rest of the city.”

“The kids are speaking, they have a voice, their voice matters, their desires matter, they’re the future.” Mayo said. “In the next five years, they’ll be working adults, and they need to have access to get it downtown and to be a part of the workforce in Chicago.”

Bill Mooney, chief infrastructure officer for the Chicago Transit Authority, and other city officials attended the presentation on Wednesday to give feedback and take notes.

“This is one of the coolest things I’ve been able to participate in my 26 years at CTA.” Mooney said. “We are in a unique moment. Not often does what’s right, and what’s possible align.”

He urged the students to keep fighting to bring their ideas to fruition. The Red Line extension project cleared a hurdle last fall in the process to secure nearly $2 billion in federal funding, but the final award won’t be determined until late 2024. It’s not expected to be completed until 2029.

Jasmine Gunn, a city planner for the Far South Region with Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development, said often community meetings draw an older demographic, so it was refreshing to see the youth perspective.

“They’re gonna be living in this community longer than any of us,” Gunn said. “To start any development, we need the vision and seeing their vision is really great. I’m actually trying to set up a field trip for our staff to come look at the presentation.”

Eleanor Sweeney, an educator with The Field Museum who works with the Aldridge students, said students are more likely to be engaged with learning when there’s a connection to their own lives. They also have so many good ideas.

“If anyone is making decisions about the future of their neighborhood, consult your local middle schoolers,” Sweeney said with a smile.

Terrence Perry, an eighth grader who worked on the public art piece of the project, said he’s hopeful that city officials will pick up some of their ideas.

“Once everybody sees it? They’re gonna be like, “Oh, I get what they’re trying to do,’” Terrence said. “A lot of people are gonna want to move out here.”

He stood near the 3D model on the conference room table and pointed to a tiny display near his home. It read: “Power and peace starts within me.”

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

How a George Floyd book event at Whitehaven H.S. got squeezed by Tennessee law

2023-11-07T16:24:27+00:00

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Students at Memphis’ Whitehaven High School got a chance last month to hear from journalists Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, authors of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book on George Floyd — his life, his brutal killing by police in 2020, and its aftermath.

But the students didn’t get to hear any excerpts from “His Name Is George Floyd,” and they weren’t allowed to take home copies of the book from school. The authors had to give their presentation without going too deep into the book’s main theme of systemic racism.

Who determined the restrictions and why is unclear. The organizers of the event, a local partnership called Memphis Reads, said their instructions to the authors were based on guidance from the school district on complying with Tennessee law that requires that books used in school be “age appropriate.”

Memphis-Shelby County Schools officials disputed their account, but repeatedly declined to answer questions about what they told the organizers or how they interpreted the law. In an email to the authors after the event, district communications chief Cathryn Stout said MSCS did not run the book through its review process before the visit.

In the end, the authors told Chalkbeat, the students who gathered at Whitehaven that day were shortchanged by restricted access to the book and a censored experience.

“Neither Tolu nor I know who to cast blame on,” Samuels said. “I’m not sure we could, or we should.”

But the ambiguous restrictions in this and other Tennessee laws have caused concern at the local level about compliance, Samuels said, resulting in “messy, potentially explosive debates between entities that usually get along.”

What is Memphis Reads?

Memphis Reads is a 12-year-old community reading program based at Christian Brothers University.

Each year, a selection committee chooses a book and brings the author or authors to Memphis to speak at CBU and Rhodes College, another partner. The program focuses on first year students at each school, but expands to include students at one public high school. The selected book usually relates to Memphis in some way.

This year, for instance, a CBU assignment asked students to relate the book’s themes to Memphis, where five police officers were charged in the death of Tyre Nichols. Nichols died in January, three days after officers beat him during a traffic stop. His death brought on federal investigations that have pushed Memphis to reexamine the relationship between its police and its people.

The five officers were fired after an internal investigation. One of the officers accepted a plea deal Thursday.

“The whole point of it … . is that we want to build community one book at a time,” said Justin Brooks, who has led the event since 2021 as CBU’s director of community engagement.

George Floyd killing sparked a movement, then a backlash

Floyd was killed during an arrest in May 2020, when a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee onto Floyd’s neck for several minutes. An onlooker’s video recording of the event went public, triggering a huge outcry and calls for and policing reform. The officer was ultimately convicted of second-degree murder.

Samuels and Olonnuripa’s book, written while both were reporters at the Washington Post, looks not just at the incident but also at how pervasive racism in education, criminal justice, housing, and health care systems shaped Floyd’s life. “We learned about the man himself … and much more than how he died,” Samuels said during a forum at Rhodes College.

They also wrote about what happened afterward: a season of demonstrations, dialogue, and unrest during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by what they call a “burgeoning backlash” to the racial justice movement, resulting in state laws across the country that stifled classroom discussions on race.

Tennessee was among the first states to legislate what public school students can — and cannot — be taught about race, gender, and bias. And the penalties are steep. Educators who violate the law may have their teaching licenses suspended or revoked. Districts can be fined for repeat offenses.

The authors of “His Name Is George Floyd” won 2023 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.

MSCS officials and the Memphis Reads organizers did not specifically cite this law as a factor in what ultimately happened at Whitehaven, but the law nonetheless hangs over educators’ decisions about what topics are appropriate for classroom discussion. Two Memphis teachers are among five in Tennessee challenging the law in federal court.

Tennessee’s Age Appropriate Materials Act, meanwhile, requires schools to publish a list of what’s in their library collections online and develop policies to review and remove books that aren’t appropriate — a term that the law leaves undefined.

MSCS has leeway to interpret this law, but longstanding tensions between the majority-Black, Democratic-led city and the mostly white, GOP-dominated state government mean the district can ill afford to risk a fight with the state over the nuances of race and books.

Christian Brothers University runs the Memphis Reads program in partnership with other community groups. In communication with Chalkbeat, CBU cited the Age Appropriate Materials law as the reason it understood that books and materials couldn’t be distributed at the Whitehaven event and said that the guidance came from the Memphis school district.

CBU and other Memphis Reads partners “were under the instruction of MSCS leadership when completing the formatting and regulations concerning the Age-Appropriate Materials Act,” Justin Brooks, the CBU community engagement director who heads Memphis Reads, wrote in an email to Chalkbeat.

MSCS officials wouldn’t confirm that to Chalkbeat, or explain whether Tennessee’s law regulating classroom conversations about race influenced any restrictions.

In the email to the authors after the event, shared later with Chalkbeat, Stout wrote that time constraints prevented the district from going through its own process to approve the book. Stout wrote that the district regretted that their “experience was anything less than welcoming.”

“Given the new, more detailed process, it will take some time to coordinate, but please know that His Name Is George Floyd is now under consideration to be added to the Whitehaven High School library collection,” Stout wrote to the authors, “and we look forward to having conversations with other school communities as requests arise.”

Separately, Stout shared with Chalkbeat a copy of a description from library book distributor Baker & Taylor that categorizes the book as “adult” and among the American Library Association’s “Notable Books for Adults.”

Stout also wrote in a public social media comment explaining the district’s position that the American Library Association labeled “His Name is George Floyd” as “adult literature (18 and older).”

What the ‘adult’ label says about a book

ALA spokesperson Raymond Garcia told Chalkbeat that the group “does not rate books” for age appropriateness.

Booklist, a book review magazine published by the ALA — and listed among resources for librarians in an MSCS manual — uses its “adult” label not to be restrictive but to signal that a book would be of interest primarily to adults, Garcia said.

“His Name is George Floyd” is also categorized as “nonfiction” and “social sciences.”

If the label was a factor in the decision not to allow Memphis Reads to distribute the books at Whitehaven, then that’s an “inaccurate understanding” of the purpose of such book labels, said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association.

“We can think of any kinds of works of literature that would have been originally rated as of interest to an adult reader that are absolutely fine for young people to read, and it’s not too controversial,” Caldwell-Stone told Chalkbeat, citing “To Kill a Mockingbird” as an example.

Nonetheless, the ambiguity in Tennessee’s standard of “appropriateness” creates gray areas and heightens the stakes for local districts concerned about avoiding a violation, Caldwell-Stone said.

If a person or district cannot risk breaking the law, “then you’re going to be very thoughtful about what books you offer,” she said, “and thereby limit the opportunities to learn and engage with all kinds of ideas, even controversial or difficult ideas.”

A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Education says MSCS did not reach out to the state for guidance, and MSCS didn’t respond to a question from Chalkbeat about that issue.

Thanks to a donation from the publisher, Viking Books, students who want a free copy of the book will be able to get one from Respect the Haven, a community development group in Whitehaven that’s part of Memphis Reads.

Whitehaven High School serves some 1,500 students and is known among Memphis for its school pride and focus on students’ post-secondary scholarship achievements. Almost all of its students are Black, and about half of them are from low-income families.

“This event basically got censored out of fear of violating some law,” said Jason Sharif, head of Respect the Haven. “With us being a predominantly Black city, a predominantly Black school district, you cannot keep books like this or stories like this from being told to Black students.”

Jason Sharif, head of Respect the Haven, a partner in Memphis Reads, said the Whitehaven H.S. event “got censored” out of concern about state law.

Students caught up in racial politics

By the time Samuels and Olorunnipa arrived at Whitehaven High School for the event on Oct. 26, they knew some of the restrictions they would have to operate under. The two reporters were prepared to tell students about the journalistic work that went into writing the book, but to avoid going into depth about many of the issues it raised.

Brooks, from Memphis Reads, had told them they wouldn’t be able to read directly from the book, or talk about the book’s discussion of how systemic racism created many barriers for Floyd, long before his arrest and killing. MSCS was involved in setting these restrictions, Brooks said. The district did not comment on its role.

Instead of an open question-and-answer period, five students were pre-selected to ask Samuels and Olorunnipa prepared questions, which was different from the open conversations at the two other panels that Memphis Reads organized. This was in line with MSCS protocol for events, Brooks said.

Brooks said it was CBU’s call to keep the event closed to media, out of concern for student safety. A Chalkbeat reporter attended two similar events at the college level.

Stout said Brooks and Sharif had created a narrative about the event that is “inconsistent” with the district’s point of view and its own initiatives. She highlighted a Memphis school integration curriculum and a social emotional learning curriculum involving the death of Tyre Nichols, a Black man who was fatally injured by Memphis police after a traffic stop in early 2023.

MSCS told Chalkbeat that it was glad Whitehaven students had the opportunity to hear the journalists speak, as did CBU in its own communication.

Authors Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa had early doubts about being part of an event at Whitehaven High School with restrictions on their speech, but said they were grateful for the opportunity.

And Samuels and Olorunnipa, who had early doubts about being part of an event with restrictions on their speech, said they were grateful for the opportunity, too. They were approached at the end of the event by a Whitehaven high schooler with a notebook full of questions who said he wanted to be a journalist. The authors relished the chance to expand what the student imagined for his future.

“Even through this period of backlash, we think it’s important to continue to push forward and continue to make a pathway for people who are caught up in the back and forth,” Olorunnipa said during another forum.

“A lot of these kids have nothing to do with the politics,” Olorunnipa added. “They are just trying to make it. They’re just trying to live their best lives. And sometimes they become pawns in our political fights.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Newark Teachers Union files lawsuit seeking release of Global Studies report

2023-11-03T16:04:37+00:00

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The Newark Teachers Union is asking a judge to order the release of a report on the racial and cultural dynamics at Newark’s School of Global Studies that Superintendent Roger León said would remain internal.

The union filed a lawsuit seeking the report after the district denied a public records request demanding the release of the scathing review of cultural, religious, and racial dynamics at Global Studies. The review was conducted after incidents of harassment against Black students and staff at the school surfaced a year ago.

The district denied the union’s request in October, citing a legal exemption that allows draft documents or advisory documents prepared to recommend or form part of a deliberative process to be withheld from the public.

The union filed the public records request on Sept. 29, a day after the regular board meeting that month. In both the public records request and the lawsuit, the union cites its “Common Law Right of Access,” or right to ask for the review, arguing that it has an interest in the release of the report and in knowing of any changes or recommendations to the district’s approach in handling student and staff issues related to “anti-blackness” or “cultural sensitivity,” ultimately affecting teachers in the district.

During the September meeting, community members, including the Newark Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, also demanded the release of the full report.

Earlier that week, the district had released three recommendations within the report, providing the first glimpse into the scathing review.

“We were surprised that the board was not more forthcoming about what was in the report and more importantly, what they were going to be doing to resolve the issues that came up in the report,” said John Abeigon, president of the Newark Teachers Union, after the lawsuit was filed in Superior Court of New Jersey on Thursday afternoon.

The union’s lawsuit is the first court battle against the district for the release of that report, conducted by consulting firm CREED Strategies led by Dr. Lauren Wells. The district has also received other public records requests for the release of the report, including two filed by Chalkbeat Newark.

The review of the school began in January when board members approved a data-sharing agreement with CREED strategies in an attempt to mend problems after students spoke publicly last November about their experiences of racial harassment on campus. The issues drew heavy criticism from the community about the way the school and district leaders handled the situation and led several students to transfer and some teachers to resign.

But during a June press conference, León said details about the review would not be made public but rather, would serve as “an internal document” to help inform a strategy to tackle racial issues in city schools. Details about that strategy have not been shared with the public.

During that press conference, León also said he would call on Global Studies principal Nelson Ruiz to help other principals deal with similar issues at their schools and provide guidance as needed.

In September, two days before the monthly regular board meeting, the district shared a glimpse of the unreleased report after it revealed three recommendations included in the review. The recommendations suggest Newark must assess the effects of “anti-Blackness” on the school system, foster conversations about racial issues, and commit to “culturally responsive-sustaining education transformation.”

In addition to the recommendations, principal evaluations were modified to include “equity indicators” and base performance on their school’s climate, among other existing criteria, according to a board committee report detailing the recommendations.

But Abeigon said without knowing what the report says, it’s unclear the extent of how the situation affected its teachers. Board members have also called on León to share the report with the public. In August, the district told them they could read the report by setting up a time with them to view it.

“But we try to be proactive, especially when the district is being less than forthcoming with information,” Abeigon added.

Students and teachers were at the center of the racial and religious harassment at Global Studies. In August, two former teachers of the high school filed a legal notice against the district and claims with the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights after suffering “severe emotional problems” because of the racial harassment they experienced at Global Studies, according to those teachers.

They also filed a complaint with the district’s affirmative action office alleging principal Ruiz, vice principal Hoda Abdelwahab, who started a new position at Millburn Township Public Schools in August, and department chair Shagun Kukeja created a hostile work environment at the high school based on race. Newark Public Schools completed its own investigation of those incidents in July.

That review led by Yolanda Mendez, the district’s affirmative action office, did not find “sufficient evidence” to support a finding of harassment, discrimination, hostile work environment, or retaliatory conduct in violation of district policy or state or federal laws.

“At this point, we don’t know what we will find, but we are curious why they are so reluctant to share this document with the public,” Abeigon said.

The incidents at the high school last fall also received attention from Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who met with students last December and hosted a town hall this spring to discuss unity among Black and brown communities.

Before the issues came to light last November, emails obtained by Chalkbeat Newark showed that parents emailed Ruiz, Abdelwahab, and other school leaders begging for an end to the ongoing harassment. At least one parent called for the removal of Ruiz, who remains the principal of the school.

Global Studies first opened its doors in 2020 welcoming ninth graders to a high school offering a global perspective where students could study different cultures and prepare to study abroad.

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

NYC revises mandated reporter training to reduce unnecessary child welfare investigations

2023-10-19T21:07:53+00:00

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New York City has revised its training for educators on when to report suspected cases of child abuse and neglect in an effort to cut down on unwarranted investigations that disproportionately target Black and Latino families, officials said Thursday.

Educators are “mandated reporters” under state law, and, for years, the prevailing message in their training was to err on the side of caution by reporting whenever in doubt, officials said.

But that guidance has led to an overreliance on child welfare reports, officials argued, prompting thousands of investigations each year. Few of those investigations lead to confirmed findings of maltreatment, while dragging families — mostly Black and Latino — through a process that can be invasive and traumatic, officials said.

The revised training, which has already reached thousands of Education Department staffers, is an effort to get educators to think twice before defaulting to a child welfare report, and give them a set of alternatives to try first, officials said.

“Today our new mantra is you do not have to report a family to support a family,” said Gail Geohagen-Pratt, deputy commissioner in the state’s Office of Children and Family Services at a press conference Thursday at Education Department headquarters in Manhattan.

The city’s Administration for Children’s Services looked into a total of 59,000 reports of suspected child abuse and neglect last year, and found maltreatment in 25% of those cases, said commissioner Jess Dannhauser.

About 12,000 of those reports came from school personnel, and they yielded an even lower rate of findings of maltreatment, at 16%, a spokesperson said.

Black and Latino families were far more likely to get ensnared in child welfare investigations, with Black families reported at seven times the rate as white families, and Latino families reported four times as often, Dannhauser said.

Too often, he added, families are subjected to child welfare investigations simply for being poor.

“If a family just needs help, such as access to child care assistance, mental health counseling, or concrete resources … there are ways to provide that support without making a call that will lead to a child welfare investigation,” he said.

The new training for educators has rolled out on several fronts.

First, the state’s Office of Children and Family Services, which runs training for all mandated reporters, updated its baseline training to include sections on how mandated reporters can be swayed by implicit bias, and the potential harms of child welfare investigations for families.

The training includes a “decision-making tree” to help educators work through their options when they suspect abuse or neglect.

Dannhauser pointed to the example of a child who comes into school with poor hygiene — noting that the new training would encourage educators to look into whether the parent is providing a “minimum level of care” and ensuring they have access to resources such as running water and a washing machine before considering a call to child welfare authorities.

Similarly, a more in-depth training from the city’s Education Department and Administration for Children’s Services for the designated mandated reporting liaison at each school emphasizes the importance of relying on objective facts over subjective impressions, and offer a refresher on the resources available to schools before they turn to a child welfare report.

Dr. Jessica Chock-Goldman, a school social worker at Bard Early College High School in Manhattan and a professor at New York University, has long had concerns about the role of mandated reporters in schools – and is a member of a group called “Mandated Reporters Against Mandated Reporting.” But she was impressed by the city’s new training.

“They did a beautiful job on this,” she said. “It seems like the movement they started is about how to do these other interventions … to make ACS the last call rather than the first call.”

City officials also introduced a “prevention support hotline” at the Administration of Children’s Services that educators can call for help getting resources to families in need.

Dannhauser acknowledged that the city and state are still bound by laws governing mandated reporting that were written in the 1960s and ‘70s.

“There are a lot of calls for reform … and we think a full-scale look at that would be appropriate,” he said. Dannhauser said he’s not aware of any mandated reporters being prosecuted for failing to lodge a report of suspected maltreatment, but acknowledged it’s still a fear for some.

Changing the practice of mandated reporting in schools could also take a cultural shift that goes beyond training.

“It’s changing but it’s a slow change,” said Chock-Goldman, the school social worker, who suggested that all principals should also get in-depth training on mandated reporting.

Some advocates and parents have urged the state to scrap mandated reporting altogether, and forego the federal funding that comes with it.

But state officials were clear that they still see a role for mandated reporting.

“I wish we lived in a world where we did not have to have this because children are not being abused or maltreated,” said Geohagen-Pratt. “But we know that we are, so we have to have a mechanism in place to be able to respond to that.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board upholds firing of McAuliffe Principal Kurt Dennis

2023-08-25T03:11:31+00:00

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In a 6-1 vote Thursday, the Denver school board approved the firing of McAuliffe International School Principal Kurt Dennis, backing a decision by the superintendent that sparked both fierce backlash from Dennis’ supporters and a new set of accusations against him.

The discussion was heated, with board members condemning both the existence of a seclusion room at McAuliffe in which students were locked inside alone and a televised news interview in which Dennis shared redacted documents about a student who’d been charged with a crime.

Board member Scott Baldermann was the sole no vote. He argued that the board didn’t follow its own policies. He especially took issue with a press conference at which other board members spoke about the seclusion room before a district investigation was complete.

Scott Esserman, one of the board members at the press conference, said Baldermann’s take was “troubling.” While Esserman denied that board members violated policy, he also said, “I happen to have a higher moral purpose that’s more important than any particular self-imposed piece of policy governance. And that’s to engage in ensuring our children are safe.”

Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson read a poem he’d written that denounced the use of the seclusion room, which he and others have said was used with Black students.

“It pains my heart to know a child was in a cage,” he said, “viewed as a spectacle, fury, and rage.”

Dennis was the founding principal at McAuliffe International, a popular and high-performing middle school. He was fired in July in the aftermath of a televised March interview he did with local news station 9News expressing concerns about gun violence and student safety.

Dennis told 9News that the staff at McAuliffe was having to do weapons searches on a student accused of attempted murder. The searches were the same type that staff at East High School had been doing with a student who shot and injured two deans in March.

In firing Dennis, DPS said he had improperly “divulged confidential student and legal records” in the 9News interview in violation of district policy, put DPS at legal risk, and caused the student who was being searched to be ostracized, according to a document obtained by Chalkbeat.

The district also cited “a pattern of administrative actions” at McAuliffe that had a negative impact on students with disabilities and students of color. An investigator found the school’s “overuse of out-of-school suspensions … was having a disparate impact on students of color.”

Racial disparities in discipline did exist at McAuliffe last year, district data shows. While 14% of McAuliffe students were Black, 30% of suspensions were issued to Black students — a disparity that exists at several other district middle schools as well.

Dennis retained civil rights attorney David Lane, who has alleged the district retaliated against Dennis for the 9News interview in violation of his First Amendment rights. The Denver School Leaders Association, the union that represents DPS principals, filed a grievance on behalf of Dennis in July. The status of that grievance was not immediately available Thursday night. Lane expects to sue the district on Dennis’ behalf after the grievance process plays out.

In the meantime, school board members said an anonymous whistleblower who works at the school told them about a seclusion room in which students experiencing behavioral issues were locked inside alone. DPS opened an investigation, and Anderson, who got the initial tip, reported it to the Denver police.

DPS calls such rooms “de-escalation rooms” — and district policy states the door must be left open and an adult must accompany a student inside. The room at McAuliffe “was clearly not in compliance with DPS’ stated guidelines,” the district said in a media release last month, which also said the McAuliffe room was “identified as an incarceration room.”

In an interview with the Denver Post, Dennis acknowledged that he had a lock put on the door to the room but said it was removed after a week or two. He denied that students were left alone in the room because he said staff monitored them through a window in the door.

Pam Bisceglia, the executive director of Advocacy Denver, an organization that advocates for students with disabilities and their families, said she has filed more state and federal complaints on behalf of or involving students at McAuliffe than at any other school in the district.

Since Dennis’ firing in July, many McAuliffe parents and students have rallied to his defense. That continued at a school board public comment session Monday.

“I think you should put Kurt back in his place because he’s made McAuliffe into the best school,” said sixth grader Ella Rustici. Standardized test scores at McAuliffe are high, she said, “and he got fired and that’s not fair.”

Parents and students rally in support of Kurt Dennis outside McAuliffe International School in July.

“I hope from the bottom of my heart that the board of education rethinks this terrible decision,” said Chloe Vause, a freshman at Northfield High School who went to McAuliffe in middle school.

But the support for Dennis is not universal. Board member Charmaine Lindsay noted that the “majority of all people we saw speaking out on behalf of Kurt were white.”

Three of Deronn Turner’s children have attended McAuliffe. Turner, who is Black, said her two older children reported “stark differences in the way Black students were treated and white students were treated. Black students were punished much more harshly than the white students.”

Turner said that when she, as an involved parent volunteer, tried to suggest an essay writing contest for Black History Month, some McAuliffe staff members told her, “Oh, these kids can’t write.” The staff members were referring to Black students, Turner said.

Turner said she supports Dennis’ termination.

“I’m not celebrating anyone’s demise,” she said. “But I won’t promote someone that has been known to do some things as it pertains to children of color that just are not right.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Former Newark teachers suffered ‘emotional problems’ due to harassment, racial hostility, according to legal claims

2023-08-18T10:00:00+00:00

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Two former Newark teachers claim they suffered “severe emotional problems” leading them to seek “psychological counseling” after experiencing racial harassment at a city high school, according to legal claims filed in June.

Before resigning from their roles earlier this year, Tammy Davis and Nubia Lumumba, Black women and former English teachers at the Newark School of Global Studies, said they “suffered harassment and racial hostility by students and supervisors” last school year. The former Newark teachers also filed claims with the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights, which are currently being reviewed by the state.

As a result of the “unlawful and unreasonable treatment” at Global Studies, both educators felt their “worth as a teacher and human being has been diminished,” according to a tort claim, a legal notice prior to a lawsuit that describes acts from a person or employer that harm another person.

Davis and Lumumba’s lawyer, David Balk of The Balk Law Firm, filed the claims on their behalf and named Global Studies principal Nelson Ruiz, vice principal Hoda Abdelwahab, department chair Shagun Kukeja, affirmative action officer Dr. Yolanda Mendez, and Newark Superintendent Roger León as recipients of the claim. The claim also says Davis and Lumumba complained about the harassment to Kukeja, Ruiz, and Abdelwahab during the school year.

The filings could lead to a lawsuit, Balk said. Under the New Jersey Tort Claims Act, Davis and Lumumba can file a lawsuit six months after filing their claim.

“The claim was filed because both Ms. Lumumba and Ms. Davis were afforded no recognition of their legitimate complaints by the school administration or the board of education,” wrote Balk in an email to Chalkbeat Newark.

The Newark Board of Education received the claims in June but two members of the board’s legal committee, where district leaders discussed the allegations, recused themselves from the conversation, according to the committee’s June report.

The district does not comment on legal matters, Nancy Deering, Newark Public Schools’ acting communications director, said in an email to Chalkbeat Newark. Balk said he has not received a response from the district regarding the claims.

“All along my clients’ concern was for the education system to make sure that students and teachers were treated with respect and consideration regardless of their ethnic background,” Balk added.

The claims are the first legal actions against the district after students, teachers, and parents appeared at a school board meeting last November and described a pattern of racist harassment at Global Studies.

The students said they endured months of microaggressions and racial slurs from their peers and felt administrators did not issue stronger consequences with at least one parent calling for the removal of Ruiz, who has stayed in his role. Several students, including the Black Student Union president and the daughter of school board president Dawn Haynes, requested transfers mid-year.

Davis, the school’s former Black Student Union advisor, and Lumumba joined the students during the November meeting and spoke publicly about their experiences after their resignations in February and March respectively.

The allegations also come after a review of the racial, cultural, and religious dynamics at Global Studies was completed this spring. The review, conducted by consulting firm CREED Strategies led by Dr. Lauren Wells, began in January and is the first mention of the district’s long-awaited plan to mend problems at the high school after the incidents surfaced last fall.

But during a June press conference, León said details about the review will not be made public. During the June school board meeting, board members also said they have not reviewed the draft report from CREED Strategies.

Balk, Davis, and Lumumba requested a copy of the review from Wells but so far have not received a response, according to emails shared with Chalkbeat Newark.

In July, Newark Public Schools completed its own investigation of the incidents after Davis and Lumumba filed complaints with the district’s affirmative action office alleging Ruiz, Abdelwahab, and Kukreja created a hostile work environment at the high school based on race.

According to a July 5 letter from Mendez, the district’s affirmative action officer, to Davis and Lumumba, the district did not find “sufficient evidence to support a finding of harassment, discrimination, hostile work environment, or retaliatory conduct in violation of district, state, or federal laws.”

Davis has said she resigned from her role in February after her therapist advised her to leave to protect her mental health. Lumumba resigned in March after six months of working at the school.

Global Studies first opened its doors in 2020, welcoming 114 ninth graders to the high school where they study diplomacy, learn Arabic, and take courses in economics while gaining fluency in Chinese culture and language.

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

El personal docente de Newark no siempre coincide con la diversidad de la población estudiantil

2023-08-16T10:30:00+00:00

Read in English.

Cuando los padres de Melissa De Almeida emigraron a Newark en la década de 1990 desde Brasil, navegar el sistema de las escuelas públicas para sus dos hijas fue una de sus batallas más difíciles.

La hermana mayor de De Almeida luchó por aprender inglés en un sistema donde pocos maestros hablaban su portugués nativo. Cuando Melissa se inscribió unos años más tarde, se encontró con maestros que podían comunicarse con su familia, pero era desigual.

Sin embargo, había una luz de esperanza: la maestra de segundo grado de De Almeida en Oliver Street School. De Almeida recuerda con cariño que su maestra hacía malvaviscos y limonada fresca para su clase, pero la gran diferencia era que podía hablar con los padres de De Almeida en portugués.

Ahora, la estudiante de segundo año de 19 años de la Universidad Estatal de Montclair quiere ser maestra bilingüe y ayudar a familias como la suya en Newark, su ciudad natal, donde aproximadamente el 9% de los estudiantes hablan su idioma nativo.

“Necesito ser el cambio que necesitaba mi hermana”, dijo De Almeida, quien se graduó de East Side High School el año pasado.

En Newark y otras ciudades de Nueva Jersey, el personal docente y el liderazgo escolar no siempre reflejan la diversidad de la población estudiantil. Los datos demográficos muestran que los estudiantes afroamericanos y latinos representan alrededor del 90% de la población estudiantil total de Newark, mientras que los maestros de esos orígenes representan poco más de la mitad del personal docente.

Aproximadamente el 20% de las escuelas de Newark tienen una mayoría de maestros blancos. Otras ciudades de Nueva Jersey tienen proporciones aún más bajas de maestros de diversos orígenes raciales y étnicos.

Una mirada cercana revela que los estudiantes latinos, que aumentan en número anualmente en el distrito, están claramente subrepresentados en el personal docente del distrito, según un análisis de Chalkbeat de los datos demográficos escolares proporcionados por el estado de 2021-22.

Los maestros blancos constituyen la mayoría del personal docente en una de cada cinco escuelas del distrito, y los maestros negros son la mayoría del personal docente en poco más de una de cada cuatro escuelas. Pero ninguna escuela en el distrito tiene un personal docente mayoritariamente hispano o latino, a pesar de que aproximadamente la mitad de todas las escuelas del distrito tienen una mayoría de estudiantes latinos.

Una de las escuelas secundarias del distrito tiene una población estudiantil latina de más del 61%, pero no tiene maestros hispanos ni latinos. Otras tres escuelas tampoco tienen maestros que se identifiquen como hispanos o latinos.

De manera similar, la población de niños latinos del estado se ha expandido, aproximadamente un 25%, desde 2010, pero un análisis de NJ Advance Media encontró que aproximadamente el 30% de todas las escuelas no tienen ningún maestro hispano. Además, los distritos han visto una creciente población de estudiantes identificados como aprendices del idioma inglés al mismo tiempo que enfrentan una escasez de maestros bilingües.

Muchos expertos dicen que los fallos de los tribunales relacionados con la desagregación, que una y otra vez no lograron integrar por completo a los cuerpos estudiantiles y al personal, han contribuido a la cantidad desproporcionada de maestros blancos.

Sin embargo, numerosos estudios muestran que un personal docente diverso, especialmente uno que represente a la comunidad escolar, puede fomentar lazos más fuertes entre maestros y estudiantes, relaciones más sólidas entre maestros y familias, y lecciones que responden mejor a la cultura: los beneficios que De Almeida experimentó de primera mano con su maestra de segundo grado.

Los datos demográficos de las Escuelas Públicas de Newark también muestran un rayo de esperanza cuando se trata de acercarse a una fuerza laboral docente que refleje su cuerpo estudiantil: un puñado de escuelas primarias con mayoría de estudiantes latinos tienen una cantidad notable de maestros latinos, que oscila entre el 33% y 44%. Y es más probable que los estudiantes negros tengan una representación proporcional en la administración y el personal docente, según muestran los datos.

Tener maestros con los que los estudiantes de entornos subrepresentados puedan identificarse racial y culturalmente es solo un componente de la calidad de los maestros y la escuela, pero puede ayudar a mejorar la asistencia, los puntajes de las pruebas y la probabilidad de tomar un curso avanzado, según la investigación.

“Si no abordamos de manera más agresiva la falta de coincidencia demostrada entre los estudiantes y el personal escolar que los atiende, es posible que no veamos una aceleración del rendimiento académico de todos nuestros estudiantes”, afirma Leslie Fenwick, decana emérita de la Universidad de Howard, cuya experiencia es sobre la diversidad docente y la equidad educativa. “Debemos hacer un mejor trabajo de reclutamiento, retención y promoción de maestros y directores de color”.

‘Estamos viviendo con las consecuencias de la historia’

Como ilustra la historia de De Almeida con su hermana, muchos estudiantes no tienen maestros que compartan sus antecedentes, y se espera que la brecha entre los estudiantes y maestros hispanos o latinos se amplíe, a nivel estatal y nacional, según sugieren los estudios.

A nivel nacional, los maestros blancos constituyen el 80 % de la fuerza docente, y en Nueva Jersey es el 83%. Mientras tanto, la fuerza docente del estado, que también refleja las tendencias nacionales, es 8% hispana y 6.5% negra, mientras que la población estudiantil es 32% y 15%, respectivamente

Una demanda ante el Tribunal Superior de Nueva Jersey en Trenton argumenta que el estado, con uno de los sistemas escolares públicos más diversos pero segregados del país, es responsable de abordar el hecho de que más de la mitad de los estudiantes negros e hispanos o latinos asisten a escuelas que son predominantemente no blancos. La demanda, encabezada por The Latino Action Network y NAACP-NJ, argumenta que el estado está violando su propia constitución y la decisión de la Corte Suprema de Brown contra la Junta de Educación de Topeka de hace casi 70 años.

Ese fallo histórico de la Corte Suprema, y varios fallos de eliminación de la segregación que siguieron, declararon que la educación segregada era una violación de la Decimocuarta Enmienda. Pero también condujo a una proporción desigual de maestros blancos a maestros de color como personas, incluidos aquellos en el poder que defendían creencias segregacionistas, se resistieron a los esfuerzos de desegregación, según muestran los análisis de documentos históricos.

“Estamos viviendo con las consecuencias de la historia que ocurrió, no como resultado de Brown [v. Board of Education], sino de la enorme resistencia blanca a ella”, dijo Fenwick, autor del libro “Jim Crow’s Pink Slip: The Untold Story of Black Principal and Teacher Leadership”.

El racismo y las creencias segregacionistas llevaron a despidos, despidos y degradaciones ilegales generalizados de maestros negros, más de 100,000, entre las décadas de 1950 y 1970, dijo Fenwick en una entrevista telefónica reciente con Chalkbeat y descrita en su libro.

Los esfuerzos de eliminación de la segregación también deben invertir en la diversidad de docentes, dice Fenwick. Sin eso, los estudiantes de color seguirán perdiendo las oportunidades masivas que puede ofrecer un personal docente que los refleje, incluso a nivel socioemocional, así como académico y conductual, lo cual ha sido documentado por décadas de investigación.

“A menos que abordemos este problema de diversidad en el liderazgo escolar y las fuerzas docentes, me temo que no lograremos el tipo de progreso que necesitamos en el país”, dijo Fenwick.

Newark trabaja para crear una cartera de maestros diversa

Aunque los maestros afroamericanos constituyen la mayoría del personal docente en algunas escuelas del distrito de Newark, la proporción de maestros afroamericanos ha disminuido alrededor de 10 puntos porcentuales desde fines de la década de 1990, cuando el distrito estaba bajo control estatal, según un análisis de 2021 de New Jersey Policy Perspective.

El distrito realiza esfuerzos de reclutamiento para atraer maestros de diversos orígenes, incluido uno que crea una fuente de “maestros locales” al incentivar a los estudiantes actuales a especializarse en educación y obtener un puesto docente garantizado en el distrito después de graduarse de la universidad.

Durante una conferencia de prensa en junio, el superintendente Roger León estuvo de acuerdo en que diversificar su personal “es bueno porque genera diferentes puntos de vista” y señaló las estrategias de contratación del distrito, que incluyen una iniciativa de canalización de maestro a director que se enfoca en maestros afroamericanos y latinos.

El distrito se asoció con la Facultad de Educación y Aprendizaje Comprometido de la Universidad Estatal de Montclair para crear la Academia de Maestros Red Hawks Rising, un programa de inscripción doble en las escuelas secundarias East Side y University donde los estudiantes obtienen créditos universitarios sin costo mientras se preparan para una carrera en la enseñanza. El programa recluta estudiantes para la profesión a una edad temprana, brinda tutoría y garantiza una oferta de admisión al programa de formación docente de la universidad después de la graduación de la escuela secundaria.

Una parte esencial del programa es que anima a los estudiantes a volver a enseñar en el distrito de su ciudad natal después de graduarse de la universidad.

León ha prometido a los participantes que un contrato de maestro con el distrito los estará esperando después de que completen el programa de la universidad.

De Almeida, una graduada del programa en East Side, dice que ser parte de él la ayudó a imaginarse un futuro ayudando a los estudiantes que hablan diferentes idiomas nativos. Pero lo que la ayudó a ver que podía tener éxito, dijo, fue el ejemplo establecido por las codirectoras del programa Mayida Zaal y Danielle Epps, mujeres de color que se graduaron de distritos escolares urbanos.

“Creo que es un poco refrescante tener a alguien hablando contigo que entiende y que ha pasado por lo que has pasado y ha recorrido ese camino contigo”, dijo De Almeida.

‘Retener a los maestros es el problema’

En una entrevista telefónica reciente, el presidente del Sindicato de Maestros de Newark, John Abeigon, dijo que apoya los esfuerzos de reclutamiento del distrito, pero que “retener a los maestros es el problema” que León debe abordar, particularmente cuando se trata de maestros de color.

“Tenemos blancos, negros, hispanos, marrones, el arcoíris”, dijo Abeigon sobre la diversidad de maestros en su sindicato. “Todos los que vienen a este distrito, la mayoría de ellos se van dentro de un par de semanas o meses de trabajar en este distrito. Eso es endémico del distrito y la forma en que trata a su personal”.

Las investigaciones ha encontrado que es más probable que los maestros de color enseñen en “escuelas con necesidades altas, difíciles de dotar de personal, con entornos de trabajo desafiantes y tasas de deserción más altas para todos los maestros”, indicó un informe de FutureEd sobre la diversidad de maestros.

Sin embargo, a medida que los maestros de diversos orígenes navegan por distritos con bajos recursos y condiciones de trabajo desfavorables, a menudo se sienten subestimados y pasados por alto, según los comentarios de los grupos focales en un informe de 2019 que examinó la retención de maestros de color.

Nubia Lumumba, una educadora negra y musulmana y ex maestra de inglés en una escuela secundaria de Newark, renunció a su cargo después de solo seis meses de trabajar en el distrito. Lumumba dijo que experimentó y fue testigo del acoso racial mientras enseñaba, pero la falta de sensibilidad de los administradores de la escuela para manejar las preocupaciones sobre el acoso racial provocó tensiones que finalmente la llevaron a renunciar.

Hubo una falta de “empatía genuina por lo que había pasado”, dijo Lumumba, y agregó que los estudiantes fueron testigos de lo que ella experimentó. “Si, como adulto maduro, me dolió profundamente haber experimentado acoso racial y religioso y no obtener ningún apoyo significativo de los líderes escolares y del distrito, entonces, me imagino, debe ser aún más perjudicial para los estudiantes negros”.

Lumumba, quien enseñó durante ocho años antes de su último cargo, dijo que las escuelas deben contar con estrategias y programas que brinden “una verdadera comprensión y celebración de la diversidad” y apoyen a los estudiantes de diferentes orígenes raciales y étnicos. Esto podría conducir a una mejor retención, dijo.

Los maestros de color en el estudio de caso de 2019 estarían de acuerdo. Entre las soluciones descritas en el informe: los líderes del distrito deben asegurarse de que “las escuelas sean lugares que afirmen culturalmente a los maestros de color”, empoderar a los maestros con caminos hacia el liderazgo y ofrecer compensación por el trabajo adicional.

Un grupo de trabajo de Nueva Jersey sobre la escasez de personal escolar, elaborado por orden ejecutiva del gobernador Phil Murphy el año pasado, publicó un informe a principios de este año que muestra signos de que el estado está prestando atención a la retención de maestros.

Proveer apoyo a las escuelas en “implementar políticas y prácticas que creen un ambiente de trabajo libre de prejuicios, incluidas las microagresiones”, así como aumentar el salario de los maestros y expandir la “tutoría y el desarrollo profesional para educadores de carreras tempranas” fueron algunas de las recomendaciones enumeradas en el informe.

Los estudiantes necesitan apoyo a través de la educación superior

Para los codirectores de Red Hawks Rising, Zaal y Epps, sus esfuerzos con el distrito para diversificar la fuerza docente comienzan apoyando a los estudiantes de Newark y convirtiéndose en su “comunidad de compromiso” mientras navegan por la escuela secundaria, la universidad y carreras a largo plazo, dijo Epps.

No podemos centrarnos simplemente en el reclutamiento de jóvenes que representan a las comunidades negras y latinas, y luego no ser intencionales sobre cómo vamos a apoyarlos para que lleguen a la meta”, dijo Zaal. “Tiene que haber apoyo en el camino para que no tengamos una especie de tubería con fugas hacia las escuelas”.

Según el Centro Nacional de Estadísticas de Educación, la tasa general de inscripción universitaria entre los jóvenes de 18 a 24 años disminuyó del 41 % en 2010 al 38 % en 2021. La tasa general de inscripción universitaria ese año fue aún más baja entre los estudiantes negros de 37 años. % y estudiantes hispanos en 33%.

Mientras están en el programa de inscripción dual, los estudiantes se enfrentan a diferentes conceptos erróneos sobre la educación superior, como la idea de que para seguir una carrera tienen que dejar su ciudad natal o que la universidad está financieramente fuera de su alcance, o la creencia de que “la universidad no es algo para ellos”, dijo Epps.

Muchos estudiantes del programa son bilingües o biculturales y tienen experiencia en el manejo de desafíos educativos que, a su vez, podrían ayudar a sus futuros estudiantes.

“Se criaron en familias resilientes donde pudieron encontrar su camino a la universidad como estudiantes de primera generación”, dijo Zaal. “Entonces, tienen una cantidad significativa de capital social para ofrecer”.

De Almeida, quien se graduará en 2026, retribuye a su comunidad trabajando con los padres en su iglesia local y ayudándolos a comprender la tarea de sus hijos o brindándoles apoyo de traducción. Ella se relaciona con esas familias, dice, y les habla sobre ayudar financieramente a su propia familia mientras hace malabarismos con el trabajo escolar y persigue su sueño de enseñar.

La aspirante a maestra bilingüe está ansiosa por ingresar al aula y espera dejar una marca duradera en los estudiantes con antecedentes similares a los suyos.

“Por lo general, soy a quien todos acuden con este tipo de cosas. Me encanta poder ser esa ayuda”, dijo De Almeida sobre trabajar con padres de diferentes orígenes. “Y creo que una vez que sea maestra y regrese a trabajar en Newark, haciendo este trabajo oficialmente, seré 10 veces mejor”.

Esta traducción fue proporcionada por Reporte Hispano, en asociación con el Centro de Medios Cooperativos de la Universidad Estatal de Montclair, y cuenta con el apoyo financiero del Consorcio de Información Cívica de NJ. La historia fue escrita originalmente en inglés por Chalkbeat Newark/NJ Spotlight News y se vuelve a publicar en virtud de un acuerdo especial para compartir contenido a través del Servicio de noticias de traducción al español de NJ News Commons.

This translation was provided by Reporte Hispano, in association with the Montclair State University Center for Cooperative Media and is financially supported by the NJ Civic Information Consortium. The story was originally written in English for Chalkbeat Newark and is republished under a special content-sharing agreement through the NJ News Commons Spanish Translation News Service.

Colorado lawmaker wants to ban seclusion rooms in schools as Denver investigation continues

2023-08-08T00:14:42+00:00

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A Colorado lawmaker wants to ban the use of seclusion rooms in schools statewide in the wake of allegations that a well-regarded Denver middle school maintained a room that locked from the outside where children having behavioral issues were left alone.

“Our students are here to receive a high-quality education, and they deserve not to be incarcerated,” said state Rep. Regina English, a Colorado Springs Democrat who also serves on the Harrison School District 2 board. “So these seclusion rooms, that’s going to be a no-go across the state of Colorado.”

Meanwhile, a district investigation continues into the use of a seclusion room at McAuliffe International School, the same school where longtime principal Kurt Dennis was fired earlier this summer after speaking with 9 News about safety concerns. Interim Principal Micah Klaver also has been placed on paid administrative leave, district officials confirmed.

State law allows educators to shut students inside of rooms, a practice known as seclusion, in certain extreme situations, but Denver district policy bans these rooms. Many Denver schools have what the district calls de-escalation rooms. District policy requires that an adult remain in the room with a student and that the door remain unlocked.

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero said the district would retrain all staff at McAuliffe International School on district policy and appropriate de-escalation techniques before students return to classrooms later this month.

Dennis was fired after he spoke publicly about being required to keep a student accused of attempted murder in class instead of moving him to online classes or an alternative school. Many parents have rallied to Dennis’ cause and demanded that he be reinstated, and some Denver educators said his firing is having a chilling effect on other school leaders and teachers.

District officials said Dennis was fired not because he criticized the district publicly but because he shared personal information about a student. His termination letter also noted a number of accusations that he treated students with disabilities unfairly.

Last week, Denver school board members Auon’tai Anderson and Scott Esserman said an anonymous whistleblower who works at the school told them about the seclusion room, known among staff as an “incarceration room,” and shared pictures of walls with holes punched in them and an exterior lock on the door. They said staff described children being dragged kicking and screaming into the room and being left there alone for long periods of time.

Anderson said the district is aware of three students locked in the room, all of them Black. Fighting back emotion, school board member Michelle Quattlebaum said students should never be placed in conditions that “mimic incarceration.”

David Lane, Dennis’ attorney, told the Denver Post last week that Dennis did place a lock on the door in an effort to keep both students and staff safe and that he removed the lock when district officials told him to. Lane said Dennis never received any guidance about use of the seclusion room.

Anderson said Monday he does not know the identity of the whistleblower and that person is not cooperating with investigators because they fear retaliation if their identity is discovered. However, other McAuliffe staff are cooperating, he said, and the investigation is moving forward.

The Denver principals union has filed a grievance on behalf of multiple school leaders related to how the district is handling the investigation, with elected officials bringing forward the complaint and holding press conferences before the investigation is concluded.

“We are concerned that the current public discourse is not only having a deleterious impact on the school communities but possible severe reputational harm for multiple leaders,” reads the grievance letter from the Denver School Leaders Association, which also notes that district policies call for confidentiality around personnel matters and for employees accused of wrong-doing to have access to a fair process.

Colorado law allows children to be placed in seclusion rooms if they’re a danger to themselves or others.

Advocates have long criticized the practice as profoundly traumatic for children and counterproductive to teaching children better coping skills. The children who are placed in these rooms often have been through traumatic events or have disabilities that affect how they regulate emotions. Advocates argue that with better training and different attitudes, classroom teachers and aides can head off challenging behavior before it turns into a crisis.

Pam Bisceglia, executive director of Advocacy Denver, which supports students with disabilities and their families, said she has filed many complaints over the years regarding McAuliffe, and the district has promised to train staff before, yet she has seen little change in the culture. She has asked the Colorado Department of Education to do its own investigation into the seclusion room at McAuliffe.

Bisceglia said she has seen rooms in other Denver schools with soft lighting, bean bag chairs, and pillows where students can calm down. But on a tour of a district-run facility school in a suburban district, she saw a child locked in a room, crying, while an adult watched, silent, through a small window.

“When they showed us the room, you could tell how tall the tallest student was because the paint was scratched from that point down,” she said.

A new law passed last year requires that seclusion rooms have a window or other way for an adult to keep eyes on the child and that the room be a dedicated space free from hazards. Schools can no longer lock children in broom closets or offices.

A 2020 Chalkbeat investigation found a wide range of practices among Colorado districts and limited state oversight. Districts were essentially policing themselves, and parents were sometimes kept in the dark about what happened to their children. Since then, lawmakers have added new reporting requirements alongside the seclusion room regulations. And the Colorado Department of Education gained new enforcement authority for when its investigators find violations.

School districts argued against these regulations, saying they didn’t want to overburden special education staff with even more paperwork and that seclusion rooms were used as a last resort but an important one to keep all children safe.

English, who is Black, said she was “appalled and disgusted” to learn of the allegations, especially because the children involved “look like me.” In districts around the state, Black children are also more likely to be suspended, expelled, ticketed, and arrested when compared with their white peers.

“They are not caged animals, and I will not allow them to be treated as such,” English said.

Bisceglia said she supports a statewide ban because students should have the same protections around the state and because it would represent a clear statement of values.

Bret Miles, executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives, said he wants to work closely with lawmakers to explain the “incredible burden” that principals have to keep all students safe, as well as the different circumstances and resources districts experience.

English said she was willing to work with school districts to make sure legislation allows for dedicated rooms where students can calm down or not hurt themselves or others. But she would not “backpedal” on banning seclusion rooms. She noted that Colorado banned corporal punishment this year.

“When these things take place,” she said, “there needs to be an adult in that room with them, not just locking a child up and saying, ‘Figure it out, cry yourself to sleep.’ That’s a no-go.”

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

‘I felt like I was lost’: NJ students say school segregation impacted their education

2023-08-07T10:00:00+00:00

As a Black high school student in Newark, Michelle Ametekpor remembers feeling as if her culture wasn’t being celebrated.

Jennifer Garcia, a Latina who attended a majority-white school in Middlesex, didn’t see teachers who reflected her cultural background.

And Jeremiah LaPorte, a senior at an Elizabeth high school, says he wishes he would see more diversity among students in school leadership positions.

The three students shared their experiences of going to public schools in the state at a virtual town hall on Friday. They remember “feeling lost” and “having to fight” to make their voices heard.

The New Jersey Coalition of Educational Equity organized the discussion in anticipation of a much-awaited ruling on a school segregation lawsuit that could have historic consequences for the state’s public schools. The lawsuit, filed in 2018, says the state is responsible for addressing the fact that more than half of Black and Hispanic or Latino students attend schools that are predominantly non-white.

“Our goals are to create a more safe and inclusive and supportive environment where all students can thrive and properly prepare for their future,” Val Posso, a youth organizer for the Latino Action Network Foundation, one of the organizations leading the lawsuit, said during the town hall.

New Jersey, one of the most diverse public school systems in the country, is also the sixth most segregated state for Black students and seventh for Latino students, according to a 2017 UCLA Civil Rights Project study that’s cited in the lawsuit.

Additionally, a recent Chalkbeat Newark analysis of the city’s school demographic data found that Latino students, who are increasing in number annually in Newark Public Schools, are starkly underrepresented in the district’s teaching staff.

“New Jersey can no longer be the state for some, it must be the state that provides education for everyone,” said Tom Puryear, education chairperson for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in New Jersey, one of the organizations also leading the lawsuit.

Students feel frustrated with public school districts

At the town hall on Friday, Ametekpor, a recent graduate of Essex County’s Donald M. Payne School of Technology, said she “felt frustrated” in high school because she had to turn to community-based organizations to help her get to college after seeing her guidance counselors “overworked” during college application season.

Her school, located in Newark’s West Ward, was mainly made up of Hispanic students and she felt as if there were more events targeted at celebrating Hispanic and Latino culture, Ametekpor said.

“I just wished there was more institutional support, especially for the African American students at my school, to help them be celebrated and have their heritage on display,” she added.

Even when she brought issues to administrators or the county school board, she remembers feeling “like I wasn’t heard” and recalls administrators “dragging their feet” to solve the problems. She learned to become an advocate for herself due to her persistence in raising issues affecting Black students, Ametekpor added.

Garcia, a sophomore at Seton Hall University and a Colonia High School graduate, had a similar experience as a first-generation Latina college student. Garcia said she went to a majority-white school in Middlesex and remembers feeling intimidated by her peers.

She felt as if they had an upper hand because of family members or siblings who had already gone to college and knew the system. She also felt as if there weren’t enough Hispanic or Latina teachers who could relate to her experience.

“I felt like I was lost,” Garcia said. “But I know that my other peers had an upper hand against me, and I feel like it just misled me going into college.”

The last time she felt comfortable at school was in elementary school when she was part of a more diverse student body that included Hispanic, Black, and South Asian students that she also learned from, Garcia added.

Laporte, a senior at JVJ STEM Academy in Elizabeth, doesn’t see as many Black and Latino students being involved in after-school clubs. He’s currently the president of the school’s honor society, a club with a majority of white students, said Laporte, who struggles to integrate more diverse cultural representation into his club.

“It’s not just the school itself, it’s the breakdown, it’s the leadership, it’s the way we allocate our resources,” Laporte said.

Local leaders discuss potential solutions

Peter Rosario is the president and CEO of La Casa de Don Pedro in Newark, an organization aimed at empowering people of color in local communities. Rosario says changing school districts into countywide school districts could be one way to integrate students into school and create more funding opportunities for student resources.

“Basing educational funding on your local taxes keeps us segregated as a state and as a people,” Rosario added.

For Leah Owens, former educator and founder of Just Writing, which provides educational and small business consulting, the key to creating more cultural school environments is to “create a system of care” throughout public schools.

She feels schools focus on outcomes and test scores but don’t invest in “the whole person” and issues that affect students’ social and emotional learning. By teaching in a culturally responsive way, students will feel more engaged and connected to their peers, Owens said.

“We have assets in communities of color that do not get reflected in the school buildings themselves,” Owens added. “And if we were to take the cultural practices and utilize them, we would see more positive both academic and social outcomes for our children.”

Puryear of the NAACP-NJ added that “it’s up to the community and the youth” to demand more resources and ultimately, change in their schools. He believes the current segregation lawsuit before the state “is the key factor” in desegregating schools and having a more equitable school system.

The lawsuit, Latino Action Network, et al. v. State of New Jersey, was last argued before Superior Court Judge Robert Lougy in March of 2022. The parents and guardians of nine Latino and Black children and one white child from Highland Park are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The Statewide Coalition of Educational Equity is made up of the NAACP, Latino Action Network, Urban League of Essex County, People’s Organization for Progress, and other voices throughout New Jersey.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Teachers sue over Tennessee law restricting what they can teach about race, gender, and bias

2023-07-26T18:58:23+00:00

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Tennessee’s largest teacher organization has joined with five public school educators to legally challenge a 2-year-old state law restricting what they can teach about race, gender, and bias in their classrooms.

Their lawsuit, which was filed late Tuesday in a federal court in Nashville by lawyers for the Tennessee Education Association, maintains the language in the 2021 law is unconstitutionally vague and that the state’s enforcement plan is subjective.

The complaint also charges that Tennessee’s so-called “prohibited concepts” law interferes with instruction on difficult but important topics included in the state’s academic standards. Those standards outline state-approved learning goals, which dictate other decisions around curriculum and testing.

The lawsuit is the first legal challenge to the controversial state law that was among the first of its kind in the nation. The law passed amid a conservative backlash to America’s reckoning over racism after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis and subsequent anti-racist protests.

Rep. John Ragan of Oak Ridge, one of the Republican sponsors of the legislation, argued the law was needed to protect K-12 students from being “indoctrinated” with social concepts that he and other lawmakers considered misguided and divisive such as critical race theory. That academic framework, which surveys of teachers suggest are not being taught in K-12 schools, is more commonly found in higher education to examine how policies and the law perpetuate systemic racism.

Tennessee’s GOP-controlled legislature overwhelmingly passed the legislation in the final days of their 2021 session, just days after the bill’s introduction. Gov. Bill Lee quickly signed it into law, and later that year, the state education department set rules for enforcement. If found in violation, teachers can be stripped of their licenses and school districts can lose state funding.

Only a small number of complaints have been filed and no penalties levied during the law’s first two years on the books. But Ragan has introduced new legislation that would widen eligibility for who can file a complaint.

The lawsuit seeks to overturn the law and asks for a court order against its enforcement.

The complaint claims the statute fails to give Tennessee educators a reasonable opportunity to understand what conduct and teachings are prohibited.

“Teachers are in this gray area where we don’t know what we can and can’t do or say in our classrooms,” said Kathryn Vaughn, a veteran teacher in Tipton County, near Memphis, and one of five educators who are plaintiffs in the case.

“The rollout of the law — from guidance to training — has been almost nonexistent,” Vaughn added. “That’s put educators in an impossible position.”

The lawsuit also charges the law encourages arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement and violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which forbids any state from “depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”

“Laws need to be clear,” said Tanya Coats, president of the teachers group known as TEA, which is leading the litigation.

She said educators have spent “countless hours” trying to understand the law and the 14 concepts banned from the classroom — including that the United States is “fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist;” or that an individual, by virtue of their race or sex, “bears responsibility” for past actions committed by other members of the same race or sex.

TEA says the ambiguity of those concepts has had a chilling effect in schools — from how teachers answer a student’s question to what materials they read in class. To avoid the risk of time-consuming complaints and potential penalties from the state, school leaders have made changes to instruction and school activities. But ultimately, it’s students who suffer, Coats said.

“This law interferes with Tennessee teachers’ job to provide a fact-based, well-rounded education to their students,” Coats said in a news release.

The 52-page lawsuit gives specific examples of how the ban is affecting what nearly a million public school students are learning — and not learning — daily across Tennessee.

“In Tipton County, for example, one school has replaced an annual field trip to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis with a trip to a baseball game. In Shelby County, a choir director fears that his decades-long practice of teaching his students to sing and understand the history behind spirituals sung by enslaved people will be perceived as ‘divisive’ or otherwise violative of the Ban,” the suit says. Other districts have removed books from their curriculum as a result of the law.

The governor’s office typically does not comment on pending litigation, but Lee’s press secretary, Jade Byers, provided this statement on Wednesday in response to the lawsuit: “The governor signed the legislation because every parent deserves transparency into their child’s education, and Tennessee students should be taught history and civics with facts, not divisive political commentary.”

Tennessee targeted anti-CRT policies early

Tennessee was among the first states to pass a law limiting the depth of classroom discussions about inequality and concepts such as white privilege.

In March, Tennessee’s education department reported that few complaints had been filed with local school districts based on the law. And the department had received only a few appeals of local decisions.

One was from the parent of a student enrolled in a private school in Davidson County. Because the law does not apply to private schools, the department found that the parent did not have standing to file an appeal under the law.

Another complaint was filed by a Blount County parent over the book “Dragonwings,” a novel told from the perspective of a Chinese immigrant boy in the early 20th century. The state denied the appeal based on the results of its investigation.

However, Blount County Schools still removed the book from its sixth grade curriculum. And the lawsuit described the emotional toll of the proceedings on a 45-year teaching veteran who was “entangled in months of administrative proceedings, with her job on the line, because of a single parent’s complaint about an award-winning work of young adult literature that the Tennessee Department of Education approved and the local elected school board adopted as part of the district’s curriculum.”

The department also declined to investigate a complaint from Williamson County, south of Nashville, filed soon after the law was enacted. Robin Steenman, chair of the local Moms for Liberty chapter, alleged the literacy curriculum “Wit and Wisdom,” used by Williamson County Schools in 2020-21, has a “heavily biased agenda” that makes children “hate their country, each other and/or themselves.”

A spokesman said the department was only authorized to investigate claims beginning with the 2021-22 school year and encouraged Steenman to work with Williamson County Schools to resolve her concerns.

Department officials did not immediately respond Wednesday when asked whether the state has received more appeals in recent months.

Meanwhile, critics of the law worry about new legislative efforts to broaden its application.

Under the state’s current rules, only students, parents, or employees within a district or charter school can file complaints involving their school. Ragan’s bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Joey Hensley of Hohenwald, would allow any resident within a public school zone to file a complaint.

But critics argue such a change would open the door to conservative groups, like Moms for Liberty, to flood their local school boards with complaints about instruction, books, or materials they believe violate the law, even if they do not have direct contact with the teacher or school in question.

The prohibited concepts law is separate from 2022 Tennessee law that, based on appeals of local school board decisions, empowers a state panel to ban school library books statewide if deemed “inappropriate for the age or maturity levels” of students.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include comments from the governor’s office and one of the plaintiffs.

Marta W. Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

New Brooklyn high school aims to create social justice-focused design professionals

2023-06-30T18:10:57+00:00

Design Works High School, opening this fall in downtown Brooklyn, has a mission: to create socially conscious design professionals.

Students at the new social justice-oriented school will spend their freshman year studying how housing and environmental issues affect their community. They will also learn about the politics of poverty and inequality. Then they will choose among three specialties: housing equity, tech equity, and design equity.

“When CUNY is holding a big talk about water, and how safe water is an equity issue, we want our young people to not just be invited to come to see the talk, but to be able to go toe-to-toe with those experts,” said Corinth Hunter, who has served as project coordinator for the new school and hopes to lead it as principal.

Hunter said having students focus on the language and literature of topics, such as one’s privilege and position, is imperative, particularly in their first year. She wants students to understand logically what these terms mean before they begin offering solutions.

The school’s three tracks could lead students to careers in urban planning, software engineering, and interior design.

Bank Street College of Education, Pratt Institute, and New York City’s education department are opening the doors this fall to Design Works High School, or DWHS. Birthed from the 2019 Imagine NYC Schools competition, which had over 200 entries, the new school originally planned on having a freshmen class of 80. However, after a growing waitlist of 200 students and counting, it has bumped the number to 90.

Bank Street President Shael Polakow-Suransky said one of the stronger selling points for prospective parents and students has been the school’s direct pathway to a promising design career. Hunter said another selling point has been the degree of intimacy she and others have offered incoming students before the new school year even begins.

As part of the participatory learning practice for Design Works High School, students and teachers share ideas on a wall at Pratt Institute.

An outreach plan rooted in community participation

DWHS is building its intimate setting through a community-centered tactic called participatory practice. Essentially, students and community members will work together to decide the problem and solutions plaguing their everyday lives instead of students discussing problems and solutions by themselves.

Pratt Institute President Frances Bronet said, “We are not NYU, we are not Columbia. We are a small school of 5,000 students, but we are committed to participatory practice, and that’s what sets us apart.”

According to its website, participatory research experts at TakeRoot Justice say that “local groups are the experts on what their communities need to thrive,” while NYU Steinhardt has a report saying participatory practice benefits students by teaching them how to have a voice and weigh solutions that impact their community.

In that spirit, Hunter, her team, and Impacct Brooklyn, a nonprofit focusing on housing equity support for Brooklyners, went to community events, block parties, and high school fairs in District 13, which includes some of Brooklyn Heights, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Navy Yard, and Bedford Stuyvesant. From October to December, they hit the pavement to get the word out about DWHS.

Hunter started a Mailchimp newsletter, and while visiting community events, she would encourage people she met along the way to sign up. While the school wasn’t yet up and running, Hunter used the newsletter as a tool to collect data from interested parents and students by adding surveys inquiring about preferred start times and what topics students enjoyed learning the most. This outreach strategy helped Hunter build relationships with students and parents well before the school’s opening.

“There’s an attraction to a small school that listens,” she said.

An educator and students brainstorm together during a student design workshop at Pratt Institute.

After gathering information about students and teachers through her Mailchimp efforts, Hunter and her staff have been contacting families that have accepted a spot at DWHS who would qualify for free and reduced price lunch and after-school programs to inform them of other resources, and then supported families through those applications. Some of these programs include Pratt’s Design Initiative for Community Empowerment and its Young Scholars program.

DICE focuses on creative thinking and problem-solving through studio classes in design. Pratt’s Young Scholars offers mentorship and college readiness guidance over a three-year period.

Social justice meets design curriculum through local partnerships

Given the school’s relationship this year with Pratt Institute, a top design college, school officials believe that the three career tracks will offer a concrete pathway to higher education opportunities.

The school’s day-to-day schedule will be similar to a regular public school day, with some differences. Three times a week, students will have “design time” where their core classes will be 75 minutes instead of 45 minutes. Hunter says the goal is to allow students to create instead of just discussing how to solve problems.

To make sure no student falls behind academically, teachers will hold office hours at the end of each day to address students who might need extra time on a specific topic.

Because of its mission to center social justice, Hunter said the school also is committed to providing mental health support to students who could develop burnout. Hunter acknowledges that many students have struggled since the COVID-19 pandemic and that social justice work can be emotionally difficult work.

Students’ daily advisory time will be focused on addressing potential burnout, she said. Hunter has already been developing a partnership with counseling in schools and organizations running community circles. The school is also laying the groundwork for partnerships with arts-related groups such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, BRIC Arts Media, and the Center for Urban Pedagogy.

Hunter hopes that prioritizing both social equity and design collectively will encourage students to experience more pride in where they come from and feel more confident in providing solutions to problems they could be experiencing themselves.

“There are schools out there that can create the best coder, the best designer, but if they don’t have that social justice lens, those students are just furthering the status quo,” she said.

Eliana Perozo is a reporting intern at Chalkbeat New York. You can reach her at eperozo@chalkbeat.org.

Denver LGBTQ+ students share their stories, and joy, in new film for educators

2023-06-21T23:06:27+00:00

The last words in a new film about LGBTQ+ students belong to a 17-year-old named Ca’Shara, who graduated from a Denver high school last month.

“My queer joy is all the time,” Ca’Shara says, a wide smile on her face. “I feel like there never was a time in my life when I wasn’t queer. I feel like we should also celebrate your Black joy, your Latino joy, all these other joys. They’re just as important. And, yeah. That’s me.”

Ca’Shara throws her hands up and scrunches her face into a laugh.

The hourlong film, called “Reclaiming the Narrative: A Film About LGBTQ+ Students,” features 16 Denver Public Schools students speaking about their lives and experiences in school as LGBTQ+ students — and also, for many of them, as Black, Latino, and Indigenous students.

The film was made in partnership with A Queer Endeavor, an organization housed at the University of Colorado-Boulder that provides training to educators about gender and sexual diversity. It will be used in those trainings — in DPS, throughout Colorado, and even nationwide — starting next school year. Though the training sessions are not always mandatory for educators, even in DPS, the filmmakers hope the students’ voices will spur action and change.

“I hope that viewers are open to listening with a full heart,” said Bethy Leonardi, an associate professor at CU Boulder and co-founder of A Queer Endeavor, “and to think carefully about: What can I do? … How can I hold my community accountable to do right by these people?”

Fewer than half of LGBTQ+ Colorado youth surveyed in the fall of 2021 said they felt like they belonged at their school, according to the results of the biennial Healthy Kids Colorado survey. LGBTQ+ youth were more likely than straight and cisgender youth to report being bullied and also more likely to report attempting suicide.

But the filmmakers — and the students themselves — didn’t want to focus solely on the ways LGBTQ+ youth are marginalized or oppressed. They also wanted to focus on joy.

“That was the main thing they wanted to talk about,” said Levi Arithson, program manager for LGBTQ+ equity initiatives at DPS.

Well-meaning adults often want “to feel like they are saving a kid,” Arithson said. But, he added, “We don’t always have to wait until it’s terrible. How do we find the things that are wonderful?”

Students’ voices are the most powerful

“Reclaiming the Narrative” was filmed over the course of several days in the spring of 2022 with students from 13 DPS high schools. It was funded by a $16,350 grant from Denver-based education nonprofit RootED, which called the film a valuable tool for teacher training.

Though the film features quotes from famous writers and activists such as James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, as well as interviews with scholars from universities across the country, the students’ words are the most impactful.

“Our students, it’s really their story,” Arithson said. “All we did was make it into a film.”

Here is some of what the students had to say:

“I want to know about the previous queer people in history,” a student named Ronan says in the film. “It feels like in school curriculums, there’s no conversation about queer history.”

A student named Zoë says she has known she was gay since kindergarten. But she never saw LGTBQ+ people in her schools’ curriculum. “If I had seen that since I was in elementary school, I wouldn’t have thought something was wrong with me,” she says.

Helios talks about how empowering it was to do a history project on queer artists. “But then it also made me sad,” they said, “because I realized I’d never heard about any of them.”

Sammy, who uses they/them pronouns, recalls how sometimes their teachers use the wrong pronouns “not because they’re malicious or anything, but just because they don’t remember.” And sometimes, the teachers make a big deal of correcting themselves.

“When they correct themselves, I find more times than not, it will be much, much overexaggerated,” Sammy says. “It’s really just a grammar mistake at the root of it. And if you were to say another grammar mistake, you wouldn’t spend two minutes addressing it to your class. … So I want to treat it more like that. Like ‘Oh, sorry. My bad.’”

A student named Lumi talks about how much they love to write and how it feels “so, so amazing” when someone listens to them “talk about my gay little stories,” the characters in the stories, and how Lumi builds relationships.

“Hire queer teachers,” a student named Tally says, speaking directly to school administrators. “Hire teachers who are unabashedly and proudly queer.”

“It’s just really hard to be Black and to be part of the queer community,” a student named Karla says. “Because you just have that double standard all the time.

“Like, ‘well, I’m Black so I have to act a certain way, I have to talk a certain way,’” Karla says. “And then on top of that, ‘oh, I’m queer so I have to still act a certain way, talk a certain way, and not be too loud or not be too happy.’ It’s a lot of restriction that comes along with it. It’s just that level of trying to find yourself and be in both groups but still be just you.”

Zoë talks about how the Black students at her school are disciplined more harshly than the queer students — and how that leads to friction between the groups. “Make sure you’re not singling out anybody just because of what group they’re associated with,” she says.

A student named Eric recalls being asked what queer joy looked like to him and not knowing how to answer. But now Eric says he knows that “it’s self expression, it’s joy, it’s laughter.

“It’s being authentically you.”

Students hope the film makes a difference at school

In an interview, Lumi said participating in the film gave them a sense of belonging.

“I’ve never been in a place where I felt like I belong except for in that room with all those other students and Levi and Bethy,” they said. “It’s important for students who are queer and (people of color) to gather in a space where they feel welcomed and know that it’s OK to be a person of color and be queer. A lot of schools aren’t really all that accepting of queer students.”

Lumi, 18, graduated from a DPS high school in 2022. As a student, they said they were often afraid to speak up. Their teachers’ behavior contributed to their silence, they said. When their classmates would “say words like ‘fruity’ or use ‘gay’ as an insult, most of the time my teachers would look at those students and just let it go,” Lumi said. “That’s what made me so afraid.”

Although their school had a club for LGBTQ+ students, Lumi said the school didn’t provide much support other than a classroom for club meetings, and they often felt like they didn’t have a voice. Lumi said the film offered them another opportunity.

“It was so exciting to see myself up on that screen and realize I made a difference,” they said.

Ca’Shara recalled going to a premiere of the film earlier this month. Afterward, she said educators in the audience came up to her and told her how moved they were.

“They gave me unconditional love,” Ca’Shara said in an interview. “I’d love to see teachers — when you see students who are different and all of that, that unconditional love that you might have felt for the people in the film, put that into the classroom.

“You see students from different backgrounds? Support and love them.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

The ‘Tennessee 3’ created a historic teachable moment. Will schools be allowed to teach it?

2023-06-16T19:34:07+00:00

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When Wyatt Bassow and Ava Buxton missed classes one morning this spring to see democracy in action in Tennessee, they witnessed history that they acknowledged probably wouldn’t be fully taught at their high school less than a mile away.

Justin Pearson, one of two young Democratic lawmakers who were dramatically expelled from office just a week earlier by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, was taking his oath of office again that day outside the state Capitol in Nashville after being voted back in by officials in Shelby County.

A few days earlier, Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville had been reinstated after a similar vote by his city’s council.

Both men had been ousted from the legislature for staging a protest on the House floor urging gun reforms after a mass school shooting in Nashville. The votes temporarily robbed some 140,000 Tennesseans in the state’s two largest cities of their representation.

“What I’ve learned these last few weeks is that democracy is incredibly fragile,” said Bassow, a senior at Nashville’s Hume-Fogg High School, as he cheered Pearson’s reinstatement in the shadow of the Capitol building.

“But because of the power of the people,” he added, “we were able to fix this.”

Less certain, the students said, is whether the controversial ouster of the two young Black Democrats by the House’s all-white GOP supermajority would be fully discussed at their school, or any public Tennessee school, as part of a course in U.S. government, civics, history, contemporary issues, or social studies.

While Republican leaders maintain the ouster was not racially motivated, the racial optics were undeniable, as was the supermajority’s suppression of legislative voices with whom they disagreed.

Cameron Sexton, a Republican from Crossville, is the speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, Tennessee is at the front of a conservative-driven wave of censorship about what can and cannot be taught in K-12 schools.

A 2021 state law restricts classroom discussions about systemic racism, white privilege, and the ongoing legacy of slavery. Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who signed the law, has championed civics education that emphasizes American exceptionalism and plays down the origins of present-day U.S. injustices.

School libraries are under scrutiny too, especially for materials that have to do with race and gender. A 2022 law gives the state unprecedented authority to overrule local school boards and remove certain materials from libraries statewide. And a 2023 law puts book distributors and publishers at risk of criminal prosecution if materials they provide to Tennessee schools are deemed obscene.

“We definitely have noticed that a silencing is happening in our schools.” —Ava Buxton, student

“We definitely have noticed that a silencing is happening in our schools,” said Buxton, also a senior at Hume-Fogg, when asked whether the expulsions of Jones and Pearson had been discussed in her classes.

“Thankfully, our teachers are wonderful and intelligent educators who do their best to give students the space we need to have important conversations,” she continued. “But I think these conversations would go much deeper if our teachers didn’t have the fear of these new laws hanging over them.”

The rise, fall, and rise of the Tennessee Three

The expulsions of the two Black lawmakers came during the dramatic last weeks of a tumultuous legislative session gripped by large citizen protests over Tennessee’s lax gun laws, after an armed intruder killed three children and three adults at The Covenant School in Nashville on March 27.

Frustrated that House Speaker Cameron Sexton was not allowing them to voice the concerns of demonstrators during debates, Pearson, Jones, and Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville took their protest to the House floor, where Jones and Pearson alternately used a bullhorn to shout “Gun control now!” and “Power to the people!”

In the process, the trio broke the chamber’s rules of decorum. GOP-sponsored ouster resolutions accused the so-called Tennessee Three of “knowingly and intentionally bringing disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives.”

(From left) Reps. Justin Jones of Nashville, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, and Justin Pearson of Memphis speak at a press conference on April 4, 2023, about GOP-sponsored resolutions to kick the three Democrats out of office.

Ultimately, Republican representatives voted overwhelmingly to kick out the two young Black men, while Johnson, who is older and white and was less vocal during the protest, kept her seat by a single vote.

The last time the House had expelled multiple members was in 1866, when six representatives were thrown out for conspiring to deprive the chamber of a quorum during a special session to ratify the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Two others have been expelled in more recent times, one for soliciting a bribe, and the other for sexual misconduct.

By contrast, the ousters of Jones and Pearson over their peaceful protest of gun violence — now the No. 1 killer of children and teens in America — seemed heavy-handed to their supporters. The House could have chosen simply to censure them for breaking House rules of decorum instead of kicking them out altogether.

In a subsequent four-page rebuke, the nation’s professional organization for social studies teachers denounced Tennessee’s House as attacking foundational principles of democratic and republican norms. Intentionally or not, the state was sending Tennessee students a message that the rights to free speech, peaceful protest, and holding their elected officials accountable are “reserved for those who have a specific view or perspective,” the National Council for the Social Studies wrote.

“Just as disturbing,” the group continued, “this action sends a message to the larger community that civil discourse and active citizenship will result in punishment rather than in finding consensus in ways that uphold the principles of democracy and the functioning of our republic … (which) will have a long-term impact on our students’ faith in the democratic process and our constitutional principles.”

Tennessee’s living history drama was filled with teachable moments

Political science and social studies experts say it’s hard to narrow down the events in Tennessee this spring to one teachable moment.

Tens of thousands of citizens descending on the Capitol to protest gun violence after a school shooting and the subsequent expulsions and reinstatements of Jones and Pearson are rich runways for academic inquiry. Among the issues: freedom of speech, legislative rules of decorum, the enduring influence of racism on public policy, and — as Bassow, the Nashville student, articulated — the fragility of democracy.

Students protest outside the Tennessee State Capitol on April 3, 2023, during a demonstration against gun violence and the state’s lax gun laws after a deadly school shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville.

John Geer, a political science professor who helped to launch the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy, heartily agrees with Bassow.

“The teachable moment is that democracy fundamentally rests on genuine competition among political parties,” said Geer. “But because of supermajorities in our state legislatures, the minority party has no real influence and is left to scream or complain. They’re not part of the governing process. There’s no give and take, no compromise. Meanwhile, the majority party has so much power that they don’t need to negotiate, and that leads to excesses.”

It didn’t take long for resources to become available to help teachers broach the controversies in Tennessee as well as in Montana, where that state’s House speaker silenced Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr, a transgender lawmaker who refused to apologize for telling colleagues they would have “blood” on their hands if they supported a ban on gender-affirming care for youths.

Facing History and Ourselves, a nonprofit group that creates resources about current events to spawn thoughtful classroom discussions, zeroed in on two issues in its lessons: how to discuss politics in non-polarizing ways and the implications of using rules of decorum to censure legislators.

“What norms should guide our conversations about political issues?” asks the group’s lessons designed for middle and high school students.

“How could rules around speech be used to silence people?”

Parameters have narrowed on what teachers can teach

The availability of resources doesn’t mean such questions are being regularly asked in Tennessee classrooms, however.

The state’s public school teachers don’t have much wiggle room on what they’re allowed to teach. They’re also under increased scrutiny over the resources they can use.

“Tennessee civics is really nowhere in the standards. If something isn’t in the standards, it’s probably not going to be taught.” —Bill Carey, Tennessee History for Kids

Teachers are guided by hundreds of state-approved academic standards that set learning goals by subject and grade, and that dictate decisions around curriculum and testing. And social studies teachers already are hard-pressed to cover all of the standards for their subjects during a single school year. Even if they do, only a few courses offered in grades five, eight, and 12 include standards that might lend themselves to discussions about the Tennessee Three.

“Tennessee civics is really nowhere in the standards,” said Bill Carey, who sells resources for educators through his nonprofit Tennessee History for Kids. “And if something isn’t in the standards, it’s probably not going to be taught.”

Social studies lessons, in particular, are monitored closely by parents and activists.

In 2015, some complained that some Tennessee teachers were “indoctrinating” students into Islam in their seventh-grade world history classes, prompting state officials to order an early review of those standards.

More recently, amid a conservative backlash to anti-racism protests after a white policeman killed Black American George Floyd in Minneapolis (an incident that prompted a federal investigation into systemic racism on the police force), Tennessee was among the first states to enact a law intended to restrict K-12 classroom discussions about race, racism, and gender.

Specifically, the 2021 law prohibits teachers from discussing 14 concepts that the state has deemed divisive, including that the United States is fundamentally or irredeemably sexist or racist, or that an individual is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive because of their race or gender.

Educators have complained that the law and the state’s rules for enforcing the statute aren’t clear about exactly what teachings cross the line. But teachers found in violation could have their licenses suspended or revoked, while their school districts could face financial penalties.

“To be honest, I just didn’t mention this in class. I am just overly cautious with what I cover in class for now.” —Tennessee social studies teacher

The potential fallout has influenced small but pivotal decisions that educators make every day in Tennessee and in other states that have passed similar laws targeting so-called critical race theory: how to answer a student’s question, which articles to read as a class, how to prepare for a lesson, which examples to use.

That includes whether to discuss the Tennessee legislature’s vote to expel Jones and Pearson, which made national headlines.

“To be honest, I just didn’t mention this in class,” said one Tennessee social studies teacher who asked not to be identified, for fear of retribution. “I am just overly cautious with what I cover in class for now.”

Students ‘come up with all these great questions’

Mark Finchum, executive director of the Tennessee Council for the Social Studies, says the law — and a related climate of fear — has had a chilling effect on teachers who might normally contemplate lessons about the Tennessee Three, or perhaps about the insurrection at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. But it also depends on the teacher.

“If you’re a new teacher who is teaching in an area of the state where you feel insecure, you may not want to go there,” Finchum said. “But if you’re an experienced teacher and feel strongly about these events and how your students can learn from them, you may go ahead.”

Erika Sugarmon falls in the latter category.

One Friday at White Station High School in Memphis, students showed up to Sugarmon’s weekly current events discussion with lots of questions about the expulsion. The day before the legislative vote, many White Station students had walked out of school to show support for gun reforms called for by the Tennessee Three.

“The kids come up with all these great questions. Sometimes there’s not an answer,” said Sugarmon, a veteran educator who teaches courses in U.S. government.

Protesters listen from the gallery of the House of Representatives at the Tennessee State Capitol on April 3, 2023, while demanding gun reform and justice for The Tennessee Three.

But it’s important to give students a safe and constructive space to discuss hard things, added Sugarmon, who is also an elected official on the Shelby County Commission, where she cast a vote to reinstate Pearson to his seat.

One student in her class brought up racism, she said, prompting a conversation about why Tennessee lawmakers have sought to ban some books and squelch classroom discussions about racism.

“Students have been very vocal about not just what happened with Pearson, but with state laws in general,” said Sugarmon.

She encourages them to explore source documents to formulate their own options.

Evidence-based discussions are the way that teachers should take up politically charged topics with their students, Vanderbilt’s Geer said.

“The evidence should be your guidepost,” he said, “while avoiding injecting ideology into the classroom.”

“Yes, facts need to be interpreted,” Geer added. “But if we can agree on a basic set of evidence, we can have a conversation. And that’s an important part of democracy.”

Maya Logan, a rising senior in Memphis at Germantown High School, talked about the lawmakers’ expulsions with her friends, but didn’t discuss the event as part of her 11th-grade American history class. Just the same, the deadly shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School, which prompted the protest and led to the expulsions, was a big deal to her. And as a young Black person, she related to Pearson and Jones, who are among the youngest members of the House.

Logan hopes this year’s events at the state Capitol will resurface as discussion topics during her senior year when she takes a U.S. government class. She has important questions. And she’s looking for answers.

“These are people,” she explained, “that are setting things up for us for our futures.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino is a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, where she covers K-12 education in Memphis. Contact her at ltestino@chalkbeat.org.

I was hired to write a Black history curriculum. Then I was asked to walk back key concepts.

2023-06-12T11:00:00+00:00

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In 2020, I was approached on LinkedIn about working with an organization to create a Black history and social justice course curriculum for high school students. They sought me out because of my previous commentaries about teaching Black history. I told them I was interested, and they asked me to draft a prospectus for such a course.

What I provided was a philosophical overview of what a social justice and Black history course could look like. I wanted no misunderstanding about the educator they’d be partnering with and the language that I use to teach my students. So I told them that I wanted students to leave this class understanding the United States is a white settler colonized state, built by way of racial capitalism to enrich “white people” of European descent above everyone else.

Rann Miller

When they brought me on, I believed that it was a real opportunity to expose students to the truth they had not previously learned in their history classes.

While the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor months earlier weren’t the first time the U.S. was confronted with the systemic racism of policing, the protest movement that followed seemed to mark an inflection point. The 1619 Project had just won a Pulitzer Prize. A reckoning seemed on the horizon. That was the backdrop against which I, then optimistically naive, got to work.

I was primarily responsible for the content of the course, with others handling the packaging of the course. I took the responsibility very seriously. My students have often asked me why they hadn’t learned what Arturo Schomburg called the missing pages of history prior to attending my history classes. That question served as a guide. I asked questions such as “What is whiteness, and did it exist before the formation of the United States?” and “What is American exceptionalism, and how does it show itself in popular culture?”

The initial feedback that I received was positive. I was supported and encouraged to continue down the path I was going, and I believed that the completion of this work would transform the minds of the course participants.

But by the following year, I realized the racial reckoning was not to be. There had been no effort to address systemic racism in earnest, which would require a dramatic reorganization of our social, political, and economic orders. What happened instead was an insurrection at the start of the year. What happened instead was a backlash to protests against police brutality. What happened instead were voter suppression policies and legislation banning Critical Race Theory in curriculums and professional training.

Such backlash spilled into my curriculum work.

About halfway through the development of the curriculum, I was informed that what I had created so far presented a client sensitivity issue. Words and concepts and topics such as white supremacy, intersectionality, and racial capitalism would make it difficult for the curriculum to be sold in states that experienced backlash to Critical Race Theory, the company spearheading the curriculum explained.

Initially, I was confused because the ones delivering the news were the very people who had complimented my work up until this point.

I was asked to remove certain terms and concepts, like intersectionality, in favor of a trajectory that explored justice without explicit mention of these words. I was also asked not to phrase these concepts in a way that acknowledged them as established truth. Rather than saying white supremacy has done harm to the United States, for example, I was asked to say that some individuals argue that white supremacy has done harm to the United States.

I flat-out disagreed. But after a spirited back and forth, I agreed to stick with the project because I accepted the idea that compromise was better than students, namely white students, not receiving any instruction that challenged their idea of history. So I went back to work but no longer approached it with the same excitement as before.

I believed that it was a real opportunity to expose students to the truth.

The labor was split between myself and other curriculum writers to expedite the development process. I rededicated myself to submitting work rooted in truth, and that’s just what the folks received. Some of those words and phrases they asked me to remove remained. But once I submitted my work, decisions around what to include (and what to excise) were out of my hands.

In the end, the completed course flirted with ideas of identity and injustice — and how we ought to respect the identities of others — but without any specific call to antiracism or anticapitalism. Certainly, perfection can be the enemy of good. But in the case of teaching Black history, compromise, I realize now, is an assault on justice.

Black educators who want to entrench Black history in mainstream school curriculums have struggled with doing so for more than a century. It’s in large part due to white sensitivity to the truth — a truth that implicates their ancestors, their history, and their sense of self in crimes against humanity. This is true dating back to the dawn of the 20th century when seminal writings by the likes of historian Carter G. Woodson and sociologist W.E.B. DuBois were often kept out of classrooms where Black students learned.

And we witness this in real time, too, with the College Board’s botching of the AP African American Studies course. I should consider myself in good company.

Looking back on the experience, I am not angry. I am resolute. Since that time, I have published ”Resistance Stories from Black History for Kids.” It does just what I wanted that curriculum to do: teach the truth. The goal of our collective work is not to create a world where we, Black people, are the oppressors and white people suffer. The goal is to equip young people to, one day, eradicate systems of oppression altogether. I believe that our efforts are not in vain, for as Frederick Douglass explained, where there is no struggle, there is no progress.

Rann Miller is an educator and freelance writer based in New Jersey. His Urban Education Mixtape blog supports urban educators and parents of children attending urban schools. He is the author of “Resistance Stories from Black History for Kids” (Ulysses Press), available everywhere, including Mahogany Books. Follow him on Twitter @RealRannMiller.

Civil rights icon Ruby Bridges says reading festivals can counteract book bans

2023-05-16T16:56:50+00:00

In elementary school several years ago, Olivia Shackelford read about how 6-year-old Ruby Bridges endured racial slurs, ostracism, and death threats for integrating an all-white elementary school in New Orleans in 1960.

Groups such as Moms for Liberty that try to get books about race banned from schools say that reading such stories can traumatize children.

But Bridges’ story didn’t traumatize Olivia, her mother said. Instead, it energized her desire to learn more about the history of racism in America and the sacrifices of people like Bridges.

“She read about Ruby Bridges and the impact she had on integration, and she was obsessed, for years, with meeting her,” said Stephanie Shackelford, who brought Olivia, now 13, and her two other daughters, Cassidy and Blue, to the Ruby Bridges Reading Festival at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis on Saturday.

“We’re from Cabot, Arkansas, and found out that this was going on in Memphis, so she finally got a chance to meet her.”

As Tennessee, Florida, Texas and other states remove books that recount painful periods in history from school shelves, Bridges said that book festivals like the one that bears her name will be key to helping children like Olivia learn about the history of racism in America.

According to a report by PEN America, a group that champions freedom of expression through literature, 1,477 instances of book banning occurred in the first half of the 2022-23 school year, up 28% from the previous year.

And while Florida and Texas led with the most bans, Tennessee law is also making it easier for local authorities to ban books — including titles like Bridges’ own “Ruby Bridges Goes to School,” which a parents group in Williamson County objected to.

Bridges spent part of Saturday afternoon signing her newest children’s book, “I Am Ruby Bridges: How One Six-Year-Old Girl’s March to School Changed the World,” and others. Before that, she spoke to reporters about how her story wound up being the target of book bans, what must be done to combat them, and why stories like hers are especially important during this time.

Here are some highlights:

On her first book, “Ruby Bridges Goes to School,” becoming the target of book bans:

“I try to write my books in an uplifting way. My books have been truthful, and I do uplift everyone who was involved (in her integration effort): my teacher, who was white, my psychologist, who was white, the federal marshals who supported me, the people around the country who supported me.

“(But) they said the reason my books were being banned was because it made young white kids feel bad about themselves. So, for them to say that, that’s ridiculous. So, when they started targeting me, I couldn’t ignore it. Then I got a call from Congress asking me if I would speak about it.”

(Bridges spoke against Texas book bans during a House Oversight Committee hearing in 2022).

“Once my books are pulled down, you probably should expect that a lot more would follow. But if you’re banning my books because they’re too truthful, then why don’t we start having a conversation about the books that we force our young people to study, like the textbooks we know omit so much of the truth?

“So, if we’re going to ban my books, let’s take them all off the shelves and start anew.”

On what parents and communities should do to fight book bans:

“I think this festival speaks to that. We need to all come together to make sure books are available to kids, and to grow more reading festivals.

“I believe that if we’re going to get past our racial differences, we can’t do it alone. There was a time when we, as African-Americans, couldn’t be caught with a book, or couldn’t let people know we knew how to read. But we’ve come a long way from that, and it seems like we could be heading in that direction again if books are being banned.

On why the racism she endured as a 6-year-old is important to children’s understanding of history:

“I was recently asked to speak at a conference based on history. I was thinking about what I wanted to say about history. Then I thought about how I had to get on a plane to travel from Louisiana to D.C.

U.S. marshals escort Ruby Bridges to William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in 1960.

“I thought about how I arrived and made it safely, but someone in another plane didn’t (because of a plane crash).

“When that happened, they had to send a plane crew to the wreckage, to go through that wreckage, and to find that little black box.

“Can you imagine what those people must have seen going to that site, going to that wreckage, to get that little black box? Why was that box so important? It was the history that little black box held to make sure that I, on the next flight, would arrive safely.

“If history works for something like that, what makes us think it won’t work for racism — to rid us of racism? If we tell the truth — good, bad, or ugly — if we teach that it happened, then maybe history will move us past our racial differences.”

On how being a civil rights icon propelled her to become a writer and literacy advocate:

“I never dreamed that I would become an author myself, but writing my own story made me realize that I didn’t just want to give books away to kids, but to inspire them to write. I hope this festival can help do that.”

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Reach her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.

Expulsion hearing officers would get more training under Colorado bill

2023-04-21T21:33:46+00:00

The hearing officers who decide whether to expel Colorado students who have broken school rules or state laws could soon have to undergo more training.

A bill that aims to give students some protections in the expulsion process cleared its first legislative hurdle Thursday. House Bill 1291 received unanimous bipartisan approval from the House Education Committee.

The bill is a scaled back version of legislation that sponsors withdrew earlier this month after stiff opposition from school districts. The brief hearing and broad support for the new bill was in sharp contrast to how the more expansive version of the legislation was received.

“We started out trying to fundamentally change the way kids and families are treated in this process,” said bill sponsor state Rep. Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez. “This bill is a starting point to create a more equitable process.”

To become law, the bill needs to move through the full House and the state Senate in the next two weeks.

Democratic sponsors Gonzales-Gutierrez of Denver and state Rep. Junie Joseph of Boulder fear that expulsion is overused in some school districts. They want students’ full circumstances, such as unaddressed learning disabilities and past traumatic experiences that can shape behavior, to be considered when school districts are taking the extreme step of removing a student from the classroom.

They also want to make sure students understand what they’re accused of and have the opportunity to review the evidence and defend themselves.

The bill is backed by advocates for students with disabilities and children who have been involved in the criminal justice system, as well as Denver Public Schools. The Colorado Association of School Executives is registered as opposed in state lobbyist filings but did not testify against the bill.

Attorney Elie Zwiebel with the Colorado Juvenile Defender Center told lawmakers that the youngest child he’s ever represented in an expulsion proceeding was 7 years old. He said he’s seen behavior as minor as throwing a pencil across a room toward a trash can cast as “assault with a deadly weapon” to make the case for expulsion. In another example, he said a student was expelled for giving his sibling, who attended the same school, a black eye in a fight that occurred at home.

If the bill becomes law, it would require that hearing officers undergo training in applicable state and federal law, adolescent brain development, the effects of trauma, and recognizing the impacts of disabilities. Hearing officers may be independent contractors, or they could be a top administrator, an attorney for the district, or the superintendent.

For students with identified disabilities who are facing expulsion, the school district already must consider whether the behavior in question is related to the disability. That doesn’t always happen as it should, advocates said, but there are also cases where a student doesn’t have a formal IEP, but their history and behavior strongly suggest they have a disability. In other cases, students who aren’t getting the help they need in the classroom become intensely frustrated and act out.

Advocates hope that more training will lead school districts to consider alternatives to expulsion in those cases.

The bill requires the Colorado Department of Education to develop the free training. School districts can also show that the training they already provide meets the same criteria.

The bill also requires that parents and guardians receive information about the reason for an expulsion at least two days before a hearing and encourages school districts to consider alternative ways to address student behavior and safety concerns.

The bill also clarifies the standard of proof in expulsion proceedings to say that school districts must demonstrate that it’s more likely than not that the offense occurred.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

More school counselors would improve juvenile justice system for girls, Philadelphia DA says

2023-03-31T19:02:49+00:00

Philadelphia’s juvenile justice system needs an overhaul to more fairly treat girls who are arrested and provide them with effective services and prevention programs, according to a new report from District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office.

Far fewer girls in the city are arrested than boys, the report found, but they are more likely to be arrested for incidents that occur in school or at home — one in three, compared to one in five boys.

“Girls without question are in a unique position in the juvenile justice system,” Krasner said at a Thursday press conference releasing the report. “They are arrested in small numbers, and they are arrested for very different kinds of offenses.”

One of the main recommendations from Krasner’s office involving education is that there should be a ratio of one counselor per 250 students in city schools, down from the current ratio of one per 650. In March, the Philadelphia Board of Education passed a budget that provides additional counselors to the highest-needs schools, although it doesn’t go as far as what the report calls for. Doing so would require hiring 240 more counselors at a cost $17.4 million.

The report — “Overlooked or Overscrutinized: A Case Study of Girls’ Justice in Philadelphia and Implications for the Design of a Fairer System” — studied all juvenile arrests in 2019.

In addition, the report said that every school should have two counselors on staff, regardless of its size, “with at least one of these counselors identifying as a woman to ensure that girls have a safe space if they do not feel comfortable confiding in male-identifying counselors.”

The student-counselor ratio was decimated due to budget cuts a decade ago and has not been fully restored.

The study looked at all 2,242 youth arrests in 2019, and followed all the cases through their disposition as of the end of 2022, said Adam Serlin, one of the report’s authors.

He said that nationally, 69% of the juveniles arrested are boys, but in Philadelphia, 81% are boys. The data also shows a stark racial imbalance: While about half of the city’s population is Black and 23% Hispanic, 95% of the girls arrested are Black or brown.

Black girls in particular “are overpoliced,” said Philadelphia Public Defender Keisha Hudson. “They are perceived as more mature, more aggressive. They’re perceived as adults, in our schools in our justice system, and they’re treated that way. So I think this is an important first step.”

While boys make up the majority of youth in our system, “the number of girls is growing at a rate that should concern us all,” Hudson said.

“The most practical implication of this is … the existence of fewer programs and services for girls in the juvenile justice system,” he said. Most of the existing programs are for boys only.

The “gender skew” also leads to much less research on girls.

Students protest for change in the system

A group of about 50 students, male and female, rallied outside the building across from City Hall where the Krasner press conference was held. They demanded reforms to juvenile justice in the city.

“They are putting girls in jail for fights in school,” said Kendra Vandewater, executive director of the nonprofit YEAH Philly, which stands for Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout. It works with young people who have been impacted by violence to offer them services and reduce arrests. The group chanted “free our youth” and “stop judging kids as adults.”

Kassidy Tingle, 20, one of the protesters, said that she was arrested for drug possession at age 17 when she was a student at Camelot Academy, an alternative school for students who leave traditional high schools for disciplinary or attendance reasons. She said she was called racial slurs by the police and not given the help she needed.

“They take advantage of their authority and don’t respect us,” she said. “They don’t see us as humans.”

The data shows that more girls are arrested for assault than any other reason, 44%, said report co-author Ciara Sheerin. That’s nearly double the rate for boys. And a major reason so many girls are arrested is a provision in state law that labels as a felony any assault on a member of a “protected class.”

Under the law, Sheerin said, teachers and other school staff, including school resource officers, are considered a protected class. So a student who pushes a teacher or a school resource officer, even if there is no injury, has to be charged as a criminal assault, she said.

Marsha Levick, head of the Juvenile Law Center, noted that she wrote a law journal article 20 years ago on this topic. “It’s dismaying to note that ... things haven’t changed,” she said.

“It’s not enough to give everyone the same,” she said. “What we’ve learned over time … is that when we think about the involvement and interaction of girls with the justice system, they have very specific needs. And we can’t assume that what works for boys will work for girls.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

When I think about the violence that killed Tyre Nichols, I feel betrayed

2023-03-02T13:00:00+00:00

When I first heard Tyre Nichols’ name circling around social media, I figured it was another classic case of a white police officer racially profiling a Black man. I avoided looking into his case for a couple of days, with feelings of dejà vu plaguing my soul. Why read about yet another promising Black man slain by the system?

Enoch Naklen

Then a couple of days later, I was casually scrolling through my Instagram, looking for a distraction from the homework I should have been doing. I usually speed-run through these stories, unless something catches my eye. And so, as I was tapping away, I saw a story reel with the words “five Black police officers” followed by a video: 13 minutes of the cops brutally beating and tasing Nichols during a traffic stop.

I decided to tap back and watch the reel, which talked about Tyre’s killers. I couldn’t watch the whole thing — not because of the graphic content (I am desensitized by now) — but because of my shock in learning it was five officers that looked just like me and Tyre.

After confirming this from three other sources, I felt … different. This was not the cold, hurting feeling evoked from seeing Derek Chauvin forcing his knee into George Floyd’s neck, or watching the very similar bludgeoning of Rodney King.

This time around, my blood boiled in not just anger but betrayal. The actions committed by these officers didn’t just amount to police brutality. This was a case of intra-community violence that feeds into the same harmful ideas we in Black community wish to dispel. As a Black man in this society, I am forced to recognize that there is a target on my back, but the fight for equality becomes even harder if I have to worry about my own brothers and sisters potentially targeting me as well.

I’m 18 now, and a senior at Brooklyn Latin. As I transition into my adulthood, I want to pursue a career that allows me to be an advocate for social change and the empowerment of people of color and marginalized communities. These officers were in positions of power. As Black people, we must use our power to uplift our community, not tear it down. Someone who goes into policing should feel that they have just as much opportunity to uplift their community as someone who becomes a defense attorney. Maybe more.

As the world awaits the fate of those officers, who were fired, arrested, and have pleaded not guilty to felony charges, I sympathize and mourn with the family of Tyre Nichols. He was a devoted father to a young son and a loving son to RowVaugn and Rodney Wells. He was also an up-and-coming photographer and a skateboard enthusiast.

All I can hope for is for this to be a lesson for everyone. Tyre Nichols’ life was taken, but it shouldn’t be in vain. We all need to do better. Black people in positions of power must heed the ethical imperative to uplift and support Black people and communities.

Enoch Naklen is a senior at The Brooklyn Latin School and is a 2022-23 Chalkbeat Student Voices Fellow. He encourages young adults to have challenging conversations.

A version of this piece first appeared in Youth Communication.

NJ Gov. Phil Murphy announces statewide expansion of AP African American course

2023-02-14T23:32:26+00:00

New Jersey will expand Advanced Placement African American Studies courses to 26 schools statewide, including six in Newark, starting next school year.

Gov. Phil Murphy made the announcement at Science Park High School on Tuesday while discussing the history of slavery with students in the school’s African American History class. Currently, Union County Vocational Technical High School is the only New Jersey school that offers the AP course.

“We want to expand the story and tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, even when it hurts,” said Murphy, a Democrat. “Our people of all races and ethnicities will be stronger for it, our society will be stronger, our country will be stronger and better for it.”

Currently, Newark offers an African American History curriculum that includes lessons on the contributions and struggles of Black people in the United States. Students learn about ancient Africa, the enslavement of African people in the U.S., and the struggle for civil rights, among other topics. The curriculum was created in 2020 thanks to a push from advocates who demanded Newark schools devote more time to African American history.

Much like Newark’s curriculum, the recently released College Board framework for the course will explore the “Origins of the African Diaspora” as well as “Movements and Debates.” In August, College Board rolled out the AP course across 60 schools nationwide as part of the first stage of its two-year pilot program with an initial draft framework. Next school year, the pilot expands to hundreds of high schools nationwide, including New Jersey. Pilot students take the first AP African American Studies exam in the spring of 2024 and all schools can begin offering the course during the 2024-25 school year.

But after disapproval from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican leaders, College Board released its official course framework earlier this month and removed much of the criticized content from the initial draft, including Black queer studies, reparations, and an example of the writings of poet and activist Amiri Baraka, father of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, among other notable activists.

“This begins with Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida. And it’s unacceptable and frankly shameful,” Murphy said.

Murphy’s news comes nearly a month after DeSantis blocked the new course from being taught in Florida public schools, alleging it violated a state law that restricts how race and racism are taught.

“There are people who have fought, even lost their lives to make sure that there were not just African American studies but women’s studies, Chicano studies, Asian studies,” Baraka said. “And it just doesn’t make sense that the College Board would limit the universal ideas that are available in this country.”

Now, Newark and other districts in New Jersey that include the new course will have to decide if they will incorporate much of what the College Board removed.

Murphy said it’s up to districts “to build back into the curriculum, as they see fit.”

Additionally, New Jersey leaders will have to address inequities among students of color who take AP courses in the state. During the 2020-21 school year, less than half of Black and Hispanic juniors and seniors across the state took at least one AP or IB class, compared to 41% of white students and 68% of Asian students.

Acting Commissioner of Education Dr. Angelica Allen-McMillan and Superintendent Roger León were also in attendance Tuesday as they heard from Alnazir Blackman, who teaches the African African American History class at Science Park and will teach the AP course at the school next year.

“As painful as this might be, including for nonblacks in this country, we have to face this history straight up,” Murphy said.

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Tyre Nichols’ death in Memphis creates another tragic teaching moment for Facing History & Ourselves

2023-02-10T18:15:08+00:00

The nonprofit group Facing History & Ourselves, which operates in more than 100 countries, provides educators with curriculum and resources to help students understand the lessons of history to combat bigotry and hate. It has operated in Memphis since 1992, and has reached more than 121,000 students in that time.

It also guides educators in using current events to spawn thoughtful discussions, help students think critically about difficult issues, and understand that they have agency in shaping those issues.

One of the current events students are discussing is the death of Tyre Nichols. The 29-year-old skateboarder, photographer and FedEx worker died days after being brutalized by Memphis police officers during a traffic stop on Jan. 7. Five officers have been charged in his slaying, which sparked protests throughout the city and nation.

Michele Philips is executive director of Facing History & Ourselves’ Southeast region, and is based in Memphis. Philips spoke with Chalkbeat about the role Facing History & Ourselves instructors will play in helping Memphis students grapple with Nichols’ death.

The interview has been lightly condensed and edited for clarity.

How is Facing History & Ourselves taught in Shelby County schools?

Facing History & Ourselves is in 80% of the middle and high schools, and grades 6 to 12. It looks different in each school. We have a Facing History & Ourselves elective, in which students can get a semester credit for social studies. About 30 schools have that course. Then we have a lot of teachers in English and Language Arts to teach “To Kill A Mockingbird,” but use it to teach the history of lynching and mob mentality, as opposed to just the coming-of-age of Scout.

Again, the purpose of Facing History & Ourselves is to use the lessons of history to confront bigotry and hate. We feel like that’s more important than ever now, and we’re sticking to our script.

I noticed on your website that you have a mini-lesson on the long, troubled history of law enforcement and Black people. One of the essential questions it presents is the challenge of teaching that history without stereotyping law enforcement. How does Tyre Nichols’ death complicate that?

It can complicate it, but we try to help students see each other’s total humanity. We help them recognize they can be agents of change through seeing each other’s humanity. I keep thinking about how our students today are going to be the community leaders, are going to be the police officers, the professionals, the decision makers of tomorrow. The practice of seeing each other’s total humanity starts with our students.

How would your instructors talk to students who are disillusioned and upset after seeing the Nichols video?

We don’t talk to them. We listen to them. We really let them sit with that, because the last thing we want to do is minimize their pain. Our teachers are really skilled at listening, and letting the students talk. We don’t want to say that it’ll be all right, because it may not be all right. I think our teachers have done that, not pushing a student who is angry or sad to talk about it, because they may not be ready to talk about it.

As you know, back in 2021 the Tennessee legislature passed a law restricting how lessons on race are taught. How is this affecting your instructors — especially when students are bound to have questions about race and police brutality in the wake of Nichols’ death?

I knew you were going to ask that. As you know, learning history is nuanced and complex, but it’s well within the ability of our students to understand with guidance from caring educators who are coached and trained on how to teach with empathy and accuracy.

That’s what we do. We have always been committed to teaching history with all of its honesty. The first thing that you do in a Facing History class is to teach the teachers how to build a safe and reflective classroom, so that the students get to learn each others’ stories, so that when you have a difficult conversation, we’re much more capable of being able to understand and hear each other.

What they teach is within the state standards of Tennessee. But I’m not going to tell you that it hasn’t had a chilling effect on some of our teachers. Some have been anxious and nervous. I’m not going to sugarcoat that.

How are your instructors working to tamp down that chilling effect, especially in this moment we’re in?

I think that our teachers are committed to slowing down and talking about (Nichols’ death) in a process that really humanizes the students, so they can reflect and have conversations. So far, we haven’t had a pushback.

There are ways to do this. Let me give you an example. In August, when we had the situation with the shooter (19-year-old Ezekiel Kelly was charged with killing three people in a citywide shooting spree), I went to Central High School and listened to Mary McIntosh’s Facing History & Ourselves class, and sat there and listened to her unpack the fear those kids had around that shooting that happened in August. She slowed it down, and got them to free-write it in a journal, just dump it all out, and gave them agency to be able to talk to each other.

Again, if you start with building that safe and reflective classroom, where every voice matters, that helps.

A 2021 study published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics found that inner-city high school students in Los Angeles who were exposed to high levels of police violence were more prone to struggle academically in school, or to drop out. Do those findings surprise you?

Unfortunately, no. I think the trauma that is happening to our young people, even seeing it over and over again, is trauma. We frequently work with our instructors on building a culture of care, because (violence) does have a ripple effect of them doing worse in school.

Looking at the historical case studies of policing in this country is also helpful, because then you can see the legacies of where this comes from, and also see what we need to do. And what I keep coming back to is what we need to do will come from these students, because they’re going to be the future leaders.

One of the students I spoke with regarding Tyre Nichols’ death told me he was becoming desensitized to police brutality and that he almost sees it as inevitable. What can your instructors do to help youths understand that this doesn’t have to be the case?

I’m glad you asked that, because we don’t believe that history has to be inevitable, and that we’re doomed to repeat it. We believe history is made by human beings, and we don’t have to repeat that. Our slogan is “People Make Choices and Choices Make History,” and if we can get our students to see each others’ humanity, we don’t have to repeat that.

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Contact her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.

What we lose when we whitewash Black history

2023-02-01T13:00:00+00:00

Dear Fellow Socially Conscious Teacher,

I have been thinking about you so much, what you and I are going through, and how to be there for each other. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to ban AP African American Studies in his state has made me think of the writer James Baldwin’s powerful 1963 speech “A Talk to Teachers.”

Speaking in front of a group of educators, he stated:

“...you must understand that in the attempt to correct so many generations of bad faith and cruelty, when it is operating not only in the classroom but in society, you will meet the most fantastic, the most brutal, and the most determined resistance. There is no point in pretending that this won’t happen.”

In this speech, Baldwin goes on to say that educators should encourage Black students to seek liberation. His warning about resistance and his strong desire for teachers to uplift students of color couldn’t be more relevant today.

Abigail Henry

An African American History teacher in West Philadelphia, I learned of DeSantis’ ban after a long day of planning how to teach Reconstruction — my most challenging unit. (Philadelphia, for its part, requires high school students to take an African American history course to graduate.) Upon hearing the news out of Florida, I asked myself: Why would a leader deny Black students a chance to learn about the origins of the KKK, read a speech by Hiram Revels, the first Black U.S. Senator, and compare and contrast the Supreme Court decisions in the Dred Scott case and Plessy v. Ferguson.

And why is the assumption that any teaching of African American History involves some sort of forced discussion of white privilege on white students?

The current discourse prioritizes a false need to protect some students at the expense of the education of Black students (and teachers of color). I wrote about this unfortunate phenomenon for the Pulitzer Center, where I had been part of the inaugural cohort working to incorporate Nikole Hannah-Jones “1619 Project” into curriculum.

Teaching students that racism exists matters. Teaching students that Black people were recently 3.64 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis highlights to them that, yes, institutional racism still exists in this country. Teaching the extent to which millions of Americans profited from forced enslaved labor will promote student understanding of the racial wealth gap. Teaching students about the beauty of Zora Neale Hurston’s writing, Bessie Smith’s music, or Lois Mailou Jones’ artwork provides students the opportunity to celebrate a positive Black identity. My families want that for their children, and what Black families want in classrooms matters, too.

So what are we socially conscious teachers to do? Well, a lot. First, I think it’s important for educators to reach out to families in their community. Share their curriculum and show families the appropriate lessons students are learning in their classrooms. Reach out, especially, to families of color; I am concerned that their voices are being lost in these curriculum battles.

Here are recent responses I got from a student and a parent about why they believe any African American history course is important.

One former student and current college sophomore told me:

“Learning about African American history in high school has benefited me from learning more about my culture and history in this country since it is not really taught with greater emphasis than just black people were slaves, they were free, segregation, segregation ended, black people are all good. When that’s not the complete truth! … African American history is American history. Without it you’re not telling the complete truth about this country!”

[Baldwin’s] warning about resistance and his strong desire for teachers to uplift students of color couldn’t be more relevant today.

And a parent of one of my current African American History students explained:

“I don’t think that it’s just important for my child to learn African American History. I think every child should learn it. I really think it helps to deal with racism. It teaches my child what his ancestors went through and some of the things they’ve overcome. I think that learning our history may help our people to be more productive citizens, to want to better their communities. I think it may help other races to understand what issues we have gone through and may help them to want to come together to become allies and better Americans.”

Families at my school community have expressed support for my curriculum. Yet, I am fully aware that this is not the case for all educators. One tip I have learned from those in states that have banned critical race theory is to frame a lesson around the standard and not the historical content. For example, in teaching about Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, or Fred Hampton, teachers may integrate common standards such as “compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary sources” and “cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.” This framing helps provide coverage for educators because if there’s a backlash or complaint, a teacher can identify the specific skill students are learning.

Black educators need to respond to educational racism by leaning on our ancestors. My grandmother was a descendant of enslaved people. She was born in Grenada and did not know how to read or write. On some plantations, if an enslaved person was caught reading or teaching another to read, they were tortured and murdered. Denying Black people education has been a primary tool of oppression to keep white people in power.

We socially conscious teachers need to remind administrators, politicians, and policymakers about education’s racist past — and point out hypocrisy. The state of Florida apparently has no problem with students taking AP European History. Those courses never seem up for debate.

I know this work is challenging, frustrating, exhausting, and infuriating. Yet, dear socially conscious teacher, we must not forget our true “purpose of education.”

As a young Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in a 1947 college newspaper article:

“We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living … ‘brethren! ’Be careful, teachers!’”

I believe in us and the work we do.

Yours in partnership,

Ms. Henry

A version of this essay first appeared in Philly’s 7th Ward.

Abigail Henry has been teaching African American History at Mastery Charter Shoemaker Campus for the past 11 years, and she is the Content Lead for the network. Last year, Abigail won a Pulitzer Center Grant to incorporate the 1619 Project into curriculum. This past summer, she worked as an adjunct professor for St. Michael’s College, where she developed the course “African American History for Teachers,” Henry has also provided African-American History consulting for Villanova University, PBS, and the Trellis Foundation.

A once-segregated Denver school fights to stay integrated 50 years after historic court order

2023-01-16T19:00:00+00:00

Stedman Elementary is one of Denver’s most integrated schools. About a third of its students are Black, a third are Hispanic, and a third are white.

“That happened by accident,” Principal Michael Atkins said, “but we are keeping it by design.”

In the 1960s, Stedman wasn’t integrated at all — and it was no accident. In 1968, 92% of Stedman students were Black and the school was overcrowded. Rather than reassign some Stedman students to mostly white schools nearby, the district brought in trailers.

The segregation at Stedman and at other Denver schools spurred a group of families, led by Wilfred Keyes, a Black father and chiropractor, to sue Denver Public Schools in 1969.

The Keyes case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the first desegregation case in a major city outside of the South to do so. This year marks 50 years since the high court ordered Denver to desegregate its public schools “root and branch.”

The 1973 ruling made history, even outside Denver. Keyes was what the Supreme Court called a “tri-ethnic case” and was the first to give Hispanic students the same rights to desegregated schools that the Brown v. Board of Education case extended to Black students 19 years earlier.

Keyes also set precedent with regard to intent. The Supreme Court found that the Denver school board’s actions to segregate the schools in the Park Hill neighborhood, including Stedman, showed that the entire Denver district was de facto segregated.

The case also led to a federal consent decree requiring Denver to improve education for Spanish-speaking students, which led to the development of bilingual programming.

The aftermath of the case shaped generations of Denver schoolchildren who were bused in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. They included Atkins, who grew up in Park Hill and played basketball on the Stedman playground on Wednesday nights. But for school, the district bused him to schools located in whiter and wealthier neighborhoods.

Atkins said his educational experience was one of assimilation, tension, and hidden segregation. Even though his middle school was integrated in numbers, the white students were in honors classes and the Black and brown students weren’t.

“The way I lead today has a lot to do with my experiences from the outcomes of the Keyes case,” Atkins said. “I personally learn best in situations where not everyone speaks the same language as me, not everyone looks just like me — different backgrounds. That’s something I want to give my students and families in safe, facilitated ways.”

A student looks out the window as a bus leaves Merrill Jr High for Smiley Jr High, Dec. 15, 1969. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered all Denver schools desegregated.

Keyes case originated in Park Hill

Park Hill was the epicenter of Denver’s school desegregation battle. Beginning in the 1950s and ’60s, Black families were moving east from Five Points to Park Hill, crossing Colorado Boulevard in search of bigger homes on tree-lined streets.

Housing integration could have led to school integration, but the Denver school board took steps to prevent that. It manipulated school boundaries and added temporary classroom trailers to predominantly Black schools. It studied educational equality, passed policies calling for its adoption, and then did nothing to put those policies in place.

In 1960, the district built Barrett Elementary School, just west of Colorado Boulevard from Park Hill Elementary. Denver funneled Black students into the new school, thus ensuring that Park Hill, which had been racially integrated, went back to serving mostly white students.

Rachel Noel’s daughter was reassigned from Park Hill Elementary to Barrett, which opened with an almost all-Black student body. Noel later testified in court that Barrett’s resources and academics were inferior. Her daughter, she said, was learning the same thing at Barrett in fifth grade that she’d learned at Park Hill in fourth grade.

In 1965, Noel became the first Black member elected to the Denver school board. Frustrated by the board’s inaction on integration and reeling from the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Noel introduced a resolution in 1968 — now known as the Noel Resolution — that called for “a comprehensive plan for the integration of the Denver Public Schools.”

In a speech she gave more than 20 years later, Noel remembered how the Black community in Denver “exploded” after King’s assassination. Listening to speakers at a meeting call for decision makers to take action, she said she felt they were talking directly to her.

“I knew I was in a position of decision-making,” she said, according to a typed copy of the speech, ”and also I knew that a resolution to integrate the schools was in the making.”

In response to community activism and a new sense of urgency around racial equality, the school board adopted the Noel Resolution 5-2 in May 1968. The board passed three more resolutions in the winter and spring of 1969 that, according to court documents, would have redrawn boundaries to relieve segregation at Barrett, Stedman, and other schools in Park Hill, and established voluntary busing to integrate some schools.

The resolutions sparked a fierce and swift backlash that led to the election of new school board members opposed to integration in May 1969. They promptly voted to repeal the resolutions.

In June, eight families — five Black, one Hispanic, and two white — sued Denver Public Schools. The case became known as Keyes v. School District No. 1.

After years of busing, segregated schools return

Racist retaliation soon followed. Opponents bombed the houses of lead plaintiff Wilfred Keyes, whose family was home but not injured, and of federal Judge William Doyle. About a third of the buses at the district bus depot were destroyed by dynamite.

After the Supreme Court ruled for the families in 1973, Denver created a complex, cross-city system of busing aimed at ensuring each school’s population looked racially similar to the district as a whole. Many white families reacted by leaving for the suburbs and private schools. According to a 1976 report, the number of white students dropped 22% in two years.

But busing did increase integration. Despite the turmoil, some children now say they benefited.

“It enriched my life because I became friends with many people from different cultures and socioeconomic statuses,” Jayne’ Lewis, who is Black and was bused from northeast Denver to Ellis Elementary and other schools in the southeast part of the city, told Chalkbeat in 2019.

“I am still friends with many of these people today.”

The Denver school district repeatedly asked the court to end the desegregation order, and in 1995, a federal judge agreed. Busing stopped in 1996, and not long after, many Denver schools resegregated. Students returned to schools in their neighborhoods, which had remained divided by race and income. Many Denver schools are still segregated today.

School choice, which Denver began promoting in 2012 as part of a strategy to improve the city’s schools and draw families back, allows students to apply to attend any school in the district. Choice could theoretically be used to integrate schools, but it can also be used to prevent it. As the city gentrifies, white families sometimes opt out of nearby schools where most students are Black and Latino in order to attend whiter schools across town.

That’s what was happening at Stedman Elementary when it came time for Andrew Lefkowits to enroll his oldest daughter in kindergarten. Lefkowits grew up in Park Hill and had gone to Stedman in the 1980s, one of only a handful of white children to do so.

Now the father of two kids, Lefkowits and his wife lived in the boundary for the predominantly white Park Hill Elementary, a school bursting at the seams with nearly 700 students and where the PTA raises hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

In 2016, nearby Stedman had fewer than 250 students. But Lefkowits treasured his experience there and wanted his daughter to have the same. So the family sent her into Stedman, where she was the only white kid in her kindergarten class.

Seven years later, the school has grown to about 425 students and the demographics have changed. Stedman is whiter and its families are wealthier. Though it can’t match Park Hill, Stedman’s PTA is fundraising for a rock climbing wall. And yet Lefkowits said he’s conflicted about how Stedman got there — and how the white population is burgeoning.

“We hit that tipping point,” Lefkowits said, referring to the proportion of white students. “And now as a school, we’ve been trying desperately to slow down the wave as best we can.”

Deborah Sims-Fard’s second grade class at Stedman Elementary School.

Why Stedman is integrated today

Stedman began integrating after adding a Spanish language immersion program that attracted white families who want their children to become bilingual.

Janeel Williams remembers the shift. Ten years ago, she chose to enroll her son Jakhi in kindergarten at Stedman because she wanted him to have Black teachers. More than half of Stedman students were Black and the staff was diverse. Jakhi, now a freshman in high school, had a Black teacher his first year at Stedman.

Part way through Jakhi’s time at Stedman, several teachers of color left, Williams and others said — and some families of color followed suit. Williams stuck it out, but she had mixed feelings when a former principal introduced the Spanish immersion program.

“A lot of Black families were like, ‘Who is she trying to appeal to? Who is she trying to attract?’” Williams said. “Our families don’t speak two languages.”

White families, on the other hand, “came in droves,” Williams said. While she and other Black parents worried they wouldn’t be able to help their children with their schoolwork if it was in Spanish, Williams said white parents pledged to pay for their own private lessons.

“A lot of the Black families kind of felt abandoned at that point,” she said. “It just seemed like you were bringing in this wonderful program for families who could take advantage of it.”

Lefkowits’ younger daughter started in the Spanish immersion program in preschool, and several years later, he said she can easily converse with native speakers. But he has complicated feelings about the program. Without it boosting Stedman’s enrollment, he worries the school could have been closed, a blow to Black families who’ve attended for generations.

But he also worries that white, privileged families have benefitted from the program the most.

“I think there’s ways in which it becomes an opportunity to hoard [resources] for people with privilege, and it’s another thing to get for our kids to boost their resume,” Lefkowits said.

“There’s promise and peril in dual language.”

Stedman is working to maintain its diversity through its language immersion program, prioritizing students that qualify for subsidized meals, and through equity training for its teachers.

How a principal is pushing the Keyes case forward

When Atkins arrived as principal four years ago, he said he saw at Stedman what he’d seen at his own middle school during busing: The school was diverse, but the students were separated. Most white students attended the Spanish immersion program, while most Black and Latino students stuck with the traditional classes.

Atkins set out to change that by going to Black churches on Sundays, visiting Mexican cultural arts centers, and talking to Stedman families “about the power of language and how this opportunity is built for them as well.” That push, he said, helped desegregate Stedman’s programming so that more Black and brown families are now choosing Spanish immersion.

Stedman also is trying other ways to keep its diversity.

Colorado’s Constitution prohibits assigning students to schools “for the purpose of achieving racial balance.” (Denver’s busing was an exception due to the federal court order.) So schools use other measures. Stedman prioritizes students who qualify for subsidized school meals, an indicator of poverty, or who live in a neighborhood where 75% to 100% of children do.

Atkins also tries to make the school a welcoming and affirming place. All Stedman teachers are pushed to examine their biases, and they do training in equity every Friday.

“I personally believe the work that I do is to push the Keyes case forward in a way that is building the capacity of our educators and creating safe spaces for students,” Atkins said.

Parents like Williams help too. Even though her son is now in high school, she continues to recruit for Stedman, where she said Jakhi got an excellent education, despite some of the bumps along the way. She meets with Atkins every year to hash out a game plan for talking to parents at recreation centers, libraries, and the Boys & Girls Club.

Most parents of color are concerned about gentrification, she said, and rising rents have forced many out of Park Hill. But they continue to bring their kids to the neighborhood rec centers, and Williams encourages them to do the same with Stedman. She has confidence it will pay off.

“I see Stedman going up,” she said. “All the way up.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat partnered with Historic Denver to examine the legacy of Keyes v. School District No. 1 50 years after this landmark case through the lens of one school.

Historic Denver Inc. is a nonprofit organization that works to promote and protect Denver’s historic places. This article appeared in print in Historic Denver’s quarterly newspaper.

Bill would curb ‘implicit bias’ training in Tennessee schools, universities

2023-01-12T23:16:20+00:00

Tennessee public schools and universities would not be allowed to require employees to take “implicit bias” training under legislation filed this week by two state lawmakers.

The legislation also would apply to employees of Tennessee’s education department and state Board of Education.

Currently, it’s up to local school districts, charter schools, and the state to set personnel policies that may or may not include implicit bias training for their employees. Such training is designed to increase self-awareness around subconscious prejudices and stereotypes that may affect how individuals see and treat people of another race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic background.

A significant amount of research in education says that such biases may contribute to racial disparities, such as differences in student achievement, learning opportunities, and school discipline between Black and white students. But it’s less clear whether training about implicit bias actually changes behaviors.

The Tennessee bill comes about two years after the state became one of the nation’s first to enact a law limiting how race and gender can be discussed in the classroom, including conversations about systemic racism. Last year, the GOP-controlled legislature passed another law that could lead to a statewide ban of certain school library books, some of which deal with matters of race and gender.

State Sen. Todd Gardenhire of Chattanooga, who is co-sponsoring the bill with fellow Republican Rep. Jason Zachary of Knoxville, said the measure is needed to protect school employees from policies that could lead to disciplinary action or firing. He cited the case of a Texas nurse who said she was fired by a hospital last year for refusing to take a mandatory course that she said was “grounded in the idea that I’m racist because I’m white.”

Sen. Todd Gardenhire is a Republican from Chattanooga.

“It’s about having to admit to something that you’re not,” Gardenhire told Chalkbeat on Thursday.

Gardenhire, who is white, noted that his legislation would prohibit “adverse licensure and employment actions” in schools or education-related agencies if an employee refuses to participate in such training.

Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari, a Memphis Democrat who is Black, called the proposal “a step in the wrong direction.”

She cast the legislation as a continuation of politically motivated national conversations that seek to pit people against each other instead of fostering policies that promote understanding, respect, and reconciliation among people of different races and backgrounds.

“That is a bill that I think is damaging to children,” Akbari said. “At the end of the day, we want to make sure that they have the safest, most equitable and fairest opportunity when they go to school.”

Implicit bias can hurt people of certain races and backgrounds in their interactions with numerous institutions — from law enforcement and criminal justice to health care and education.

In Tennessee, students of color make up about 40% of the state’s public school population, while teachers of color make up about 13% of its educators.

Mark Chin, a Vanderbilt University assistant professor who studies racial bias in education, said his research published in 2020 suggests a need to address bias in the classroom.

Using national data, he and his colleagues found larger disparities in test achievement and suspension rates between Black and white youth in counties where teachers hold stronger pro-white/anti-Black biases.

But implicit bias training is not enough to significantly change outcomes, Chin said.

“A single session where people are told of implicit biases is less impactful than sustained, embedded conversations around implicit bias,” he said.

It’s unclear whether or how many school districts or charter schools across Tennessee have policies that require employees to participate in implicit bias training.

Elizabeth Tullos, a spokeswoman for the State Board of Education, said Tennessee does not require such training within its agencies. However, staff members for the board, which sets rules and policies around education, go through the state’s required annual training on workplace discrimination, she said.

Brian Blackley, a spokesman for the state education department, said his agency doesn’t require its employees to participate in implicit bias training either and has not taken a position on the legislation.

The bill defines implicit bias training as any program that presumes an individual is “unconsciously, subconsciously, or unintentionally” predisposed to “be unfairly prejudiced in favor of or against a thing, person, or group to adjust the individual’s patterns of thinking in order to eliminate the individual’s unconscious bias or prejudice.”

You can track the legislation on the General Assembly website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Let go of your favorites: This educator urges critical thought about how books depict Native peoples

2022-12-14T21:04:41+00:00

Long before Dr. Debbie Reese earned her teaching degree at the University of New Mexico, she developed a love for educating others.

“I was one of those people who liked school so much when I was a kid that I would go home and make my siblings be my students,” said Reese, tribally enrolled at Nambé Owingeh and the founder of American Indians in Children’s Literature. “When I was in high school, I would ditch school, basically, and go to the Head Start and help the teachers there.”

A former classroom educator and university professor, Reese has written extensively about depictions of Native peoples in children’s books and co-edits a blog on the topic. In 2018, the American Library Association selected her to deliver the May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture, which recognizes career contributions to children’s literature.

Reese spoke with Chalkbeat about her experiences as an educator, what sparked her interest in children’s books, and why it’s critical that schools do a better job educating their students about the more than 500 federally recognized Native nations in the United States.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How did your experiences in education influence your approach to teaching?

I didn’t have any teachers who were critical of content in the ways that I am, so it’s not something I got from any of them. That awareness came as an adult when I started being in certain spaces that were completely ignorant of who we are and seeing that ignorance was based on romantic and stereotypical ideas that came from children’s books and mascots.

An awareness of how powerful stereotyping is became crystalized for me in my 30s when I started graduate school at the University of Illinois, where I got my Ph.D. That school had a mascot, which I was told about before I went there, and I thought, “Pfft, those don’t mean much.” But I got there and like, holy crap, people there really believed that was a good image of Native people. I went to the University of Illinois to study family literacy. This love of the mascot led me to think, “OK, so what’s going on in children’s storytelling that is feeding the love of this stereotypical mascot?”

I started paging through children’s books and seeing the ones that my daughter was finding at school and others that are just out there. I saw lots of it. Things like Grizzly Bob dressed up just like that mascot in “The Berenstain Bears Go to Camp.” I saw Clifford the Big Red Dog dressed up like an Indian as an option for his Halloween costume in “Clifford’s Halloween.” So I started to see just how much of that was out there.

When people [in Illinois] learned that I was part of that community, I would get invitations to come to this or that place. They wanted me to come and dance, and I would tell them, “No, we dance for spiritual purposes or at certain times of the year. I don’t dance for performance.” They would say, “Well, can you come and tell us a story,” and I would say, “No, I’m not a storyteller. I’m an educator. I’d be glad to come and talk to you about my own Pueblo Indian culture, history, all of that.” They didn’t want that. It was like, “Oh, well thank you, but no.”

What advice would you give teachers who want to do a better job of incorporating Native books into the classroom?

You must let go of your childhood favorites because the nostalgic embrace that you have for them is getting in the way of being able to do a better job. So many people feel like, “Oh, but ‘Little House on the Prairie.’” What I have found is that people will try to do both. They will try to use a problematic book and a book by a Native person, but then books by Native people aren’t seen as real, because the Native image doesn’t match the stereotype in that nostalgic book.

Dr. Debbie Reese, a former classroom educator and university professor, is the founder of American Indians in Children’s Literature.

What happens when Native stories aren’t told in the classroom? What impact does that have on Native students, who may feel that they are not being represented?

Or being misrepresented — I think that’s what we have most of all, because of those award-winning classic children’s books that get used in classrooms. Like “Arrow to the Sun.” It’s supposed to be a Pueblo Indian story, but it’s not. It’s a white fiction written by a white writer, who created what some think is pretty art, and that gets used in school classrooms to teach about Pueblo people, and it doesn’t.

So if you’re a Pueblo kid, and your teacher is reading that book to you, then you know that a kiva is not a scary place where you fight bees and all kinds of monsters, it’s a place of education. For that period of time, you’re listening to a teacher teach a book that has information in it that you know is wrong. So what do they do with that? I don’t think any little kid is actually able to articulate that or process it.

The data shows that Native kids don’t perform on testing as well as non-Native kids; that our kids drop out of school at higher rates than others; that Native people have higher suicide rates than others. I think this is all kind of a drip, drip, drip thing that our kids — or any kids whose people are misrepresented — deal with all the time. We don’t have very many counters to that.

These new books that are coming out do counter that, but teachers have to embrace them.

What happens when non-Native students only learn about Native Nations and peoples from books that perpetuate stereotypes?

They shouldn’t be using those books at all because they’re wrong, and these are educational spaces where parents are trusting a teacher to do right by their kids — whether that’s a Native kid or not. So Native kids are sitting there having to deal with this nonsense, and a non-Native kid is absorbing and regurgitating that information. For the non-Native kids who grow up to become book editors or maybe senators in the United States halls of power, they’re making decisions based on misinformation they got from childhood.

The ramifications for the harm done by these books are way greater than we know.

Do you have any favorite authors or books that you recommend to students or teachers?

I’m not going to answer that question because there are too many and I want teachers to explore all of them. I’m really pushing for teachers to understand how badly we were all educated about who Native peoples are, and so that means you really have to get to know many writers and what tribe they are from.

When you’re thinking about a Native writer — now here I’m going to say Eric Gansworth — when you’re using a book by Eric Gansworth, you can say, “Eric is a member of the Onondaga Nation. Here is Eric’s website.” Or I could do that same thing with any of the books — with Cynthia Leitich Smith, with Sharice [Davids], who has her biography out recently.

The key point is getting to know the author’s name and that author’s nation. And using the word “is” instead of “was.” Every time you’re talking about that author and that book, because teachers by default, everybody goes to “we were,” past tense. That has to fall by the wayside too. It has to be present tense. We can do that with Native books by Native writers.

Is there anything we haven’t talked about yet that you want to add?

People like to defend certain books, like “Little House on the Prairie,” by saying, “Well that’s what they thought back then,” implying that everybody was ignorant and racist at that time and everybody thought the same. That’s just not true. That’s an empty defense of a problematic book. For sure, during the time that series was set, and the time that it was published, not everybody thought that. Native people didn’t think they were savages.

The other thing is, I’m not doing any public speaking hardly at all because of COVID, but almost always, somebody in the audience will say, “Well, why can’t non-Native writers write these books? You’re trying to censor.” No, I’m not trying to censor. I’m trying to help you understand that Native people bring insights to this body of work that non-Native people don’t have access to. I get tired of that question. I get tired of people saying, “Well, why can’t a white writer do this?” Because the fact is, white writers do. They do it all the time. They continue to do it, and the books that they did 30 years ago continue to be used in classrooms today.

It’s not that they can’t. It’s a question of where we are in terms of today’s society, what we’re thinking about, what is appropriate, and what is best.

And what is best is Native books by Native writers.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering national issues. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

The U.S. government says I’m white. That’s not how I see myself.

2022-12-06T10:00:00+00:00

Peering over my father’s shoulder, I see him twirling a pen as he considers this question on the 2020 Census: What is Person 1’s race? My dad hesitates, and I look closer at the paper to see why he looked so unsure of which box to check.

These were the choices: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and White (with further selections for various Hispanic and Asian sub-groups). None of these “labels” apply to our family.

So, what are we?

Douae Maarouf

My parents immigrated from Morocco. Most of my grandparents have Arab ancestry with the exception of my maternal grandpa, who is Amazigh, a group indigenous to North Africa and parts of Mauritania, northern Mali, and northern Niger. With white skin and deep roots in Africa, I don’t identify as white, African American, or any other categories on the census. The federal government, however, calls those of us from the Middle East and North Africa — from Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and elsewhere in the region — white.

But as someone with an ethnic name who has encountered weird stares and biased remarks for being a hijabi Arab American, I believe that the privileges that come with being white do not necessarily align with my experiences. The laughs I hear after the teacher mispronounces my name while reading off the attendance sheet or the occasional snide remarks about terrorism from students are just a couple of the instances when I have felt like an outsider.

After watching my dad consider the census categories and ultimately pick White, I returned to my room and thought hard about my origins and identity, seemingly limited by the choices on a federal form. I didn’t feel adequately represented or seen in my entirety by any of the racial categories on federal forms.

Sure, the census offers a fill-in-the-blank option, but the form lists people from countries in North Africa and the Middle East, such as Egypt and Lebanon, under White.

Nada Maghabouleh, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, has said that many people of Middle Eastern and North African descent aren’t perceived — and don’t perceive themselves — as white. As she told NPR, “some of their experiences were actually closer to communities of color in the U.S,” given the discrimination many of us face.

With white skin and deep roots in Africa, I don’t identify as white, African American, or any other categories on the census.

I discovered that my friends and other family members shared the same experiences. Zineb Hbabou, a friend from New York City, was frustrated by the lack of representation on college and government-issued forms and surveys. She believes that the allocation of services for these groups is hindered by this exclusion, with “major implications for social justice.” My cousin Ayah Maarouf described her struggle like this: “We are put under the title of one thing, yet, the treatment we receive from the media and the people around us is nowhere near the same. I feel more closely connected to communities of color than the white collective.”

A scroll through TikTok or Instagram reveals that many others feel ambivalent about checking a racial category on government forms, as well as college and other applications. I am a high-school senior and have begun to apply to colleges. Questions about my ethnicity, with no Middle Eastern/North African, or MENA, option, make me feel uncomfortable and unseen. With so many institutions labeling us as white, people of Arab ancestry are often rendered invisible in official statistics, which health and education researchers may rely on.

Although MENA is not an official category on the U.S. Census yet, I’ve realized there are still so many ways I can promote this change, retain my identity, and connect with others who share a similar background. I repost social media threads to shed light on the lack of representation for MENA individuals, engage in discussions with friends in and out of the MENA community, and sign petitions to add another racial category to official forms. I also join clubs and attend events for Arabs, North Africans, and people of Middle Eastern descent. I feel especially proud of my heritage among others who share it. There is so much work that needs to be done. But these small initiatives have brought me closer to understanding who I am and connected me with those whose experiences mirror my own.

Douae Maarouf is a senior at the Baccalaureate School for Global Education. She is an Arab and Amazigh Moroccan who lives in Queens, New York. Douae is a food photographer, blogger, and recipe developer for Sarah’s Kitchen. In her free time, she finds joy in reading, creating episodes for her podcast Talking Under the Stars, exploring NYC, and binging “Criminal Minds” episodes.

Here’s how these Colorado students learn about the state’s deadliest day

2022-11-29T11:00:00+00:00

Teacher Sarah Malerich read a letter to the students gathered in her history classroom in the southeastern Colorado town of Kiowa.

The eyewitness account described how U.S. soldiers attacked a peaceful creekside camp at daybreak, killing more than 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho villagers.

“It was hard to see little children on their knees have their brains beat out by men professing to be civilized,” Malerich said, quoting the letter.

Students murmured “oh my God” and “geez” as Malerich read about the atrocities — the most graphic of which she’d excised. In that moment, the horrors of the Sand Creek Massacre, which unfolded on Colorado’s Eastern Plains more than 150 years ago, became uncomfortably real.

“I’m so upset with history,” said Mariah Vigil-Gonzales, a 17-year-old junior at Kiowa High School. “I wish we had a time machine.”

Other students quickly chimed in, imagining how they could change the events of that long-ago November day. A girl said, “Expose Chivington,” referring to the colonel who led the attack.

So much about the classroom scene was unusual. Few Colorado students learn much about the Sand Creek Massacre — the deadliest day in Colorado history — and even fewer spend several days studying the topic as part of a Native American history class as Malerich’s students did.

The new course is timely, coming as efforts to commemorate and elevate the Sand Creek Massacre are gaining steam across the state. Colorado’s history museum in Denver unveiled an exhibit on the massacre this month, and earlier this fall, federal officials announced a major expansion of the national historic site marking the massacre — about a two-hour drive from Kiowa. In addition, new social studies standards include the Sand Creek Massacre on a list of genocides that Colorado students should study before graduation.

Visitors at the opening of the Sand Creek Massacre exhibit at the History Colorado museum in Denver.

The Sand Creek Massacre occurred on Nov. 29, 1864, when U.S. troops attacked a camp of Native Americans who’d been assured by territorial officials that they’d be safe at that site. Many Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs who’d sought peace with the U.S. government were among the murdered, upending the tribal power structure and fueling decades of war in the West.

“It’s a story that needs to be told. It’s a story that needs to be respected,” said Gail Ridgely, a Northern Arapaho tribal elder who lives on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.

Ridgely, who is the great-great-grandson of Little Raven, a peace chief who survived the massacre, said the episode contributed to the displacement of the Cheyenne and Arapaho from their homeland in Colorado.

“After the massacre, we were hunted,” he said.

It was only last year that the state formally rescinded the 1864 proclamation that allowed settlers to “kill and destroy” Native Americans and steal their property.

Malerich believes there’s lots of good things to highlight in American history, but that it’s important to teach about shameful episodes like the Sand Creek Massacre, too.

“What can we learn from that?” she said. “We can’t go back and save those peoples’ lives or anything, but what sort of ways can we kind of atone for that?”

Mascot law begets new class

Malerich’s Native American history class exists largely because of a 2021 state law banning Native American mascots in Colorado schools — a measure lawmakers saw as a step toward “justice and healing to the descendants of the survivors of the Sand Creek Massacre, most notably the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes.”

A panel at the new Sand Creek Massacre exhibit at the History Colorado museum in Denver.

Following the law’s passage, the 318-student Kiowa district, which is crisscrossed by streets with names like Ute Avenue and Comanche Street, sought to retain its Indians nickname. Leaders there asked the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma to approve continued use of the name and mascot, a scenario allowed under the law. The tribe agreed to the request, updating a 2005 agreement, as long as the district met certain conditions, including providing “a curriculum that teaches American Indian History.”

Strasburg High School, which also uses the Indians nickname, and Arapahoe High School in Centennial, which uses the Warriors nickname, have similar agreements with the Northern Arapaho tribe.

The agreement to keep the mascot was “a gigantic win for our community,” said Kiowa district Superintendent Travis Hargreaves. “Teachers are coming with more and more ideas of how we can honor that.”

One of those ideas was the new semester-long history course, which will be a graduation requirement for district students starting with the class of 2025. Malerich said she was excited to launch the class this fall, but also nervous because she wanted to do it justice and couldn’t find many resources designed for high school students.

Students started out by learning about the many tribes that have called Colorado home over the centuries, making maps outlining where each lived. They also discussed the culture and traditions of those tribes, and more broadly, the influence of Native Americans during colonial times and beyond.

Brooke Mills, left, a junior at Kiowa High School, talks with teacher Sarah Malerich and classmates during an October lesson on the Sand Creek Massacre.

“It’s really cool to think about the roots of the land,” said ninth grader Alyssa Edwards, “like, what was here before.”

Several of the 11 students in Malerich’s class — a typical class size at the rural high school — signed up for the new course because they wanted to, not because they had to.

Mariah, who started at Kiowa High this year, said her family is Apache, and she wanted to learn more Native American history. “There’s just a lot of Indians that came through Colorado and so it’s like, a lot of this originated here … and no one ever really talks about that.”

Who learns about the Sand Creek Massacre?

It’s not clear how many Colorado students learn about the Sand Creek Massacre at school — either during their Colorado history unit in fourth grade or any other time.

Representatives from the Colorado Council for the Social Studies and the History Colorado Center in Denver, where the new Sand Creek exhibit opened earlier this month, both guessed the numbers are relatively small.

Hargreaves, who used to be a fourth grade teacher in the Cherry Creek district, said the textbook he used at the time included about a half page on the Sand Creek Massacre.

“It was about a day dedicated to it,” he said.

Malerich, who teaches in the same Kiowa High School history classroom where she once sat as a student, said her first distinct memories of learning about the massacre were not from school but from the TNT miniseries, “Into the West,” which she watched before sixth grade.

Some students in Malerich’s Native American history class said they’d learned a little about the Sand Creek Massacre in other classes. Others never had.

Josie Chang-Order, school programs manager at History Colorado, said there are no children’s books about the massacre and few materials designed for older students either.

“Teachers coming to Indigenous history when we ourselves didn’t get very much of it in schools is a huge challenge,” she said.

She and other museum staff hope the new exhibit will help turn the tide. They’re creating special lessons for fourth- to 12-graders who take field trips to the exhibit and an online list of Sand Creek Massacre resources for educators.

The opening day of the Sand Creek Massacre exhibit at the History Colorado museum in Denver.

Elishama Goldfarb, whose class at Denver’s Lincoln Elementary includes fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-graders, covers the Sand Creek Massacre at least every three years, interspersing primary source accounts of the massacre with excerpts from a miniseries on Colorado history called “Centennial.”

He wants students to understand the massacre within the context of ongoing conflict, broken treaties, and mistrust between Native Americans and white settlers who wanted gold, land, or other resources.

Goldfarb, who plans to take his students to the new Sand Creek exhibit in January, also connects the prejudice that fueled the massacre to the human temptation to judge people or deem certain people superior to others.

He wants to help students understand that “when we see each other as worthy of dignity and love and care,” horrific events like the Sand Creek Massacre don’t have to happen.

Voices of the people

History Colorado had a Sand Creek Massacre exhibit once before. It closed a decade ago after pressure from tribal leaders, who didn’t feel it accurately reflected their history.

“It was a fairytale, Barbie dolls, misprints,” Ridgely said.

But the new Sand Creek Exhibit — subtitled “The betrayal that changed Cheyenne and Arapaho people forever” — has been done right, he said, with tribal leaders consulted extensively on the details.

Children try out a language app at the opening of the Sand Creek Massacre exhibit at the History Colorado museum in Denver.

“It’s a historic milestone for Colorado and it’s sacred,” he said. “Every time I go down to the museum, it’s a real good feeling because the victims are speaking.”

The exhibit starts years before the massacre, grounding visitors in the tribes’ culture and way of life. Besides maps, timelines, and larger-than-life photos, the exhibit features oral histories from tribe members telling the stories of Sand Creek that have been passed down over generations. The exhibit incorporates Cheyenne and Arapaho language throughout.

Shannon Voirol, director of exhibit planning at History Colorado, believes the new exhibit will help make the Sand Creek Massacre part of the state’s lexicon in the same way the museum’s Amache exhibit raised awareness about the southern Colorado camp where Japanese-Americans were imprisoned during World War II.

“More people now understand that we had Japanese internment camps in Colorado. We get more and more teachers asking about it. We get more students having some knowledge of it. It’s part of the canon as this will become,” she said, gesturing to the photos and artifacts, in the Sand Creek exhibit.

Ridgely, one of several tribe members who worked with museum officials on the exhibit thinks students will become more humble and respectful — “better citizens” — by learning about the Sand Creek Massacre.

Sarah Malerich, the history teacher at Kiowa High School, writes out the definition of “massacre” on her white board.

In October, Malerich began a series of lessons on the Sand Creek Massacre by discussing the history of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes — their traditions, language, and culture. During the third lesson, she and her students read five accounts of the massacre, including from Col. John Chivington; Silas Soule, an army captain who refused to fire on the Native Americans; and a survivor named Singing Under Water, whose oral account was written down by her grandson.

Malerich read aloud from Chivington’s 1865 testimony to Congress, which falsely portrayed the massacre as a battle where only a few women and no children were killed.

“I had no reason to believe that [Chief] Black Kettle and the Indians with him were in good faith at peace with the whites,” she read.

But students were skeptical and indignant.

“Literally, [they] had the white flag up and the American flag up,” Mariah said of the tribes.

She and her classmates concluded that Chivington knew the Arapaho and Cheyenne were camped peacefully but didn’t care. Other firsthand accounts didn’t support his claims, they said.

After the lesson, Alyssa said knowing how and why the massacre happened might help prevent something similar from happening again.

“That was really inspirational,” responded Brooke Mills, a junior whose mother is partly descended from the Blackfoot tribe. “Like the saying that, if you don’t know your history, you’re doomed to repeat it. I feel like that’s a huge part of all of this, too.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Denver district relinquishes ‘Know Justice, Know Peace’ podcast trademark, asks lawsuit be dismissed

2022-11-22T21:23:45+00:00

Two months after four young Black women sued Denver Public Schools for trying to trademark the name of a racial justice podcast they started, the district said it is relinquishing the trademark.

In a court document filed Friday, the district said it “renounces any claim of ownership over the trademark Know Justice, Know Peace for a podcast” and “any efforts to monetize” the name. Denver Public Schools asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit against it.

If a judge agrees, it will end a high-profile dispute that attracted national media attention and earned Denver Public Schools — a district whose superintendent has said he wants to dismantle racist systems — significant criticism from local community members who accused the district of asserting ownership over something Black students created.

“It’s almost ironic how us as Black students, learning about our history, learning about how as Black people, oftentimes our ideas are stolen, our history is stolen, all of our things are watered down, that now we’re in a situation where our name and our brand and this work that we’ve continually built up is potentially being taken away,” Kaliah Yizar, one of the students who founded the podcast, said at a press conference in September.

In a statement Monday, the district said its trademark attempt was an effort to ensure the podcast could continue in Denver Public Schools.

“From the beginning, we have repeatedly stated that our efforts were about protecting this important educational tool for our scholars,” district spokesperson Will Jones said in a statement. “Now that these young ladies are in a position to actually own this intellectual property on their own, we are thrilled that it will soon be theirs.”

Yizar and three other students at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Early College high school started the podcast, called “Know Justice, Know Peace: The Take,” in the summer of 2020 in response to the murder of George Floyd. They had support from educators at the school, including then-Principal Kimberly Grayson, and were eventually paid by the district as apprentices.

The podcast was successful. The students appeared on the “Today Show” and participated virtually in a White House summit on educational equity. Their advocacy also spurred the district to pledge to diversify its curriculum to include Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous history.

After their former principal, Grayson, left the school last spring, the students decided they wanted to continue their podcast independently. They said they asked Grayson for help. In June, she filed paperwork to form a business called Know Justice, Know Peace: The Take LLC.

When Denver Public Schools learned of the LLC, it filed state and federal trademark applications for the podcast name in August.

“Our concern has never been with any of our students,” Jones said in a statement. “It has always been with this former employee trying to obtain this intellectual property.”

But the students, two of whom are now graduated, didn’t see it that way. In an August meeting, they told district officials that the podcast was theirs, with one student describing it as “our faces, who we are.” And in September, they sued Denver Public Schools for trademark infringement.

In its motion to dismiss Friday, the district attached copies of documents its lawyers filed to withdraw its state and federal trademark applications. In a statement, Jones said the district recently learned that Grayson signed over the LLC to one of the former students, who can now “file for and receive this intellectual property as their own.”

The district isn’t letting go of the podcast idea, though. It plans to expand the opportunity for students to make a racial justice podcast, Jones said, and will hold a naming contest soon.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Where do Hochul and Zeldin stand on education?

2022-11-07T17:29:07+00:00

On the surface, New Yorkers might assume that the state’s candidates for governor — Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and Republican Lee Zeldin — would have polar opposite approaches to education if they were elected.

And while that likely holds true in several ways, there are still many open questions about how both would craft policy for schools.

Hochul has not focused much at all on education on the campaign trail, and while her time in office so far provides some clues, her campaign website has no details about her goals for the state’s K-12 schools beyond wanting to invest more money in them.

“As a frontrunner she has little incentive to take sharp or even very precise and specific positions, particularly on policies that are at all controversial, particularly policies that are controversial in suburbs,” said Jeffrey Henig, professor of political science and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

In contrast, Zeldin is “throwing everything at the wall that Republicans are trying in lots of places,” Henig said.

The congressman has proposed several priorities, such as banning “divisive concepts” from being taught in schools related to race — a talking point that conservatives across the country have embraced — but he has not provided more specifics on many of his ideas. Some of his proposals are self explanatory, such as wanting to lift the cap on how many charter schools can open in New York.

Zeldin’s campaign did not respond to questions asking to elaborate on his positions or provide more details.

As the governor’s race nears this fall, here’s what we know about where both fall on education issues:

Curriculum

Zeldin has said he would ban “divisive curriculum that pits children against one another based on race and other factors” — language that’s similar to what conservative lawmakers in other states have pushed for.

His platform does not explicitly talk about critical race theory, or CRT, which is an academic framework for studying systemic racism but has been used by Republicans as an umbrella term for diversity and inclusion efforts. Both city and state officials have said critical race theory is not taught in the city’s and state’s public schools. Both locally and statewide, officials have encouraged schools to teach culturally responsive lessons.

But Zeldin wrote in an opinion article last year that CRT was politicizing education. In it, he blasted a lengthy framework released by the state education department that encourages — but does not mandate — districts to teach culturally responsive lessons, or lessons that relate to and affirm various students’ backgrounds. The department also wants districts to consider acknowledging the role of racism in American history and create lessons that empower students to be “agents of change.”

Zeldin’s platform also calls for restricting “age-inappropriate” sex education, though it does not detail what that means, requiring financial literacy courses in public schools, and civics lessons that “teach students about how and why they get to live in the greatest nation in the history of the world.”

Still, if Zeldin were elected, it’s unlikely that he would be able to successfully ban schools from teaching about race since the state legislature is overwhelmingly Democratic and unsupportive of such policies. For example, a bill seeking to ban critical race theory in schools didn’t make it out of committee last year.

“You may see outside money and national organizations try to come in and really sort of add amplitude to those messages around parental rights and critical race theory and gender identity issues,” Henig said. “I don’t want to discount the importance of how people talk about things, but the impact on actual policy would be delayed, at best.”

So far, Hochul has not taken a strong position on what sorts of curriculum or learning standards she supports in schools. When pressed about a New York Times investigation that revealed a lack of basic lessons in core subjects, such as English, in Hasidic yeshivas, Hochul said responsibility over those private religious schools fell to the state education department, not her office. (Zeldin has been supportive of the Hasidic yeshivas, and has been courting the vote of the Orthodox and Hasidic communities, the New York Times reported.)

Asked where Hochul stands on curriculum, her campaign pointed to an ABC 7 story from May, where she said she supported a bill that would have required New York schools to teach about Asian American history. (The bill did not move out of committee.) They also pointed to a bill she signed that requires the state education department to ensure school districts are meeting requirements to teach children about the Holocaust — an idea that Zeldin also supports.

Traditional public schools vs. charter schools

Zeldin has expressed substantial support for school choice and charter schools. In fact, he first announced his education agenda last spring outside of a Success Academy school in Queens.

Zeldin supports lifting the cap on how many charter schools can open in New York, which was reached in the city in 2019. He also wants to establish “tax credits for school choice” and create education savings accounts, but doesn’t provide more details. With an education savings account, parents can withdraw their children from public schools and receive tax dollars in a restricted-use account to pay for private school or other educational options like therapy.

The state legislature so far has not supported lifting the charter cap.

Zeldin’s platform online says he wants more options for “technical grade school level learning, experience and certification,” though it’s unclear if he’s referring to career preparation programs or something else.

On the city level, Zeldin saw eye to eye with Mayor Eric Adams and Hochul on extending mayoral control of schools. And, like Adams, Zeldin also supports keeping the controversial admissions exam in place for the city’s specialized high schools, as well as “advanced and specialized” academics. He’s earned the support of some parents who favor screened admissions to the city’s public middle and high schools and “gifted and talented” programs.

During a debate with Zeldin on Oct. 25, Hochul also said she supported lifting the charter school cap, which seemed to be the first time she said that publicly. [Note: This story originally published before the debate and was updated to reflect her comment.] She’s repeatedly touted overseeing a budget that sent more state money to school districts as the result of an agreement to fully fund Foundation Aid, the state funding formula that sends more money to higher needs districts.

Hochul has taken an interest in boosting mental health resources for students, ensuring more children go to college, specifically by expanding college tuition assistance to part-time students in New York, and has attempted to address the teacher shortage by expanding alternative teacher certification programs and temporarily waiving an income cap for teacher retirees who want to return to the profession.

She also signed a popular bill that requires lower class sizes in New York City, which was celebrated by many families, the teachers union, and advocates. City officials and some conservative parent groups pushed back, arguing the mandate would pull money away from other services for students.

School budgets and enrollment

Neither Hochul nor Zeldin have addressed one of the most critical issues facing public schools: dipping enrollment.

Enrollment in traditional public schools has dropped by more than 2% nationwide since the onset of the pandemic, and by about 9.5% in New York City public schools. Changes in enrollment have big implications for school budgets that are closely tied to the number of students in classrooms. That issue is already playing out in New York City, where three-quarters of schools saw cuts in the funding that pays for staff and programs for students.

Zeldin’s education platform doesn’t address the issue. While Hochul has touted her commitment to boosting funding for public schools, she has not addressed what to do about enrollment changes across the state.

“What you see on the Hochul side is, ‘Yes, we support education, we are willing to spend more on it,’ but kind of resisting what progressive forces might want to see on the campaign, in terms of challenging basic funding formulas in ways that might not play well in wealthy or more affluent communities that would see this as redirecting state monies away from them and towards lower-income communities,” Henig said.

COVID policies

Most COVID mitigations for schools have ended, so it’s not likely that the election of either candidate would drastically change that.

Both Zeldin and Hochul have supported peeling back COVID mitigations, such as masking, with Hochul recently calling remote learning a “mistake.” But Zeldin has pushed harder to remove all sorts of mandates.

While Hochul ended mask mandates, she also oversaw sending at-home COVID tests to schools and has touted keeping schools open during a major surge in infections last winter, though in-person instruction was still severely disrupted. (She’s come under fire in recent weeks for a deal she made when choosing a vendor for those tests.)

Zeldin has opposed COVID vaccine and mask mandates. If elected, he may press Adams to drop a vaccine mandate in place for New York City schools staff. At one point, Hochul expressed support for requiring children to get COVID vaccines. The state legislature would have to pass a bill that added COVID vaccines to the list of already required shots for school children, according to the New York Times.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Youth-led Chicago initiative gets $10 million grant to expand its reach

2022-10-11T11:00:00+00:00

For years, Bezaleia “Bezzy” Reed watched her brother Caleb advocate for racial and social justice issues such as removing police from schools and curbing gun violence.

His life was cut short when he was shot in July 2020, and about a year later, Bezzy joined Communities United to honor her brother, who had been a youth leader at the grassroots organization. Reed, a senior at the alternative Chicago public school Pathways in Education, worked alongside other youth to help tackle mental health issues in her West Side community. The activism helped her heal from her brother’s death.

Now, thanks to a $10 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the racial justice organization will be able to help thousands more Black and Latino youth in partnership with the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital.

Communities United, which formed in 2000, and the Lurie hospital will use the money to expand a youth-led initiative that helps young people heal through skills building and activism such as leadership training, healing circles, and community outreach.

The grant comes at a time when communities of color are grappling with racial inequities and trauma exacerbated by the pandemic.

Healing Through Justice: A Community-led Breakthrough Strategy for Healing Centered Communities will be expanding its efforts to help 3,000 Chicago youth develop leadership skills so they can advocate for changes at their schools or in city government, said Laqueanda Reneau, a Communities United youth organizer. As part of the eight-year initiative, Communities United and the hospital will also work with health providers to update their mental health strategies based on a decade of research with input from Black and Latino youth.

The two organizations also have worked toward removing police from schools, changing Illinois’ zero tolerance expulsion policies, and refocusing school disciplinary policies toward more restorative practices.

Helping youth heal by taking action

From losing family members to COVID-19 to losing friends to gun violence, young people are carrying a lot of trauma, Reneau said.

“This is how we should be engaging our young people,” she said of the program. “This is how we should be engaging our youth in a way that allows them to make informed decisions in a way that supports them and leads them ultimately to healing that we all need.”

“This approach to trauma really offers youth in the community an alternative to other forms of expression,” said Dr. John Walkup, chair of the Pritzker Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Lurie Children’s and professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

“There is a draw in many of the communities in which we work toward gang life or other kinds of alternatives for being powerful and strong. But this really provides a positive and powerful alternative to those other ways that youth try to dig their way out of the trauma they’ve experienced.”

Young people channel pain into activism

In the summer 2020, Marques Watts reached out to Communities United after losing his brother Derrion Umba Ortiz and friend Caleb Reed. Watts, who attends the University of Wisconsin in Madison, recalled feeling helpless over the lack of mental health resources and wanted to ensure other young people didn’t struggle to find those supports.

The 19-year-old said Communities United programs help him cope by being around other young people dealing with the same thing.

Communities United “showed me my voice matters in society and just how much I can really impact my city,” Watts said.

Like Watts, Reed said Communities United has allowed her to heal and grow mentally and emotionally during a challenging period. Most importantly, she feels heard. She’s hopeful the grant will allow the organization to help more youth dealing with trauma and fighting for change.

“It’s an amazing opportunity to continue the work we have been doing,” she said. “It’s a sign we are doing a great job and that we should keep going.”

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

A teacher made me watch the video of Tamir Rice’s killing. What happened next still haunts me.

2022-10-05T18:05:53+00:00

One afternoon at the beginning of eighth grade, I was sitting in the room where Model United Nations (we called it MUN) met after school. Students played the roles of ambassadors. We talked about the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the immigration policies of the Obama administration, and police brutality in the United States, among other topics.

Sometimes there was yelling and crying, and occasionally a silence heavy with more meaning than any words could ever have. But there was rarely accountability when people said hurtful things.

Kayla Ruano-Lumpris

Whenever we had these emotional moments, I stared intently at my shoes. As a perfectionist who didn’t like revealing my imperfect feelings, I carefully crafted a hard exterior. On top of that, being one of the few Black and Latina people in predominantly white schools all my life made me feel like an outsider and, thus, even more afraid of expressing my opinions, particularly those on race-related topics.

That day, it was getting dark outside, and only the MUN advisor, four other girls, and I remained in the room. I was friends, or at least acquaintances, with these girls, but I kept a wall up around them. The room was big, but all of us sat clustered together near the projector at the front of the room.

At some point, the conversation turned to the 2014 murder of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black boy shot by a white policeman immediately upon arriving on the scene. The officer claimed he thought Tamir’s BB gun was a firearm. In the officer’s eyes, Tamir was not a young boy, but a grown, dangerous man.

My advisor was shocked when I told him that I had never seen the video of the shooting, as though it were a rite of passage for a young Black person to see one of their own people brutally killed.

“You really need to see this,” my advisor, a tall white man, insisted. I felt it wasn’t necessary for me to view the video. I already felt connected to Tamir and his family. Their reality could have easily been mine.

The other girls scooted closer to the projector. Only one of them was Black. I don’t know how she felt about being made to view the video, but neither of us said anything.

I had a bad feeling about what we were about to see, but it was hard to disagree with our advisor. He had a deep, confident voice that made everything sound important. Everyone in MUN competed for his approval, and he encouraged it. The person I was then, desperate to be liked, particularly by authority figures, felt I had no choice but to watch the video.

So, there I was, waiting as this teacher casually cued up a video of a child being killed as though we were about to watch the Weather Channel.

The first thing I saw was the blurred figure of a boy walking with something in his hand, an object I already knew was a toy gun. The shooting happens so quickly you can blink and miss it. I froze.

Watching someone take a human life was shocking. The officer pulls the trigger without even hesitating, and I still wonder how someone could do that. I felt myself about to cry. Instead, I blinked furiously and bit my cheek hard, until the metallic taste blood distracted me from the tears.

My advisor then announced that he wanted to listen to the audio (the video was silent). I didn’t know how to say no.

For me, hearing it was the worst part: the dispatch, the gunshot, the police commentary, all of it, each little piece of the story chipping away at the tough exterior I had placed around my sensitive heart.

When I heard 12 years of life ending in two seconds, my vision turned blurry as my eyes welled up with salty tears. What hurt the most was hearing the officers walk over to Tamir’s body and claim that they just shot an 18-year-old man — as if he were old enough to vote and drive and get drafted. Tamir was a 12-year-old kid.

My tough exterior shattered, and the emotions I had been holding back flooded out of my eyes and stained my face wet with tears. My hands shook erratically as the audio replayed in my head over and over, the gunshots still ringing in my ears. It was a humbling, hopeless feeling to realize my life could be taken away so easily.

As embarrassed as I was, it was almost a relief to feel so much at once. I had mostly lived my life with a quiet intensity, rarely stating my thoughts and opinions. I thought I could keep my sadness, rage, and frustration bottled up inside, but I was a volcano just waiting to erupt.

My sniffles and quiet sobs disrupted the uncomfortable stillness. I felt alone even with these people near me. My innocence was stripped away from me so early in my life. Why should they get to keep theirs?

As I began to collect myself, I glanced at the faces of my advisor and peers. My advisor smiled in a way I could only interpret as condescending. Did he see me as some naive student, now enlightened because of what he just showed us?

The eyes of my white classmates shifted from my gaze as they saw the pain on my face. At that moment, I started to realize that I could spend the rest of my life being subject to the opinions of people who made me feel separate and lesser, or I could be bold and force people to hear what I have to say.

After what we had seen and heard, I had an argument with one of my white peers. She didn’t feel that the officers should be held fully accountable for their actions.

“They were trying to do their job,” she argued.

“At the expense of a child’s life?” I said, aggravated.

“People said he was pointing a gun!”

“And a police officer should know the difference between a BB gun and a real one!”

The other girls watched with their eyes wide. Our advisor stood there quietly, remaining frustratingly neutral. Hot tears rolled onto my cheeks. The other Black girl didn’t say much, besides an occasional chime of agreement with me. Does she still think about this too?

Sometimes, I wish it never happened, and it shouldn’t have, but the strong emotions ignited a fire within me.

I was finally using my voice, so I didn’t let up, not until I saw the moon glistening through the open windows and knew I should head home. I was still angry at my classmate, my advisor, and the world. Everyone else’s visible emotions quickly faded as they grabbed their backpacks and headed toward the door.

The other girls all hugged each other before they left. My advisor gave me a pointed look and gestured toward the girl I had argued with. Her lips curled up in a small smile as she stared at me, waiting for me to give up. I reluctantly sent her a tight-lipped smile, gave her a quick, awkward hug, and headed swiftly towards the door. My moment of boldness was short-lived.

I became closer with all of those girls and was friends with them for a couple of years, but something shifted that day. Sometimes, I wish it never happened, and it shouldn’t have, but the strong emotions ignited a fire within me.

I became involved with the equity team at my predominantly white school and helped craft our Black History Month celebration. I organized an equity summit at school to discuss New York City’s unfair school admissions process we were all benefitting from.

Somehow, a day marred by hurt, pain, and anger revealed so much to me about my life, humanity, and the world. I saw how afraid the cops were of Tamir’s brown skin and nappy hair. His Blackness was a threat to our white supremacist society. Seeing the video of his death motivated me to become another voice within a movement fighting for Black people to be respected and treated as human beings.

Sometimes, I wonder if anyone else thinks back on that day. Do they remember that moment like I do, or has it become a blur among many MUN experiences? Do they remember how I wept for Tamir, or how none of them tried to comfort me afterward? Was the display of my terrifying reality simply a lesson for them, our conversation an intellectual experiment? Do they know that their words and actions left scars on my tender heart?

When I look back on what happened, it still hurts. Black trauma shouldn’t have to be channeled into something positive. Experiencing racism isn’t inspiring, and that bad memory is still just that. My pain is not a lesson for all, and neither is the murder of Tamir Rice.

Kayla Ruano-Lumpris is a junior at Brooklyn Technical High School. She is indigenous Guatemalan, Panamanian, and Afro-Caribbean, and currently resides in Harlem. She likes to go walking, play the double bass, read, bake, and write poems and stories.

A version of this piece was originally published by Youth Communication. It is reprinted here with permission.

Video sheds new light on ‘Know Justice, Know Peace’ podcast dispute

2022-10-04T23:09:03+00:00

Three weeks before a group of current and former students sued Denver Public Schools over their racial justice podcast, they met with district officials in an eighth-floor conference room at Denver Public Schools headquarters.

Video from the Aug. 29 meeting reveals a central tension in the dispute. In the meeting, district officials talk about the podcast, which the students created in 2020 in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, as something akin to a class or a club. They say the podcast will expand across the district and welcome new participants as previous ones graduate.

But the founders talk about the podcast, “Know Justice, Know Peace: The Take,” as a deeply personal project born from their individual attempts to grapple with a nationwide racial reckoning — and something they want to continue to do outside of school.

“You said that we would only be able to still participate in the podcast until we graduate,” senior Dahni Austin said to Deputy Superintendent Tony Smith in the meeting. “Why, if we created the podcast way before the district got involved with the podcast, wouldn’t we be able to continue?”

“I think you would be able to continue to participate in some form or fashion,” Smith said. “But it is the position of the district that it’s the intellectual property of the district to continue on.”

Whether the podcast and its name belong to Denver Public Schools is an issue that will be settled in court. Last month, Austin and three others filed a lawsuit claiming that Colorado’s largest school district unlawfully tried to trademark “Know Justice, Know Peace: The Take.”

Viva Moffat, a University of Denver law professor who specializes in intellectual property but is not involved in the lawsuit, said the legal issues in this case are not unique.

It’s common, she said, for two entities to argue over who holds a trademark. Legally, a trademark belongs to whomever used it first “in commerce” across state lines. That means the person or business used the mark in its branding, even if they weren’t making money on it. In this case, the podcast was posted for free on YouTube.

What is unique about this case, Moffat said, are the players.

“It’s extremely unusual for there to be a trademark dispute between a school district and students in the school,” she said. “That is extremely unprecedented — and that’s probably for lots of reasons. Students aren’t often coming up with trademarkable things and then using a trademark in commerce. And it’s also uncommon for a public school district to be aggressively asserting intellectual property rights against its own students.”

While Moffat said she doesn’t know of any trademark cases involving students and schools, she said there are established copyright cases. Generally, she said, original works like podcasts are owned by the people who create them or, if they are employees of a company, by the company.

But she said there’s an exception for teachers that generally applies to students as well.

“Just because you’re in a class and you write an essay, nobody would say that DPS owns the copyright and all the papers that all of DPS’s students wrote,” Moffat said.

Meeting video sheds light on what happened before lawsuit

The video of the late August meeting sheds more light on the events that led to the lawsuit. Four students – all young Black women at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Early College high school – started the podcast in July 2020 as a way to speak out about racial injustice. They had support from then-Principal Kimberly Grayson and teacher Kiara Roberts.

The students recorded the podcast at school and were paid for their work through a district apprenticeship program. Grayson left the school this past spring, and the students weren’t sure they would continue to get paid. For that reason and others, they decided they wanted to continue their podcast independently.

“We’re not obligated to stay in a space where there’s continuous missed connection,” senior Kaliah Yizar said at the meeting, “especially when this is our job, this is our passion.”

In June, Grayson filed paperwork to form a business called Know Justice, Know Peace: The Take LLC. The students said she did so to help fulfill their wish to record the podcast independent of Denver Public Schools. But when the district learned of the LLC, it filed state and federal trademark applications for the name in early August.

On Aug. 24, a district lawyer sent a cease-and-desist letter to Grayson asking that she dissolve the business and turn over the usernames and passwords for any email address or social media accounts associated with the “Know Justice, Know Peace: The Take” podcast.

The district asserted in the letter that it owned the name because the podcast was created on district property using district equipment and was supported by district employees.

But at the meeting, the students said they started the podcast over Zoom on their own computers, without any district equipment. Their lawsuit argues that they first used the name in commerce in July 2020 when they posted their first episode to YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

“For DPS to say they own a creation that they were not even a part of in the beginning is crazy,” said Jenelle Nangah, who was a rising senior when the podcast started and graduated in 2021.

“‘Know Justice, Know Peace’ is our faces, who we are,” said Yizar, who was a rising sophomore in the beginning. “It’s really grimy to all of a sudden, once all of the remaining original members are seniors, once Jenelle is no longer a student of DPS, once Grayson is no longer a DPS employee, to come in and say, ‘We’ll take over now.’”

Smith, the deputy superintendent, said the district isn’t trying to hurt the podcast founders.

“Your voice is appreciated,” he told them, adding that “it’s always up to you whether or not you want to be part of how we proceed forward. The invitation is there.”

“I don’t know why you are giving us the invitation,” Nangah replied. “We should be able to give the district the invitation to take what we have created and expand it.”

District lawyer and students’ lawyer have different interpretations

Chalkbeat first requested a copy of the meeting video in early September. The district denied that request, citing a federal law that protects student privacy.

But after the students filed their lawsuit in mid-September and held a press conference, district officials allowed Chalkbeat to view a video of the meeting late last week and interview Denver Public Schools General Counsel Aaron Thompson.

Thompson said the district shared the video in part to refute a claim in the lawsuit that Smith attempted to “coerce and bully” the students into admitting that the district owns the trademark.

Thompson said Smith was soft-spoken and “comported himself very fairly.” The video shows him sitting in a relaxed posture, legs crossed, and speaking in an even tone.

Thompson said the video also shows that the podcast is district property because the students admitted they eventually used district equipment to make it and were paid for their work. Thompson said the district didn’t try to protect its property until Grayson created the LLC.

“It never was, in our view, about the girls or taking anything from the girls,” he said. “We’ve always owned it. It was only an action to stop Kim from erroneously asserting ownership.”

Thompson said it’s unfortunate that the students are caught in the middle, “but we have a responsibility to the other 90,000 students of DPS to protect the integrity of our educational programming and to expand viable educational programming for all students in the district.”

In a statement, the students’ attorney Jeffrey Kass said that the podcast founders felt that the recent meeting, which was called before they could hire a trademark lawyer, was an attempt to intimidate them and “say something without the advice of proper legal counsel.”

“DPS asked them many different ways at the meeting to agree that DPS owned the podcast and trademark,” Kass said. “Each time, the students denied.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver students sue after district files to trademark their racial justice podcast

2022-09-20T03:41:28+00:00

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Update: Students suing over ‘Know Justice, Know Peace’ trademark speak out

Four young Black women who created a racial justice podcast and pushed Denver Public Schools to diversify its curriculum sued the district Monday. They allege Denver Public Schools unlawfully tried to trademark and steal the name of their podcast — Know Justice, Know Peace — “knowing full well the brand name was created by the students.”

“Shame on DPS,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court on behalf of two graduates of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Early College high school, Alana Mitchell and Jenelle Nangah, and two current students who are only identified by their initials because they are minors.

In July 2020, as the nation reckoned with racial justice and police brutality in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the students released their first podcast episode. They shared the history of the Fourth of July and Juneteenth holidays, and their own experiences with racism.

“We wanted people to hear our voices,” Nangah told Chalkbeat at the time.

The podcast — the full name of which was Know Justice, Know Peace: DMLK’s The Take — attracted widespread media attention, including an appearance on The Today Show. The students’ advocacy pushed the Denver school board to pass a Know Justice, Know Peace resolution ordering the district to diversify the curriculum.

The students were also named to an advisory board for an innovative new U.S. history curriculum called Black History 365. And they raised $14,000 to purchase Black history books for fellow students because the district refused to pay for them, the lawsuit says.

Last month, more than two years after the podcast started, Denver Public Schools submitted state and federal applications to trademark Know Justice, Know Peace. State records show the district registered the name for the purpose of “providing a podcast series offering information about inequities in the educational system and providing solutions.”

The district also took over all social media accounts related to the podcast and changed the passwords, the lawsuit says.

Shortly thereafter, Denver Public Schools Deputy Superintendent Tony Smith held a “last-minute” meeting with the students and their parents “to attempt to coerce and bully [them] into admitting that DPS owns the trademark,” the lawsuit says. The students refused.

“Despite Smith’s and others’ ruthless attempts to get Plaintiffs to admit DPS owned the mark (questioning that brought the 17- to 19-year-olds to tears), the students did not waver,” the lawsuit alleges. “Plaintiffs at no time acknowledged DPS had any rights to their [intellectual property], nor did they relinquish their trademark rights to DPS.”

Denver Public Schools declined to comment on the lawsuit because it is still pending. The district also declined to release a recording of the meeting, citing student privacy law.

But a letter obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request lays out some of the district’s argument that it owns the name. An attorney for Denver Public Schools sent the letter to the former principal of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Early College, Kimberly Grayson, in August. Grayson was principal when the podcast was created but has since left the school. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

The letter takes issue with a business Grayson registered with the state called Know Justice, Know Peace: The Take LLC. It demands that Grayson stop using the name because it belongs to Denver Public Schools.

The letter says the podcast series was recorded on district property using district equipment. It also says the podcast was created “within the scope” of Grayson’s job as a principal, and that the students were paid by Denver Public Schools for their work on it.

Emails from Nangah and Grayson to district staff members that were obtained as part of the open records request indicate that the students wanted to record the podcast independently after Grayson left the school. In an email, Grayson wrote that’s why she filed the LLC.

She also wrote that it was contradictory for the district to say it upholds equity “while really saying DPS OWNS four Black young ladies’ image, voice, and content.”

“That sounds very oppressive to me,” Grayson wrote.

In a separate email, Nangah echoed that sentiment.

“I am utterly disgusted and in great dismay,” the recent graduate wrote to district staff and elected school board members in August. “It’s flabbergasting to see that in 2022, Black ownership is still being threatened by people in positions of power.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

New Jersey’s Black, Latinx students face shrinking access to school mental health staff, report says

2022-09-09T18:17:40+00:00

Black and Latinx students in New Jersey have less access to school mental health staff today than they did a decade ago, a troubling trend found in a study released this week as the need for such services intensified after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the last 10 years, as access to mental health staff in schools declined for Black and Latinx students, it increased for white and Asian American students across the state, according to the analysis of state data from New Jersey Policy Perspective, a progressive think tank.

The opposing trends highlight the inequity of access to these school-based resources as Black and Latinx children have a higher chance of living in poverty, going to schools that impose disciplinary actions such as suspensions, and experiencing disproportionate negative effects from the pandemic.

The decline in access to mental health school staff for students of color could be a consequence of years of school underfunding in New Jersey and can’t solely rely on the influx of federal COVID relief money that’s set to dry up by 2024 for a fix, said Mark Weber, author of the report and an education policy analyst.

School leaders and policymakers taking a heightened interest in addressing student mental health issues should be looking at school funding to ensure districts with students of color have the money to get mental health staff in the long term, the report suggests.

“We need to be looking at these things within the racial equity framework that we’re proposing in this report,” Weber said. “It is important to think about how these resources are being distributed unequally among students with different races and different ethnicities.”

The study analyzed state Department of Education school staffing and student enrollment data, looking at the number of nurses, counselors, psychologists, social workers, anti-bullying specialists, and substance use coordinators per 1,000 students by race or ethnicity.

In 2008, public schools across the state had 8.2 mental health staff per 1,000 students on average, which increased to 8.6 staff per 1,000 students in 2020. In that period, mental health staff per 1,000 white students increased from 7.4 to 8.5.

Meanwhile, mental health staff went from 10.3 to 8.5 per 1,000 Black students in that time period. For Latinx students, the ratio also declined from 9 to 8.4 per 1,000.

Access to school mental health staff now hovers around the same ratio of 8.5 staff members per 1,000 students for students across races. But the slump in this ratio for Black and Latinx students is occurring amid a greater need for mental health support.

State health assessment data show that about 25% of Black children under age 5 and 23% of Hispanic children were living in poverty in New Jersey between 2016 and 2020. During that time period, 11.4% of white children and 4.5% of Asian American children were living in poverty, the statistics show.

Living in poverty can lead to a higher risk of mental health illnesses, chronic diseases, and other developmental setbacks in children, according to research on the impact of poverty on health.

The NJPP study on mental health staffing trends also showed that school counselor staffing increased for white students, going from 2.7 per 1,000 white students in 2008 to 3.2 per 1,000 in 2020. But there was a steep drop for Black students, going from 4 counselors per 1,000 Black students in 2008 to 2.6 per 1,000 in 2020.

In Newark Public Schools, the board of education passed a budget for 2022-23 that included an increase in staffing social workers and counselors for the district’s 38,000 students. For this new school year, the budget covers salaries for 45 new social worker positions, for a total of 164 social workers, and one new counselor position, for a total of 89 counselors.

If those positions are filled, the current ratio of 483 students to one counselor, which is far above the American School Counselor Association’s recommended 250 students to one counselor, could be slightly improved.

Cultural perspectives are often overlooked

Another component of addressing students’ mental health needs is the stigma that still persists in some communities today, said Kirk Johnson, assistant professor of justice studies and medical humanities at Montclair State University.

“Religion and spirituality are still very important in people’s lives, especially in Black and Latinx communities,” Johnson said. “Some families feel that if they have mental health issues, they should leave it to God, pray about it, and use spiritual and religious practices to reconcile those issues.”

There may be hesitation among Black and Latinx students to go to a school counselor and open up about issues going on internally or at home, Johnson said, adding that addressing the stigma with students and their families is key.

“That cultural and religious dynamic is a big one that I think we often overlook but adds more to this conversation about mental health access and actually using those available resources,” he said.

Weber said that underfunded school districts have a more difficult time getting the necessary staff to provide students with mental health resources they need.

“When you have an underfunded school, you have fewer music teachers, art teachers, gym teachers, nurses, science teachers,” Weber said in a virtual news conference on Wednesday. “There’s no reason to believe that that isn’t the case with school guidance counselors.”

He added that policymakers should be focusing on adequately funding school districts such as Newark.

“This has been a problem that has been occurring over a decade and a half, and if we have a long-term problem, we have to have a long-term solution,” said Weber. “While it’s very useful to have federal funds, we cannot rely on them to be the sole solution for this problem.”

Catherine Carrera is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Newark, covering the city’s K-12 schools with a focus on English language learners. Contact Catherine at ccarrera@chalkbeat.org.

West Philadelphia parents facing eviction worry about children changing schools

2022-08-31T19:57:08+00:00

Families who are set to be forced out of their homes in a West Philadelphia affordable housing complex are worried about how their children will get to their schools, or whether they’ll need to find new ones.

Over 30 children live in the University City Townhomes and attend area schools like Powel Elementary School, Science Leadership Academy Middle School (also known as SLAMS), and West Philadelphia High School. As parents scramble to find places to live before a scheduled eviction date of Oct. 8 for the complex, it’s unclear whether they’ll find satisfactory solutions.

The townhomes are due to be closed by the property owner, IBID Associates, once the company’s federal housing subsidy for the complex expires. The complex is located in an area that was once called the Black Bottom, a working class neighborhood that has been swallowed up by the growth of retail and residential facilities linked to nearby Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Three mostly Black public schools in the area were shut down within the past decade, and some critics say the changes amount to gentrification that hurts Black residents.

But parents in University City Townhomes have more immediate concerns. There’s at least a possibility that they and their children will have to move far away — potentially miles away — from where their children attend school.

Rhonda Moore has lived at the development for 19 years and has raised her three children there. Her youngest son attends West Philadelphia High, but Moore said that with the looming evictions, he will have to attend a different school. She is also worried about how he’ll process the switch because he is on the autism spectrum.

“He doesn’t like any changes. He knows that we are moving. I didn’t discuss the whole switching schools thing yet,” Moore said.

Moore doesn’t know where she is going to move to before Oct. 8. She said no one from the school district has contacted parents to accommodate their needs.

When asked about how the school system is helping Townhomes residents facing eviction, the district pointed to transportation benefits available to students. Students in grades 1-6 who live 1.5 miles or more from their assigned schools can typically receive yellow bus transportation, while students in grades 7-12 who live 1.5 miles or more from their assigned schools can get SEPTA student fare cards.

The complex is a relatively convenient location for many of the students. The average distance between the Townhomes property and the three district schools in West Philadelphia that most of the children attend is about three-quarters of a mile. The average time for students to get to school from their home using public transportation is 15 minutes, or 20 minutes if students walk.

Housing itself, or the lack thereof, is another major issue. Residents worry they won’t be able to find other housing by the move-out date because many landlords won’t take federal vouchers. And even for those that have such vouchers, they often won’t stretch far enough in a city that has a shortage of affordable units for rent.

Parent Krystal Young has lived at the Townhomes property for three years. She said her Section 8 voucher “is not equal to the housing rate, so where am I going to find a two bedroom that’s less than $1,300? I’m not.”

A district spokesperson told Chalkbeat that “if the family does not have adequate, fixed housing, they may qualify for services through our Office of Educating Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness.”

Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier’s office said it is open to working with the displaced parents and students to help them access the transportation services; the complex is part of Gauthier’s district.

The company TRIAD is charged with assisting the families in finding new homes. TRIAD declined to comment. Kevin Feeley, a spokesman for the property’s owner, IBID, said the complex’s owners are willing to speak with the school district’s transportation officials to address concerns.

Moore said she would like to move to a nearby area, in part because it would be convenient to stay close to things like their dental office. Right now, her son’s trip to school is just a convenient train ride away.

“I don’t want him to get uncomfortable at his new school if they don’t have what he needs,” Moore said.

Bureau Chief Johann Calhoun covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. He oversees Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s education coverage. Contact Johann at jcalhoun@chalkbeat.org.

Boulder schools punish Black and Latino students at disproportionately higher rates. Parents want more accountability.

2022-07-21T17:02:00+00:00

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Black and Latino parents of Boulder Valley School District students have been raising alarms for years that their children are punished more often for the same behaviors as white students. The district’s own data has consistently shown this disparity.

In 2020, under mounting pressure, BVSD reformed its discipline policies to try to reduce inequities. It removed police from schools, streamlined punishment guidelines across classrooms, and trained educators to de-escalate and resolve conflicts without resorting to punishment.

Since the reforms, fewer students have been suspended or referred to police. But the disparities that prompted the new policies remain.

Latino students were about 3.5 times more likely to be suspended than were white students during the 2021-22 school year, according to data provided to Boulder Reporting Lab by the district. That figure reflects a disparity dating back more than a decade.

While Latino students made up nearly 20% of BVSD’s 29,000 students, they accounted for about 44% of the suspensions.

The data indicate Latino students are generally punished for the same behaviors as their white peers — threats of physical harm, disobedience, fighting, possessing tobacco and marijuana.

Suspensions and police referrals can have lasting impacts on young lives. Such punishment reduces the odds of graduating, makes it harder to excel academically, and increases the chances of entering the criminal legal system.

“There has not been progress,” said Noemi Lastiri, member of the Latino Parent Advisory Council, which the district set up to advise it on equity issues. “Kids in high school keep complaining that they are not treated equally by teachers or by staff.”

To contextualize the trends in Boulder, Boulder Reporting Lab analyzed data from the Colorado Department of Education for the state’s 12 largest districts for the 2010-11 to 2018-19 school years. (Discipline data is unreliable for much of 2020 and 2021 because of COVID-19. The state has not finalized 2021-22 data.)

This story is part of Chasing Progress, a Colorado News Collaborative project on social, economic and health equity among Black and Latino Coloradans.

Notably, BVSD’s overall suspension rate is lower than most of the state’s largest districts, according to data from 2018-19. But that same year, it had the highest disparity in the suspension rates between Latino and white students among those districts.

When analyzing all the punitive measures reported to the state — removal from the classroom, in- and out-of-school suspensions, referrals to police — BVSD’s Black students were 2.5 times more likely to be punished than were their white peers. Latino students were two times more likely to be punished.

BVSD’s superintendent, Rob Anderson, joined the school district in 2018 after overseeing a much larger district in Atlanta, Georgia. He said the disparities in Boulder reflect the systemic racial and ethnic disparities across the nation.

“Before starting in the school district, I reviewed the data and realized that, you name the metric, we were disproportionate,” Anderson said in an interview.

Disproportionate discipline isn’t the only problem for Black and Latino BVSD students. They’re less likely to graduate, enroll in advanced courses, or join its gifted and talented program.

“When you think about our discipline disproportionality, it aligns with our achievement disproportionality,” Anderson said.

During his first year on the job, he created the Latino Parent Advisory Council to address these disparities. The council is one of the only platforms of its kind in Colorado to give parents a voice in district policies. At the request of the group, the district said it will begin publishing data on its website in August that breaks down disparities by each of its 57 schools.

The data will help the district identify how policies are playing out.

“We have a long way to go to get better. And the only way you can get better is if you really own and understand the issue,” Anderson said. “You start to look at data and use data as a mirror to see where those things are working or not working. It could be that the district’s disproportionality is really being heavily influenced by a handful of schools.”

Parents interviewed for this story support reforms made so far by the district. But they say the changes don’t go far enough. They would like to see leniency for students who defend themselves from bullying, along with more teacher accountability.

“For the first time [BVSD] acknowledges that they have not made progress, that we still have a huge problem. And I think that’s a start,” said Ana Fernandez Frank, co-coordinator of the Latino Parent Advisory Council. “But we want to see what they’re planning on actually doing.”

Bullying and self-defense

Jamillah Richmond is the co-founder of the Parents of Color Council, a separate group advising the district. Her 9-year-old daughter attends a BVSD school.

She said her daughter has been sent to the office for responding to bullying at her elementary school. In one instance, she said, her daughter was cornered by four white students. She pushed one of them away. In another instance, a boy kept touching her hair so she slapped his hand. In both situations, her daughter faced repercussions.

“Culturally, if you touch our hair, we’re slapping your hand, which is exactly what my daughter does. But she gets punished,” Richmond said.

Jamillah Richmond is the co-founder of the Parents of Color Council, a group advising the district on equity issues. She said her 9-year-old daughter has been punished for responding to bullying at her BVSD school.

Other parents of Black and Latino students told Boulder Reporting Lab about similar situations in which their kids were punished after defending themselves.

“We need to stop penalizing children of color for defending themselves when they’re being confronted with different varying degrees of violence,” Richmond said.

For this reason, she prefers not to use the phrase “disproportionate discipline.”

“Discipline implies a kid did something wrong to begin with,” she said. “You are not wrong for defending yourself.”

The district’s discipline matrix, which it created in 2020 to offer punishment guidance to schools, includes no mention of self-defense. Richmond thinks it should, to encourage educators to consider context around instances of violence.

“If it’s not on paper, and we don’t have a clear and definitive definition of what these things are and what consequences could or could not be applied to them, then we’re leaving too much room open for interpretation and trusting people who have blind spots and biases,” she said. “And I think that leaves open space for discrimination.”

Anderson, BVSD’s superintendent, agrees bullying is a concern. The district has made it easier to report bullying on its website. But he said it’s tricky to balance physical force with school safety.

“If you’re blocking punches so you don’t get hurt, that’s self-defense. If you engage in a physical altercation with someone else, we don’t view that as self-defense,” he said.

Parents can appeal disciplinary measures to the district’s board of education. But Jorge Chavez, chair of the district accountability committee, an oversight panel required under state law, said some parents face challenges in speaking out.

“I’m pretty fortunate. I’m an immigrant, but I’m bilingual. I know how the system works here,” Chavez said. “For a lot of parents who either don’t feel comfortable with the English language, who aren’t familiar with the educational system, who don’t have the resources and the time to get involved, it’s harder for them to have their voices elevated to where their concerns are being heard.”

‘We all have unconscious biases’

The district is open about discussing how structural inequities contribute to disparities in discipline. But some want it to do more to acknowledge racial bias among staff.

“The root cause is racism. We have to call it what it is so that we can address it. I’m not saying that teachers are bad people or anything. We all have unconscious biases,” said Fernandez Frank, of CAPL, the acronym for the Spanish name for the parent group, Consejo Asesor de Padres Latinos.

That’s why, first and foremost, parents want the district to hire more Black and Latino teachers and staff. Kids do better in school when their teachers look like them. BVSD’s teachers were 86% white last school year, about the same as the state average. Their students were 67% white.

In February, the district hosted a “Teachers of Color Hiring Event.” Boulder pays teachers more than any other district in the state. But Anderson said the region’s high cost of housing and low turnover rate make hiring difficult. “It becomes incredibly challenging to try to diversify your workforce very quickly, because you just don’t have the vacancies.”

The Boulder Valley School District’s administrative office in Boulder.

Parent groups have also been asking for data on teachers’ disciplinary referrals. And they want the district to include in staff evaluations any racial disproportionality in their punishment of students. They also want a public process for filing and tracking discrimination complaints.

“They keep kids accountable for their actions. And I think that it’s only fair that adults are held to a similar standard,” Fernandez Frank said.

Anderson opposes such measures.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think that creates a culture of fear. You need to have people open to get better,” Anderson said. “My goal here isn’t to place blame on folks. It’s to fix the systemic issues.”

The district already kicked off monthly meetings in each school to devise solutions. This may include cultural competency training. “That’s why you have these conversations locally,” he said. “Locally, it may be that there are teachers who do need additional training or grade levels who want the additional training.”

This difference will likely remain a sticking point.

“I don’t want to wait until they fix their unconscious bias. I want them not to be in contact with kids,” Fernandez Frank said. “Those kids are going to continue to suffer until this teacher learns. And I don’t think that’s fair for students.”

John Herrick reports on housing, climate, health, and local government for the Boulder Reporting Lab.

This story originally appeared on Boulder Reporting Lab and is republished with permission.

Las escuelas de Boulder castigan a los estudiantes negros y latinos en tasas más altas. Los padres piden que el distrito acepte la responsabilidad.

2022-07-21T17:01:00+00:00

Read in English.

Padres de estudiantes negros y latinos en el Distrito Escolar del Valle de Boulder (BVSD, por sus siglas en inglés) han estado diciendo por años que a sus hijos los castigan con más frecuencia por los mismos comportamientos que a los estudiantes blancos. Los datos del propio distrito han demostrado continuamente esa disparidad.

En 2020, bajo mayor presión, BVSD reformó sus políticas disciplinarias para tratar de reducir las desigualdades. Eliminó a los policías de sus escuelas, simplificó las pautas de castigos en todos los salones de clase y capacitó a los educadores para reducir la intensidad de los conflictos y resolverlos sin recurrir al castigo.

Desde que las reformas se implementaron, se ha suspendido o enviado a la policía a menos estudiantes.

Pero las disparidades que dieron lugar a las nuevas políticas siguen existiendo.

Durante el año escolar 2021-2022, fue 3.5 veces más probable que a los estudiantes latinos los suspendieran en comparación con los estudiantes blancos, según datos que el distrito proporcionó al Boulder Reporting Lab (BRL). Esa cantidad refleja una disparidad existente por más de una década.

Aunque casi el 20 por ciento de los 29,000 estudiantes en BVSD son latinos, representaron cerca del 44 por ciento de las suspensiones.

Los datos indican que a los estudiantes latinos generalmente los castigan por los mismos comportamientos que a sus compañeros blancos: amenazas por daño físico, desobediencia, peleas, posesión de tabaco y marihuana.

Las suspensiones y derivaciones a la policía pueden tener un impacto duradero en las vidas jóvenes. Esos tipos de castigos reducen las probabilidades de graduarse, causan dificultades para alcanzar el éxito académico y aumentan las posibilidades de ingresar al sistema legal criminal.

“No se ha progresado”, dijo Noemi Lastiri, integrante del Consejo Asesor de Padres Latinos (CAPL), un consejo establecido por el distrito para que lo asesorara en asuntos de equidad. “Los niños de high school siguen quejándose de que los maestros y el personal no los tratan igual”.

Para contextualizar las tendencias en Boulder, BRL analizó datos de los años escolares 2010-2011 y 2018-2019 del Departamento de Educación de Colorado en los 12 distritos más grandes en el estado. (Los datos disciplinarios de gran parte de 2020 y 2021 no son confiables debido a COVID-19. El estado no ha finalizado los datos de 2021-2022.)

Esta historia es parte de Buscando avances, un proyecto de Colorado News Collaborative sobre la equidad social, económica y de salud entre coloradenses negros y latinos.

Cabe destacar que la tasa de suspensiones en general de BVSD es más baja que la de la mayoría de los distritos más grandes en el estado, según los datos de 2018-2019. Pero ese mismo año, BVSD tuvo la disparidad más alta entre las tasas de suspensión de los estudiantes latinos y blancos de esos distritos.

Al analizar todas las medidas punitivas reportadas ante el estado (expulsiones del salón, suspensiones dentro y fuera de la escuela, derivaciones a la policía), fue 2.5 veces más probable que a los estudiantes negros de BVSD los castigaran en comparación con sus compañeros blancos. Entre los estudiantes latinos, la probabilidad de que los castigaran fue dos veces mayor.

El superintendente de BVSD, Rob Anderson, se unió al distrito escolar en 2018 después de supervisar a un distrito mucho más grande en Atlanta, Georgia. Dijo que las disparidades en Boulder reflejan las disparidades sistémicas raciales y étnicas en toda la nación.

“Antes de empezar [a trabajar] en el distrito escolar, examiné los datos y me di cuenta de que, nombra cualquier estándar, estábamos desproporcionados”, Anderson dijo en una entrevista.

La disciplina desproporcionada no es el único problema para los estudiantes negros y latinos en BVSD. Es menos probable que se gradúen, que se inscriban a cursos clases avanzados o que participen en el programa para estudiantes dotados y talentosos.

“Cuando piensas sobre nuestra desproporcionalidad en la disciplina, corresponde con nuestra desproporcionalidad en los logros”, Anderson dijo.

Durante su primer año en el trabajo, creó el Consejo Asesor de Padres Latinos para abordar estas disparidades. El consejo es uno de los únicos grupos de su tipo en Colorado para darles a los padres una voz en las políticas del distrito. A solicitud del grupo, el distrito dijo que en agosto de 2022 empezará a publicar datos que analizan las disparidades en cada una de sus 57 escuelas.

Los datos ayudarán al distrito a identificar cómo están funcionando las políticas.

“Nos queda mucho por hacer para mejorar. Y la única manera de mejorar es realmente haciéndote cargo y entendiendo el problema”, Anderson dijo. “Empiezas a examinar los datos y a usar los datos como un espejo para ver dónde las cosas están funcionando o no están funcionando. Quizás sea que la desproporcionalidad del distrito está siendo influenciada por un puñado de escuelas”.

Los padres entrevistados para esta historia apoyan las reformas que el distrito ha implementado hasta ahora. Pero dicen que los cambios no son suficientes. Les gustaría que hubiera lenidad para los estudiantes que se defienden del acoso escolar, junto con más responsabilidad entre los maestros.

“Por primera vez [BVSD] reconoce que no ha progresado, que todavía tenemos un enorme problema. Creo que eso es un comienzo”, dijo Ana Fernandez Frank, coordinadora adjunta del Consejo Asesor de Padres Latinos. “Pero queremos ver qué es lo que están planeando en hacer realmente”.

Acoso escolar y defensa personal

Jamillah Richmond es la fundadora del Consejo de Padres de Color, un grupo aparte que asesora al distrito. Su hija de nueve años asiste a una escuela de BVSD.

Dijo que a su hija la han mandado a la oficina por responder al acoso escolar en su escuela primaria. En una ocasión, dijo, cuando cuatro estudiantes blancos acorralaron a su hija en un rincón, empujó a uno de ellos. En otra ocasión, un niño siguió tocándole el cabello varias veces, así que su hija le pegó en la mano. En ambos casos, su hija enfrentó consecuencias.

“Culturalmente, si tocas nuestro cabello vamos a pegarte en la mano, lo cual es exactamente lo que mi hija hace. Pero la castigan”, Richmond dijo.

Otros padres de estudiantes negros y latinos compartieron con el Boulder Reporting Lab situaciones similares en las que a

Jamillah Richmond es la fundadora del Consejo de Padres de Color. Dice que a veces el distrito castiga a los estudiantes después de defenderse a sí mismos.

“Tenemos que dejar de castigar a los niños de color por defenderse a sí mismos cuando están enfrentando varios diferentes niveles de violencia”, Richmond dijo.

Por esta razón, prefiere no usar la frase “disciplina desproporcionada”.

“Disciplina supone que un niño hizo algo malo para empezar”, dijo. “No estás mal si te defiendes a ti mismo”.

La tabla disciplinaria del distrito, la cual se creó en 2020 para ofrecer orientación en los castigos para las escuelas, no menciona la defensa personal. Richmond piensa que debería mencionarla, para animar a los educadores a tomar en cuenta el contexto en casos de violencia.

“Si no está escrito, y no tenemos una definición clara y definitiva de lo que estas cosas son y qué consecuencias podrían o no corresponder con ellas, entonces estamos dejando demasiadas oportunidades para la interpretación y confiando en personas que tienen puntos ciegos y prejuicios”, dijo. “Y pienso que eso deja oportunidades para la discriminación”.

Anderson, el superintendente de BVSD, está de acuerdo con que el acoso escolar es motivo de preocupación. El distrito ha facilitado que se reporte el acoso escolar en su sitio web. Pero dijo que es complicado balancear la fuerza física con la seguridad escolar.

“Si estás bloqueando puñetazos para no lastimarte, eso es defensa personal. Si participas en un altercado físico con alguien más, no consideramos que eso sea defensa personal”, dijo.

Los padres pueden apelar las medidas disciplinarias ante el Consejo de Educación del distrito. Pero Jorge Chavez, presidente del Comité de Responsabilidad del Distrito, un panel supervisor que requiere la ley estatal, dijo que algunos padres enfrentan desafíos para expresarse.

“Soy bastante afortunado. Soy un inmigrante, pero soy bilingüe. Sé cómo funciona el sistema aquí”, Chavez dijo. “Para muchos de los padres que no se sienten cómodos con el idioma inglés, que no están familiarizados con el sistema educativo, que no tienen los recursos y el tiempo para participar, es más difícil para ellos que sus voces se levanten hasta que sus inquietudes se escuchen”.

‘Todos tenemos prejuicios subconscientes’

El distrito está abierto a platicar sobre cómo las desigualdades estructurales contribuyen a las disparidades disciplinarias. Pero algunos quieren que el distrito haga más para reconocer los prejuicios raciales entre su personal.

“La causa principal es el racismo. Tenemos que nombrarlo por lo que es para poder abordarlo. No estoy diciendo que los maestros sean malas personas o algo así. Todos tenemos prejuicios subconscientes”, dijo Fernandez Frank, de CAPL.

Por eso, primero que nada, los padres quieren que el distrito contrate a más maestros y empleados administrativos negros y latinos. Los niños alcanzan un mejor desempeño escolar cuando sus maestros se parecen a ellos. El año pasado, 86 por ciento de los maestros en BVSD eran blancos, casi el mismo porcentaje que el promedio estatal. El 67 por ciento de sus estudiantes eran blancos.

En febrero, el distrito organizó un “Evento de contratación de maestros de color”. Boulder paga a sus maestros más que cualquier otro distrito en el estado. Pero Anderson dijo que el alto costo de la vivienda en la región y el bajo porcentaje de maestros que dejan su puesto dificultan la contratación. “Es increíblemente desafiante tratar de diversificar tu fuerza laboral muy rápidamente, porque simplemente no tienes las vacantes”.

Los grupos de padres también han estado pidiendo datos sobre las derivaciones disciplinarias de los maestros. Y quieren que el distrito incluya en las evaluaciones del personal cualquier desproporcionalidad racial que haya en el castigo de sus estudiantes. También quieren un proceso público para presentar y dar seguimiento a las quejas por discriminación.

“Hacen que los niños acepten la responsabilidad de sus acciones. Y creo que solo es justo que a los adultos los evalúen con un estándar similar”, Fernandez Frank dijo.

Anderson se opone a esas medidas.

“No creo que sea una buena idea. Creo que eso crea una cultura de temor. Necesitas que la gente esté dispuesta a mejorar”, Anderson dijo. “Mi objetivo aquí no es asignar culpa a las personas. Es arreglar los problemas sistémicos”.

La sede del Distrito Escolar del Valle de Boulder (BVSD, por sus siglas en inglés).

El distrito ya inició unas reuniones mensuales en cada escuela para diseñar soluciones. Estas podrían incluir capacitación sobre aptitud cultural. “Por eso tienes estas conversaciones localmente”, Anderson dijo. “Localmente, quizás haya maestros que no necesitan más capacitación o niveles de grado que quieren capacitación adicional”.

Esta diferencia probablemente continúe siendo un punto de fricción.

“No quiero esperar hasta que arreglen su prejuicio subconsciente. Quiero que no estén en contacto con niños”, Fernandez Frank dijo. “Esos niños seguirán sufriendo hasta que su maestro aprenda. Y no creo que sea justo para los estudiantes”.

John Herrick cubre vivienda, clima, salud y gobierno local para Boulder Reporting Lab.

Este artículo se publicó originalmente en Boulder Reporting Lab y se vuelve a publicar con permiso.

Chicago student films tell stories about pandemic life, racial justice. It ‘rewrites our narrative.’

2022-05-31T20:28:11+00:00

A montage of Benito Juarez Community Academy school photos flashes across the screen as a voiceover of a student discusses how life has changed since the start of the pandemic: “It’s like a whole different world we had to go through.”

Another student reveals: “I became disassociated with the world that I had lived in.” A third describes becoming more civically engaged following the murder of George Floyd: “I’m more socially aware of how things are.”

That is the opening of “Black and Brown Unity through COVID,” a nearly 6-minute film produced by students at Benito Juarez, which aims to elevate the voices of young people the filmmakers felt were missing from the coverage of Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police and the protests that followed.

The movie is part of a Chicago Public Schools initiative called “Shifting Chicago Narratives,” which also includes works by students from Curie High School, Hyde Park Academy, and Phoenix STEM Military Academy focusing on the pandemic’s impact on students, a robotics program, and how an organization is engaging young people on Chicago’s South Side

With the help of groups such as Thrive Chicago and We Are Light, students were put behind the lens to tell their own stories, using iPhones and Shure microphones. Over the span of 11 weeks, students were provided weekly instruction and discussions. Earlier this month, students debuted their films at the Gene Siskel Theater in Downtown Chicago. The films can be viewed here.

At Benito Juarez, Angel Melvin, Yotzin Tzintzun, Addis Quiterio, and Jose Guzman Jr. explored Black and Latino Unity and the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

Watching news of the George Floyd protests, Angel Melvin noticed media coverage describing racial tensions between the Black and Latino community. But this wasn’t the reality she experienced at Benito Juarez.

So the 17-year-old junior and her peers set out to elevate the voices of young people that seemed to be largely absent in the coverage.

News stories focused on “a divide between Black people and Mexican people,” Angel said. “I wanted to show the other side of it because the news was only portraying that Black and Brown peoples against each other which was not the case at all.”

That representation, she added, was necessary.

In May 2020, bystander video showed now-convicted Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, pinning Floyd to the ground with his knee for nearly nine and a half minutes as onlookers yelled for the officer to stop. Floyd’s murder sparked protests for racial justice across the country.

In some instances, the protests and instances of isolated looting resulted in racial tension in some Chicago neighborhoods. But activists and youth led marches against anti-Blackness in an effort to quell tensions and show solidarity between the Black and Latino community.

In the film made by the Benito Juarez crew, students describe being isolated at home while watching coverage of Floyd’s murder and its aftermath.

“It really shook me up into my core,” a student says in the film, as he walks down a hallway at the school. “I started learning more.”

The film also features a montage that includes a glimpse of a Floyd mural, news clips of Floyd’s arrest, protests, and police response, photos of Floyd and his children – and interviews with students reflecting on their feelings and experiences as unrest roiled their city.

One calls the mistreatment of Black people compared to other racial groups “unfair.”

Another said she wanted more justice. A third says she supported the riots and protests.

“People were angry. I was angry,” she says. “He should not have been murdered.”

Asked about Black and Brown solidarity, a teacher describes the work of groups in Little Village and North Lawndale to unite the Black and brown communities.

Sophomore Jose Guzman Jr. said he was grateful for his peers’ vulnerability and was captivated by their stories and willingness to share the struggles they faced during the pandemic.

For 17-year-old Addis Quiterio, elevating the voices of young people to highlight what they’ve learned and show that representation was important.

During the interviews, Jose, who is 15, heard from his Latino classmates who went out to protest or got involved in clubs to show the Black community they were “loved and appreciated.”

It was a “heartwarming experience to see that,” he said.

He also noted that he learned about his classmates’ resilience through the trauma from the COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest brought on by Floyd’s murder.

In reflecting on the experience, Angel said she hopes people change their perspective on Black and Latino youth and stop perpetuating negative stereotypes.

With every showing of the film, the junior believes the project “rewrites our narrative.”

“It shows us that Black people and Brown people [are] not just minorities,” Angel says. “We’re more than that. We’re filmmakers. We’re future speakers ... These are our future lawyers.”

She wants people to recognize that and for Black and Latinos voices to be “valued.”

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

‘Age-appropriate’ books, history, and CRT: What you need to know about the Tennessee curriculum debate

2022-05-05T12:00:00+00:00

Officials nationwide have raced to enact new laws and introduce new policies meant to shape how students learn and discuss history. Many of these efforts have attempted to ban critical race theory, an academic framework primarily taught at the college level that examines how policies and the law perpetuate systemic racism.

Tennessee was among the first states to enact a law intended to restrict K-12 classroom discussions about the legacy of slavery, racism, and white privilege. This year, book challenges and bans increased as Tennessee lawmakers debated several bills aimed at pulling titles from school library shelves.

Now, Tennessee students may soon learn more about Black history, following the recent passage of a bill that requires schools to infuse multiculturalism throughout the K-12 curriculum, with special attention to Black history in grades five through eight.

Here is everything you need to know about the Tennessee curriculum debate up to this point — and what may be on the horizon.

How we got here: CRT and Tennessee’s curriculum debate

How the age-appropriate debate is altering curriculum in Tennessee and nationwide

“Front and center are concerns about the age-appropriateness of curriculum and instruction designed to introduce painful truths about America’s origins and present-day injustices. Truths, which some parents feel are at odds with a redeeming and inspirational national narrative, and which others say must be shared early if America hopes to ever achieve racial reconciliation.”

CRT and book bans in Tennessee schools

“Across the country, new laws targeting critical race theory and debated books are influencing the small but pivotal decisions educators make every day: how to answer a student’s question, what texts to read as a class, and how to prepare for a lesson.”

CRT Map: Efforts to restrict teaching racism and bias have multiplied across the U.S.

Chalkbeat tracked efforts to restrict — and expand — education on racism, bias, the contributions of specific racial or ethnic groups to U.S. history, or related topics. This is a screenshot of one of the maps on Feb. 1, 2022.

“In some states, lawmakers have tried to restrict antiracism training or the teaching of what they call ‘divisive concepts.’ But on the opposite end, other states are adding ethnic studies courses or incorporating more about people of color into their learning standards.

Tennessee nails down rules for disciplining teachers, withholding money from schools that teach banned concepts about racism

A picture of a teacher grading papers.

“Tennessee has bolstered the financial penalties against large school districts that violate the state’s new law regulating discussions on race and gender in the classroom.”

Protesters confront Tennessee education commissioner over claims of critical race theory in curriculum

“The protest brought together parents and grandparents in rural and suburban Sumner County. Organizers promoted the gathering on social media and via email through notices that mentioned critical race theory and invited people to ‘protest the indoctrination of our kids.’ ”

How Nikole Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project ignited the critical race theory backlash

“To chronicle how Hannah-Jones’ work and tenure controversy contributed to this transformational moment in history education and educational policy, Chalkbeat has created a timeline of key events.”

Legal scholars question Tennessee’s new bill restricting how educators teach about racial injustice

At Tindley Summit Academy in Indianapolis, a hallway display shows pictures of Black people killed by police to prompt conversations about racism and racial injustice.

“Legal scholars are questioning whether a recently passed bill that seeks to restrict Tennessee educators’ teachings about race and racism will pass legal muster given past precedent, including one case that dates back 50 years.”

The Tennessee legislature: How lawmakers have played a role in the CRT and curriculum discussion

Tennessee is close to becoming the next state to require Black History education

“Tennessee students may soon learn more about Black history, following the recent passage of a bill that requires schools to infuse multiculturalism throughout the K-12 curriculum, with special attention to Black history in grades 5 through 8.”

After book burning comment, Tennessee lawmakers vote to let state veto library materials

“The final legislation creates a statewide process in which parents, school employees, or other complainants can appeal the decisions of locally elected officials on books challenged as being ‘inappropriate for the age or maturity levels’ of students who can access them.

How Biden grants and parent concerns of ‘indoctrination’ spurred Tennessee Republicans to limit how race and racism are taught

“The grant program — prioritizing instruction on diversity, anti-racism, and the legacy of slavery — unleashed a torrent of backroom discussions just 2½ weeks before Tennessee’s General Assembly adjourned on May 5.”

In their own words: How CRT and school curriculums are viewed by educators, students, and parents

First Person: How should the U.S. teach about slavery? Here’s how other countries face their most shameful chapters.

“All this is to say that if you close your eyes and spin the globe, guaranteed your finger will land on a country with a shameful past that endures. The United States, with its history of atrocities from slavery to the slaughter of Native American peoples, is no different. The legacy of those horrors is still very much with us. What distinguishes societies, however, is the extent to which they confront and address their difficult history.”

Tennessee students: CRT laws promote bias in school, hurt mental health

“Students from Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville said they’re disheartened by the law and its fallout, at a time when leading health officials are warning of an accelerating youth mental health crisis brought on by the pandemic.”

Tennessee educators respond to proposed limits on teaching about racism

“ ‘To be frank, the bill will not make it harder for my personal classroom because I plan to ignore it. Who’s going to enforce it? This is a bill that viciously favors white children and ignores the needs of children of color.’ ”

Tennessee law restricting classroom discussions on race inspires passionate, poignant and enraged feedback

“According to a Chalkbeat analysis of approximately 900 comments obtained through a public records request, almost half came from people identifying themselves as parents or grandparents. Nearly 60 came from current, former, or retired educators, and another 21 were submitted by advocacy, professional, or citizens groups.”

First Person: Students of color deserve to see themselves in their school curriculum

“I craved stories in which Black and brown people are visible, and their accomplishments are recognized. But I had to seek those out on my own.”

First Person: A ‘Golden Age’ for whom? Tennessee history standards need a rewrite.

“This past May, Tennessee passed a law that restricts the way students can be taught about race, including banning concepts related to critical race theory and any teaching that the United States or meritocracy is inherently racist or oppressive. This controversy has distracted from what is genuinely problematic in existing curricula: the whitewashing of history and the erasure of the experiences of Tennesseans of color.”

How the age-appropriate debate is altering curriculum in Tennessee and nationwide

2022-05-05T12:00:00+00:00

Philly’s historic Central High gets its first female, Black president

2022-04-22T23:21:07+00:00

Katharine Davis, the principal of Henry Elementary School in Mount Airy, has been named the 15th president of Central High School, becoming the first woman and the first person of color to lead the 186-year-old institution.

The historic appointment comes at a time when Central, the second-oldest high school in the United States and one of Philadelphia’s most prestigious and selective, is at a pivotal moment in its history as it is grappling with how to move forward with an anti-racist agenda. As the percentage of Black and Latinx students at the school has dropped precipitously over the past decade, students have grown more vocal in expressing concerns about discriminatory practices, and have made demands for change.

Davis, 34, who graduated from Central High in 2005, was chosen from among a pool of about 20 people who applied, said Assistant Superintendent Ted Domers, who led the search process. Superintendent William Hite made the final decision based on recommendations from a search committee made up of parents, students, and school staff. Her tenure will begin July 1.

“Kate came across as someone passionate and committed to social justice, as strategic, thoughtful, and poised,” Domers said.

Davis has been a school leader in Philadelphia for less than five years, first as co-principal at Harding Middle School in Frankford, where she was in charge of improving instruction, and then at Henry Elementary – which she also attended as a child – since 2019. She has never led a high school before.

But when the committee members compared her qualities and skill set to what they wanted in a new principal, and what 350 others said they wanted in a school leadership survey, it was no contest, Domers said.

“The best person available, that was Kate. Hands down, it was Kate,” said Domers.

Detour from a planned veterinary career

Davis grew up in Mount Airy in a biracial family, and graduated from Central in 2005 as part of the 264th class. Her father is retired U.S. District Court Judge Legrome Davis.

“When I think about what it means for me to be in this role, it feels surreal,” she said in an interview.

When she attended Central, she said, she didn’t feel at all out of place due to her racial background. “I was surrounded by a large, diverse population,” she said. “I felt accepted, I felt I truly belonged there. It was a safe space for me. I remember the vibrancy of the Black Student Union, and the initiatives of the cultural groups, and how important that is for young people.”

Davis didn’t always want to be an educator. Growing up, she set her sights on being a veterinarian. After graduating from Central, she attended Cornell University to major in animal sciences.

But she had a lot of other interests, including art, and she got an internship at the Johnson Art Museum in Ithaca, NY. There, she worked with local elementary school students and discovered that she had an affinity for teaching. “It changed my life,” she said.

She signed up for a course called The Art of Teaching, and spent two days a week in a local first grade classroom, where the teacher was a woman with many years of experience.

“I observed her love of teaching, her genuine love of working with students, how she constructed hands-on learning for the students,” Davis said. “There was a shift in my own experience. I saw the joy in teaching.”

She decided to minor in education, and on graduating in 2009 Davis headed to New York City for a year of teaching in a Bronx elementary school as a member of AmeriCorps. She enrolled at Pace University in Manhattan to get her teaching credentials, and then spent several years teaching in a bilingual school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

In 2015, she became the principal of a charter school in Brooklyn. Davis returned to Philadelphia in 2017 to participate in the PhillyPlus principal certification program.

Michele Whitecraft, the professor of education who taught The Art of Teaching at Cornell, remembers hoping Davis would pursue education as a career.

“I never said she should abandon her career in veterinary medicine,” said Whitecraft, who now teaches at Mansfield University, part of the Pennsylvania state system. “I know they say we shouldn’t say ‘teachers are born, not made,’ but this kid was amazing from day one. She’s just a natural, the most authentic, relatable person I have met in my career. Teaching was the perfect choice for her.”

Whitecraft added that Davis also has a strong sense of herself and her abilities. “She knows her power,” she said. “How beautiful for someone that young to see what she can contribute and not be constrained by society. She’s my hero.”

Davis said that she pursued being a school principal so early in her career because the opportunity arose. “I was a fourth grade teacher, and I absolutely loved teaching and thrived in the classroom, but what I found is I enjoyed working with adults and leading in spaces in schools,” she said.

“A leader works through a strong instructional lens, and believes in the diversity of the school community,” Davis added. “A leader works to honor student voices and unite the community.”

Central in the throes of change

Her leadership skills will be tested at Central, which has more than 2,400 students. Founded in 1836 to educate boys, it was the first high school in Pennsylvania. It did not admit girls until 1983, and then did so under court order. Black boys were admitted starting in the 19th century — Alain Locke, the philosopher and critic and author of “The New Negro,” graduated in 1902. By the late 20th century, the school had a student body that often came close to mirroring the city’s overall racial demographics.

But its recent history with race has been problematic, or at least more visibly difficult. Two years ago, in the wake of 2020 police killing of George Floyd, students formed a “Black at Central” group that brought attention to microaggressions and what they felt was discrimination at the school.

The students, backed by some faculty, issued a list of demands that former principal Tim McKenna agreed to meet, including implicit bias training for teachers and administrators, the hiring of a diversity, equity and inclusion officer (which has been done), and more active recruitment in schools and neighborhoods that rarely send students to Central and Masterman, the city’s other most highly selective school.

Davis’ appointment comes after a concerted effort by a group of Central students, alumni, and parents for the district to choose a Black principal. Parent Joe Quinones, a leader of this group, said he believes that “putting eyes on the process” led to a Black president of Central High.

A Black president, he said, will “leave no stone unturned relative to [improving] the diversity profile of the school.”

A big issue Davis will face is a steadily declining share and total population of Black students in recent years. In 2011, Central was 32% Black; today that figure is 18%. Just over half the Philadelphia district’s students are Black.

This year, the district revised its selective admissions system for all so-called “criteria-based” schools like Central, in an effort to improve access to students from marginalized groups. Students who meet basic criteria – in Central’s case, all As and Bs, 95% attendance, and a certain score on a controversial writing test – are placed in an admissions lottery. In an effort to eliminate bias, the system removes principals and school teams from the decision-making process that determines which students are admitted.

Until now, students had to score at least in the 88th percentile on the state standardized tests, but those tests have not been administered for the last two years due to Covid. Another demand of the Black at Central group has been to eliminate test scores from the admissions process, but the district – which will get a new superintendent later this year – has not said whether it will reinstate the test as a requirement going forward.

A report from the district’s Office of Research and Evaluation shows that more students of all races qualified to enter the lottery this year for admission to Central and other selective schools – although the report also showed that smaller percentages of Black and Latinx students, compared to white and Asian students, met the more stringent qualifications for Central and Masterman. Officials have yet to release data showing whether the new system has affected the demographic makeup of Central’s incoming ninth grade for 2022-23.

Davis is confident in her leadership skills to tackle these and other challenges.

“I know intentional decisions have been made by the School District of Philadelphia to maintain racial diversity at Central, and I look forward to being a leader to uphold and continue that work,” Davis said. “For many reasons, the time has come … for a diverse individual to lead the school. I am honored to be the first female and the first African American to lead Central.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in the city. She is a former president of the Education Writers Association. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

After student walkout, Newark charter school tells some students to stay home

2022-03-24T00:25:25+00:00

A Newark charter school that locked students out of the building Friday after they staged a walkout followed up this week by temporarily forbidding some students from returning to campus.

North Star Academy, the state’s largest charter school operator, ordered juniors and seniors at the Lincoln Park High School campus to stay home part of this week, according to several students, a parent, and a staff member. The school informed families on Sunday that students in those grades, who led the protests, would learn remotely on Monday, but did not explain why. The 11th graders returned to campus on Tuesday, while 12th graders did not resume in-person learning until Wednesday.

It is unclear whether the remote learning will count as state-recognized instructional days. Under a new state law, remote learning only qualifies as an official school day during emergency school closures that last more than three consecutive days.

While older students were at home, the school asked some of the protest organizers and their parents to come to campus to speak with administrators about the walkout and the student concerns that prompted it.

Students said there has been no school-wide meeting about the issues the protesters raised, including the departure of some Black teachers and strict student discipline policies that led nearly one in five students to be suspended in the 2019-20 school year.

“I believe they want to contain the students from taking any further steps,” said Dahlia Mansour, who allowed her ninth-grade daughter, Miriam, to participate in the walkout. “They don’t like when people stand up — they want to be obeyed no matter what.”

Administrators have assured students who participated in the protest that they will not face punishment, and at least one student said school leaders took her concerns seriously during their private meeting. However, other students interpreted the order for older students to temporarily stay home as an effort to silence dissent, and at least one staff member warned that protesters would face consequences.

“Do not come back to my gym, do not try out in August,” the school volleyball coach told team members this week in a voice message, which Chalkbeat obtained. “That is not what I represent, that is not what North Star represents.”

North Star Academy students held a rally outside Newark’s City Hall last week.

The board of trustees overseeing North Star, which educates more than 6,000 students in Newark and Camden, held a previously scheduled meeting Monday but did not discuss the protest or the school’s response. Before that public meeting, the board held a discussion that was not publicly advertised and that a parent and a reporter were barred from attending.

Under New Jersey’s open meetings law, public bodies such as school boards must notify the public before all meetings and hold a public vote before going into a closed session. North Star’s board did not appear to take either of those steps before its private meeting Monday.

North Star spokesperson Barbara Martinez said the school takes students’ concerns seriously. The temporary shift to remote learning was meant to create time for student reflection and individual meetings, she said, adding that families could choose to talk to staff in person or over the phone.

The school “wanted to give our seniors and juniors what we believed to be the most effective time and attention to fully discuss and process their concerns as we moved to collaborate on solutions that feel meaningful to them,” Martinez said in a statement.

North Star has a longer school year than many districts, she added, so students will receive the mandatory 180 days of instruction even without this week’s remote learning days.

Students shut out after protest

Hundreds of students at the high-performing charter school walked out of the Lincoln Park High School campus Friday morning and held a rally nearby at Newark’s City Hall.

At the rally, students and a former teacher said several Black teachers have left the school in recent years because they felt disrespected or objected to the school’s exacting rules and discipline policies. Some students said the school can feel overly controlling and insensitive to the particular concerns of Black faculty and students.

Jasmine Perryman, an 11th grader, spoke during a rally outside Newark’s City Hall on Friday after students walked out of a North Star Academy high school.

When students returned to school about an hour after walking out, they were not allowed to reenter. Top officials appeared to be aware of the decision to put the building on lockdown: Julie Jackson, the president of Uncommon Schools, the organization that manages North Star, was on the Lincoln Park campus meeting with staffers and students during the protest.

“They had us locked down in the building,” said a staff member, whose name is being withheld to avoid retaliation. “I was like, ‘This is nuts.’”

Later that afternoon, Principal Tildi Sharp and another administrator emailed families about the walkout. They said the action was meant to show support for “Black Lives and Black teachers,” and while school leaders did not endorse the walkout, they respect students’ “First Amendment rights to express their views on this important topic,” according to a copy of the email viewed by Chalkbeat.

The email also said the Newark Police Department was aware of the walkout, and the school would continue to share information about walkouts “as needed.”

“Parents are also encouraged to consider discussing safety risks and consequences associated with the choice to leave school for these events, as well as their expectations for school attendance,” the administrators wrote.

In her statement to Chalkbeat, Martinez said the email to families was meant to convey that student safety is the school’s top priority, to inform parents about the protocols if students leave the building, and to note that students who did not walk out continued learning.

Some students said they felt the administration had taken a “divide and conquer” approach this week by meeting individually with students or in small groups to discuss the protest rather than holding a town hall-style forum. However, other students said the smaller meetings were productive.

Jasmine Perryman, an 11th grader who spoke at Friday’s rally, said she and her father were asked to meet on campus with the principal and an Uncommon Schools official whose name she did not know. She said the administrators were receptive and took notes as she raised several concerns, including the turnover rate among Black teachers and academic policies some students consider too rigid.

“It seemed like they were attentive, it seemed like they were willing to listen,” she said. “But now what’s next is seeing the change.”

But other students said they received a less sympathetic response. The principal asked one parent how a student who participated in the protest could continue to represent the school in extracurricular competitions if the student is openly critical of the school, according to someone with knowledge of the conversation who asked to remain anonymous to avoid retaliation.

Martinez said students who joined in the walkout can continue participating in school activities. North Star administrators held dozens of meetings with students and parents this week “to ensure our students felt seen and heard,” she added in her statement.

She also said the school is taking steps to address students’ concerns about teacher diversity, discipline, and mental health.

This school year, two-thirds of North Star teachers identified as people of color, Martinez said — an increase from previous years and three times the national rate. The organization also plans to expand the high school’s restorative justice pilot program, which allows students and faculty to discuss conflicts and agree on solutions. The high school also intends to further involve students in school policies, and explore other ways to support students’ mental health in addition to the school’s two social workers and a free telecounseling service available to all North Star high schoolers.

This week, some administrators also visited ninth and 10th grade classrooms to discuss the walkout, students said.

Miriam, the ninth-grader whose mother allowed her to participate in the protest, said the administrator who spoke to her class commended students for speaking up and said no one would be punished for walking out. However, Miriam said the administrator — a North Star middle school principal who appeared to have been asked to speak with the ninth graders — said the protest leaders did not know the full story behind the staff departures and could have continued speaking with school leaders rather than stage a walkout.

“It was kind of condescending,” Miriam said. “They made us feel like we were wrong for going out and protesting.”

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city and across New Jersey. Contact Patrick at pwall@chalkbeat.org.

‘Divisive concepts’ bill moves forward in the Indiana Senate

2022-02-23T22:07:36+00:00

A bill to restrict teaching about race and racism has taken another step forward in the Indiana legislature, with an 8-5 vote of approval Wednesday from the Senate Committee on Education and Career Development.

House Bill 1134 now heads to the full Senate over the objections of Democrats, whose amendments to strip most of the bill’s provisions failed.

“The premise of the bill starts with a point that citizens are treated equally in the state of Indiana, and that is absolutely not correct,” said Sen. Fady Qaddoura (D-Indianapolis). “This bill has further divided our state, pushed teachers from the profession, and it has sent the wrong message to our kids.”

Senators added new language that allows proposed curriculum review committees to review material used by guest speakers in schools, and tweaks the bill’s definition of what constitutes “good citizenship” instruction.

The amendment requires schools to try to obtain parental consent for providing students mental health services, but allows them to proceed to offer services if a parent doesn’t reply within a given timeline. The original bill required parental consent; now a summer legislative committee will study the issue instead.

The bill retains the restrictions on teaching three ideas that lawmakers describe as “divisive.” The limits have drawn overwhelming public criticism.

One failed amendment would have changed the definition of the concepts to align with federal law on nondiscrimination of protected classes, including those of sexual orientation and gender identity, which are not covered in HB 1134.

Sen. Jean Leising (R-Oldenburg) joined the four Democrats on the committee to vote against the bill, saying that the Indiana Department of Education was not fully on board, and that she had heard from many school leaders, teachers, and others who opposed the bill.

The committee rejected an amendment by Sen. Eddie Melton (D-Gary) that would have required high school U.S. history classes to include an “enhanced study” of the Holocaust and Black history, listing events from slavery and abolition to the election of President Barack Obama that should be used as lessons.

Committee Chair Sen. Jeff Raatz (R-Richmond) and bill sponsor Sen. Linda Rogers (R-Granger) both said that Black history already was included in Indiana’s academic standards.

Two Republicans voted for Melton’s amendment. They were Sen. Scott Baldwin (R-Noblesville), who came under fire in January for suggesting that teachers should teach Nazism neutrally, and Sen. Kyle Walker (R-Fishers).

Melton expressed disappointment, characterizing opponents’ reasons as “excuses.”

Melton urged senators to “do their homework” on the bill before a full Senate vote.

“Just because something makes us uncomfortable, it should not be prevented from discussion,” he said. “No one in here is accusing any white person of being a slave owner. But I still feel the impact of it.”

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee lawmakers to take up governor’s school library bill

2022-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Gov. Bill Lee wants a new school library law in Tennessee to ensure parents know what materials are available to students, but school librarians say parents already have access to that information.

Some critics worry such a law could be abused to purge books about certain topics that some parents and students find uncomfortable.

The governor’s proposal, dubbed the “Age-Appropriate Materials Act of 2022,” is scheduled to debut in two legislative committees this week at the state Capitol.

The discussions come after several Tennessee districts removed books they considered controversial from reading lists — and amid a nationwide surge in book challenges by parents, activists, and others.

Last fall, Republican governors in Texas and South Carolina ordered systematic reviews of school library materials in those states. And the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom has reported an “unprecedented” number of book challenges nationwide in 2021. Many of the 10 most challenged books deal with race.

In his annual state address to Tennesseans, Lee, a Republican, called for a school library law “to create greater accountability at the local level so parents are empowered to make sure content is age-appropriate.”

His bill, sponsored by GOP majority leaders Rep. William Lamberth of Portland and Sen. Jack Johnson of Franklin, would require each public school to publish on its website the full list of books, magazines, newspapers, films, and other materials in the library. They also would have to adopt policies to hear feedback about content and to periodically review their libraries to ensure materials are “appropriate for the age and maturity levels” of students who can access them.

Those policies are already “standard practice” in most public schools across Tennessee, according to Lindsey Kimery, recent president of the Tennessee Association of School Librarians.

“What we’re concerned about is how this legislation could play out if it leads to policies and actions over and above what’s considered best practices,” said Kimery, who is also library coordinator for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. “For instance, a principal might feel the need on the front end to go through the collection line by line and purge books unnecessarily to head off any potential complaints.”

Representatives of the school librarians group have met twice with officials in Lee’s administration to discuss their concerns.

“We felt heard,” Kimery said late last week.

In Tennessee, book debates have simmered for more than a year and contributed to passage of a 2021 law limiting what teachers can say in the classroom about racial bias and systemic racism. But the focus has been mainly on controlling curriculum and instruction, not library books.

Most recently in East Tennessee, McMinn County’s school board voted to remove “Maus,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, from its required reading list for eighth-graders. Minutes of the Jan. 10 meeting cited “inappropriate language” and an illustration of a nude woman.

In Williamson County, south of Nashville, a committee formed to review curriculum complaints, including many from the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, agreed to remove one book from its fourth-grade curriculum and restrict instruction on seven others. Gone is the Newbery Award-winning “Walk Two Moons,” about the journey of a 13-year-old girl with a Native American heritage to process her grief about losing her mother.

Lee’s library bill zeroes in on “age-appropriateness” but doesn’t define what that is. It doesn’t suggest that Tennessee school libraries are peddling “obscene materials,” as does another bill filed last month by Republican Rep. Scott Cepicky of Culleoka and Sen. Joey Hensley of Hohenwald to remove books that are deemed unwholesome.

The governor’s bill is scheduled to go before a House education subcommittee on Tuesday and the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday. The legislation’s goal is to make sure Tennessee has statewide standards to regularly review school library collections, said Luke Gustafson, a senior policy adviser to Johnson, the Senate co-sponsor.

“Some districts already adhere very well to those best practices, and there are some that could do better. The point is to set a baseline,” Gustafson said.

But Sen. Raumesh Akbari, who is the lone Democrat on the Senate’s education committee, called the bill “an unnecessary intrusion.”

“As a child, I viewed the library as a magical place where I could read books to go places that I couldn’t physically go and to learn about all kinds of people and places and things,” said the Memphis lawmaker. “To make it a political issue is a disservice to our students and an insult to our school librarians who are highly trained and have expertise on what’s age-appropriate. They don’t need to be micromanaged.”

Media experts suggest school libraries should be the last worry for parents and government officials. Social media makes it relatively easy for kids and teens to access inappropriate content — from misinformation to cyberbullying to outright pornography — through YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.

The nonprofit Common Sense Media, which helps educators and families navigate today’s media landscape, doesn’t think censorship is the answer to today’s book battles.

“There’s plenty of online content out there now that’s much more visually explicit than books in our school libraries,” said Christine Elgersma, the organization’s senior editor of learning content.

“It’s also important to keep in mind that our schools are places where ideas can be introduced in a controlled environment and where there can be a rich discussion moderated by an adult and witnessed by a whole group of students,” she said. “Compare that to a child or teen being alone in their bedroom with a computer or cell phone and trying to process a lot of iffy content all by themselves.”

CRT Map: Efforts to restrict teaching racism and bias have multiplied across the U.S.

2022-02-02T00:20:54+00:00

Officials nationwide have raced to enact new laws and introduce new policies meant to shape how students discuss the nation’s past — and its present. Many of these efforts have attempted to ban critical race theory, an academic framework that examines how policies and the law perpetuate systemic racism.

In some states, lawmakers have tried to restrict antiracism training or the teaching of what they call “divisive concepts.” But on the opposite end, other states are adding ethnic studies courses or incorporating more about people of color into their learning standards.

The map you see here depicts the depth and breadth of these ongoing efforts to both restrict and expand how a core aspect of American life is taught in our classrooms. So far, at least 36 states have adopted or introduced laws or policies that restrict teaching about race and racism. With 2022 state legislative sessions underway, new legislation is in the pipeline.

Our map also documents actions taken by state boards of education and executive branches of state governments. In states that haven’t taken such concrete steps, we have spotlighted comments from public officials and other developments to give readers a sense of how the debate is playing out.

The impact of these discussions on classrooms is being felt. This map provides a snapshot of this turning point in American history and education. We’ve also created a timeline of key events and documents that trace the critical race theory backlash from its beginnings during the administration of President Donald Trump.

Chalkbeat is committed to continued coverage of these actions. If you have information about bills, policies, or anything else relevant from your state or hometown, please email us at tips@chalkbeat.org.

Reporting by Cathryn Stout and graphics by Thomas Wilburn.

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Why I see myself at an HBCU

2022-02-01T15:34:11+00:00

In May 2018, my eighth grade class flew to Atlanta, Georgia, which some have called “The Black Mecca,” for a trip marking the end of our middle school years. We were about to start high school.

True to my Newark charter school’s precocious image, the educators who staffed the trip took us to visit colleges around the city. We were able to see Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College — three historically Black schools that make up the Atlanta University Center.

Chimdindu Okafor

Being there on a beautiful spring day — the sun shining down and the trees blooming— reminded me of my visit three years earlier to Howard University. Though I was young at the time, I vividly remember the warmth I felt there. The students looked like me. They seemed so happy and independent; they seemed like they belonged. I wanted to belong, too.

As an immigrant and a child of West African parents, I’ve long felt pressure to attend an Ivy League university or the like. But in the physical presence of HBCUs, I could reimagine what college could look like for me: the comfort, the beauty, and the welcoming atmosphere. I envisioned myself walking through their yards, talking and laughing with my friends. Visiting a lecture hall at Howard and seeing students joyously enter a class and eagerly dive into the material inspired me.

The students there looked like me. They seemed so happy and independent; they seemed like they belonged.

I’ve since learned that early HBCUs were founded to provide educational liberation for the newly freed, formerly enslaved Black people. The first HBCUs, Cheyney University of Pennsylvania and Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, were founded before the Civil War in 1837 and 1854, respectively. They were followed by the so-called “Black Ivies” Howard, Morehouse, Spelman, and Hampton University in the 1860s and 1880s. Today, HBCUs offer so much more than cultural markers of African American resilience and steadfastness. They are forces of real change and social markers for upward mobility, even amid an uneven playing field. (Black students, for example, have comparably more college debt than their white counterparts.)

Even today, Black students may feel othered or marginalized at Predominantly White Institutions. Some 52% of Black people who attended college said they had been treated as if they weren’t smart, according to the Pew Research Center.

That is why I think it’s so important to acknowledge those Black students who are accepted at HBCUs but ultimately must choose schools with larger endowments and, therefore, able to provide them with more financial aid. They should not have to compromise their dreams to fit into spaces where they feel at odds. Making sure HBCUs have the resources they need to support admitted students who see themselves at these illustrious, historically Black institutions must be a priority.

As for me, I owe it to myself to join the legacy of Black changemakers who graduated HBCUs and altered the course of our world for the better. Changemakers like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who attended Morehouse College and advocated for a world of equality. And changemakers like Zora Neale Hurston, a celebrated writer from the Harlem Renaissance whose work captured the joys and pains of the Black American experience; she graduated from Howard University.

I hope to work in medicine, possibly as a healthcare administrator focusing on the technology side of medical practices. I believe that attending an HBCU would put me directly on that path to that work. I love the thought of learning from professors and faculty who care deeply about my success.

The thrill of opening up my acceptance letters these last couple of months — from schools including Howard, Hampton, Spelman, and Morgan State — has been like none other. It gave me a glimpse into the excitement that I would experience attending one of these institutions.

HBCUs are some of the last-standing safe spaces where Black students from across the diaspora can enjoy academic rigor while celebrating the beauty in their identities. To me, it means a chance to explore my Blackness deeply as I encounter different identities across the diaspora and am embraced by a community of love.

Chimdindu Okafor is a senior at North Star Academy Lincoln Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. She has been accepted to 23 colleges so far. Chimdindu is a Chalkbeat Student Voices fellow.

Tennessee lawmakers file bill targeting ‘obscene’ books in school libraries

2022-01-28T23:58:44+00:00

Two Tennessee lawmakers have filed a bill aimed at purging books and other materials deemed “obscene or harmful to minors” from school libraries.

But several of the professional groups representing librarians across the state say districts already have processes in place to reconsider textbooks and materials that are flagged as objectionable.

“We feel that current school district board policies, when followed, adequately address concerns raised by parents or guardians about books,” said a Friday statement from the Tennessee Association of School Librarians.

The bill, filed this week by Republican Rep. Scott Cepicky of Culleoka and Sen. Joey Hensley of Hohenwald, would apply to public schools, including charter schools.

The proposal comes amid a national wave of book challenges, especially in politically conservative states like Tennessee, where individuals or groups are seeking to remove or restrict access to children’s and young adult books that they say contain pornography or other content deemed unwholesome.

Federal law strictly prohibits distribution of obscene material to minors.

In Texas and South Carolina, Republican governors have called for action against “obscene” content in school libraries, while school leaders in Missouri, Virginia, and Florida have pulled materials, including some award-winning books, after receiving complaints over a range of concerns.

Tennessee is a growing hotbed of complaints.

Earlier this month in East Tennessee, McMinn County’s school board voted to remove “Maus,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, from its required reading list for eighth-graders. Minutes of the Jan. 10 meeting cited “inappropriate language” and an illustration of a nude woman.

Moms for Liberty, a conservative nonprofit group that originated in Florida, has targeted materials through its local chapter in Williamson County, near Nashville. Members of that group have used the public comment period of recent school board meetings to read excerpts they found objectionable.

And, John Rich, a well-known country music singer and conservative activist with a large Twitter following, tweeted about meeting this month with Gov. Bill Lee and Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn to discuss materials “that our kids are being exposed to containing obscene and pornographic content.”

Cepicky declined Friday to comment about his bill, which has 22 co-sponsors in the House. Hensley did not respond to a request for an interview.

Rep. Vincent Dixie, who chairs the House Democratic Caucus and sits on several education committees, mentioned the bubbling issue Friday when delivering an online speech for his party in advance of the governor’s State of the State address on Monday.

“Instead of fighting over which books can be in the library, let’s fight to provide every classroom with high-quality books and materials their students need to learn,” said Dixie, of Nashville.

A key question is how to define what materials cross the line.

“Even the Supreme Court has had trouble defining what obscenity is and, if the Supreme Court struggles with this, then the school boards statewide will have even more trouble,” said Mark Finchum, executive director of the Tennessee Council for the Social Studies, which represents social studies teachers across the state.

The push to ban books in America also targets many materials that affront conservative sensibilities regarding race and gender.

Last spring, Tennessee lawmakers passed legislation to prohibit classroom discussion in public schools about certain concepts about race and structural racism. And many of the books being removed from curricula deal with race, according to the list of the 10 most challenged books compiled by the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

Another Republican bill, which was filed last year and is still alive, seeks to limit which supplemental teaching materials can be used in the classroom.

Last fall, three key Tennessee library organizations criticized censorship of books in school libraries.

“We oppose censorship within school libraries on the grounds that it is unconstitutional and contrary to the professional ethics of librarianship,” said a statement from the Tennessee Association of School Librarians, the Tennessee Library Association, and Friends of the Tennessee Libraries.

“Every book is not for every reader, but every child should have access to books they may want to read,” last fall’s statement said.

Erika Long, a Nashville school librarian and past president of the Tennessee Library Association, said this week that the groups issued the statement to respond to “the increasing number of challenges and bans happening across the country.”

“We wanted to make sure we addressed what is happening,” she said.

The bill filed this week cites a section of a Tennessee obscenity law that defines material “harmful to minors” as “that quality of any description or representation, in whatever form, of nudity, sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence or sadomasochistic abuse when the matter or performance:

(A) Would be found by the average person applying contemporary community standards to appeal predominantly to the prurient, shameful or morbid interests of minors;

(B) Is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable for minors; and

(C) Taken as whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific values for minors.”

You can track the legislation here.

I teach U.S. history. We can trust our kids to hear hard things.

2022-01-26T13:00:00+00:00

I am a public school social studies teacher in Northern California. My job is sometimes terrifying in scope: teach the state standards, which cover everything from early man to the present day, to 87 students who range in age from 11 to 14.

I’ve struggled with how to present the entire history of humankind in a way that is both interesting and digestible. Over the years I have become better at it, focusing in sixth grade on how societies are formed and in seventh grade on the rise and fall of empires. In eighth grade, I am confronted with U.S. history, which in the age of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, I feel enormous pressure to teach with both accuracy and sensitivity.

Katherine Sanford

When I was in school, we were taught that Columbus was a hero who discovered America and that the Pilgrims and the “Indians” shared friendly meals and culture. I was taught that the Civil War had to do with states’ rights, and that slavery, while bad, was a brief moment that was now behind us. I remember hearing about the suffering of Irish and Italian immigrants but never about the Chinese Exclusion Act or Japanese internment camps.

Those are obvious distortions, omissions, and discredited interpretations. But other key pieces of history are more complicated to determine how to teach, especially to middle schoolers. Do we get into Lincoln’s web of motivations for freeing enslaved people? FDR’s failure to stop the slaughter of Europe’s Jews alongside his efforts to rebuild the U.S. from the Great Depression?

I have learned over the past five years that there is no easy way to teach our history. It’s messy. It’s complicated. Heroes are often also flawed, and I don’t want my students to think I have all the answers. Instead, I want to teach them that the way we learn about our history is all about the questions we ask.

Teaching history can also be painful. Showing my eighth graders the tortured face of Emmett Till is the hardest day of my school year. I wish I could share his picture and say the bravery of his mother Mamie Till Mobley, who made the decision to share the mutilated face of her son on the cover of Ebony magazine, led to an end to racist violence against young people of color. But that would be a lie.

I am white, as are almost all of my students, and that makes things more complicated in other ways. Here in the hills of Northern California, in a community where many deeds still have restrictive covenants on them, it can feel like we are too far removed from certain parts of American history. Several years ago, when it came to my attention that some of my students were casually using the N-word and homophobic language outside of class, my concern only deepened. Black culture was a subject of fascination, but Black people were being denied their humanity.

I decided my normal teaching tactics weren’t enough. In 2019, my students and I raised money to fly from California to Georgia and Alabama. Our school is small and forever chasing dollars just to cover the basics. But parents, students, administrators, and ultimately our community came together and made it possible.

I could see on my students’ faces that they truly understood what it meant to deny someone’s humanity.

In Alabama, we visited the Rosa Parks Museum, the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and the 16th Street Baptist Church. We discussed heroes both Black and white. We studied the ways in which people sacrifice for change. We stood where people died because they believed in a better world; we stood where children had been killed in a terrorist attack.

My class also had pen pals from a school in Alabama, and we met in person the day we were scheduled to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where, in 1965, peaceful civil rights marchers were viciously attacked. Many of the local kids had never been to the bridge either, so it became a shared experience, its gravity new to all of them.

I had foolishly forgotten name tags the morning that we were all due to meet, only to find that because of social media the students all recognized each other and greeted each other joyfully. Watching the students make those connections, and learn from one another, was beautiful and sometimes funny. My students learned that their counterparts liked college football as much as they loved the Golden State Warriors. And after seeing their pen pals interact with me and their teachers using “ma’am” and “sir,” my students asked me roughly one million questions about it.

The most powerful learning experiences came at museums that brought history alive. At the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum in Montgomery, there are holograms of enslaved people in cages awaiting sale. One was calling repeatedly for her children from whom she had been separated. Several students had to walk back outside to catch their breath, and I could see on my students’ faces that they truly understood what it meant to deny someone’s humanity.

On the last day of our trip, we were in Atlanta at the National Human and Civil Rights Museum. There was a lunch counter and stools set up, and if you sat at a stool and placed your hands in a particular spot, and put on headphones, it would simulate the experience of sitting at a lunch counter while people shoved, yelled at, and harassed you. There were docents at each end of the counter and they advised the kids that if at any point it got to be too much they could remove their headphones. Many students wept silently as they sat there, the stools jostling. I watched as one student who sat for quite some time stood up and started to walk past the docent. The woman just a few years older than her gently touched her arm and asked if she wanted a hug. My student looked up and said, “Yes, ma’am.”

When we came back to school, I felt like I was teaching a completely different class of students. We held events so that the students could educate the community about what they had seen. I heard them speak with confidence and conviction about some of the most difficult parts of our history. I heard them describe the things they had seen and heard, and could see that in the re-telling they weren’t just educating the community but also connecting what they had learned to the world they lived in today.

The trip left me with this message for my community: Trust your schools and your teachers. Trust your kids to hear hard things and have hard conversations. We don’t have to agree on everything. But let us agree that we want our children to understand our real history to equip them for a better future.

Katherine Sanford is a parent and teacher in Northern California.

MLK asked if education was ‘fulfilling its purpose.’ We asked readers the same question.

2022-01-14T22:32:20+00:00

Among his many roles, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an educator. Though his most famous messages came from the pulpit and the podium, King also briefly led in the classroom and often spoke on education. He taught a social philosophy course at his alma mater, Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1962, filling his lectures with references to Plato and Rousseau. As a 15-year-old in 1944, he worked on a Connecticut tobacco plantation and the future preacher boasted to his parents in a letter that he was head of the religious department and led study sessions for his fellow workers.

King, who was assassinated in Memphis in 1968, thought and cared deeply about the role of education in social justice. In one of his most famous writings on the subject, ‘The Purpose of Education,’ the young Morehouse student wrote, “The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.”

He added, “We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose.”

As we reflect on the King holiday and national day of service, we asked some readers to share their thoughts on King’s early perspective on education and if education in 2022 is fulfilling its purpose. Here are some of their reflections. The responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Intimidating teachers hinders critical thinking instruction

Dr. King lived in a much simpler time in terms of information dissemination. Newspersons were trained and experienced professionals, and the information they reported was carefully vetted by editors. To be sure there were still plenty of “half truths, prejudices, and propaganda” out there, but at least there were reliable and trusted fact checkers in the Walter Cronkites and James Restons who the average person could turn to on the evening news or in their local daily newspaper.

Dr. King could not have predicted the cesspool of internet misinformation that has gradually come to supplant mainstream media as many people’s primary source of news and information. Which brings us to the schools. Given this proliferation of information sources, it is more important than ever for our schools to help students develop news literacy: critical reading and thinking skills so that they can seek out and better delineate what is true and not.

Our schools are only beginning to take critical thinking seriously, and they are going to have to be much more intentional about it at a moment when accusations of teaching things like Critical Race Theory are intimidating our social studies teachers. Cultivating critical thinkers in this environment will be a bigger challenge than ever before, but it must begin in the schools if we hope to have a functioning society.

— Marcus Pohlmann, professor emeritus of political science at Rhodes College, father and grandfather, Highlands Ranch, Colorado

More resources and freedom are needed to fulfill the purpose of education

I agree with Dr. King’s purpose of education but in 2022, I would say that education is limited in fulfilling that purpose. In my experience, education seems to increasingly have become a rote task instead of an act that has the potential to transform lives, communities, and society as a whole. Not only that, schools — the main thoroughfare to education — are battling to acquire the resources needed for a more well-rounded education.

— Aaron Youngblood, teacher MLK College Prep High School, Memphis

Social-emotional skills help students learn critical thinking

King was accurate in his assessment about education allowing for “effective” thinking. Once students become ardent critical thinkers, it is then that education has fulfilled its purpose.

Not all students think, feel, or learn the same, yet educators are steadily plying them with more of the same status quo “best practices”. Students are more than their academic abilities. They are creative and emotional beings.

Critical thinking gives them the power to catalyze their truest and most authentic selves. Education must drive the components of social emotional learning that undergird academic learning. It is then and only then that education can fulfill its purpose of preparing students to change the world and make it more humane.

— Abidemi Kayode, teacher and grandfather, Memphis

Education has not fulfilled its purpose for Black children

Unfortunately, Dr. King’s words ring true at this moment in time. The Memphis Lift believes in telling the truth. Tragically, Tennessee legislators have lessened the value of education even more with their policies. Education has not fulfilled its purpose for Black children in Memphis, Tennessee, or the country. When too few Black and Brown children are reading on grade level in this country, we can no longer treat learning loss as a simple political statement. This is a reality for so many, and it’s time we finally see the change Dr. King called for decades ago.

— The Memphis Lift, education advocates

Education is headed in the right direction

With the recent research and implementation around social-emotional learning and Adverse Childhood Experiences, we are headed in the right direction. I believe Dr. King would be pleased at the commitment to educate and nurture the whole child.

— Chiquita Perry, principal MLK College Prep High School, Memphis

A proposed Texas charter school promised to be antiracist. Then it got caught up in the critical race theory fight.

2022-01-06T12:00:00+00:00

A planned San Antonio charter school was on the verge of winning final approval from the Texas Education Agency last August when a final set of requests arrived.

Among them: The school needed to scrub its website and application of a quote by “How to Be an Antiracist” author Ibram X. Kendi.

In documents obtained by Chalkbeat, the agency indicated that the proposed school, Essence Preparatory, had included “statements, authors, or written works” violating a new Texas law that limits how race and slavery can be taught. But that law does not bar specific authors, and the quote does not appear to run afoul of any portion of the law, suggesting that Texas has gone beyond the text of the statute to keep schools from referencing an author whose work is controversial.

“This is more clear evidence of what anti–book banning advocates have been warning for months now,” said James Tager, research director of PEN America, a group that opposes censorship. “It is going to be used — and, in fact, is being used in cases like this — to ban specific books or authors.”

Essence Prep’s experience sheds new light on how laws opposing “critical race theory” are being used and interpreted behind the scenes. Texas’ enforcement also had practical consequences for the school, costing it both money and time.

“That took almost three months away from us in prepping and setting the stage for the scholars that we will serve,” said founder Akeem Brown. “We’re playing catch up.”

Brown, who is Black, had long dreamed of starting his own school. While working for a city council member in San Antonio, he saw the area’s anemic college-readiness rate and began talking to parents and students about what they wanted to see in a school.

“He spoke about empowering people through knowing their race and their lineage,” said Dre Daniels, a parent who met Brown at the barbershop where Daniels cuts hair. “When the parents and the school can be on the same level, the learning never stops.”

In early 2021, Brown submitted a nearly 500-page application to the state, promising high academic standards, culturally responsive teaching, and a focus on learning about public policy. Included in the application was this quote from Kendi: “The opposite of racist isn’t ‘not racist.’ It is antiracist.”

The plan won high marks from the Texas Education Agency, which recommended the school be granted a charter.

By June, when the Essence Prep leaders appeared before the State Board of Education for a final approval, the state had been consumed by a debate about critical race theory. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had just signed a bill limiting discussions of race; he later approved a slightly revised statute, which is now state law.

Under that law, schools cannot award course credit for “political activism” or work for organizations focused on public policy advocacy. They also cannot teach that “slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to the authentic founding principles of the United States.”

“We are compelled to offer a culturally competent curriculum,” Brown told the state board members in June. “But I do want you to know that we will serve our students following the law of the state of Texas.”

Two days later, the board voted 11-3 to approve the charter.

Brown believed then that he could start focusing on making the school a reality. “When I walked out of that building to head back to San Antonio, that’s all I kept thinking in the car — that that part of the process was over,” he said.

After changes to its website and charter application, Essence Prep was granted its charter in October 2021 and plans to open in August 2022.

It wasn’t. Days after the school was approved, the chief of staff for state Rep. Steve Toth emailed TEA Commissioner Mike Morath and his staff a draft of an op-ed sharply criticizing the agency’s approval of Essence Prep. Toth spearheaded the state’s first anti–critical race theory law, which he has said was prompted by parent concerns that curriculum choices were making white students feel guilty because of their race.

“Unlike other charter schools who focus solely on academics, Essence Prep’s goal is to promote Critical Race Theory and community activism,” wrote Toth in the op-ed, which was never published but was obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request.

“Promoting ‘antiracism’ in the classroom would mean teaching that the system of government in Texas, designed to protect economic freedom, is racist,” Toth continued, noting that Essence Prep’s website quoted Kendi. “Instead of stopping critical race theory, the Texas Education Agency furthered it.”

Toth’s office did not make him available for an interview or answer questions about his involvement.

Soon, concern about the Kendi quote made its way to Essence Prep. In August, Brown received an email from a TEA official saying the school needed to make a series of changes in order to receive its final charter approval.

The website and application would have to remove certain “statements, authors, or written works.” That was apparently a reference to Kendi, as TEA cited a page in the application that quoted him and no other authors. Essence Prep would also have to define the word “anti-racist” on its website and clarify sections of its application that emphasized community action and engagement in public policy.

A spokesperson for TEA did not make Morath available for an interview or answer detailed questions about the handling of Essence Prep’s application.

“During the annual application process, TEA reviews all charter applications for alignment with state and federal laws,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement. “Any conflicts between the applications and law are required to be remedied.”

Brown says he doesn’t believe that the school’s citation of Kendi violated the statute. “I just think it offended those supporters of the law,” he said.

But Essence Prep ultimately removed all references to antiracism from its website and application. The school was granted a charter in October and plans to open its doors in August 2022.

Publicly, TEA has shared little about how it is enforcing and interpreting the new law. In November, it released a document that quoted from the law but did not address some of its ambiguous aspects, like what it means to teach controversial topics “objectively.” Some educators in Texas and elsewhere have acknowledged self-censoring for fear of violating the statutes that have cropped up across the country.

In this case, by referring to “authors or written works in violation” of the law in its letter to Essence Prep, TEA appears to be suggesting that certain writers are out of bounds in the state’s public schools. The current law bars schools from “requir[ing] an understanding of the 1619 Project,” but otherwise does not single out authors or texts.

Joshua Weishart, an education law professor at the University of West Virginia, said Texas had overstepped. “TEA lacks a statutory basis for instructing Essence charter school to remove the quote in their application,” he said.

Tager of PEN described TEA’s move as striking. “This is a state body saying our interpretation of the bill means you cannot refer to specific authors when developing your educational vision,” he said. Schools could reasonably interpret this to mean that Kendi’s work is barred from curriculum too, Tager said.

For his part, Brown says he believes TEA required these changes to deflect political pressure and allow the school to open. “I don’t blame the good people of TEA,” he said. “The problem was the political climate.”

Still, Brown said, the delay meant that a bond deal to finance a permanent building fell through because the school lacked an approved charter. Essence Prep is still finalizing a bond and now expects to pay a higher interest rate. The school also racked up thousands of dollars in extra legal fees, according to a bill shared with Chalkbeat.

But the school is moving forward, and some parents have expressed continued support.

Alshanic Bledsoe, a home health nurse in San Antonio, is eager to send her 5-year-old daughter to Essence Prep once it opens. “Racism is definitely something that’s learned,” she said. “So antiracism is something that has to be learned. It has to be taught.”

Not getting into it: How critical race theory laws are cutting short classroom conversations

2021-12-17T12:00:00+00:00

Melanie Hester could see her fifth graders were confused.

A history lesson she was teaching about Native Americans asked the students to think about how they could honor the cultural history of the land where the United States now stands. “Where are the Native Americans now?” her students wanted to know.

In the past, the Iowa City teacher would tell her class more about why Indian reservations were established, discuss the term genocide, and talk about what Native culture looks like today. This time, she held back. On her mind was a new Iowa law that restricts how schools can teach about topics like systemic racism and white privilege.

“That’s where I’m like, well, I’m not really sure how to answer that,” Hester said. “I kind of stuck to the lesson and if they didn’t understand, I just kept moving forward — which is not best practice.”

Across the country, new laws targeting critical race theory are influencing the small but pivotal decisions educators like Hester make every day: how to answer a student’s question, what articles to read as a class, how to prepare for a lesson.

Plenty of teachers say they haven’t changed their approach, and there is little evidence that these laws have led to wholesale curriculum overhauls. But in several states with new legislation, teachers say the ambiguity of the laws, plus new scrutiny from parents and administrators, are together chipping away at discussions of racism and inequality.

“A lot of that chilling won’t happen as overtly as cancelled courses,” said Luke Amphlett, a high school social studies teacher in San Antonio. “The real chilling effect is something that’s so much harder to measure because it’s those daily decisions made by educators in the classroom.”

Eight states now have laws restricting how schools can teach about racism and sexism, though they vary widely. All were passed in the wake of the protests for racial justice that defined 2020 — a year that also saw a range of institutions acknowledge the ways they have been shaped by racism.

Many school districts added anti-racism trainings, promised to review curriculum materials, or hosted class conversations about discrimination and justice.

Backlash arrived in the months that followed. Critics contend that many schools were overstating the importance of race and racism in lessons, distorting American history, requiring unproven or divisive training sessions, and making white students feel uncomfortable. “Critical race theory” became their catch-all term, and the new laws target the concept in different ways.

Iowa’s law says teachers can’t describe the U.S. or the state as “systemically racist or sexist,” though schools can teach about racist or sexist policies. In Texas, teachers who discuss a “widely debated and currently controversial issue” must do so “objectively and in a manner free from political bias.” And in Tennessee, the law bans 14 concepts, including the idea that individuals should feel “discomfort, guilt, or anguish” because of their race. The stakes are high: Tennessee teachers who cross the line could lose their teaching licenses, and school systems that look the other way risk losing some state funding.

Exactly how to avoid running afoul of the laws remains fuzzy to many educators, though, in part because they’ve been provided with little to no information from states about how the laws apply to specific teaching situations.

Tennessee officials have issued no written guidance about what is and isn’t allowed in class beyond the law’s list of banned concepts. Iowa officials did issue guidance, but it left educators with enough questions that the state’s largest teachers union has hosted several packed trainings to fill in the gaps.

In Texas, emails obtained by Chalkbeat show that the state is providing little in response to questions from educators, even as districts face local challenges to curriculum materials. (The Texas Education Agency did not respond to requests for comment.)

That uncertainty has left teachers and others who work in schools to freelance in a fraught climate.

Joanna Estrada, a library assistant in Donna, Texas faced a split-second decision recently while tutoring three elementary school students. They were reading a book about the women’s suffrage movement, and the two girls were perturbed to learn that women weren’t always allowed to vote. The boy in the group, who is Hispanic, remarked that he would have been allowed to vote. Estrada, though, pointed out that at one time the vote was only granted to white men. The students wanted to know more details.

“That’s where I was like — I didn’t want to go too much into it,” she said.

Then they turned to the next story, which was about placing Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. The students wanted to know more about slavery and the Underground Railroad.

“I was hesitant to say something,” Estrada said. “I didn’t want to get in trouble.”

Talking about slavery is not prohibited by the Texas law, and its architects have insisted that the new laws would not limit such discussions. “I defy anyone to find one word of this bill that says we don’t teach the ugly parts of our history,” Texas Sen. Bryan Hughes said in August.

But the bill does ban the teaching that “slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to the authentic founding principles of the United States.” That, alongside the vague requirement for objectivity, has steered teachers away from frank discussions of the past in ways that lawmakers claimed would not happen.

“The bills’ vague and sweeping language means that they will be applied broadly and arbitrarily,” warned a recent report from PEN America, a free speech advocacy group, and could cast a “chilling effect over how educators and educational institutions discharge their primary obligations.”

Estrada’s experience is not isolated. In Des Moines, Iowa, Stacy Schmidt recently found herself trying to avoid the terms “systemic racism” or “systemic sexism” while teaching a lesson about the Gilded Age. When students asked why the financiers of the time period were all white men, Schmidt redirected a question back to them — “Let’s talk about that, why do you think?”

Other times, Schmidt has described a law’s discriminatory effect, or opted for terms like “structural inequality.” But there is something lost with those workarounds.

“If we don’t call the thing what it is, we lose the impact of being able to directly pinpoint — and then as a result, challenge — the structures that reinforce systemic racism and systemic sexism,” Schmidt said.

In some cases, the passage of these laws has encouraged parents to complain to school boards about conversations happening in their child’s classroom. School libraries are seeing a rise in book challenges this year, especially around texts written by authors of color or that deal with themes of race and identity.

This tense climate has left some teachers of color feeling especially vulnerable. That’s because they frequently get tapped to lead conversations about race and racism, and they often refer to their own lived experiences to help students make connections.

Hester, for example, fielded questions about her race from students in Iowa City whenever she wore her long hair down. Hester would turn that into a teachable moment by telling them about her background — she has Black and white parents and identifies as Black — and how the one-drop rule was used to classify enslaved people. Now, she worries that kind of discussion could make her a target for parent complaints.

“These natural conversations that normally occur in my class full of diverse students, they’re very surface-level now,” she said.

In some cases, the limits on teachers have put students of color on the spot.

In Iowa, Ames High School junior Theo Muhammad has a teacher who calls on him to explain concepts when discussion turns to racial inequity, or elaborate when she feels like she can’t go into more detail.

“I’ve talked about white privilege,” said Muhammad, who is a leader in the high school’s Students Advocating for Civil Rights in Education club. “She’ll not say it, and then I can say it.”

Students say that can feel like a burden, especially when the requests are directed at students of color.

“It puts so much more pressure on students to talk about it,” said Kenaiya James, an Ames High senior who is also a leader in the club. The hesitation she’s seen from her teachers this year has prompted her to change up her plans for the Black history month event she’s coordinating in February. She’s going to rely more on students, instead. “But then that also puts more pressure on students having to educate their teachers,” James said.

Still, a number of other educators have decided not to make any changes in response to the new laws. Skikila Smith, who teaches literature at a high school in Knoxville, Tennessee, says she can’t teach the story of racial injustice in “To Kill a Mockingbird” without addressing her students’ questions about George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and other Black Americans killed by police or vigilantes in recent years.

“If a student asks, I’m not going to shy away from answering,” said Smith, who is Black, like most of her students. “I’m not going to lie when they start making connections and asking why people don’t believe a Black person over the lies of someone who does not look like them. My students are not dumb.”

This summer, Smith wrote Gov. Bill Lee to ask how she’s supposed to comply without abdicating her responsibility to her students. Smith said she never heard back, nor has she received a list of prohibited topics from her district. (After publication, a spokesperson for the governor said his office listens to constituents and the state education department is in touch with schools and educators.)

For now, Smith has decided to teach her students the same way she did before the law was enacted.

“If this is civil disobedience, then come and get me,” she said. “I will not deny my students the truth.”

Chicago students walk out of South Side school over racial slurs: ‘We will not be silenced’

2021-12-14T20:16:28+00:00

A dozen students trickled out the front doors of Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy at 10:45 a.m. Monday. Before long, the group swelled to about 50 students chanting in unison: “We will not be silenced.”

Some Black students at the Ashburn campus say that, for years, they have notified teachers, administrators, and security guards that students are using racial slurs on campus. Those concerns have largely been ignored or dismissed as a joke, they said.

The walkout served as a way to call attention to what students said was a culture of unchecked racism at the school, which is 61% Latino and 37% Black, with 2% of students identifying with other races, said senior Kendall Canteberry, one of the organizers of the walkout.

The student protest came amid increasing national scrutiny over the way conversations on race are handled in classrooms and schools. It also comes six months after the district said it was working to build an anti-bias culture at its campuses but has not fully detailed its plans.

In addition to saying they have endured racial slurs from other students, Black students alleged they have been targeted by some teachers who kicked them out of class or called security on them, Canteberry said. The student said a number of Black teachers have left the school over the past four years.

According to state report card data, Goode has had some turnover over the last few years, which was in line with districtwide numbers.

In 2018, 131 students at Goode received out-of-school suspensions. Black students accounted for 68% of the suspensions, compared with 24% for Latino students, according to a ProPublica analysis of disciplinary data collected by the U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights.

Goode STEM Principal Armando Rodriguez deferred questions to Chicago Public Schools. Chicago Public Schools didn’t respond to specific questions from Chalkbeat but shared a letter sent Tuesday morning to parents and students at the school. The district did not respond to specific allegations made by students.

In the letter, Chicago Public Schools acknowledged the student-led effort aimed at “creating equitable learning conditions” for students and staff, “especially students of color and students from other marginalized backgrounds.”

“We recognize and appreciate the students and staff at Goode who are working to bring attention to these issues, and we are committed to working with the Goode community to address students’ concerns and work toward a common goal of creating a safe and equitable school community,” the district wrote in the letter.

Monday’s nearly 20-minute walkout comes amid mounting frustrations of inaction from administration to address the persistent complaints, Canteberry said.

“Regardless of how many times we report it, nothing has changed,” the 17-year-old senior said. “They always say the same thing: ‘Changes will be made soon.’”

“We are tired of the racism,” he said, “tired of how we are being treated as students.”

Another student organizer, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, said the walkout was aimed at calling out “prejudice and racism” at the school.

In the letter to the Goode parents, Chicago Public Schools said it planned to establish a Student Voice Committee, develop a social-emotional learning plan, and co-design a racial healing plan at the school. The district also plans to host community meetings to help develop goals around cultural responsiveness, anti-racism, and anti-bias at Goode.

Chicago Public Schools has been actively encouraging conversations about race in its classrooms.

Following the Breonna Taylor shooting death by police, Janice Jackson, CPS’s former CEO, sent a citywide letter encouraging school communities to have “honest and productive conversations about racial justice and our role in fighting systemic racism.”

The walkout comes on the heels of a district announcement earlier this year that Chicago intended to build a system to report incidents of racism and bias. The program Transforming Bias-Based Harm aims to focus on non-disciplinary solutions and school-level training for students and staff to recognize implicit bias and microaggressions.

Under the plan, the district would also investigate more serious instances of racism.

The district announced the system after students at some selective enrollment high schools began using social media to document alleged incidents of racism at their schools, which they said included racial slurs, bullying, and racial profiling by school security officers.

District officials previously said students and families are able to start reporting incidents of perceived bias on the CPS website or by emailing civilrights@cps.edu.

Tina Curry, a teacher and former equity coach at Sarah E. Goode, said issues at the school stem from “bias that goes unchecked.”

“It doesn’t start as racism,” Curry said. “When bias goes unchecked, it can turn into discrimination and racism. That’s been the problem here.”

Curry used to teach an activism unit in her class during which Black students shared experiences of being barred from using the restroom or being locked out of class after the bell, as well as experiencing racism at the school.

Black students have said they see their peers being treated differently, Curry said, describing instances where Black students would be singled out and disciplined differently.

Curry said these disciplinary practices targeting Black students were going “unchecked” at the school and “our children are the ones who are suffering, especially our Black children, especially our Black girls.”

“They are punished more harshly for the same offense than their Latino peers,” Curry said. “And Black students see this.”

Students started petitions and surveys and raised concerns with administration but nothing has changed, Curry said.

In response, administrators canceled the activism program for the semester and later reinstated it after student pushback, Curry said.

Curry said the initial move to remove the activism program was part of a larger culture problem and microaggressions at the school that are forcing Black teachers to leave.

During school dismissal on Monday, a senior student, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, said she heard stories of peers experiencing racism from other students. She didn’t participate in the morning walkout because administrators told students there would be consequences.

Black and Latino students and Black teachers have been dealing with racism at the school for years, but students didn’t know how to move forward with their frustrations, Canteberry said.

Had the pandemic not happened, Canteberry feels as though the issue would have come to a head much earlier.

Canteberry and other organizers plan on continuing to host meetings to make sure the racism they’ve experienced gets addressed not just for current students but for students who will attend the school in the future.

“We hope that this protest and this walkout finally changes things — changes the racism — and have our voices be heard,” Canteberry said. “I really hope we can really sit down and change things for students and staff to be happy.”

NYC is making a big investment in culturally responsive education. It benefits all of us.

2021-11-29T16:07:34+00:00

None of my teachers ever talked about families that looked like mine. None of the books at school showed families that looked like mine. The message I received was loud and clear in this silence: Don’t talk about having a gay mom. It’s not normal. It’s not accepted. School taught me to hide who I was and what I valued. In other ways, I was overly represented in the books I read and the classes I took. As a white, cisgender girl, I benefited from my privilege.

Now that I am a teacher, I work hard to create lessons — and an overall environment — that allow our young people to be seen and understood in a way that I was not. That’s why I’m so committed to what’s known as culturally responsive and sustaining education, which the New York City education department defines as “a way of seeing diversity as a source of knowledge.” It enables students to “learn using aspects of their race, social class, gender, language, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or ability.”

Amy Parker

In our fifth grade class, we used a CRSE lens during an informational reading and writing unit. We encouraged students to choose issues they care about, research those issues, and write about them. One student wanted a group to study Hispanic and Latinx rights. “Why don’t we learn more about Hispanics?” the student asked me. “I feel like we need to learn more about that because I am Hispanic.”

Another student, a Black girl, responded to a survey that we should have a group that works on women’s rights. Students who identify as LGBTQ+ and those who do not joined a group that worked on LGBTQ+ history and rights. Working collectively in these small groups, students actively built on their own cultural viewpoints and identities. We discussed and shared who we are and why the issue chosen matters to us. We also encouraged others to join us in this work. For example, a student in the LGBTQ+ group started a petition for transgender rights.

We also need to examine classroom materials. In New York City, 85% of our public school students are students of color. Yet, in the city’s most commonly used K-5 curriculums, 84% of the books are written by white authors, according to NYU’s Education Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative.

At my school, P.S. 63 The STAR Academy in the East Village, we are lucky to have worked closely with Dr. Gholnecsar “Gholdy” Muhammad, a professor, author, and leader in culturally and historically responsive education. Teachers infuse the five pursuits Muhammad identified — Identity, Criticality, Intellect, Skill, and Joy — into our studies. For example, the second grade does “The Name Project,” where students learn about how their names are connected to their identities and who they are. For the culminating project, students share the story of their name with the help of their families and create an art piece to go with it. Doing CRSE well also means getting to know our students, families, and communities.

For all students, CRSE means seeing themselves and others in our lessons across content areas. For our students of color, it means learning their stories and histories, and connecting deeply to them while at school. For our white students, this means personal growth, deeper historical understanding, and the development of young activists.

When Nora, one of three white students in our class last year, shared in a Zoom chat that she sometimes felt guilty when learning about the true history of the United States, my co-teacher and I were able to listen and discuss her important role in ending racism and inequality. She was able to see herself as an agent of change who could work towards liberation for all people. After our check-ins, she continued to participate by asking questions, sharing her ideas, and pressing a local representative to fight for more equitable funding for our public schools.

I appreciate that Chancellor Meisha Porter and the City Council have made room in their budgets to prioritize our students, their stories, their families’ stories, and our NYC communities. Over the course of three years, almost $500 million will be allocated to CRSE so that our students are reflected in what and how they learn.

In a recent email, Chancellor Porter wrote, “Children are more engaged in class when they can see themselves in their lessons and materials,” and she is right. We need all schools to implement lesson plans that reflect, respect, and respond to New York City’s student populations. Meanwhile, educators should prioritize building strong relationships with students, families, and communities.

I can only imagine how much more understood I would have felt if I had seen my family and story represented at school as a child. I wish I had more teachers who learned who I was and what I valued, and then used those strengths to build out what and how I learned. But currently available curriculums are not often designed with racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, and neurological diversity in mind. I hope that New York City’s investment will make space for all of our voices and differences to be celebrated at school.

Amy Parker is in her 12th year of teaching and currently teaches fifth grade at P.S. 63 The STAR Academy in the East Village. She is the UFT chapter leader at her school, a member of the School Leadership Team, and an active participant on her school’s Equity Team.

‘It’s imperative that we listen’: What the Rittenhouse verdict meant in 5 classrooms

2021-11-23T21:02:00+00:00

Educators across the country have found themselves in the role of legal analyst, discussion leader, and counselor in recent days, as two divisive court cases involving race, profiling, and vigilantism captured the nation’s attention.

Last week, Kyle Rittenhouse, the white teen who killed two people and wounded a third during protests of police brutality in Wisconsin, was acquitted of all charges. Today, the jury began deliberations in the case of three white men on trial for killing Ahmaud Arbery as he jogged in his Georgia neighborhood.

We heard from teachers about how their students responded and how they approached these moments. Some had robust debates, others struggled to squeeze lessons in amid holidays and tight schedules, and others didn’t see it as their place. Here, five educators who tackled the verdict reflect on those conversations.

Adam Sanchez, social studies teacher, Central High School in Philadelphia

Sanchez’s school had a career day Monday, so he posted links in Google Classroom for students to spend time with on their own: a New York Times timeline of events in the Rittenhouse case; an editorial by ACLU Staff Attorney Leah Watson on the role that the Kenosha police played leading up to the incident a Democracy Now! episode that interviewed the family of Jacob Blake, whose shooting by police sparked the protest where Rittenhouse killed two people with an AK-15-style rifle. He did have 10 to 15 minutes in class to talk through some of the issues.

“We just had an open discussion about our thoughts and feelings. Black students were quick to point out that if Rittenhouse had been Black he likely wouldn’t have even made it to trial. Others had many questions about the events and how he could have been determined not guilty. One student said that she felt like we made a step forward with the conviction of Derek Chauvin and that felt like progress, but this feels like we’re taking steps backwards and right back where we started. I also had one student who defended Rittenhouse (after class in a private discussion with me).

“Ultimately, we both had to get to our next class. I’m still thinking about how to address that tomorrow.”

Kevin Shane, science teacher, Greenfield High School in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin

A few years ago, Shane says he might not have addressed a similar event in class. But in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, his students are more aware of high-profile names in the news, making conversations about topics like race and justice more common.

“I’m a science teacher, so it’s not something that normally gets covered, but I’ll talk about it when it comes up,” he said. After the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, some of his students were happy, and others were sad and disappointed — a reflection of his district, which is racially and politically diverse.

“Regardless, I want them to see the inherent sadness that a kid felt like he needed to put himself in a situation where he could and did kill people,” Shane said. “I am always honest with students. I’m sad he killed people. I’m sad he felt like he needed to go to a city that wasn’t his own in order to ‘defend’ whatever he thought needed defending. It’s sad that the justice system works this way.”

Janel Moore-Almond, history teacher, George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science in Philadelphia

Moore-Almond had an open discussion with her students Monday before their planned lesson. Her students had just finished a unit on Reconstruction, so lessons about racial inequities were fresh in their minds.

“The students’ reactions were fairly muted, but thoughtful. Most of the students who were aware of the trial were unsurprised by the verdict because of the state of race relations in the country; one or two spoke about the comments that were made by the judge during the trial. Another student noted that she was trying ‘not to lose hope’ in our system, but it was difficult. They also made the connection to the white supremacists after Reconstruction that went after white Republicans due to their political beliefs.”

Abigail Henry, ninth grade African-American history teacher, Mastery Charter School — Shoemaker Campus, Philadelphia

Henry’s students have a mock trial this week so she won’t be able to address the Rittenhouse verdict until next week. Her students will also be focusing on the Civil War at that point. She plans to listen again to an episode of NPR’s Code Switch about the history of Black people having weapons to fight back to inform her lessons.

“I just think of it from the historical perspective that Black people’s relationship with guns is very different than white people’s relationship with guns. White people have the right to claim self defense 1,000 times more easily than a Black man. This just made me think of Black Panther Party for self defense. How Black people carrying those weapons around terrified people. The young white kid traveled for the military grade weapon and claimed self defense. It’s amazing, the hypocrisy.

“I encourage them to share whatever feelings they have. Like if you’re feeling angry, you should feel angry. That’s why African-American history is so important. That’s why what we’re studying is so important. So that you can have a better understanding of when issues come up today.”

Torie Fritz, world history instructor, Grand Rapids Community College in Grand Rapids, Michigan

Fritz discussed the Rittenhouse verdict with the high school students in her world history course Monday. One white male student talked about the legality of guns in some cases. Fritz felt that as a white educator, she also needed to make space for a Black student who said, “it just makes me feel like I could be next. I could be the next person to have my life taken from me.”

“In a history class, you don’t always talk about things happening in the present, but right now this subject is incredibly important and it’s producing a lot of trauma and it connects to the history of the American justice system,” she said.

“In this case I think it’s imperative that we listen to people who don’t feel safe now, that are feeling retraumatized by things and are feeling incredibly disappointed.”

Johann Calhoun, Carrie Melago, and Sarah Darville contributed reporting.

Unlike Kyle Rittenhouse, Black teens don’t get the benefit of the doubt

2021-11-23T19:51:29+00:00

When I was 17, I was getting ready to graduate from Indianapolis’ Broad Ripple High School and was eagerly looking forward to attending college. The world felt golden, and all my hopes and dreams seemed well within my grasp. I had a lot of things on my mind, but murder was not one of them.

When I think about the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse, who was 17 when he shot three people, killing two of them, I can’t help but think of my younger self and my teenage students. And I can’t help but think of Kalief Browder, Trayvon Martin, and Chrystul Kizer — three other 17-year-olds who had their futures stolen from them (or threatened) by Lady Justice, who only gets out her walking stick for a certain group of people.

Nikia D. Garland

I think of Kalief Browder, a Black male living in the Bronx when he was arrested in 2010 for stealing a backpack. Subsequently, he spent three years imprisoned on Rikers Island. He was in solitary confinement for about two of those years. He was never charged with a crime but stayed in custody because he could not afford the $3,000 bail. Browder did not have the support of a 1980s TV star or a Christian crowdfunding site to raise money for his bail. By the time his case got the attention it deserved and Browder was finally released, his mental health had suffered tremendously, and he eventually died by suicide.

The majority of my students are 17, and they are already jaded by the U.S. judicial system.

I think of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Black teenager who in 2012 was senselessly executed by George Zimmerman, who thought him suspicious for, what, wearing a hoodie. He was not protesting. He was not being unruly. He did not place himself in a hostile confrontation. When Martin attempted to defend himself from an armed vigilante, he was shot dead in cold blood. Zimmerman had a 9 mm handgun; Martin had only a bag of Skittles.

I think of Chrystul Kizer, a teen sex trafficking victim who faces a lifetime in prison for the 2018 killing her alleged abuser. There are no masses of right-wing supporters in her corner backing her right to self-defense (though, thankfully, community groups have protested and raised money on her behalf). There are no talks of book deals or TV shows for Kizer,and there aren’t members of Congress lined up to hire her. With Kizer’s case pending, experts have noted how young victims of color are often perceived as older than their years and thus “willing participants” in their sexual abuse. It’s appalling.

The majority of my students are 17, and they are already jaded by the U.S. judicial system. They know that they live in a country where they will not get the same consideration or grace as their white peers. They see two Americas — one for them and another for the Kyle Rittenhouse, whose violence was championed by so many conservative, white Americans.

The verdict only serves as another cancer in the body of our country. America is sick with bias, racism, inequality, and poverty, among myriad other ills. One of my students responded to a photo of Rittenhouse sporting a “Free as F—k” T-shirt, like this: “Yeah, free to kill at will.”

Nikia D. Garland is an English teacher and an adjunct professor who resides in Indianapolis.

Tennessee nails down rules for disciplining teachers, withholding money from schools that teach banned concepts about racism

2021-11-20T00:42:56+00:00

Tennessee has bolstered the financial penalties against large school districts that violate the state’s new law regulating discussions on race and gender in the classroom.

The state also lengthened the amount of time allowed for filing a complaint against a teacher who has allegedly crossed the line, while it stuck with plans to accept complaints only from students, parents, or staff in the impacted district or charter school.

Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn signed off recently on emergency rules for regulating the teaching of prohibited topics under a law enacted this spring amid national fury from conservatives about critical race theory, an academic framework that examines how policies and laws may perpetuate systemic racism.

It’s unclear how many complaints will be filed in Tennessee under the new rules, since critical race theory is taught mostly in higher education — not K-12 schools.

The law restricts teachers from discussing 14 concepts the legislature deemed cynical or divisive. Among the concepts are that the United States is fundamentally or irredeemably sexist or racist, and that an individual is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive because of race or gender.

Schwinn promised the guidance after Gov. Bill Lee signed the law, one of dozens of state-level actions nationwide seeking to prevent educators from using critical race theory concepts and the New York Times’ 1619 Project on U.S. history.

The emergency rules, which became effective on Nov. 8, will remain in place until next May 7, when the department plans to have final rules based on lessons learned about enforcing the law this school year.

The rules nail down processes for filing and investigating complaints, appealing decisions, and levying punishment. Schwinn approved the package after her department reviewed more than 900 public comments and tweaked its proposed enforcement plan released in late July.

“Most revisions were made in response to feedback received during the public comment period, but some revisions were made to clarify misunderstandings or confusion of wording in the original draft,” said department spokesman Brian Blackley on Friday.

Some of the commenters complained that proposed penalties were excessive, both for teachers and districts that are deemed out of compliance.

But while the state removed wording about “licensure action” from the language about teacher penalties, it still allows the State Board of Education to suspend or revoke licenses after local districts take initial disciplinary action that could include firing a teacher. That’s partly because Tennessee’s Teacher Code of Conduct, which is also in state law, requires educators to “abide by all applicable federal and state laws.”

Financial penalties for districts, particularly larger ones, will be higher than under the draft rules. They’ll be based on a district or charter school’s percentage of annual state funds — 2% on the first offense, growing to 10% by the fifth offense — instead of allowing a lesser flat fee that starts at $1 million.

Rep. Scott Cepicky, a Maury County Republican who was instrumental in the law’s passage, had argued larger districts could afford the flat penalty, while forgoing a percentage of state funds would sting more.

Hundreds of commenters, especially from Williamson County, which has significant political influence in state government, asked the department to expand the definition of “eligible complainant” to include grandparents of students or even taxpayers in general. But others worried that “outside forces” who don’t have children in public schools could file unfounded complaints that will waste administrators’ time.

In the end, the state stuck with restricting eligibility to current students, parents, or employees. However, it yielded to calls for a longer window of time to file a complaint: 45 calendar days instead of the proposed 30 days from the alleged violation.

The rules place the responsibility for investigating complaints about teachers on local school systems and charter schools that “are best positioned to choose which textbooks and instructional materials meet the needs of their students, educators, and community.”

After receiving a complaint, administrators have 60 calendar days to substantiate it and take action to ensure the prohibited concept is no longer included in instruction, curriculum, or related materials. But administrators are also encouraged to work with parents, teachers, and other staff to reach an “early resolution of complaints” that halts the process.

The state education department will handle appeals and step in if a district or charter school drops the ball in the process or knowingly violates the new law.

Many Tennesseans both for and against the law complained the prohibited concepts are vague, but the rules don’t delve into those questions.

None of the legislature’s Democrats supported the Republican-backed measure, which received vocal support from the political action group Moms for Liberty. Many other organizations, including the ACLU of Tennessee and the Organization of American Historians, the nation’s largest professional organization of U.S. history scholars, voiced opposition,

Teachers: How will you talk to your students about the Rittenhouse verdict? We’re listening.

2021-11-19T23:25:03+00:00

The news spread quickly Friday afternoon, in push alerts, on social media, and across TV news banners: Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all charges in the shootings of three people during a protest over police violence against Black people in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

In schools, the verdict in the divisive case will lead to potentially difficult conversations in the classroom in the coming days. For some students, especially students of color, the verdict has caused anger and frustration, another example of how white Americans are treated differently in courtrooms. It’s likely adding another layer of emotional weight onto an already challenging school year.

At Chalkbeat, we want to know how this news is affecting your students and classroom discussions. Educators, how do you plan to handle questions about the verdict? Will your choices about how to handle this moment feel different in the wake of legislation in several states restricting how educators discuss racism in the classroom? Do you have advice to share?

We know it’s a heavy time. Please fill out the form below if you feel comfortable sharing your thoughts with us, or go here if you are on a mobile device. Your responses will help guide our coverage.

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For this West Philadelphia teacher, racial justice is at the core of her work

2021-11-16T11:00:00+00:00

Last year the country was rocked by mass protests sparked by fatal police encounters with unarmed Black people, most notably, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

This week, two court cases involving race and racial profiling lead the news. In Georgia, three white men are on trial for killing a Black man, Ahmaud Arbery, as he was jogging in his neighborhood. And closing arguments are underway in the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teenager who killed two people and wounded another amid racial unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

For Abigail Henry, a ninth grade African American History teacher at Mastery Charter School — Shoemaker Campus in West Philadelphia, discussions about racial justice — about these and other incidents, historical and contemporary — are central to her work.

Henry, who was born in London, has an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia, and master’s from University College London, recently received a Pulitzer Center grant to incorporate into her lessons The New York Times’ 1619 Project, developed by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.

An expansion of Hannah-Jones’ work will be featured in new books, titled “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story” and “The 1619 Project: Born on the Water.” (Some conservative lawmakers have sought to ban the teaching of the 1619 Project in schools.)

“I am more than excited to discuss the book release and the conversation around [“The 1619 Project; A New Origin Story”] and how it should be taught in classrooms because, in the United States, we should not ban books,” Henry said.

She noted that what happened in 1619, when a ship carrying enslaved people arrived in North America, is history and that to ban any book about that history “feels unconstitutional.”

Henry spoke recently to Chalkbeat about her favorite days in the classroom, the challenges of returning to in-person learning, and the power of simply showing up.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What makes your teaching experience unique?
My teaching experience is unique because of the content I teach and the racial population of my students. I teach African-American History to predominantly all-Black classes. My No. 1 goal is to develop positive racial identities in my students.

What’s most gratifying about your work?
In my classroom, we do frequent mock trials. On these days, I always drive home smiling. Students are lawyers and witnesses. I play “Law & Order” music, and they argue and get so into it, they cheer when the jury makes their decision. I love these days because it allows students of all levels to participate. I can have a student with an IEP who rarely talks in class take the stand and surprise everyone with a creative and amazing ceremony. On these days, I am more of a facilitator than a teacher. Students hold each other accountable.

Why is it important to discuss racial justice issues in your class?
Well, I’m teaching [overwhelmingly] Black students. The first thing I do is ask them to write me a letter if they’ve experienced racism. It depends on the year, but literally, 30% to 40% of kids say they’ve never experienced it, which is crazy to me because they have experienced systematic racism, given them being at an urban school with little funding. Part of my job is to educate them that racism exists because they live in an all-Black community and to prepare them for life outside high school because some of our students just move on to go to [disproportionately white] colleges and don’t succeed.

What was your biggest misconception that you initially brought to teaching?
I didn’t realize in the beginning how long it takes to truly be the content expert required for a rigorous and engaging lesson.

What has been your biggest hurdle returning to in-person learning?
The biggest hurdle is that expectations for teachers have not changed despite the pandemic and the trauma that has been experienced across all members of the school’s community. I currently teach ninth grade, but the students I have, have not been in school since seventh grade. During that time, they have lost friends and family members, experienced loneliness, depression, and worse. When students returned, they were more than excited to see each other. Yet, the challenges of managing a classroom after such a global event have been extensive. The day-to-day operations of a teacher’s life are more demanding than prior to the pandemic, and we are exhausted.

How have you helped your students adjust?
I give them frequent reminders on the purpose of their learning. Students need to be reminded daily not only about the lesson’s content but also the skills they are developing. In my class, we take notes almost every day. After a year of being on a computer, it took a lot of coaching, explanation, and positive praise to get students into the importance of daily notes.

Tell us about a memorable time — good or bad — when contact with a student’s family changed your perspective or approach.
The beauty of teaching for more than 10 years is that you get to know entire families. This year, I have a student who is the younger sister of a student I taught three years ago. This student was so incredibly withdrawn that I grew concerned about her mental health. Because I taught her older brother, I felt comfortable sharing with Mom my concerns. We had a productive conversation, and I found out that during the pandemic, her best friend moved away. This student has been struggling for social belonging due to the pandemic and loss of someone close to her. Without that conversation with Mom, I would not have known this.

What’s the best advice you’ve received about teaching?
From the school social worker: Just by showing up every day, we, [teachers], are doing our jobs. I feel this more now than ever. There have been so many reports in the news lately about teacher shortages, substitute teacher qualifications being lowered, and more — just because so many teachers are not returning to the classroom. Even if every single lesson is not perfect, I know just by showing up and being a consistent teacher for my students, I am positively contributing to their experience at school.

Detroit school district pushes back against anti-CRT legislation

2021-11-15T23:25:00+00:00

Teachers and school leaders in the Detroit school district are strongly opposed to bills in the Michigan legislature that would sharply restrict how racism and sexism are taught.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District has submitted about 81 letters opposing House Bill 5097 and Senate Bill 460, introduced this past year and sponsored by Republican state Rep. Andrew Beeler and Republican state Sen. Lana Theis, to lawmakers. Most of the letters were written by teachers.

Bill 5097 passed the Michigan House on Nov. 2 and is awaiting a hearing from the Senate Committee on Education and Career Readiness. The proposed legislation would prohibit school lessons that promote “race or gender stereotyping.”

If Senate Bill 460 passes, schools would lose 5% of their funding if educators teach critical race theory, an academic framework that historically examines systemic racism as a part of American life and institutions. The bill has not come to the Senate floor.

Michigan educators could also be docked for teaching “anti-American ideas” about race, or material from “The 1619 Project,” a New York Times Magazine initiative that ties the growth of the United States to the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans.

CRT has quickly become a catchall term used by some conservative lawmakers and activists to describe various state and local efforts to create equity policies or diverse curriculums in K-12 schools.

“Our curriculum is deeply using critical race theory especially in social studies, but you’ll find it in English language arts and the other disciplines,” said Superintendent Nikolai Vitti during a school board meeting Tuesday.

“Students need to understand the truth of history … understand the history of this country, to better understand who they are and about the injustices that have occurred in this country.”

In a subsequent academic committee meeting Monday afternoon, Vitti reiterated that the district embraces the basic tenets of CRT as part of its 2020 anti-racism resolution to reexamine district-wide policies and curriculum and encourage students and teachers to critically analyze dominant historical narratives and question institutions of power.

School board member Deborah Hunter-Harvill suggested drafting an additional resolution outlining the district’s opposition to the anti-CRT bill at the December school board meeting, as well as promoting letter writing among district parents and teachers.

Vitti said he believed the proposed bills may get passed based on what other Republican-controlled legislatures with similar measures have done. The district’s best strategy to fight the bills, the superintendent added, is to lean on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s veto power.

“What I find interesting about this whole idea is that if you look at what critical race theory is, by definition, this legislation is probably the best example of it,” Vitti said.

“You have white Republicans largely outside of Detroit — a community of color — legislating what you can or cannot teach in schools. If that’s not one of the best examples of structural racism, I don’t know what is.”

Port Huron Republican Andrew Beeler, a lead sponsor of the House bill, recently said he was careful not to invoke the term “critical race theory” in his proposed legislation as other conservatives across the country have used to condemn curricula they deem too liberal.

“The reason I don’t use that language in this bill is because it means too many different things to too many different people,” Beeler said.

Community members decried the recent bills occurring at the Legislature and across the country and its attempts to censor Black history.

“We are at a point where history is about to repeat itself and the repeat is keeping the truth away from our children,” Helen Moore, a longtime education activist, said at Tuesday’s school board meeting.

“American history. Black history. African-centered education. (Critical) race theory. What’s the difference? Why are we so afraid to deal with what has happened in America?”

The Detroit school district has a long history of centering African American history and establishing schools that emphasize Afrocentric traditions. The district had over a dozen African-centered schools during the 1990s. Following a series of closures during the district’s state-run emergency management, the city currently only has two African-centric schools: Paul Robeson/Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey Academy.

Jerome Shell, a self-described “concerned senior citizen,” took issue with the anti-CRT proponents’ avoidance of acknowledging the importance of teaching Black history for African American students.

“If you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know where you’re going,” Shell said.

“Our children need to know their story. No student needs to be able to graduate from any public school or institution without knowing our story in its entirety, with all of its graphic (details).”

Memphis police chief says she’s open to a school ‘peace force’

2021-10-20T22:57:23+00:00

Nearly a month after a shooting inside a South Memphis school, the city’s police chief is rethinking how law enforcement communicates and responds to safety threats in schools.

“I’m new here, and I’m hoping to make sure that we have communications protocols that help intercept any potential violence in the schools,” Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis said Wednesday at a virtual question-and-answer session with reporters.

Davis, who in June became the first woman to lead the Memphis police department, said she is open to establishing a district police force, or a “peace force.”

While the department attempts to provide “timely and relevant” information about safety concerns to schools, Davis said her goal is to work with administrators to prevent crises — not just respond to them.

Davis said she will continue conversations with Shelby County Schools Superintendent Joris Ray and former Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong as they lead a review of district safety practices and consider forming a peace force. That force would be made up of armed school resource officers rather than the sheriff’s deputies who currently police Shelby County Schools.

With those talks ongoing, “we are certainly supportive of any type of new initiatives that could help support public safety in our schools,” Davis told reporters.

Former Superintendent Kriner Cash first floated the idea for the district peace force in 2008. Ray revived the proposal in 2019, arguing that the district would be more effective at controlling officers’ behavior if they reported directly to the school system. At the time, school board members said they weren’t sure that a peace force would improve student treatment. The proposal lost traction — until last month’s shooting.

Armstrong will help the district explore the idea of transitioning to a peace force during the district’s review of school safety policies, Ray said earlier this month, emphasizing the force would focus on restorative practices and building relationships with students.

But any peace force proposal would need support from the school board and, potentially, state lawmakers. Tennessee neither explicitly allows districts to create their own law enforcement agencies, nor does it prohibit it.

Recent discussion about creating a district law enforcement agency also comes as a divided Memphis school board continues to mull the district’s agreement with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office. Of the 125 armed officers patrolling Memphis schools this school year, 45 are county sheriff’s deputies, the district said in August.

The memorandum of understanding, which calls for the district to contribute $50,000 for the use of 36 deputies stationed in schools, has sparked heated community debate.

Nearly 700 community members have written letters to administrators and school board members demanding the district end its contract with the sheriff’s office, arguing that police in schools feed the so-called school-to-prison pipeline, which disproportionately criminalizes Black and brown children. And numerous students, parents, and advocates have urged the school board to spend the $50,000 on counselors and social workers rather than law enforcement.

An April report from the Brookings Institution found that school policing criminalizes adolescent behavior, escalating cutting class to a truancy charge, and graffiti on bathroom walls to a vandalism charge. And data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights shows that school resource officers are more than twice as likely to refer Black students for prosecution compared to their white classmates.

Regina Clark, an activist with the education advocacy organization Stand for Children Tennessee, recalled her children’s experiences attending schools in Washington D.C. when there was a shooting.

“At no time did the law enforcement in the schools save lives,” Clark told the school board on Sept. 28. “What will make them safe is having counselors in the school so that they are not traumatized, and they do not continue to go through mental health issues.”

While Memphis school board member Billy Orgel later expressed his support for the current collaboration with the county sheriff’s office, several other board members took issue with it, saying it didn’t appear to take feedback from hundreds of community members into consideration.

Ultimately, the board opted to send the agreement back to committee, and the debate continues.

A district survey presented to school board members this week found almost 60% of the nearly 12,000 student respondents in grades 4-12 said it’s important for a law enforcement officer — whether a school resource officer or sheriff’s deputy — to be assigned to their school. And about 70% of respondents said having an officer at school makes them feel safe.

The district’s agreement with the sheriff’s office will come before the board again in November.

Report: Indy’s Black and Hispanic children face a ‘chronic lack of access’ to quality education

2021-10-12T22:27:44+00:00

Black and Hispanic children in Marion County face a “chronic lack of access” to high-quality education from the time they’re in preschool to when they’re preparing for college, according to a new report.

Commissioned by the Indianapolis-based Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, the report compiled the obstacles that Black and Hispanic children face to quality education, such as access to a high-performing school, and disproportionate discipline in the classroom.

It includes recommendations for addressing the inequities, like automatically enrolling all qualifying students in advanced classes.

The foundation commissioned the report in the wake of anti-racism demonstrations last year, when superintendents in all 11 Marion County school districts promised to “ensure all students are provided with the conditions necessary to succeed,” according to the report.

Claire Fiddian-Green, president and CEO of the foundation, said the report is meant to provide information for these initiatives. The foundation, a nonprofit providing grants to health, education, and civic research, does not pursue legislative efforts, she added.

And while the recommendations do not include cost estimates, Fiddian-Green said the goals were worth prioritizing.

“It’s a lot that we ask. However, the data are really clear that Black and Hispanic students in Marion County are likely to experience a chronic lack of access to educational opportunities,” Fiddian-Green said.

“So if we are serious about addressing what is really a crisis for Black and Hispanic students, then we need to make this a priority and dedicate the time and resources needed.”

The disparities begin with early childhood education, where 65% of Black children are enrolled in high-quality programs, compared with 76% of white children, according to the report, which recommends that the state develop a better data system for tracking early learning.

“We know some students show up in kindergarten not being ready for kindergarten,” Fiddian-Green said. “That sets off their journey needing support.”

The inequities persist in K-12 education, where high-performing schools are clustered in majority-white neighborhoods, according to the report. And they’ve been made worse during the COVID-19 pandemic: From 2019 to 2021, the percentage of Black and Hispanic students enrolled in low-performing schools increased by double digits.

To address this, the report recommends replicating high-quality schools in neighborhoods without them, and deploying federal emergency funds to provide tutoring, extended learning time, or more teachers to students whose academic performance suffered during COVID-19.

The report’s recommendations came from research into practices tested by schools around the country, said the report’s author, Ben Kleban, while the data came from public records requests to the Department of Education, the Commission for Higher Education, and the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration. ·

Some recommendations wouldn’t result in a huge financial burden, Kleban said, such as ensuring that schools and districts are reporting discipline records to their boards.

Others, like making filling out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) a graduation requirement, are “relatively low-hanging fruit” that could make a major impact on high school completion rates, Kleban said.

According to the report, college enrollment rates nearly double for those students who complete the FAFSA, and rise 4 percentage points for every $1,000 in aid provided per student.

“With a FAFSA completion rate in Marion County of only 41.5%, there is tremendous opportunity to improve FAFSA completion and ultimately college enrollment for all students, ultimately elevating their economic opportunities later in life,” the report says.

Kleban also said the report intentionally focused on the disparities in access to high-quality education, rather than the resulting achievement gaps that have received much public attention in the past.

“That’s why we have achievement gaps, because we have opportunity gaps to begin with,” Kleban said.

Some IPS police see themselves as educators; students and teachers do not

2021-09-22T23:17:47+00:00

Many officers who patrol Indianapolis Public Schools see themselves as educators and informal counselors, in addition to law enforcement officers. Most students, staff, and parents, however, see them strictly as police.

That divergence in perception is among the findings of an independent review of the district’s security force by Indiana University’s Public Policy Institute.

The report, presented to the school board Tuesday, noted other disparities in outlook: While 88% of the district police officers said they collaborate effectively with school personnel, just 61% of staff agreed.

The report includes recommendations on oversight, training, accountability, and more.

“I think it’s a great study. It provides lots of context,” said board Vice President Evan Hawkins. The district administration and Police Chief Tonia Guynn will review the findings and discuss possible actions, he said.

Board member Taria Slack said she hopes that more collaboration will lead to more trust between officers and students, “so we can de-escalate a lot of situations we have.”

Researchers found ambiguity and, in some cases shortcomings, in police roles, protocols, and training in racial equity and fighting implicit bias. “Combatting systemic racism requires ongoing learning, reflection, and intentional implementation of core concepts in their work,” the report noted.

The report notes a lack of clarity about when officers should and should not use force.

Concerns about campus policing, including racial disparities in discipline and arrests, have prompted the district to analyze how its police operate. The goal is to decrease suspensions and expulsions, improve school culture, and nurture students’ well-being.

But restorative justice — practices touted as alternatives to traditional discipline, citation, and arrest — has fallen short, the report noted.

“We have all but stopped implementing it because it takes a tremendous amount of time and cooperation with students, staff, and families,” one officer told researchers.

From 2017 through 2020, the district’s Black students were seven times more likely to be arrested than were white students.

The report recommended differentiating between student misconduct and criminal offenses, providing guidelines for using force, and involving parents and school staff in hiring officers. It also suggested the district step up training and collect data on policing. And it advised convening an advisory committee to recommend whether officers should wear uniforms and carry guns and tasers on campus.

Indianapolis Public Schools might consider rebranding its law enforcement “to create a shift in department culture and mindset,” the report suggested.

Memphis school board is divided over school policing agreement

2021-09-22T04:05:35+00:00

As school districts across the country move to cut ties with law enforcement agencies, some local education officials are raising concerns about the officers who patrol Memphis schools.

At a Tuesday evening work session, the Shelby County Schools board was divided over an agreement that would have the district contribute $50,000 to the county sheriff’s office for the use of 36 resource officers in Memphis schools.

The conversation in Memphis follows a national racial reckoning, ignited by several high-profile police killings of Black people, and prompted some of the United States’ largest school systems — including those in Denver, Seattle, Portland, and Minneapolis — to end partnerships with local police departments.

It also comes as a growing body of evidence suggests that school resource officers feed the so-called school-to-prison pipeline. A recent report from the Brookings Institute found that school policing criminalizes adolescent behavior. For example, law enforcement may escalate cutting class to a truancy charge, and graffiti on bathroom walls to a vandalism charge.

School resource officers’ involvement can hurt children of color the most: Data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found that these officers are more than twice as likely to refer Black students for prosecution, compared to their white peers.

Such findings led nearby Frayser Community Schools to significantly reduce the number of law enforcement officers in its schools. That Memphis charter school network has vowed to take a more holistic approach to discipline this school year.

In 2019, Shelby County Schools Superintendent Joris Ray proposed creating its own district police force, called a “peace force,” to replace sheriff’s deputies. At the time, Ray said he believed Shelby County Schools would be able to control the behavior of officers more effectively if they reported directly to the district. School board members disagreed, saying they weren’t sure students would actually be treated better.

Last month, the district said that 125 armed officers, including 45 Shelby County sheriff’s deputies, patrol its schools. Those officers have all received enhanced training in recognizing precursors to violence, as well as training in nonviolence, crisis prevention, and gang reduction, according to the district.

Memphis school board member William Orgel was the lone board member Tuesday to say he was in “full support” of the program.

“Things don’t always go right, but I appreciate them putting their lives on the line and looking after our students, especially, and keeping them safe,” he said.

Shelby County Schools has also implemented strategies to reduce negative encounters between police and students. For example, expanding its so-called ReSET Rooms, where students can calm down with a supportive adult after emotional or tense moments; this effort resulted in lower suspension rates during the 2019-20 school year, compared to the prior year. Those rates dropped further last year, when most Memphis students learned remotely.

Cardell Orrin, executive director of education advocacy organization Stand for Children Tennessee, said the latest memorandum of understanding between the district and sheriff’s office is a step in the wrong direction.

“Fundamentally, my belief is that we don’t need law enforcement in schools,” regardless of how nice or well trained the officers are, he said.

Orrin said the money that goes to pay officers in Memphis schools should be redirected to mental health resources and other school-based supports.

Students, families, and advocates within Shelby County Schools, where the majority of the district’s over 110,000 students are children of color, have raised similar concerns. Hundreds of community members have written letters demanding the district end its contract with the sheriff’s office.

Yet the drafted memorandum of understanding doesn’t appear to reflect that feedback.

“When I say our inboxes have been full, there’s clearly a problem,” said board member Sheleah Harris. “And I’m not hearing a solution to the problem.”

While board member Stephanie Love acknowledges the role of school resource officers play in keeping schools safe, she said she also believes the district must investigate complaints and at least consider whether changes need to be made.

“For us to support this as is, after we spent time with all these students, I think it would be a disservice and would say to our students that we heard you but we’re not listening,” she said.

The board will again discuss the memorandum of understanding at its meeting next week.

Q&A: Chancellor Porter talks COVID safety, segregation, and discipline

2021-09-21T23:37:54+00:00

YouthComm's writers asked tough questions about the issues they face at school.

Here are New York City Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter's positions on back-to-school COVID safety, New York City's long history of education inequality, student vaccinations, and how to work successfully with a new mayor.

This interview took place in July and has been edited for clarity.

Miles Dale, a student at Hillside Arts and Letters Academy.

Miles Dale, Hillside Arts and Letters Academy: Do you think every student should get the vaccine, even students under 12?

Chancellor Porter: I think every person who is eligible for the vaccine should take the vaccine. I have had to do vaccine education with my own family. I think it's important for our society — it's not just about school, it's about our world, it's about our city, it's about our country.

I am a Black woman, and you know that our community is very concerned about taking the vaccine, and there are a lot of theories. But I really leaned into what was important to us as a family — being together, coming together, celebrating. I had a very good experience with the vaccine. I didn't have any side effects; I just was tired.

Kaylee Pierre, a student at Forest Hills High School.

Kaylee Pierre, Forest Hills High School: There are over 900 students in my graduating class but only two college counselors. What is being done to increase college resources and college counselors in schools like mine?

Chancellor Porter: My sister went to Forest Hills High School, and it was big then too. We've made it one of our priorities to focus on college [and] career readiness, making sure that all students have access to college advisement. You should start doing research on colleges in ninth and 10th grade. And so that meeting you have in the 11th grade should be technical; it shouldn't be your first meeting, your first experience.

Elijah Elvin, a student at Brooklyn Technical High School.

Elijah Elvin, Brooklyn Technical High School: I'm a senior at a school with over 5,000 students and teachers. When COVID numbers fluctuate, what do you plan to do to ensure our safety?

Chancellor Porter: I'm an educator first, but I'm also a mother who has an 11th grader going into a public high school every day. So, it is very important to me that you're all safe.

Part of health and safety is educating young people, and right now with the COVID rates, the safest place to be is in school. We will still have masking, health screenings, hand sanitizer all throughout buildings, PPE (personal protective equipment), and nurses. We're also going to keep the situation rooms readily available in case there has to be a closure in classrooms or school buildings. We're going to ramp up access to vaccines.

Dominique De Castro, a student at Brooklyn Technical High School.

Dominique De Castro, Brooklyn Technical High School: There is a noticeable amount of inequality in educational opportunities and resources for children. What is the best solution to level out the playing field?

Chancellor Porter: My mission is to create an environment where every family can proudly send their kids to any school and feel confident that they're receiving the education that they deserve. You should have access to AP classes and college counselors and career readiness in all schools. We need to level the playing field so families can feel fine about their children's education if their children don't get into specialized high schools.

YouthComm writer and New York City student Leroy Chen.

Leroy Chen: I read your piece, "A Rigorous Curriculum in Schools" in the Daily News. What would be the strategy to successfully create curricula that "truly connects to who students are" — to their identities and life experiences?

Chancellor Porter: I think it's important for students to see themselves in the curriculum and to see themselves as strong leaders to make changes across the city and our country. It's also important for students to see cultures different from their own in the curriculum. It helps society to value differences. In the article, we talked about the launch of the Mosaic curriculum. I think young people need to have a voice in what they learn and a voice in the development of that curriculum. I think all of those things will make a significant difference.

Yotam Pe’er, a student at Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School.

Yotam Pe'er, Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School: In November, Eric Adams will most likely be elected the next mayor. He has more conservative stances on education than you. How do you plan on incorporating his ideas into your plans?

Chancellor Porter: Opening in the fall is going to be, I think, less about anybody's political stance and more about what students need to come back to school after being out for 18 months during a pandemic. Really grounding our focus on the social-emotional needs and the academic needs of our students has to be everyone's priority.

Liza Tuyuc, a student at East-West School of International Studies.

Liza Tuyuc, East-West School of International Studies: Do you believe that Eric Adams' push for improved online learning would affect your agenda and the plan of opening schools, and how would you shift your priorities to accommodate both of these different plans?

Chancellor Porter: I've been in online classes, and I've seen and experienced it in a very different, innovative, engaging way. I think, as a system, we've got over 500,000 devices. We need to lean in and leverage those tools. Teachers learned so much about online learning platforms and how to use them to create more creative classrooms.

Kiran Yeh, a student at Brooklyn Technical High School.

Kiran Yeh, Brooklyn Technical High School: Asian American students make up 62% of New York City specialized high schools seats, yet we make up only 16% of the population for all city high schools. African American students make up 3.9 % of the specialized schools' population, but 25% of all city high schools. In order to diversify these schools, should the SHSAT be abolished completely or should there be more criteria added in the admissions process for students applying to specialized high schools?

Chancellor Porter: I don't think there should be any school in the system that has one measure to get students into that school. I know that many Asian American families have made great sacrifices to prepare their students for that exam. I don't think they should have to do that! I also know, having spoken to many Asian American students, that there is a level of pressure that comes with that, and so I think it is important that we not rely on one measure.

Kiran: Thank you so much, yes it was very stressful.

Chancellor: I'll call your mother!

Anthony Ortiz, a student at JVL Wildcat Academy Charter School.

Anthony Ortiz, JVL Wildcat Academy Charter School: In my opinion, the heavy presence of police and metal detectors demeans students into being treated like cattle as they enter school. Are there any plans to reconsider heavy police and security measures so students do not feel so dehumanized?

Chancellor Porter: I worked in the Bronx for many, many years and really pushed against metal detectors. I think in this moment of coming back to school, I don't want you to walk in the building and feel uncomfortable. I want you to walk in and feel excited. There's also another side of that conversation: there's a whole group of people who feel safer because of metal detectors. I think there's an opportunity to build a bridge with our student safety agents. Not being at the door, saying, you know, pull up your pants and why do you have a cellphone? But, welcome, good morning, it's so good to see you, it's so good to have you in this building.

Richard Zhao, a student at Brooklyn Technical High School.

Richard Zhao, Brooklyn Technical High School: The Discovery program is a summer enrichment program for eligible, rising, low-income ninth grade students who take the SHSAT and score right below the cutoff. As a current student who has gone through the Discovery program, do you have any ideas for the future expansion of this program?

Chancellor Porter: We worked really hard to expand this program in the Bronx and did. I think we should expand the Discovery program, but I also think that we should make sure to have multiple measures to enter [specialized high schools]. When you apply to college, you have to take a test, tell your story, demonstrate your learning, share your grades. Some of you probably even had to go through an interview. When we talk about college and career readiness, why aren't we starting earlier by ensuring that students are engaging in a selection process that is similar to the college process in middle school?

Geraldy Mercedes, a student at Kingsbridge International High School.

Geraldy Mercedes, Kingsbridge International High School: Are suspensions necessary and, more importantly, effective? In my high school, problems were solved between two parties by suspending both without properly hearing what happened. I was beaten up by a girl when I was a freshman, and yet I was suspended as well.

Chancellor Porter: I think we have to look at more restorative ways of solving conflict, and teaching young people how to solve conflict, how to identify their emotions, so when you are getting a little too high, how to bring yourself down. We also want to help kids recognize their triggers so they can learn from their mistakes. And also helping you acknowledge when you are in a space where you may be behaving inappropriately. I don't think suspension has ever done any of that for the system, and I think we have an opportunity to think differently.

Etana Williams, a student at Brooklyn Technical High School.

Etana Williams, Brooklyn Technical High School: Do you have any ideas for making students of color feel less targeted or ostracized, specifically at schools lacking diversity?

Chancellor Porter: I believe that the work of transforming communities is about the merger of hearts and minds. So when I talk about the Mosaic curriculum, that's one thing. The other part of it, training and development of teachers to see students, to see their beauty, to see their talents, to see their authenticity, but also to lean into that as a way to bring you into the room. So, ensuring that students of color don't feel left out is about curriculum, it's about how I value your lived experiences; it's about how I value the community that you come from.

I think that this moment is also celebrating the cultures and heritages of young people who make up our school system. I think this is also a moment when, as a system, we have to value student voice in a very real and significant way, to tell us when you show up at your school building, "What do I feel? What do I think? What do the people greeting me or not greeting me in the morning tell me? What does the curriculum tell me about how you feel about me? What is the way my teachers check in or don't check in tell me about how you feel about me? What's up in our hallways? As I walk through the buildings, what do I see?"

This interview was originally published in YouthComm Magazine.

Tennessee law restricting classroom discussions on race inspires passionate, poignant and enraged feedback

2021-09-20T23:10:52+00:00

Tammy Williams, a resident of Franklin, Tennessee, called anything that resembles critical race theory “racist” and divisive.

Deborah Edwards, a grandmother near Memphis, expressed dismay at her home state’s “attempt to censor the teaching of American history.”

And Michael Franklin, a Vietnam veteran from Nashville, said a new state law limiting classroom discussions about racism reminds him of McCarthyism in the 1950s, when one U.S. senator’s paranoid hunt for Communist infiltrators forced thousands of people out of their jobs.

Their statements — passionate, sometimes poignant, often enraged — were among hundreds of comments submitted online to the Tennessee Department of Education on its proposed plan for enforcing a new state law aimed at shutting down teaching that delves into concepts like systemic racism and white privilege.

The feedback is being considered as Tennessee develops its final rules around the controversial law. Those rules will help determine how Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn will respond to complaints of alleged violations. She will have the power to suspend or revoke teachers’ licenses or withhold funding from schools.

It’s unclear when the state will begin enforcing the law, which took effect on July 1. Most students went back to school in early August.

“The process is ongoing,” state spokesman Brian Blackley said Friday when asked for a target date.

According to a Chalkbeat analysis of approximately 900 comments obtained through a public records request, almost half came from people identifying themselves as parents or grandparents. Nearly 60 came from current, former, or retired educators, and another 21 were submitted by advocacy, professional, or citizens groups. A smattering was written by elected or district leaders. The rest came from people mostly identifying themselves as Tennessee citizens, residents, or taxpayers.

Outsized input

At least a third of the comments came from Williamson County, an enclave south of Nashville that is mostly affluent and conservative, with significant political influence in a state government that’s under a Republican supermajority.

Some Williamson Countians spoke against any attempt to skirt historical facts about slavery, Jim Crow laws, or the removal of Native Americans from their ancestral lands. “My children and their peers deserve an education that is honest about this country’s history,” wrote Elizabeth Smith, whose oldest child goes to Williamson County Schools.

But the vast majority of Williamson Countians wrote that they supported the law, while also listing concerns about Schwinn’s enforcement plan. They didn’t like the 30-day statute of limitation for filing a complaint — and that only students, parents, or employees of the school or district in question would be eligible to file one.

“We parents need your help to resist the indoctrination of our children into this dishonest and divisive radical ideology,” said parent Cara Michelle, who accused Schwinn’s proposal of “watering down” the law at the expense of parents and grandparents who want a larger say in what their children are taught.

Hundreds of commenters appeared to use a template promoted by one of several politically active groups that have flooded Williamson County school board meetings this year with concerns about learning materials for students, diversity training for teachers, and school mask mandates during the pandemic.

“This new rule is too vague, too limiting, and does not protect the rights of parents or students,” says the language, used in more than 300 separate complaints.

Public venting

While the state solicited feedback on its proposals for carrying out the law, many writers used the platform to speak either for or against the new statute. Lawmakers passed the measure in May on the last day of the legislative session, just days after introducing the bill and without inviting educators, parents, or students to testify about its merits. Gov. Bill Lee signed the bill into law soon after.

“How are you passing legislation prohibiting teachers from teaching history accurately while also watching people die from COVID due to your inaction?” wrote Karen Ekeh, an elementary school teacher in Memphis, referring to the governor’s unwillingness to support mask mandates and another new law preventing schools from requiring COVID vaccinations.

Arlene Martin noted that lawmakers seem concerned about showing sensitivity to the feelings of today’s white students, when they aren’t doing the same for students whose skin is brown. She called the law an “old playbook.”

“Four hundred years ago, whites outlawed reading & writing for Blacks,” Martin said.

But Kristen Metzinger said she welcomed the law to shield students from teaching that she said “shames children based on their skin color.”

“I lived in California and fled due to the horrible living conditions and the liberal and progressives that are destroying schools and our children’s lives. I can’t believe that it is taking shape in Tennessee,” wrote Metzinger, who did not identify where she currently lives.

Michael Spain, who works at a middle school in Gibson County, worried about any teaching that appears to frame all lessons through the lens of race. “It deepens divisions,” he wrote, “and thus keeps us from true racial reconciliation.”

What can teachers teach?

Commenters for and against the law complained the prohibited concepts are vague.

Since the law prohibits discussing that “this state or the United States is fundamentally … racist or sexist,” does it also bar teaching that some of the nation’s founding fathers espoused racist views or owned slaves? asked Heidy Weinberg, who heads the American Civil Liberties Union in Tennessee, which opposed the law.

“This law does not clarify what teachers can and cannot teach,” wrote Weinberg, who worried the lack of clarity will “dissuade a wide range of instruction in the classroom.”

Jeanne Haddock, a former teacher from Knoxville, suggested the state ban classroom use of The New York Times’ 1619 Project, which she called “despicable, divisive, and untrue.” The collection of articles and essays argues that the foundations of America’s history includes the legacy of slavery and contributions of Black Americans.

A group of demonstrators in Memphis in 2020 protest the recent deaths of Black Americans by police.

Beverly Bond, who teaches history at the University of Memphis and taught public school in Germantown for 11 years, said it would be impossible to teach American history without talking about race, gender, and ethnicity. She called the proposed guidelines “ahistorical and frankly ridiculous.”

“Teaching about race and racism does not weaken or confuse students; it does not embarrass or humiliate them,” Bond wrote. “Tennessee teachers are professionals who know their subjects and are sensitive to the feelings and needs of their students.”

Punishment and penalties

Under the state’s proposed plan, school systems found guilty of knowingly violating the law could lose $1 million, or 2% of annual state funds, whichever is less. Repeat offenders could forfeit the lesser of $5 million or 10% of funds.

But numerous commenters called those penalties excessive.

“At this critically important time, when schools are being asked to meet the social-emotional needs of students through the COVID pandemic and striving to address learning loss amid unprecedented demands on public education, it is not the time to place additional financial burdens on overworked, underfunded systems of education,” wrote Joseph Gutierrez on behalf of the Maddox Foundation.

The Nashville-based foundation also challenged the proposed penalties to revoke or suspend teacher licenses during a time when schools are already short-staffed.

“The punitive measures recommended by the Department of Education create a fear-based environment for teachers … and steal the joy that teachers find in seeing students thinking critically about complex subjects,” Gutierrez wrote.

Crystal Colter, whose daughter attends Maryville City Schools, said she fears for her daughter’s teachers. Politicized accusations are likely, she said, which would create a toxic environment.

“I do not want our hardworking teachers to be distracted or distressed about having a target on their backs regarding what they are teaching,” Colter wrote.

Several comments came from Tennessee lawmakers who were instrumental in the law’s passage.

Rep. Scott Cepicky, a Republican from Maury County, suggested the department remove any dollar amounts from the proposed penalties and stick with percentages of state funding. “The larger districts who may challenge the legislation would be able to afford the fines,” wrote Cepicky, referring to school systems in Memphis and Nashville.

Most of the groups weighing in opposed the law. They included the Tennessee Education Association, the Education Trust in Tennessee, the YWCA, the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga, and the Student Press Law Center.

A coalition representing Tennessee libraries called the law “an act of censorship” that is contrary to the democratic ideal of free access to information.

For all of the hubbub, Nashvillian Stephen Bryant questioned why. He noted that the academic framework of critical race theory is mostly used in higher education — not K-12 schools — to explore how race and racism influence American law, culture, business, and politics.

“My main concern is the distrust of public schools and school teachers that this law and these guidelines foster, without warrant,” wrote Bryant, a retired United Methodist leader. “The publicity around this matter calls great attention to a problem that does not exist.”

More Black male teachers needed, says speaker at Memphis Education Fund conference

2021-09-17T23:12:09+00:00

When Diarese George reflects on the six years he spent as a teacher in the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System, he recalls a yearly event that was particularly frustrating: Recommendation Day, when teachers advised students on classes they should take the next school year.

Time and time again, George recalled, teachers pushed white, affluent students to take Advanced Placement or dual enrollment courses, while students of color and those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds — who didn’t have the highest GPAs but needed the opportunities most — were continually overlooked.

George intervened in the inequitable practice, creating his own dual enrollment course for the students who may have been overlooked. Dual enrollment classes allow students to earn college credit in high school.

George shared this story about the importance of Black male educators who disrupt the status quo at the Memphis Education Fund’s fall conference, titled “Eradicating the Odds in Education: The Intersection of Racial Justice, Pedagogy, and Emotional Wellness.”

The event, held virtually Wednesday and Thursday, drew about 250 local educators and advocates, as well as nationally-renowned education experts like Dena Simmons, Goldy Muhammad, and Bettina Love, who spoke on topics ranging from racial justice in schools and culturally responsive teaching to social-emotional learning and the need for more Black male teachers.

Although students of color represent more than half of the United States’ student population and research shows Black students benefit greatly if they have even one Black teacher, a 2016 study found only 7% of the teacher workforce is Black, and Black men in particular comprise 2% of the national teacher workforce.

Like many of his students in Clarksville-Montgomery, he knew what it was like to be overlooked by his mostly white teachers. As the only Black educator at the time, he also knew the positive impact even one college preparatory course could have on students of color who maybe weren’t considering post-secondary education.

So, George adopted a different practice when recommending students for his dual enrollment class. He invited students based on their potential — both in the class and in the future — rather than their merit, allowing him to “level the playing field.”

“The people close to the problem have to be centered in finding solutions,” said George, who went on to launch the Tennessee Educators of Color Alliance and now serves as the organization’s executive director. “We’ve got to listen and learn from people who have the lived experiences and the institutional knowledge and capacity to be able to drive change forward.”

As it turned out, George’s idea worked: Over time, an increasing number of his students who weren’t previously considering college or other post-secondary education options changed their minds.

The benefits of Black male educators aren’t just academic, though. To Patrick Washington, founder and CEO of ManUp, a Memphis teacher preparation program that aims to help recruit and retain more men of color to the field, it’s much more than that.

Because they’re better able to relate to one another, Washington said, Black male teachers can forge relationships with Black boys in a way others can’t, and they can work together to make school work for them both.

That’s why Shelby County Schools partners with organizations like ManUp and the Tennessee Educators of Color Alliance, said Michael Lowe, district director of equity and access.

As of 2019, Black men made up about 12% of Shelby County Schools’ teacher workforce. Although that’s six times more than the national average, district leaders say it’s not enough when Black boys represent about 38% of the school population.

“We know that it’s important to not only have windows but mirrors in our schools,” Lowe said, explaining that students need to see both reflections of themselves in the classrooms and views of new cultures and identities.

Terence Patterson, president and CEO of the Memphis Education Fund, said the organization decided to hone in on the dearth of men of color in the classroom and other education equity issues in light of the ongoing pandemic, which continues to devastate children academically, socially, and emotionally — especially children of color and those who are economically disadvantaged.

“Certainly no one is happy with the recent test score data that we’ve seen,” Patterson said. “But from our standpoint, if we’re able to provide a platform for people to talk about the aspects of pedagogy that could even in a small way improve how our students, primarily Black and brown students here in Memphis, are getting access to curriculum and learning and improving, I think we’ve done a good job.”

COVID devastated many Latino families. During Hispanic Heritage Month, tell us how your school community has supported you.

2021-09-15T21:27:43+00:00

Leer en español.

Sept. 15 marks the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month — and it comes as schools across America settle into a new academic year after nearly two years of chaotic pandemic learning.

This year’s month of celebration — chosen by Congress to begin mid-month to honor national independence days in several Latin American countries — comes after a season of great loss among Hispanics and Latinos populations across the nation, who have made up a significant portion of deaths from COVID-19. The virus is now responsible for 1 of every 5 deaths among Hispanics, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by The Washington Post.

The pandemic exacerbated existing inequities for Hispanic and Latino students — widening education gaps and spurring drops in college enrollment. Students who are immigrants and English language learners, many coming from Spanish-speaking countries, faced even greater barriers to thriving at school.

Chalkbeat wants to hear from Hispanic/Latino students and teachers about what the last year was like for them, and what they hope happens as schools return en masse to in-person learning. We also want to share stories of the celebration of heritage and culture — to hear more about how you think of your identity, how you honor it, and what you wish others knew. We want to experience your artwork and poetry, and listen to your original music.

Tell us: What do you think Hispanic/Latino students need from their school leaders and communities this school year to be healthy and successful? What do you wish others knew about what it’s like to be young and Hispanic/Latino at this moment in history?

We look forward to your submissions in the callout below; the deadline is 11:59 ET Oct. 1. Questions? We’re always listening at community@chalkbeat.org. Having trouble viewing on mobile? Go here.

After a rise in hate crimes, some Asian New Yorkers are nervous about returning to school

2021-08-27T19:26:35+00:00

It’s not just the delta variant that makes Zhenghao Lin, a Chinese immigrant, nervous about returning to school next month.

Zhenghao, a rising senior at Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn, said he has been subjected to racist comments at school since he arrived in New York City as a fourth grader. His anxiousness about interacting with non-Asian peers only grew over the course of the pandemic.

“After what I’ve seen on social media and about the Asian American hate crimes in New York City, I do not feel safe going back to school physically,” Zhenghao said. “I may have to deal with the occasional bat-eater comment or, ‘You guys started it’ comment, or any of those microaggressions. If I go on the bus or take the subway, I might have to deal with those comments, too.”

After a rise in hate crimes against Asians in the spring, advocates have heard similar concerns from Asian American families and students about commuting from afar to school and what they may have to endure inside of the classroom when school buildings reopen Sept. 13. For some students, that anxious feeling is compounded by years of microaggressions — subtle, intentional or unintentional actions or statements about a marginalized group — or racist comments they’ve experienced in and outside of school.

In New York City this year, confirmed hate crimes against Asians jumped from four cases in February to 34 the following month, with just over half of those involving assault charges, according to the New York Police Department. The number of incidents has declined since the spring but remains higher than the same period last year.

Cases first spiked the same month when six women of Asian descent were killed in Atlanta, which cast a new spotlight on violence and racism against Asian Americans across the nation. Some violent crimes in New York City were caught on video and circulated on social media, heightening fear among members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.

Kaveri Sengupta, education policy coordinator with Coalition for Asian American Children and Families, or CACF, said families have shared fears that range from potential hate crimes to microaggressions at school, adding to the nervousness of returning to in-person school for the first time in 18 months.

Sengupta’s coalition has heard from students in high-performing schools with large Asian-American populations who say that their administrators don’t really talk to students about their mental health needs. That can perpetuate the “model minority” myth — that all Asian Americans are high achievers — and ignores these students’ diverse needs that reach beyond academics, she said.

“That whole thing is swept under the rug because the outcomes are good, but what is that actually doing for students’ sense of self, confidence, all of those things?” Sengupta said.

Karen Zhang, 17, decided to stick with remote learning last school year largely because she and her family were worried about her picking up the virus on her 90-minute commute from her Flushing home.

Learning from home became taxing on Karen’s concentration, so she considered returning to Stuyvesant in the spring, when the city offered students another chance to opt into in-person learning. But that’s right when hate crimes were rising against Asian Americans in New York and gaining a resurgence of media attention. Even if her dad dropped her off on his way to work, she would have to wait for an hour outside of the school before the doors opened.

“I decided not to go because it didn’t feel safe physically, but also in terms of health, as well,” Karen said.

Karen said she’s never been physically harmed because of her race but has dealt with many microaggressions, especially in middle school on the Upper West Side, where the Asian student population was small. She recalls her peers making faces when they smelled the dumplings she would eat for lunch. Classmates would ask her to do origami for them even though she didn’t know how. She didn’t realize she was being stereotyped until recently. One of the best things schools could do to make nervous students feel better is to prioritize education about what anti-Asian harassment and microaggressions look like, Karen said.

“Education is a huge, huge, huge thing when it comes to addressing anti-Asian violence,” she said. “A lot of the hate crimes happened because people don’t see Asian Americans as Americans — just seen as a perpetual foreigner.”

Zhenghao Lin is a youth leader with Coalition of Asian American Children and Families.

When he first moved to the United States, Zhenghao said he would make fun of himself in order to make others laugh and earn their acceptance, but sometimes in response his peers called him a “dumb Asian.” His freshman year of high school, some students in his gym class would block Zhenghao and his Asian friends from serving when they played volleyball. They were often cut in line at lunch, and once, a student barred Zhenghao from entering the boys locker room, saying, “Look at this Chinese n - - - -,” referring to a slur for Black people.

In the weeks before schools closed, Zhenghao and his friends were exiting the locker room when another student said, “Holy crap they all look the same.” He wasn’t sure if that was directed at his group, but “there were indeed a lot of Chinese-looking people out in the locker room,” Zhenghao said.

Zhenghao chose a fully remote schedule last school year in part because of virus concerns, but also because he continued to see anti-Asian posts on social media, such as Instagram. Those posts, coupled with the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes in the spring, made him question his identity.

“I was very depressed because I was like, why did I have to be born as a Chinese person? Why can’t I be like someone else, like a Latinx American or a white American, because like, people would say things about me just because of something I didn’t choose, which was being Chinese,” he said.

Now faced with a full return to school next month for the first time since March 2020, Zhenghao doesn’t know what would ease his nerves, though he has sought out therapy. His fear of commuting has dampened as he’s taken more trains and buses to and from his downtown Brooklyn apartment — but he does recall a man on a train moving to a seat far away from Zhenghao and his mother as they walked in.

When videos circulated of Asian people getting beaten up on the subway, 17-year-old Jenny Liu’s parents became even more apprehensive about her leaving their apartment in Ocean Hill.

Jenny, who is Chinese American, didn’t realize it right away, but she noticed that she wouldn’t look at her phone or read a book while taking a train this summer to her research internship and volleyball practice. Jenny is often the only Asian person in her train car for nine to 10 stops. She hasn’t experienced any violence on public transit before, but she’s felt uncomfortable: Two separate times, a fellow passenger got up and moved away from her as she took a seat nearby.

Jenny Liu

Taking the subway this summer has helped to ease her nerves for the commute this fall to Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan. After learning remotely since March 2020, Jenny is looking forward to seeing her friends, playing volleyball, and having a more normal senior year.

“That familiarity with taking the train more — still wearing the mask, of course — is a good thing, and that’s preparing me going back to the school year,” Jenny said.

Dina Yang, a 17-year-old rising senior at School of the Future in Chinatown, was with a group of her Asian American friends at lunchtime right before schools closed last year, when a student walked past and said, “I hope you don’t have COVID,” while laughing. Just before masks were required on public transit, Dina was boarding a subway train when a woman standing near the door pulled her shirt over her face. Around February, a man pulled down his mask and yelled “China” at Dina and her mother as they walked through Koreatown.

Virus concerns kept Dina, who lives in the Bronx, learning exclusively from home last school year, but her family felt more confident in that decision when they saw reports of rising anti-Asian hate crimes in the spring. She typically travels about 50 minutes to school, and her family considered it a risk for her to travel on her own.

But like some of her peers, Dina is feeling more comfortable with the idea of commuting after using the train this summer to get to work about an hour away without incident, she said.

“I realized nothing really happened to me this summer,” she said. “But it’s still on my mind that it would be a possibility.”

Dina Yang

In a statement, education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer said schools play a key role “in educating students about how the diversity of our differences makes us stronger,” and the department works with teachers and school safety officers “to make sure students are physically and emotionally safe during this time.”

In response to the spike in hate crimes, the school safety division identified schools with predominantly Asian American and Pacific Islander students and created “safe corridors,” where police presence is increased between transportation hubs, such as subway stops, and the school. Those will be in place beginning the first day of school.

On top of normal requirements for reporting bullying, the education department created an online portal where parents can file bullying complaints.

Sengupta, with CACF, said her organization wants more data on how many bilingual counselors exist in city schools and what languages they speak, noting that sometimes students feel most comfortable approaching someone for help when that person looks like them or speaks their native language. The education department is planning to hire a full-time social worker for every school building without one or without access to a school-based mental health clinic. But Sengupta wants schools to be more intentional about who they hire.

The organization also wants the education department to conduct targeted outreach to families that alerts them about signs of potential mental health problems so that they know when and where to go for help for their children. For many Asian American families, mental health support can be considered a “western solution, in some ways, to a western problem,” Sengupta said.

The end goal is to ensure that this year “every student, every family” has a “trusted adult in the school building” who they can talk to about things beyond academics, Sengupta said.

Dina, the student from School of the Future, said she often felt mentally drained by remote learning, but teachers never reached out to check on her. She felt that was because she gets good grades. Her advice to teachers: “Check in on your students, often.”

Amanda Chen, a rising senior at School of the Future and a classmate of Dina’s, experienced a rash of anti-Asian, coronavirus-related harassment at school right before the pandemic shuttered buildings. Chen, who lives in Chinatown, is more concerned about encountering racism in school than other public places, since she’s used the train often this summer, but she feels more comfortable knowing she has supportive adults at school.

“If the racism happens at school and it’s targeted against me, I would feel more comfortable reaching out to the authority, the principal or the teachers who I feel comfortable talking with,” Amanda said.

Some Philadelphia teachers stand firm on teaching about race

2021-08-26T23:21:46+00:00

As Philadelphia prepares to go back to school, some teachers are thinking about how they will cover history amid a political battle about teaching race and racism in schools.

Some teachers also say they are recommitting to culturally relevant teaching.

In Pennsylvania, two Republican lawmakers proposed legislation this summer that would constrain how race and racism is taught in public schools. House Bill 1532, sponsored by state Reps. Russ Diamond and Barb Gleim, is one of dozens of bills put forward by conservatives nationwide to limit education about racism, bias, or certain ethnic groups in American history.

Many of these efforts have been framed around banning critical race theory, an academic framework for examining how laws and institutions perpetuate systemic racism. Most K-12 schools don’t teach CRT, but the term has become a catchall among those who want to limit how schools teach about America’s legacy of slavery and segregation.

A local coalition, which opposes the proposed anti-critical race theory legislation, wants the School District of Philadelphia and the city’s Board of Education to take a stand. Although the district doesn’t teach CRT, it is the only one in the state that requires students to take an African American history course to graduate.

Adam Sanchez, who teaches social studies at Central High School, said “We want the board to say that regardless of what happens in the legislature, we’re going to continue to encourage our teachers to teach about racism and teach about the truth and the past of this country.”

Nicholaus Bernardini, a history teacher at Fels High School and a member of the Racial Justice Organizing Committee, said CRT could be a “tool in the box of an educator who wishes to challenge our students to question traditional narratives, analyze our past and think independently about how to create positive change in our future.”

“Viewing our history through the lens of CRT is uncomfortable because it forces (white) people to grapple with inconvenient truths and face uncomfortable histories. It forces those who utilize it to evaluate our stories, events and historical heroes with a more critical eye, allowing them to become more humanized and less god-like.”

In a statement sent to Chalkbeat, school board President Joyce Wilkerson said through the goals and guardrails initiative, the board centers its work through the lens of racial equity to empower all students to achieve success.

“We want to become a more equitable organization, supporting all of our students and staff, beginning with the most marginalized in our school community,” Wilkerson said. “Arguing about critical race theory is a distraction from this fundamental and difficult work.”

District officials said while the district does not teach through the lens of critical race theory, it has “taken a stand to acknowledge and dismantle systems of racial inequity.”

Sanchez said he’s encouraged by the steps the school board and the district are taking.

“These statements — and the board’s recent endorsement of the Black Lives Matter Week of Action — show a genuine effort to try and reckon with the historic inequities that still plague our schools and our city,” he said.

Sanchez encouraged the school board to endorse the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Truth Days of Action saying “this would send a clear message to Harrisburg that Philadelphia schools stand united in our commitment to analyze and challenge racism inside and outside the classroom.”

Bernardini said he’s encouraged by the spirit of the district’s statement, but concerned by the dismissal of critical race theory by Wilkerson.

“The district’s reluctance to support the use of critical race theory as a form of classroom analysis gives me pause because their responsibility should be to embrace discourse and analysis, not to be afraid of it,” Bernardini said. “The goals the district outlined are only goals because of the systemic racial inequities that have existed generationally in the city of Philadelphia especially and the United States as a whole.”

Organizers have planned a rally at the People Plaza near the President’s House off Market Street at 5 p.m. Friday. Rain is expected in the forecast Friday and organizers will decide at 1 p.m. whether to proceed.

“We chose the President’s House for the rally for the simple fact that there is a story of enslaved individuals who live there and also ran away from there,” said Tamara Anderson, who is one of the organizers with Black Lives Matter Week of Action Philly. “We always talk about how enslaved individuals built the White House that we now know in D.C. But it has a legacy even in a place like Pennsylvania where the Gradual Abolition Act was passed in 1780 and enslavement was still very active.”

Students from a mix of district and charter schools told Chalkbeat they are not opposed to race and racism being taught in school.

Naveah Sullivan, a freshman at Central High School said “I was taught maybe in fourth or fifth grade that Africans used to sell their own people to the Americans, but they didn’t tell the full story of it. They didn’t tell the story of European slavery.”

Jemille Duncan, a senior at Philadelphia’s Multicultural Academy Charter School, said he would encourage teachers to not be political when they are teaching current events. “Inform and not push their own thoughts on race onto students, because their job is to educate not to tell students what to think.”

Kara Butler, a senior at Lankenau High School, said “The country was literally built on slave labor. It would not make sense to delete that from the history books. I don’t see how you can avoid talking about that. When you have people trying to put those laws into place you have to sort of question what is your reasoning behind that? Why is this such a taboo thing for you — for people to know the full history of the United States?”

Elle Zdancewic, a junior at Masterman, thinks race and racism should be taught in the classroom. “If it’s not, it’s not like it just goes away. The impact that racism has had is just nullified. It’s kind of like them saying, ‘I don’t see color’ and then that fixes everything.”

It’s time for teachers — and textbooks — to capitalize the “B” in Black

2021-08-03T12:00:00+00:00

As teacher educators and historians who study American education, we know that how and what we teach students about race has been controversial and contested for centuries. Progress is frustratingly slow, and the forces of retrenchment and reaction are always present. Yet some victories, even seemingly small ones, can be meaningful and build momentum for broader change. With that in mind, we feel it’s time for teachers and textbook makers to capitalize the “B” in Black and teach the 143-year (and counting) struggle behind it.

The rationale for “Black” when referring to the racial group is as simple as it is compelling. It recognizes the distinct and vital roles that people of African descent have played in American society. In author Lori Tharp’s words, using the lowercase “b” is “in effect deleting the history and contributions of my people.”

Michael Hines, left, and Charles Tocci

For educators, teaching the foundational place of Black history in the history of the United States is essential, as is teaching about the evolving nature of our everyday language. Capitalizing Black opens opportunities to engage with Black history and learn valuable lessons about how social change is made.

The movement to capitalize is not new. In 1878, just after Reconstruction, Ferdinand Lee Barnett wrote the article “Spell It with a Capital” in his newly established newspaper, The Chicago Conservator. Barnett, who would later marry the American investigative journalist Ida B. Wells, was referring to “Negro,” the prevailing term of the time that has long been spelled in the lowercase. In the same vein, Edward A. Johnson noted in his groundbreaking 1894 textbook, “A School History of the Negro Race in America, from 1619 to 1890,” “I respectfully request that my fellow-teachers will see to it that the word Negro is written with a capital N. It deserves to be so enlarged, and will help, perhaps, to magnify the race it stands for in the minds of those who see it.”

W.E.B. DuBois followed this lead in his first book, “The Philadelphia Negro,” staking his argument for the capital “N” in a first-page footnote: “I shall throughout this study use the term “Negro,” to designate all people of Negro descent … I shall, moreover, capitalize the word, because I believe that eight million Americans are entitled to a capital letter.” DuBois would go on to co-found the NAACP and, through his personal correspondence as well as the organization’s decades-long letter-writing campaign, lobby publications like the New York Times and the New Republic to standardize “Negro.” By the 1950s, concerted pressure had made this common usage.

The 1960s was an era of changing racial consciousness, and the terms “Negro” and “black” overlapped in the popular discourse. Dr. Martin Luther King used both in 1963’s “I Have a Dream” speech, but as the decade moved on, “black” and “Black” typically indicated a more activist and change-oriented mindset as well as a way of proactively redefining racial solidarity. The matter of capitalization varied, though. Kwame Toure, known previously as Stokely Carmichael, popularized the phrase “black power” and used the lowercase throughout his book of the same name. Conversely, the Black Panthers’ “10 Point Program” used the capitalized phrase “Black People.”

Among student activism movements of the time, there is similar variation, but many already regularly employed the capital “B.” The University of North Carolina’s Black Student Movement and San Francisco State’s Third World Liberation Front both capitalized the B in 1968. The Black Student Federation, a high school student movement that led an anti-segregation walk out of Boston Public Schools in 1971, also used the capital B.

While the fight for capitalization has stretched well over a century, our schools and the major textbook publishers have been slow to adapt. All of the three largest companies’ most recent high school-level American history survey texts use “black”: McGraw-Hill’s “Unfinished Nation,” Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s “American History,” and Pearson’s “The American Journey.” “The American Yawp,” a popular scholarly, free, online textbook, just revised its text to “Black” last fall.

So when we capitalize Black in our classrooms, by editing our textbooks and updating our handouts, we join a long tradition of educators, intellectuals, and activists who have evolved our language in order to change our world. And when we teach our students why we have made this change, we demonstrate how Black history has shaped our lives and invite students to inquire further.

As we make this shift, we need to use Black and other race identifiers as adjectives, not nouns. We should also strive to be as specific as possible, noting nationalities, ethnicities, and other identities particular to the people being studied for accuracy and to resist stereotyping. For instance, “Asian” is a category that covers over four billion people, so indicating precisely that we mean Koreans or the Uyghurs of China or Kurds spread across several countries is important. Finally, it is vital to acknowledge that all peoples are racialized, and we should also capitalize the “W” in White so that we don’t implicitly make White people the default or the aspirational “people without a race.”

Capitalizing the “B” in Black isn’t just a typeface change in our classrooms. It is a milestone within a long historical struggle for oppressed people to self-define and assert their humanity in the face of racism. And when our students engage with this past, we invite them to take part in its future. Our young people must learn that how we refer to ourselves — our racial identities, our pronouns, and beyond — is powerful; it is an act of self-naming in the pursuit of freedom. As the historian Nell Irvin Painter so eloquently put it, “Spelling may not change the world, but it signals willingness to try.”

Charles Tocci is an assistant professor of education at Loyola University Chicago and co-author of “The Curriculum Foundations Reader.”

Michael Hines is an assistant professor of education at the Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, and author of the forthcoming book, “A Worthy Piece of Work: The Untold Story of Madeline Morgan and the Fight for Black History in Schools” from Beacon Press.

Pennsylvania court to allow some evidence of racial disparities in landmark school funding case

2021-07-29T21:34:18+00:00

With the trial date looming for a landmark school funding case in Pennsylvania, a Commonwealth Court judge ruled Wednesday that attorneys can present some evidence that disparate funding for school districts across the state has a negative impact on Black and Latino students.

Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer will allow fair funding attorneys to present information on racial disparities in the education system, including achievement gaps and variations in graduation rates, but not “background evidence” on housing and employment discrimination or rates of incarceration, saying it’s not necessary for the case.

The decision comes in response to Republican legislative leaders, Senate President Jake Corman and Speaker Bryan Cutler, whose attorneys argued in a July 7 hearing that evidence of racial disparities in this case is not relevant because the plaintiffs are not claiming the state intentionally discriminates against students of color.

A spokesperson for Cutler said after the ruling that “because the petitioners did not plead a racial argument initially, they are not in a position now to base arguments around racial discrimination.”

Six school districts, along with many parents and education advocacy groups, filed suit in 2014 against Pennsylvania, alleging that the state’s school funding procedures violate its state constitutional mandate to ensure a “thorough and efficient” system of education for students from all socioeconomic statuses. Currently, a large part of school funding in Pennsylvania comes from local taxes, leading to significant funding gaps between high- and low-income districts.

Jubelirer spelled out several reasons why presenting evidence of racial disparities could be relevant to the case. A trial is scheduled to begin in September.

Both sides conceded at the hearing that data on educational outcomes broken down by race or ethnicity could be presented at the trial, meaning it “must not be irrelevant,” Jubelirer said.

Courts in other states have also considered racial disparities in achievement when presiding over school funding cases, Jubelirer said. She cited cases in New York and Kansas, where courts considered evidence that Black and Latino students had lower standardized test scores and graduation rates. Those data points, she said, are similar to fair funding attorneys’ claims that students of color in Pennsylvania are “more likely to be served by unqualified,

inexperienced, or out-of-field teachers, principals, and support staff.”

Black and Latino students are roughly 25% of Pennsylvania’s K-12 population, but the plaintiffs said half of Black students and 40% of Latino students attend school in the poorest 20% of the state’s districts.

Jubelirer also emphasized that the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a plaintiff in this case.

“Given the NAACP-PA’s party status and stated interest in ensuring equality in education for its members and children...it is not unreasonable that evidence related to the effect on minority students may be introduced,” she said.

NAACP-PA president Kenneth Huston said the organization is pleased with the court for making a decision “we thought was obvious.”

“The NAACP will not rest until every child, of every race and ethnicity is able to access the education they deserve,” Huston said. “Pennsylvania’s educational system as it currently exists must be transformed into one that provides equal opportunity for all.”

There have been several delays in the case, including attempts by legislators to have the case dismissed. Many fair funding cases in Pennsylvania have been introduced in the last 30 years, but so far no other case has made it this far.

“We are grateful that the Commonwealth Court agreed with us,” said attorney Claudia De Palma, who argued on behalf of fair funding advocates. “The existence of these longstanding racial inequities, and the General Assembly’s insistence on ignoring their effects, is relevant to establishing that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is irrational and unconstitutional.”

Pennsylvania districts should use federal stimulus to improve teacher racial diversity, educators say

2021-07-20T22:15:07+00:00

A coalition of educators and advocates urged school districts across Pennsylvania on Tuesday to use federal stimulus money on initiatives to boost racial diversity among the state’s teaching ranks.

Coalition member Sharif El-Mekki, founder of the Center for Black Educator Development in Philadelphia, recently began a national campaign to improve the number of Black teachers after finding only 2% of U.S. teachers are Black men.

“All students benefit from increased teacher diversity,” El-Mekki said Tuesday during the group’s virtual news conference, sponsored by the ESSA Leadership Learning Community, or ELLC. “They are better prepared to participate as informed and engaged citizens in an inclusive national civic culture and increasingly complex world. Pennsylvania’s teacher pipeline begins at the K-12 level and extends through college, certification, and entrance into the teacher profession. The pipeline ends at teacher retention. We must examine all levels of Pennsylvania’s teacher pipeline as it loses teachers of color at each stage.”

The host of Tuesday’s virtual event, Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh President and CEO Esther Bush, said the Pennsylvania coalition seeks more funding in three areas: building lasting and equitable systems of teaching and learning; safely reopening schools for all students; and addressing pre- and post-pandemic unfinished learning.

Bush noted that 184 school districts in Pennsylvania have no teachers of color.

According to the group, Pennsylvania has one of the highest disparities in the nation between students and teachers of color. For almost a decade, the percentage of teachers of color has been below 6% while the percentage of students of color has increased from approximately 30% to 36%. Also, male teachers of color comprise only slightly more than 1% of Pennsylvania teachers.

School District of Philadelphia Chief Talent Officer Larisa Shambaugh and Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Anthony Hamlet said their districts are committed to using American Rescue Plan funds to continue to build programs and partnerships to prepare more diverse students to enter the teaching profession.

In March, Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite announced plans to spend nearly $1.3 billion from the relief money on building repairs and upgrades, academic recovery programs, and programs and personnel to help students deal with trauma resulting from the pandemic. He called the money “unprecedented,” but cautioned that the district is limited in what it can do with the funds, which will run out in three years.

When the district later announced that it was seeking to recruit up to 900 teachers, school officials said they would like to see their teacher workforce mirror the district’s student demographics. More than 70% of the district’s students are Black and Latino, yet district teachers are predominantly white. Black teachers make up 24.5% of the district’s 9,100 teachers, while white teachers make up 67% of the teacher population, according to data on the district’s website.

Studies show that having culturally relevant educators improves scholastic outcomes for all demographic groups while also alleviating teacher shortages. But leaders who spoke at Tuesday’s news conference said targeted funding is critical for that to happen.

“The American Rescue Plan for Education offers an incredible opportunity for schools and districts to invest in education diversity efforts as school leaders can use these funds to recruit and hire educators of color and mentor students of color as they consider becoming educators,” said Pennsylvania Deputy Secretary of Higher Education Tanya Garcia. “The Pennsylvania Department of Education is working with educators and partners across the commonwealth to support this work and the development of competencies needed to provide culturally relevant and sustaining instruction.”

Cheyney University, a historically Black university in Delaware County, is partnering with PDE and Community College of Philadelphia under a statewide initiative called Aspire to Educate. In Cheyney’s version, students can attend community college for two years and then transfer to Cheyney for their final two years to earn their degree.

“The idea is to get teachers of color back into the pipeline,” said Cheyney President Aaron A. Walton. “We are also attracting people who left college before graduation and may want to come back and switch to a teaching career. In both cases, we are reestablishing the pipeline. These partnerships among educational institutions make this program work.”

Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and Teacher Educators (PACTE) President Gwen Price cited programs at Temple, LaSalle, Edinboro and Slippery Rock Universities that have formed teacher development partnerships, including dual enrollment programs, with area school districts.

“We must find ways to recruit candidates that are representative of a student population that will endeavor to serve,” Price said. “The recruitment must start early, defining the pivotal role that educators play in the development of young minds, redefining the perception of public education as a career, finding financial incentives and support to make the pathway to becoming a teacher more enticing and removing the barriers known to disproportionately keep underrepresented groups from entering the field.”

All of the speakers at Tuesday’s virtual event are members of the Pennsylvania Educator Diversity Consortium. Speakers represented the following agencies and organizations: Pennsylvania Department of Education, Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh, Center for Black Educator Development, School District of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, and the Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and Teacher Educators.

“We need to take seriously the implications of our diverse students never seeing a teacher who looks like them in their schooling experience,” said Valerie Kinloch, the Renee and Richard Goldman Dean at the University of Pittsburgh. “We can’t take for granted that because you are a person of color means that you are innately culturally responsive, and since our white teachers are in the majority, we need to ensure that they have the tools they need to educate students of color and white students for a diverse world.”

We need to meet the needs of Black civics students like me

2021-07-19T20:27:17+00:00

At the beginning of my freshman year of high school, I witnessed Donald Trump’s ascent to our country’s highest office. For me, it cast a dark and confusing pall over 2016. I had planned to use my education to fight for racial justice. But seeing tens of millions of Americans enthusiastically embrace a presidential candidate who showed no interest in ensuring people who looked like me were treated equally made that plan seem futile.

But as I continued through my high school career, I discovered that my civics classes — like U.S. History, U.S. Government, Comparative Politics, African American History, and Law —reaffirmed my original instincts. Those classes showed me how, even as a young person, I could use political strategies like protesting, writing letters to my elected representatives, volunteering with community organizations, and engaging in get-out-the-vote efforts to address racial injustice.

Caleb Dunson

All Black students deserve the educational opportunities I had. For that to happen, educators need to consider and meaningfully address their Black students’ needs when it comes to learning civics. This is all the more important as states use legislative bans on critical race theory to limit how schools can teach about racism in America. (While most K-12 schools are not actually teaching critical race theory — an academic framework for looking at how laws and institutions perpetuate systemic racism — the term has become a catchall among those who want to block certain teachings about America’s legacy of slavery and segregation.)

Being attentive to the needs of Black civics students can provide the spark that starts a world-altering social movement. However, neglecting those needs may leave Black Americans ill-equipped to fully participate in politics, which robs our democracy of the diverse voices it needs to prosper. Throughout history, young people have consistently catalyzed some of our world’s most consequential social reforms, and we have young Black people to thank for much of America’s political progress. Claudette Colvin was 15 when she refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus. The Little Rock Nine were teenagers when they put the Brown v. Board of Education ruling into practice. Huey P. Newton was 24 when he founded the Black Panther Party. Marsha P. Johnson was in her 20s when participating in the Stonewall riots that sparked the gay rights movement. Stokely Carmichael (who later adopted the name Kwame Ture) was 25 when he ignited the Black Power movement. At 22, Diane Nash organized sit-ins in Nashville and became a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Today’s anti-racism movement is no different. Like many of my peers, I have been fighting for racial justice in various ways — from registering Black Chicagoans to vote to writing political commentary for my school newspaper. But unlike many of my peers, I have had access to a wealth of political opportunities through my civics classes. Simply taking the classes that I did was a privilege not widely available to other high school students; the opportunities those classes connected me with, such as studying politics and activism in South Africa and interning as a community organizer in my city, were even more selective. Imagine if we were to extend the opportunities I had to all Black students. Just think of the progress we could make.

But beyond its immediate effect, addressing the needs of Black civics students can change the face of our country for years to come. Currently, Black Americans are underrepresented at the highest levels of government and in local offices alike, but a civics education that accommodates the needs of Black students can help to change that. By teaching Black students about active citizenship and encouraging them to explore careers in politics and public service, we can empower students to take their civic knowledge from the classroom to the polls and the halls of government.

If it were not for my high school civics education, I would not be studying politics at Yale and pursuing a career in politics. And though representation does not equate to progressive change, engaging more Black Americans in our democratic process will create the very diversity of viewpoints that help American liberalism thrive.

But what does it mean to consider the needs of Black civics students?

It means connecting civics topics to relevant real-world issues with the goal of giving Black students practical, actionable knowledge. For example, a lesson on political institutions could prompt a discussion on how America’s governing bodies both uphold and challenge racism. A lesson on elections could focus on current voter suppression efforts or how to be an informed voter in the 21st century. And a lesson about political propaganda could teach students how to assess the credibility of information sources. Unfortunately, some see the act of equipping students with civics knowledge as partisan; as a result, many educators have avoided lessons like these. But Black students (and all students) stand to benefit from classes that teach them how to engage in our democracy.

It also means extending opportunities for political engagement to Black students. Internship programs with local elected officials or activist organizations can expose Black students to how politics works, reinforce the importance of their civics education and give them valuable professional experience. Politicians and political organizations could create internships and fellowships specifically targeting schools serving many Black students. Black civics leaders could develop mentorship programs for Black civics students interested in politics and advocacy. Schools could partner with municipalities to create civics internship programs and then ensure that Black students know about and have ample opportunity to participate.

Because of my civics education, I was able to overcome the feeling of hopelessness that marked the start of my high school career. Now, as a rising sophomore at Yale, I understand the political power I have, and I use it to advocate for justice at my school and in my community. I’m an example of what can happen when we work to meet the needs of Black civics students. It’s past time to invest in this work.

Caleb Dunson is a writer and rising sophomore at Yale.

A Bronx principal turned congressman unveils ambitious Green New Deal for nation’s schools

2021-07-15T21:19:12+00:00

New York City Democratic Congressman and former principal Jamaal Bowman returned to his public school roots in the Bronx on Thursday to unveil a pricey federal proposal that would help construct energy-efficient schools, hire more staff and create more culturally responsive curricula.

The $1.43 trillion package would create hundreds of billions of dollars in grants over 10 years that districts could use to do “green retrofits” of buildings — such as installing solar panels and getting rid of toxic substances — for the nation’s top third of highest-need schools, as measured by socioeconomic indicators. Other schools could also qualify for partial grants and low- or no-interest loans, according to a news release about the bill.

“Schools, as the heartbeat of our communities, can be the epicenter of clean, green, renewable sustainable energy, not only for themselves but for the extended, larger community,” Bowman, who aligns with a group of the most progressive federal Democratic lawmakers, told reporters outside of Sousa Junior High School in the Bronx.

Bowman’s package is meant to address “environmental justice, economic justice, and racial justice” by sending more resources to the highest needs schools, as well as teaching children about systemic problems. He said he wants students to understand the history of redlining, which blocked people of color from getting loans to buy property in certain neighborhoods, and why school buildings in low-income communities tend to be in more disrepair than those in more affluent neighborhoods.

Improving school buildings is a perennial issue, but it gained renewed attention during the pandemic when many districts scrambled to repair their ventilation systems as a way to protect against coronavirus transmission. In New York City, officials raced to fix faulty ventilation systems at buildings before they reopened for students this past year.

Recent research has found that upgrading school facilities results in better student performance.

Bowman is hoping that his proposal, dubbed the Green New Deal for Public Schools, will be included in a broader infrastructure plan as the White House negotiates a new budget. With 22 co-sponsors and a price tag exceeding $1 trillion, it is an ambitious measure introduced by the freshman congressman. Bowman, who was the founding principal of Cornerstone Academy for Social Action in the Bronx before he ran for public office, gave a shout out to his Bronx and Queens colleague, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who co-penned two years ago the Green New Deal, a resolution that maps out a larger plan to combat climate change.

Bowman noted long-standing building issues he experienced in his two decades as an educator and has heard about across the country, such as schools with non-operable or lead-laced drinking fountains and faulty ventilation or HVAC systems, as well as rodent-infested schools. He blamed those problems on “the historic neglect of resources that have not come from our federal government.”

New York City, which is home to the nation’s largest school system, has taken some steps to build greener school infrastructure, including a recent commitment toward a fully electric bus fleet by 2035. In February, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city would install solar panels on top of 47 public schools. The city’s roughly 1,600 schools that house nearly 1 million students contribute to one-third of the carbon emissions released by all city buildings, officials have said.

Bowman’s bill would allocate federal funds that would help the city do much more, according to Chancellor Meisha Porter.

“There’s no doubt that the new Green Deal for Public Schools will help New York City and districts across the country and will continue to ensure that New York City and New York City public schools chart the path forward for this nation to strengthen academics, build greener schools and combat climate change,” Porter said.

Major sections of the bill go beyond energy efficiency. Another $250 billion in block grants would go toward hiring more staff at high-need schools, which districts could use to hire and train more teachers, paraprofessionals, school psychologists, and counselors. This pot of money could also be used to design curriculum that’s “trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and restorative justice practices,” as well as to partner with community organizations who can offer more services to schools, such as after-school programming, according to a news release.

The city has taken some steps in this regard, as well. Officials recently announced a $200 million plan to bring culturally responsive English and math curriculum to all schools by the fall of 2023. (Schools would be required to use the curriculum unless they get a waiver to use existing courses of study.)

The largest chunk of Bowman’s bill — nearly $700 billion — would go toward boosting Title 1 funding, which goes toward schools with high shares of students in poverty, and toward services for students with disabilities.

The bill’s impact on saving energy could be significant for New York City, if passed, said Jeff Vockrodt, executive Director of Climate Jobs New York, a coalition of city labor unions advocating for more climate-friendly infrastructure. The city could save $70 million in energy costs annually if energy efficiency was improved by just 25% across all schools, according to a campaign the group launched to push for clean-energy schools. The organization recently wrote a letter highlighting their findings to New York’s federal leaders, urging them to build greener schools.

“Just here in New York City, we can have the impact of the equivalent of planting 400,000 trees — that impact on emissions,” Vockrodt said during Bowman’s press conference. “We can create thousands of good union jobs [and] we can address a lot of long-standing facilities issues in schools.”

This week brought a flurry of decisions around school police in Chicago. What to know

2021-07-15T17:01:40+00:00

After protests for racial justice last summer brought renewed urgency to student activists’ demands to end policing in schools, Chicago high schools faced a critical decision: Would they remove police officers from campus or maintain their force of school resource officers?

The district tossed the hot-button decision to Local School Councils — volunteer groups comprised of parents, teachers, and community representatives that govern individual schools — with a 20-page slide deck and little time to prepare.

Last year, 17 schools voted police out; about 55 voted to keep them. This spring, they once again had the chance to decide. Councils had until Wednesday to vote on a plan.

Here’s what we know so far:

What exactly were schools trying to decide?

Councils were weighing how many school resource officers, or in-school police, to retain on their campuses. This year, they could opt to keep all, some, or none of their officers. Last summer, schools that voted to cut SROs from their campuses lost district dollars that would have supported those officers. Now, they get to keep those funds. If they voted to reduce SRO presence, schools also needed to determine how to allocate their remaining safety budget. (Click here to read more about those alternatives.)

At last count in this round, at least 22 high schools voted to eliminate one or more officers, while at least 16 voted to keep them by this week’s deadline, according to votes compiled by Block Club Chicago and Chalkbeat.

Who’s making the decision?

LSCs have had a few months to consider safety plans informed by district recommendations. Schools without LSCs are making safety decisions based on community meetings with administration, staff, and parents.

The district’s recommendation process hinges on a “Whole School Safety” steering committee. That committee, made up of five community organizations, laid the framework for councils looking to replace police and offered guidelines schools could consult to design alternative safety programs. The group in March recommended methods for investing in student mental health and engaging with de-escalation strategies, among several other specific and actionable measures.

One of those measures is the implementation of holistic restorative justice, which involves peace rooms, peace circles, peer juries, and de-escalation training on an ongoing basis. Schools should train a staff member or bring in a community practitioner to support restorative justice efforts, according to the committee’s recommendation.

What happened the last time schools voted on police?

Although nearly a year of remote learning ultimately rendered the decision irrelevant, most schools voted last summer to keep SROs on campus.

Of the more than 70 schools with school resource officers on campus, 17 voted to remove SROs from schools. More than half of those schools were on the North side. Two were mostly Black. Here’s our tracker of the final tally.

More than two dozen voting schools last summer either couldn’t reach a quorum (at least 7 members of an LSC must be present to vote on a plan), had a non-functioning LSC (not enough active members), or didn’t have an LSC at all. Those schools voted on SROs after convening community meetings with parents and school leaders. Nearly all of those schools without functioning LSCs served primarily Black and Latino students from low-income families. All but three of those schools voted to keep SROs.

Why were the meetings last summer so controversial?

Many schools last summer also failed to conduct the meetings with transparency. Some councils voted to keep police without posting public meeting information online in advance, and others limited reporter access and public dialogue. Chicago Public Schools posted the results of last summer’s LSC votes on its website in August after pressure from local journalists, and recently posted a tracker for this year’s votes.

What about schools that don’t have LSCs?

About one-fifth of the district’s schools either didn’t have enough LSC members to vote on school safety plans, or they didn’t have an LSC at all last year, according to data obtained by parent advocacy group Raise Your Hand.

RYH executive director Jianan Shi noted more schools have functioning LSCs this year than last year, but a significant number of schools still don’t have quorum. Manley Career Academy High School, Al Raby School for Community and Environment — both in Garfield Park — and Englewood STEM High School are examples.

The district urged these schools to convene and poll “the school community” to reach a consensus about safety. However, these polls aren’t binding — the principal and network chief are responsible for making the final call.

For schools like Englewood STEM High School, the principal, network chief, and sergeant met with key community figures, such as members of the Englewood Community Action Council to develop a safety plan. This summer, Englewood STEM opted to reduce its SRO force by one officer.

Denise Dyer, a member of the Englewood CAC and a partner with Community Organizing and Family Issues, said she felt that parents and community members had a solid chance to make their voices heard leading up to the meeting. She doesn’t feel the same way about LSC meetings.

“If the principal wants to go one way, most of the time, the CPS staff on the LSC is going to vote whatever way the principal wants to vote,” Dyer said. “And how’s the principal gonna vote? Whatever CPS is pushing.”

What is the national conversation?

Civil rights groups are calling on the Biden administration to shrink the role of police in schools, asserting that punishments disproportionately targeting students of color violate students’ civil rights.

After Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd last summer, public schools in that city cut ties with the police department. Denver and Seattle school leadership took similar steps to phase officers out of classrooms. So did Los Angeles. Chicago’s school board held back from making a centralized call.

The federal government has been involved in school discipline conversations since 2014, when the Obama administration released guidance for reducing suspensions and expulsion. The Trump administration later revoked that guidance.

Now, with Biden’s department of education seeking public input on discipline policy, experts anticipate the administration could soon issue a policy change.

Philadelphia school renamed for Fanny Jackson Coppin, former enslaved woman and educator

2021-06-29T18:16:26+00:00

Editor’s note: This article has been edited to attribute phrasing previously published by Al Dia. It also was edited to properly attribute language that appeared verbatim on the Philadelphia school district website.

Many memorials, statues and buildings honoring past Confederate leaders and others who promoted or profited from slavery and racism have either been toppled or renamed across the country amid protests against racial inequality and injustice over the last year.

Four years ago, a group of community organizers in Philadelphia, led by Brian Kall, argued that Andrew Jackson Elementary School should not bear the name of the seventh U.S. president. Though he was not a Confederate and died before the Civil War, Jackson owned nearly a hundred enslaved Black people by the time he got in office. The school, which opened in 1924, is located at 1213 S. 12th St. and sits in a racially diverse area in South Philadelphia.

“Andrew Jackson has virtually no connection to Philadelphia, having only come to the city as a representative of Tennessee when Philadelphia was the nation’s capital,” Kall said in his petition for the name change. “There is no reason to continue honoring the legacy of this man when there are Philadelphians who more greatly deserve the recognition. He was a slave owner, and led multiple campaigns to purge America of its native inhabitants, both as a military leader and as president.”

Last week, the city’s Board of Education agreed and voted unanimously to rename the school after Fanny Jackson Coppin, a former enslaved woman turned educator with Philadelphia ties. The new name goes into effect Thursday.

“The School District of Philadelphia recognizes that school names are an important part of students’ learning environments and should cultivate a sense of pride in the history and traditions, to ensure that all students, staff, and families feel respected, seen, and heard,” the district said in a statement.

According to the district, the renaming came after several months of engagement with the Jackson Elementary School community, which included a series of surveys, focus groups and meetings. According to the district, more than 1,100 people responded to a survey about the school’s name in the spring. Coppin was the top name out of four options. This was the culmination of a five-phase naming process.

Coppin was born into slavery in Washington, D.C., in 1837, according to Al Dia.

After gaining her freedom as a child, Coppin moved to Rhode Island then eventually attended Oberlin college in Ohio, becoming only the second Black woman to graduate from there, Al Dia wrote. While at Oberlin, she organized evening classes for freedmen. She moved after graduation to Philadelphia, where she worked at a Quaker school called the Institute for Colored Youth. She became the school’s head principal, a title she kept until her 1902 retirement.

The Institute later moved to Deleware County and was renamed Cheyney University — the nation’s first higher education institution for Black people, according to Al Dia. In her later years, Coppin became a missionary, and her autiobiography, “Reminiscences of School Life,” was published in 1913. She died soon after, at age 76.

“Fanny Jackson Coppin dedicated her life to education, doing whatever was necessary to ensure that people from underserved communities and women had access to a high quality education,” said Jackson Elementary School Principal Kelly Espinosa. “She understood that education is the greatest tool in building a positive and productive life and this is a message that still rings true today.”

“The very principles that she fought to uphold nearly 200 years ago are ones that we instill in our students today and will continue to be what helps drive positive and lasting impact for generations to come,” Espinosa said. “This name is about recognizing the contributions of an educator whose work isn’t widely known, but it’s also about showing our students the impact they can have on the lives of others.”

Coppin is also the namesake of Coppin State University, an historically Black college in Baltimore, which was founded in 1900.

“As the fight for fairness and equality continues, my hope is that plans for renaming and other methods aimed to cure the many racial issues that we face are also accompanied by the work and resources necessary to move us forward, in a meaningful way,” Anthony Jenkins, president of Coppin State University, told Chalkbeat.

Linn Washington, a professor in the Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University, called the renaming appropriate and educational.

“Having a school named after this widely respected educator is itself a ‘teachable moment’ that opens insights into inspiring historic accomplishments that are too often ignored,” he said.

Angela Crawford, a teacher at Martin Luther King High School, said “Fanny Jackson Coppin is the epitome of Black women teacher love. Her legacy is one that should be amplified.”

‘Our generation is bold’: Students reflect on a pandemic year, interviewing Sec. Cardona

2021-06-22T20:30:00+00:00

After a year upended by the pandemic, six high school graduates from around the U.S. spoke to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona about their hopes for the future of education.

In a virtual event with The Education Trust and Chalkbeat that will stream on June 24, the students told Cardona about policy issues facing their schools and offered him advice of their own. On their minds were issues like the digital divide, the challenges facing undocumented students, and gun violence.

From Brownsville, Tennessee, to the Bronx in New York City, they offered Cardona a window into their lives as students — and challenged him about the ways schools have fallen short in their communities.

“Each student that was on the panel was from a different background,” said 17-year-old Chinaya Mason. “You never realize how much you can connect from a simple Zoom call. But us working together on Zoom calls and speaking to the secretary, that is a way to create change in a positive way.”

Chalkbeat spoke to each student about how they navigated their senior year, their plans for the future, and what they wanted the education secretary to take away from their conversation. Here’s what they told us.

Trey Cunningham

Haywood High School, Brownsville, Tennessee

Trey Cunningham, a recent graduate of Haywood High School in Brownsville, Tenn.

Growing up in rural Tennessee, 18-year-old Trey Cunningham was always aware that the big school district in nearby Memphis offered students things he couldn’t get in Haywood County. It served as a real-world lesson in inequity in education.

“Just now, because of the pandemic and the COVID relief money, we were able to provide students in the Haywood County School District with Chromebooks,” he said. “That was the first time that’s ever happened, where every student had access to a computer.”

Today, most students at Haywood High School are Black, but that wasn’t always the case. It was originally built for white students only. “There’s a lot of history here when it comes to race and education,” Cunningham said.

In high school, Cunningham was involved in student government and the NAACP, where he got a taste for working in policy and advocacy. He moderated the event with Cardona, which he sees as a chance for students to engage directly with people in power. “In education, students are the main stakeholders,” he said.

He hopes to use some of these skills in his future, too. In the fall, he’ll attend Tennessee State University and double major in health care administration and public health.

Kenneth Usoh

Science Skills Center High School, Brooklyn, New York

Kenneth Usoh, a graduating senior at Science Skills Center High School in New York City.

Early in the school year, Kenneth Usoh developed strategies to keep up with his school work while learning remotely. He worked on assignments during his lunch break and he read all the materials uploaded to Google Classroom to make sure he was prepared for tests.

But not all of his classmates were able to keep up with the demands of virtual school amid the stress of the pandemic.

“In New York, we have a grading system where if you’re not able to complete all the required assignments and pass with a 65 or higher, you receive an NX grade,” Usoh explained. “If the NX grade is still in your transcript, you’re not able to move onto the next grade or graduate. I noticed a lot of people have been getting those grades recently.”

Usoh has been tutoring some of his classmates to try to help them pass before graduation on June 24. But he’s noticed that the NX grades are not so much a reflection of the students, but rather their circumstances. “It’s not just my school,” he said. “It’s an entire New York City problem.”

This year brought other challenges. Usoh had a particularly hard time applying for college. He spent hours late at night trying to figure out different application and financial aid systems. His parents and guidance counselors helped him a lot, he said, but it would have been easier to work with the counselors in person.

Next year, Usoh will attend the seven-year Sophie Davis Biomedical Education Program at the CUNY School of Medicine where he’ll pursue a bachelor’s degree and an MD. He hopes to eventually become a neurosurgeon.

“What makes me optimistic is the fact that we were able to rebound off this pandemic and still be pushing through,” Usoh said. “I believe that this generation is a very resilient one.”

Elizabeth Jaramillo and Joaquin Martinez

Western International High School, Detroit, Michigan

(Left to right) Elizabeth Jaramillo and Joaquin Martinez, recent graduates of Western International High School in Detroit, Mich.

Elizabeth Jaramillo and Joaquin Martinez say they are lucky to have had opportunities that many of their peers didn’t. Both recent graduates of Western International High School in Detroit, Michigan enrolled in college support programs to help them navigate the application process and transition to college.

This fall, Jaramillo will attend the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Martinez will go to Kalamazoo College. They feel ready, but Martinez said that’s not the case for all of his graduating class.

“Unfortunately, not all of my classmates were able to receive these same opportunities,” Martinez said. “Without any experience or help, they are expected to navigate their way into the college system.”

Jaramillo agrees, and the experiences of her undocumented classmates have hit particularly hard.

“As we’ve gotten closer to the college process, a lot of students feared they wouldn’t be able to continue going to school,” she said. “It made me realize how privileged I am to not have that issue in my personal life, but it also brought to my attention how much these students struggle.”

In 2019, the superintendent of Detroit’s public schools declared the district a “sanctuary district,” meaning U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials cannot access schools without a warrant. The step is one Jaramillo would like to see everywhere.

“We are becoming less and less afraid to speak up about the issues that affect us — not only us, but also the communities around us,” Jaramillo said. “We know that our voices are empowering and we can use them for good.”

Chinaya Mason

Austin East Magnet High School, Knoxville, Tennessee

Chinaya Mason, a recent graduate of Austin East Magnet High School in Knoxville, Tenn.

Chinaya Mason, a recent graduate of Austin East Magnet High School in Knoxville, said her school was like one big family. Like many families, they faced a lot of challenges together this year.

During the pandemic, Mason and her peers were in and out of the classroom, learning from home for a few weeks or a month at a time when COVID cases spiked. But even when they were together, they weren’t allowed to be as close as they used to be.

“We went from all being in the lunchroom talking to each other to eating in our classrooms where we would be like 10 feet apart,” Mason said. “You could only take down your mask for like 10 minutes and then mask right back up, for eight hours a day.”

The school also struggled with an even more heart-wrenching crisis. In the second semester, they lost five students to gun violence. Suddenly, Mason found herself unable to socialize much outside of the classroom, either.

“We have cookouts here and block parties,” Mason said. “That’s the way teenagers hang out. We went from having that to where your mom and your dad are like, ‘you’re not going here, you’re not going there’ because you never know who’s thinking what and who’s near you. Bullets don’t have eyes.”

Looking to her future, Mason thinks she might want to work in politics or be a civil rights attorney. She’s always been outspoken, she said, and she’s inspired by her work with the Education Trust and the National Achievers Society. Next year, she’ll attend Spelman College where she plans to study political science.

“Our generation is bold,” Mason said. “I think the fact that we use our voices in a million different ways, I think that’s going to be a good thing for the future.”

Zadane Russell

Academy for Scholarship and Entrepreneurship, Bronx, New York

Zadane Russell, a graduating senior from the Academy for Scholarship and Entrepreneurship in the Bronx, N.Y.

As he gets ready to graduate from the Academy for Scholarship and Entrepreneurship in the Bronx, 17-year-old Zadane Russell is still deciding where he’ll go to college and what exactly he’ll study. But he knows that, one way or another, he wants to help people succeed.

Growing up in Jamaica, Russell said he saw that financial illiteracy was a big problem holding people back. “It’s hard to see people suffering and thinking, I could really help them if only they were taught how to save or where they should go banking or even how to do the stock exchange or how to handle loans,” Russell said.

Russell has taken a few classes on finance in high school, but he took these classes virtually and missed out on face-to-face interaction with his teachers. He believes young people need to know more about finance as they begin their adult lives, especially as they navigate paying for college and try to avoid crippling student loans.

Despite the challenges of this last year, Russell feels optimistic about the future. He sees his generation as one that’s innovative and driven to succeed. But he hopes his peers remember to look to previous generations and learn from them, too.

Otherwise, he said, “It would be like going out blindly, without the help of someone whose eyes are already open to what they’ve seen before.”

Critical conversations: Panelists to discuss the Tennessee legislation’s ban on critical race theory

2021-06-14T21:56:23+00:00

Trey Cunningham, a recent graduate of Haywood High School in Brownsville, Tenn. said African American history classes were not offered in his school.

“We had early United States history, world history, and we had contemporary issues,” Cunningham said. “We had all those courses, but we did not have African American history.”

A new law that would limit conversations about institutional racism, white privilege, and bias in Tennessee classrooms may make it even harder to discuss African American history. In addition to potentially penalizing educators who discuss anti-Blackness by fining their districts, Tennessee’s new law banning critical race theory could also affect how educators can teach about the treatment of Native Americans, Jewish Americans, and Asian Americans, among others.

In response to these new restrictions set to start next school year, Education Trust in Tennessee (Ed Trust) and Tennessee Educators of Color Alliance are hosting a Twitter chat on Tuesday at noon and a virtual panel on Thursday at 4 p.m.

The public can follow and join Tuesday’s Twitter chat at #CriticalConversationsChat, and register for Thursday’s webinar by clicking the provided link.

History, legal, and education experts will join Cunningham and others inside the classroom to discuss questions such as, “What is at stake for student learning when important historical lessons and contexts are omitted from the classroom?”

Cathryn Stout, Chalkbeat’s Tennessee Bureau Chief, will moderate Thursday’s discussion. Other panelists include:

Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall, Director P-12 Practice, Ed Trust
Dr. Charles McKinney, chair of Africana Studies and associate professor of history, Rhodes College
Brittany Paschall, Nashville Teacher and founder of We Remember Nashville, an organizing and public memory effort that aims to address the historical terror of lynching in Davidson County
Dr. Matthew Shaw, assistant professor of law and assistant professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University

Cunningham, a young activist, said that although his district was primarily made up of students and teachers of color, concepts of critical race theory were not discussed in his classes.

“Critical race theory is something that needs to be taught,” he said. “Critical race theory is one of those things that tells a story of a hurtful past and a positive future.”

Critical race theory, which started in higher education around the 1980s as a field to examine the intersection of race and law, over the years has branched out to other areas of study, such as economics, science, and history. The theory is not widely discussed in K-12 classrooms, although elements of it may influence how teachers frame discussions about injustice.

Some of the 14 concepts now restricted in Tennessee classrooms include: that the United States is fundamentally racist, that one race bears responsibility for past actions against another, and that an individual is inherently privileged or oppressive due to their race, all elements of critical race theory.

The ban seems to have brought more attention to critical race theory than if the legislation had not been passed, said panelist Shaw, who will also participate in the Twitter chat.

“This is a very common phenomenon in political thought, the idea that suppression only encourages diffusion of ideas,” Shaw said. “And that seems to be what’s happening here.”

Shaw has been a core organizer in protests against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s decision to deny tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones, one of the leaders of the 1619 Project. The New York Times series, and its use in classrooms across the country, helped spur anti-critical race theory legislation across the nation.

Shaw added that the Tennessee legislature’s ban on critical race theory was also retaliation against the Biden administration’s recent grant promoting inclusive curriculum in schools. Shaw said that the Tennessee law is an infringement upon First Amendment rights.

Shaw said the new law will contribute to the diminishment of students of color, who will not see themselves represented accurately in lessons.

“Students only get one chance at a school education,” Shaw said. “We want to make sure that Tennessee students have the widest possible range of opportunities to become critical thinkers and become contributors of a pluralist society. And to deny that conversation is to deny what it means to be American.”

Diarese George, founder and CEO of Tennessee Educators of Color Alliance and co-organizer of the Twitter chat, said the legislation could limit classroom discussions about traditionally required reading that center around race, such as Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

One aspect of the law that is troubling, said George, is how discussion surrounding current events will be handled.

“When you think about kids who experience racial injustice, nationally, the same as they did last year [after the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor killings], they came into schools this fall with that heavy on their hearts,” George said.

In a state where 13% of educators are people of color but children of color make up 37% of all students, navigating discussions around these events and how they relate to systemic racism may be confusing.

“Children, unfortunately, do not get to choose when they may be exposed to racism, particularly children of color,” added George. “If we’re going to be honest with ourselves about what we value and what needs to be true about global citizenship, then that means that we have to engage in conversations like this, as uncomfortable as they may be.”

The public can join Tuesday’s Twitter chat at #CriticalConversationsChat and register for Thursday’s webinar here.

Schwinn: Guidance for what Tennessee teachers can and can’t teach on race will come by Aug. 1

2021-06-09T23:46:35+00:00

Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn said teachers deserve clarity about a controversial new Tennessee law limiting what they can teach about racism and inequality, and she promises to deliver guidance by Aug. 1.

The guidance also will outline the state education department’s process for evaluating complaints filed with her office and levying financial penalties against districts whose teachers cross the line, Schwinn said.

In an interview Wednesday with Chalkbeat, Schwinn spoke publicly for the first time about the law she is required to enforce when the 2021-22 school year begins.

“My job is to implement the bills as they are passed by the General Assembly,” she said. “I think what teachers deserve more than anything is to understand what is expected of them and certainly any parameters that are in place.”

The law says “the commissioner shall withhold state funds, in an amount determined by the commissioner” if a public school district or charter school “knowingly violates” the ban on teaching or promoting 14 concepts that the legislature viewed as divisive, cynical, or misguided. (See section 51 of the law.)

The concepts include elements of critical race theory, an academic framework that explores how race and racism influence American law, culture, business, and politics. Banning them would restrict classroom conversations about white privilege, institutional racism, and racial bias.

The GOP-controlled legislature passed the ban along partisan lines last month on the final day of its legislative session, and Gov. Bill Lee signed the measure into law on May 24.

Schwinn said her department’s legal team has been collaborating with the state attorney general’s office to prepare guidance for educators. She plans to seek feedback on the first draft from a group of superintendents, lawmakers, and members of the public before making revisions and publishing a document by Aug. 1.

The commissioner made clear that the state will provide guidance — not training — on how to comply. Any training and professional development must come at the district level.

Dale Lynch, who leads the state superintendents organization, said school leaders will have to work quickly to ensure teachers understand the new parameters.

Most Tennessee school systems start their academic year in August, preceded by teacher training on new state or federal policies affecting them. Adding to the challenge, district leaders will have just wrapped up expanded summer learning programs and then face deadlines in August to submit plans for spending their federal coronavirus relief funds.

“It is definitely a very tight timeline,” Lynch said of receiving the guidance as late as Aug. 1.

“Superintendents across the state have got to lean on the department to help us understand how to follow the letter of this law,” he said. “The earlier that we can get this type of information, the better training that we’ll be able to provide to our teachers.”

But Schwinn said she won’t rush guidance on “this incredibly sensitive topic.”

Penny Schwinn

“We recognize that this is something that needs to be treated with care and sensitivity,” she said. “We are working closely with counsel to ensure we are fully compliant with the law and also taking into account a representative group of voices because this process needs to be transparent.”

She added: “What is very important to me is that I do not want this to be a subjective process. I don’t want this to be a process where it was not clear on the front end what the expectations are.”

Rep. John Ragan, the Oak Ridge Republican who co-sponsored the bill, said educators who object to the new law must still comply with it.

Some teachers have said on social media and in news reports that they planned to ignore the ban, but Ragan cites Tennessee’s teacher code of ethics, which says educators must abide by all applicable federal and state laws.

“Those teachers who have announced they will not follow this law have announced that they’re intending to violate their own code of ethics,” Ragan told Chalkbeat recently. “I personally find that unacceptable.”

“I certainly respect the opinion of teachers,” he added, “but I will not respect an avowed intention to disobey the law.”

How Biden grants and parent concerns of ‘indoctrination’ spurred Tennessee Republicans to limit how race and racism are taught

2021-05-26T00:04:12+00:00

For months, Tennessee Republican lawmakers were hearing from dozens of parents concerned about how educators were trying to make their lessons more inclusive in response to the nation’s racial reckoning.

One mom even reported that her 7-year-old daughter, who is white, was having suicidal thoughts because of uncomfortable conversations about race in her classroom.

Simultaneously, GOP leaders were tracking bills that would restrict how race and racism are taught in other states. But they hadn’t planned to push their own version until the week of April 19, when President Joe Biden’s administration announced a new grant program for history and civics education.

The grant program — prioritizing instruction on diversity, anti-racism, and the legacy of slavery — unleashed a torrent of backroom discussions just 2½ weeks before Tennessee’s General Assembly adjourned on May 5.

Interviews conducted recently with key players in those discussions shed light on why Tennessee lawmakers abruptly moved to join their counterparts in Idaho, Iowa, and Oklahoma to ban the teaching of topics they viewed as cynical, divisive, and misguided.

The bill passed along partisan lines in Tennessee’s GOP-controlled legislature on the final day of the session, with white Republican legislators voting for it and Black and white Democrats voting against it. On Monday, Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed the legislation into law.

The new law restricts how public school teachers can talk about racism, sexism, and bias in their classrooms beginning next school year. But most educators were unaware of the 11th-hour proposal as it barreled through the legislature during Teacher Appreciation Week. They were focused instead on giving their students annual state tests and closing out a pandemic-challenged school year.

“We moved fast,” said House Education Committee Chairman Mark White of Memphis, who helped guide the bill’s passage.

“It was too important to wait until next year,” White added. “We want our teachers to know that, when the new school year begins, they should not teach certain concepts.”

Viral email stokes mistrust about socialist indoctrination in schools

In formal House discussions, Biden’s grant program was not highlighted as Democrats inquired several times about the impetus for the legislation.

Rep. John Ragan, the Republican sponsor from Oak Ridge near Knoxville, said divisive social concepts mirroring Marxist-style indoctrination were seeping into Tennessee classrooms. He cited statistics about lagging literacy rates and graduates who need remedial coursework and said “far too much classroom time is devoted to things that do not adequately teach our students reading, math, science and other essential academic skills.”

During discussions in committee and on the floor of the House, Ragan also read parts of an email forwarded to him about the 7-year-old student in Franklin, an affluent town south of Nashville in Williamson County.

The story circulated extensively on social media after an April 21 education forum sponsored by the Republican Party’s local chapter and covered by the Tennessee Star, a conservative news outlet. According to The Star, a woman identifying herself as the parent of a student at Liberty Elementary School said her daughter came home from school one day and told her, “I’m ashamed that I’m white.”

Ragan told lawmakers: “The daughter then asked her mother, ‘Is there something wrong with me? Why am I hated so much?’”

“The 7-year-old is now in therapy,” Ragan said. “She is depressed. She doesn’t want to go to school. ... She is scared to death and has even had thoughts of killing herself.”

Bobbie Patray, the long-time president of the Tennessee Eagle Forum, which lobbies on family issues and opposes critical race theory, said the story mobilized people in Williamson County and across Tennessee to call for stricter guardrails on what teachers are teaching.

“It lit the match,” Patray reflected later in an interview with Chalkbeat. “It’s fine to think about what goes on in New York or California or somewhere out there, but this story about a 7-year-old girl brought it home to parents who said, ‘That could have been my baby!’”

“A 7-year-old girl ought to be playing with doll babies,” she added.

David Snowden, superintendent of the Franklin Special School District, said no parent has come forward to Liberty Elementary Principal Amy Patton, her teachers, or district officials with that complaint.

“I’m baffled,” Snowden told Chalkbeat a month after the report was published. “Most people with issues come to us for help in resolving them. But we have heard nothing directly from a parent.”

Snowden said administrators took the report seriously, speaking with teachers and reviewing class rosters to try to pinpoint any student who might be upset, as well as lessons that could have been upsetting.

“We didn’t uncover anything,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s not real. Maybe the parent will come forward to talk with us after the school year ends.”

Ragan told Chalkbeat that he didn’t talk with the family but spoke with an “original source” and stands by the story. “I have no reason to doubt it,” he said.

About half of the 3,600 students in the Franklin district are white, a fourth are Hispanic, and 14% are Black. In the much larger neighboring district of Williamson County Schools, 80% of students are white, 6% are Hispanic, and 5% are Black.

Williamson County has been a hotbed of discussion about diversity training for teachers and learning materials that some parents have found inappropriate or offensive.

Nationally recognized curriculum called Wit & Wisdom, approved by both the state and the county district and introduced last fall, includes second-grade reading materials about civil rights champions like Martin Luther King Jr. and Ruby Bridges, the 6-year-old who became the first Black child to integrate an elementary school in the South.

“Ruby Bridges Goes to School,” a Scholastic Inc. book written by Ruby Bridges about her experience of integrating a white school at age 6, is among reading materials for second graders that some Williamson County parents found objectionable.

Some Williamson County parents said the images in the Scholastic Inc. autobiography “Ruby Bridges Goes to School” are one-sided and portray all white people as bigots who support segregation. The book is for young readers.

Many parents viewed those as important stories but worried they were being presented in a way that was too graphic and deep for their children in early grades. Some believe the curriculum is part of a wider conspiracy to indoctrinate their children in socialist principles. The mistrust has mobilized groups like Moms for Liberty, which recently hosted a nearly three-hour presentation on critical race theory attended by 300-plus people in Franklin.

“The amount that we don’t know about our teachers who teach our children should scare us, with the amount of time and influence they have on our children,” Robby Starbuck, a Nashville-area father and filmmaker, told the crowd.

A crowd of Williamson Countians listen to speakers at a presentation about critical race theory hosted in Franklin by the Moms for Liberty advocacy group on May 19, 2021.

Sekou Franklin, an associate professor of political science at Middle Tennessee State University, said there’s a broader dynamic at play beyond curriculum concerns. The goal of Tennessee’s critical race theory bill, he said, was both to rally the Republican base for upcoming elections and anchor public education in a “white-washed” presentation of history and current events.

“This is really about white kids and what they’re learning in our K-12 schools,” Franklin said. “They’re seeking to insulate white kids from a narrative that could threaten the political and economic power of whites at a time when you have a growing non-white population.”

Biden civic grants ‘trigger’ GOP response

The new Tennessee law outlines 14 tenets that teachers cannot present or promote. The ideas generally mirror language in bills filed in recent months in Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and West Virginia.

Among the forbidden concepts: that the United States is “fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist;” that an individual, by virtual of their race or sex, “bears responsibility” for past actions committed by other members of the same race or sex; and that a “meritocracy is inherently racist or sexist.”

“Our bill never mentions the words critical race theory,” said Rep. Scott Cepicky, a Republican from Maury County, also south of Nashville. “We focused on 14 tenets that are divisive in nature, pit one race or sex against another, and produce blame. That’s not what our country is about.”

In the week after the federal civics grant announcement, Cepicky and White met twice with other leaders of the House’s five education panels to discuss a potential legislative response to critical race theory, the academic framework that examines how policies and the law perpetuate systemic racism.

“Everybody knew what we were talking about because we had been following this issue. It was just like, ‘I think it’s time. What do y’all think?’ We all agreed it was time,” said Cepicky, calling the Biden grants “the trigger.”

Screen snapshot of Rep. Scott Cepicky speaking during a House education committee meeting on May 28, 2020

On April 27, with just over a week before adjournment, White, Cepicky, and Ragan met with House Speaker Cameron Sexton in his office to ask for his support. Sexton conferred with Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, the speaker of the Senate, and they agreed to back a new proposal banning any teaching that injects race and sex when discussing legal, economic, educational, and other systems that GOP leaders believe are merit-based and colorblind.

But there were logistical challenges, since new bills couldn’t be introduced at that point in the session and education committees for both chambers had completed their business and closed for the year.

An existing bill by Ragan and Sen. Mike Bell, a Republican from Riceville, was chosen as the vehicle. Because it was a “clean-up” proposal to delete outdated language in state code, its general description was broad enough to add an amendment prohibiting the concepts that the GOP found worrisome. The bill had already passed in the Senate and was awaiting a vote on the House floor.

On the Friday afternoon of April 30 — three days before the body would adjourn — Ragan filed his amendment after White announced he would reopen his committee briefly to consider new business. But a hiccup emerged the following Monday morning when, an hour before the meeting, a staff member for Senate Education Committee Chairman Brian Kelsey asked to add three more tenets to the 11 already in the amendment.

White said no to more last-minute language, noting that the Senate eventually would get to vote on any amended bill.

Within 30 minutes and over the objections of the committee’s three Black Democratic members, the revised bill easily cleared the committee, while more than 60 Republican representatives signed on as co-sponsors.

The next day, after an hour of emotional debate, the House passed the measure too.

Later, Democrats thought they had dodged a bullet when the Senate quietly rejected the measure. But Kelsey, a lawyer from Germantown near Memphis, simply wanted it sent to a conference committee so he could add his three new tenets.

“There was no question we were going to pass the bill,” said Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson of Franklin, about his chamber’s voice vote. “It was a procedural motion. We wanted to add provisions to make the bill a little clearer, a little more thorough.”

Two Democrats who serve on the education committee had a different perspective.

Rep. Antonio Parkinson, a Democrat from Memphis, speaks at a 2020 news conference.

“This whole thing was orchestrated,” Rep. Antonio Parkinson, from Memphis, told Chalkbeat later. “The way it was done completely limited debate and the chance for citizens to offer their views. It was intentional.”

Rep. Vincent Dixie, from Nashville, called the rush to passage disheartening.

“If you are a person of color and you live in Tennessee,” he said, “you feel very diminished right now, that you don’t feel like you’re part of the conversation.”

Tennessee governor signs bill restricting how race and bias can be taught in schools

2021-05-25T04:24:05+00:00

Gov. Bill Lee on Monday signed a bill into law that will restrict what public school teachers can discuss in Tennessee classrooms about racism, white privilege, and unconscious bias.

The Republican governor signed the bill without comment, following its passage along partisan lines earlier this month.

The new law, which essentially takes effect with the 2021-22 school year, will allow Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn to withhold funds from schools and districts where teachers promote certain concepts about racism, sexism, bias, and other social issues that GOP lawmakers believe are cynical and divisive.

Among the 14 concepts that teachers will not be able to discuss: that one race bears responsibility for past actions against another; the United States is fundamentally racist; and a person is inherently privileged or oppressive due to their race.

Casey Black, the governor’s press secretary, said Lee “believes Tennessee students should be taught history and civics with facts, not divisive political commentary.”

Tennessee now joins Idaho and Oklahoma in placing legal limits on how teachers can discuss race, while a bill in Iowa is awaiting the governor’s signature. Similar legislation is being considered in other states. A proposal filed last week in Michigan would cut funding to schools that teach critical race theory, a field of study more typically found at the college level that delves into U.S. race relations and how policies and the law perpetuate systemic racism.

The signing in Tennessee came a week after the bill reached Lee’s desk and despite calls for a veto from Democrats who voted unanimously against the measure and numerous entities opposing it, including the Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission.

Lee also received a letter signed by more than 350 teachers, parents, and education leaders asking him to let teachers “lead their classrooms through important historical lessons and honest social discussions without the fear of repercussion.”

Diarese George, executive director of the Tennessee Educators of Color Alliance, which spearheaded the letter, said the new law will be disheartening and discouraging to both educators and students.

“This not only perpetuates harm and hurt for many marginalized students and students of color, but it is an indictment on our ability to humanize lived experiences with healthy civil discourse,” George said Monday night.

Tennessee’s legislation was filed with three days left in the nearly four-month-long session and easily passed under a Republican supermajority.

The Tennessee Department of Education has since been reviewing the bill’s language and is expected to issue guidance to help educators understand the new guardrails.

“As always, if a bill is signed into law, the department will implement the legislation with fidelity and provide additional information and guidance to [districts] as appropriate at that time,” a spokesman said earlier this month.

You can read all 14 tenets in section 51 of the bill here.

Legal scholars question Tennessee’s new bill restricting how educators teach about racial injustice

2021-05-16T19:15:00+00:00

Memphis history teacher Natasha Wilkins leads a discussion with students. Soon Tennessee teachers may have to curtail discussions on institutional racism because of a new bill that is raising debate among legal scholars.

Legal scholars are questioning whether a recently passed bill that seeks to restrict Tennessee educators’ teachings about race and racism will pass legal muster given past precedent, including one case that dates back 50 years.

The GOP-backed measure, which passed in the Tennessee House and Senate among partisan lines, would penalize school districts if teachers tie past and present events to white privilege, institutional racism, and unconscious bias.

University of Memphis law professor Steve Mulroy said that many attorneys have looked with dismay at the language of the bill, which Republican Gov. Bill Lee is expected to sign into law.

“Looking at the language literally, it would still allow a teacher, theoretically, some latitude if they were to be creative and still address topics of systemic racism without violating the literal language of the statue,” he said.

“The problem is teachers aren’t lawyers. Teachers don’t have time to parse the language of the statute and take the risk that their interpretation is the same as that of an administrator or the General Assembly or the commissioner of education, so the inevitable effect would be to have a chilling effect on teachers,” he added.

Nashville legal scholar David Hudson echoed Mulroy’s concerns.

“This is a poorly written bill that promotes a specific agenda, threatens academic freedom, and suffers from serious overbreadth and vagueness problems,” said Hudson, a law professor at Belmont University who specializes in first amendment issues.

The ACLU, as well as the Tennessee Educators of Color Alliance, are calling on the governor to veto the legislation; however, Lee has not vetoed a bill during his tenure as governor.

ACLU Tennessee policy director Brandon Tucker said, “SB 623 is a dangerous bill that seeks to silence important conversations about race and gender equity in our classrooms. Let’s be clear, systemic racial injustice exists in Tennessee.”

One organization that has not taken a position on this particular bill but has been vocal about how race is addressed in schools is Chicago-based Liberty Justice Center, a public interest firm where State Senator Brian Kelsey of Germantown serves as a senior attorney. Kelsey supported the Senate version of the bill.

In an email, fellow Liberty senior attorney Daniel Suhr said the group is “focused on protecting the rights of students, staff, and parents which are implicated by the teaching of critical race theory.”

Critical race theory emerged as a field in higher education in the 1970s. Through the use of data and storytelling, it counters systemic oppression by amplifying how racism and bias affect individuals and society.

Suhr recently represented Cordova High School principal Barton Thorne after Shelby County Schools placed him on administrative leave for comments he made to students regarding the January 6 storming of the Capitol in Washington.

In an online statement, the organization said that Thorne was “censored” and that SCS “violated Principal Thorne’s First Amendment right to free speech.”

Shortly after he filed the lawsuit, Thorne was reinstated by SCS.

When asked in a follow-up email about protecting the first amendment rights of educators who teach critical race theory, Suhr did not reply.

This is not the first time Tennessee legislators have passed bills that some have felt hamper freedom of speech and academic freedom in the classroom. Tennessee was famously the setting for the Scopes Trial in 1925.

The trial was triggered by the Butler Act, a Tennessee law banning the teaching of evolution. A lower court found Dayton, Tennessee, teacher John Thomas Scopes guilty of violating the law, but the state Supreme Court overturned the ruling on a technicality.

Today, the Scopes trial and the legislation that sparked it is a part of Tennessee history that’s taught to schoolchildren worldwide, in part, due to the popularity of “Inherit the Wind,” a play dramatizing the event.

Lesser known is the case and plight of the Highlander Research and Education Center. In 1967, legislators passed a resolution that sought to investigate Highlander and suppress anti-racism discussions and organizing at the nonprofit education center then based in Knoxville.

“They were opposed to Highlander because there was race-mixing there. They were teaching labor unions how to go after better wages, teaching Blacks and others how to protest for civil rights, and there were people who were opposed to that,” said Robert Booker, a Knoxville author who served in the Tennessee House at the time.

“Mayor Leonard Rogers and others wanted to get rid of it in the city of Knoxville, so they tried to use the legislature as their whipping boy to do it,” he added.

With the help of the ACLU, Highlander filed a lawsuit against the legislature claiming, in part, that the bill violated the school’s First Amendment rights, which include freedom of speech.

Finding in favor of Highlander, Judge William Miller said that the resolution brought the “threat of irreparable injury” and was “void on its face for vagueness and overbreadth.”

Booker, who during the Highlander debate delivered a speech chiding legislators for their “petty prejudices and political chicanery,” said that he sees parallels between the situations in 1967 and today.

“We fought many of these battles in the ‘60s,” he said, “It’s deja vu all over again.”

‘Teaching the truth’: Tennessee educators respond to proposed limits on teaching about racism

2021-05-11T00:09:39+00:00

History education has been in the spotlight this year, from parents and students demanding more diverse content to legislators in some states banning topics in the classroom. Starting next year, Tennessee teachers will have to restrict their instruction on race and racism under recently passed legislation that Gov. Bill Lee is expected to sign into law.

The legislation allows the state education commissioner to withhold funds from schools and districts where teachers promote elements of critical race theory. Through the use of data and storytelling, critical race theory raises awareness about how racism and bias affect individuals and society. The Tennessee bill targeting the field comes amidst similar discussions among lawmakers in Georgia, Idaho, Utah, and Arkansas. We asked Tennessee educators their thoughts on the recent legislation and what effects it will have on their students, teaching, and outlook. Here are some of their responses.

This story has been lightly edited for style and length.

“To be frank, the bill will not make it harder for my personal classroom because I plan to ignore it. Who’s going to enforce it? This is a bill that viciously favors white children and ignores the needs of children of color. All the reported reasons I read that were given by the lawmakers were to protect the feelings of white children, with no thought or concern to what is best for society as a whole or for children of color.”

— Liz Jarvis, English as a second language teacher, Cornerstone Prep, Memphis

“I don’t see how this bill actually bans anything I would want to do. This says that we should not teach that America is inherently racist or that people are inherently anything because of their race. I don’t see how this bans critical race theory. The rhetoric behind the bill is horrible, but the wording doesn’t seem to prevent me from teaching that redlining is racist, or many cops treat black people worse than white people.”

— Michael Pleasants, substitute teacher, Georgian Hills Middle School, Memphis

“Our county has very few persons of color. The recent theme of “Books are Mirrors and Windows” has been my emphasis for selection this year. Diverse titles are the hot topic (for good reason). Instead of broadening our world view this legislation narrows it. It also goes against the education commissioner’s demand that each county have a diverse teaching staff. How will this come across to teachers of color or those that are contemplating entering the profession?”

— Jenny Miller, librarian at Briarwood Elementary School, Camden

“It will make it harder for me in the classroom as most of my students face racism and discrimination in this country. Good teachers should be teaching the truth, which is that every system in the U.S. is built on racism and white supremacy.”

— Travis Vaughn, math teacher at LEAD Southeast High School, Nashville

People hold ‘I Am A Man’ signs, in reference to the sanitation workers strike in 1968, as they participate in an event to mark the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination April 4, 2018 in Memphis, Tenn.

“The real issue is that this bill strengthens an unfortunate misconception about social studies. It seeks to reinforce the idea that social studies, history, and English Language Arts are dispassionate and should consist of arbitrary facts pushed down the throats of our children without context. The Egyptians created hieroglyphics because the Egyptians created hieroglyphics. Achilles just happened to have a really close buddy named Patrocles. We teachers of history are expected to be dispassionate, goofy nerds who love fiddling with old coins because they are old. Old coins do not inspire children. Facts alone do not hone their critical thinking skills, nor do they propel them forward in the pursuit of education.”

— Gabriel Ares, social students teacher at Memphis Academy of Health Sciences

“The Republican Party has focused on ‘cancel culture’ quite a bit recently, but this bill is its own form of ‘cancel culture’ that goes entirely too far. History teachers can not adequately teach about the Trail of Tears, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Movement. English teachers will have to avoid teaching almost any text by an African American author because many of them mention racism to various extents. Even classics written by white authors like ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and ‘Huckleberry Finn’ will now be off limits.

“Both history and English content standards require students to think critically. Teachers are evaluated based on our ability to inspire critical thinking. How are we supposed to teach the standards and have our students think critically when we can only present and discuss one side of an issue?”

— Mike Stein, English and English as a second language teacher at Coffee County High School, Manchester

“My thought is how are they going to stop me from teaching and having these important discussions with students. I am not a lawbreaker. I am, by nature, a rule follower, but what I am doing is preparing my students for entry into college. Colleges are not going to shy away from these discussions. In fact, many colleges are going to force students to think about these things, and if they are not prepared for the content and discussions, then they are going to be behind.”

— Todd Ross, English teacher at Dyer County High School, Newbern

Tennessee legislature approves ban on teaching critical race theory in schools

2021-05-06T04:00:00+00:00

Tennessee teachers will be restricted from discussing systemic racism with their students — or lose state funding — when legislation approved Wednesday becomes law.

The Senate voted 25-7 for the ban one day after the House easily passed the bill along partisan lines in Tennessee’s GOP-controlled legislature, following several days of fiery debate.

Gov. Bill Lee is expected to sign the bill into law. The Republican governor has not vetoed a bill since taking office.

Tennessee becomes the latest state on the verge of limiting the depth of classroom discussions about inequality and concepts such as white privilege as part of a conservative backlash to America’s reckoning over racism.

The legislation allows the state education commissioner to withhold funds from schools and districts where teachers promote certain concepts about racism, sexism, bias, and other social issues that are part of the nation’s history.

Among concepts that teachers will not be able to discuss: that one race bears responsibility for the past actions against another; the United States is fundamentally racist; and a person is inherently privileged or oppressive due to their race.

It’s unclear whether or to what extent those specific concepts are being taught in Tennessee public schools. But white GOP lawmakers were anxious to block lessons they view as divisive, cynical, or misguided. They pushed the prohibitions through the General Assembly during their last three days before recessing for the year.

Republicans were especially disapproving of critical race theory, an academic framework that examines how policies and the law perpetuate systemic racism.

The Senate, which initially rejected the legislation on Tuesday, reversed course after adding several provisions. One new provision will prohibit public schools from including or promoting that “the rule of law does not exist but instead is a series of power relationships and struggles among racial or other groups.”

“That is the very definition of critical race theory,” said Senate Education Committee Chairman Brian Kelsey, a white Republican, calling the ideas “antithetical to everything that we stand for as Americans.”

Scholars define critical race theory as the analysis of how race and the pervasiveness of racism affect individuals and society.

Sen. Katrina Robinson, a Black Democrat from Memphis, called the classroom restrictions “a huge step in the wrong direction” and charged that the bill “breathes more life into racism.”

“How ironic that a body made up of a supermajority of white, privileged men can determine whether even my grandchildren can see reflections of themselves in the history lessons they have in their schools — to even feel a sliver of significance in their existence,” she said on the Senate floor.

Mark Finchum, executive director of the Tennessee Council for the Social Studies, predicted a chilling effect on how educators teach about racism, sexism, and oppression in their social studies, civics, and history classes.

“I think this will cause administrators to put more pressure on teachers, and both administrators and teachers already have enough to worry about without this bill,” he told Chalkbeat.

Finchum also has questions about how the state education department will police classrooms to make sure educators are following the law, as well as how much money districts could get dinged if they don’t.

Republicans’ call for facts-based teaching of Tennessee academic standards came just a few years after lawmakers raised the standards to discourage students from rote memorization of facts. The goal, they said at the time, was to develop critical thinking skills, such as analysis, reflection, and problem-solving.

“Our goal should be to create learning environments that foster dialogue, inclusivity, mutual respect and critical thinking,” said a statement from the Education Trust in Tennessee, which advocates for equity in education and criticized the legislature’s passage of the bill. “Though touted as a strategy to provide clarity and a focus on the standards, this legislation does neither.”

Similar measures have been criticized by other groups, including the Organization of American Historians, the nation’s largest professional organization of scholars of U.S. history.

Speaking to Wednesday’s conference committee as negotiators ironed out differences between the bill’s House and Senate versions, Kelsey singled out The New York Times’ “1619 Project.” The collection of articles and essays argues the nation’s “founding contradictions” emerged in 1619, the year that 20 to 30 enslaved Africans landed in the English colony of Virginia.

Sen. Brian Kelsey

“In Tennessee, we believe that the American government began in 1776, we believe that the Constitution is the law of the land, and we believe in the rule of law,” said Kelsey, a Republican from Germantown, near Memphis.

Sen. Brenda Gilmore, a Nashville Democrat and one of two Black legislators on the nine-member negotiating committee, said students need to learn more perspectives — not fewer ones — to understand the complexities and nuances of U.S. history.

“It will be harmful,” said Gilmore, who presented a minority report opposing the proposal.

“What we have to do is acknowledge that slavery existed, that today there’s still racism,” she said. “But there’s no way to sweep this under the rug and pretend that it did not happen or to gloss over it.”

A house divided: Tennessee legislative chambers split on bill banning classroom discussions about systemic racism

2021-05-05T02:46:37+00:00

A proposal that would ban classroom discussions about systemic racism passed Tuesday in Tennessee’s House of Representatives after an impassioned debate between white Republicans and mostly Black Democrats about how U.S. history should be taught.

House members voted 69-23 along party lines for the 11th-hour proposal as they worked to wind up their 2021 session this week.

The Senate voted later not to accept the legislation. That voice vote came without discussion. But the measure could get resurrected.

The proposal would authorize the state education commissioner to withhold funds from schools and districts where instruction wades deeply into topics about racism, sexism, bias, and other social issues that permeate American life.

Similar measures have been debated recently in Idaho, Utah, and Arkansas as the nation’s reckoning with systemic racism has routinely become part of classroom discussions.

If the Tennessee bill cleared both chambers and was signed by Gov. Bill Lee, classroom instruction in public schools would be limited to what’s outlined in Tennessee academic standards for social studies, history, and civics, according to the sponsor, Rep. John Ragan.

“History is a collection of facts that are taught,” he said at one point in the nearly 90-minute debate after the amended bill quickly passed through a GOP-controlled committee a day earlier.

The legislature approved Tennessee’s academic standards, which include topics such as slavery and civil rights. Those standards also ask students to “analyze” and “critically examine” sources, not simply memorize facts.

The mixed messages likely would be confusing for classroom teachers. But Ragan, a Republican from Oak Ridge, said his proposal aimed to bring clarity on what educators can teach their students.

Citing statistics about lagging literacy rates and graduates who need remedial coursework, Ragan said “far too much classroom time is devoted to things that do not adequately teach our students reading, math, science and other essential academic skills.”

“Frankly, until the statistics are turned around, classroom time should not be devoted to the divisive concepts I’ve cited in this bill, but they should be minimized,” he said.

But Rep. G.A. Hardaway, a Democrat from Memphis, said U.S. history is filled with important lessons that are complex and nuanced and provide a fuller picture of the nation’s story.

“Taking the discussion of race, ethnicity, discrimination, biases out of the classroom does a disservice not merely to the students, but to the very principles that our country was formed on,” Hardaway said.

Ragan’s legislation does not include the phrase “critical race theory,” which is the study of how race and racism affect individuals and society. But his proposal seeks to prohibit many of the concepts taught as part of the academic field. National debate about its use in K-12 classrooms ramped up last September when then-President Donald Trump criticized critical race theory and called for “patriotic education” in the wake of increasing public demands for racial justice and culturally inclusive curriculum following a spate of killings of Black people by white police officers.

Ragan’s proposal would prohibit schools from including or promoting instruction or curriculum that says an individual, by virtue of the person’s race or sex, “is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.”

Also banned would be any instruction or curriculum that says people bear responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of their race or sex; or that an individual should feel guilt or anguish “solely because of the individual’s race or sex.”

In addition, schools could not teach that the United States is “fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist.”

“We must create an educational climate where every student is an individual, not just part of some group,” said Ragan, slamming other teachings as divisive, cynical, and misguided concepts stoked by “self-appointed guardians of equity.”

Other GOP lawmakers said guardrails are needed because America is gridlocked over race and social issues.

“We must be a colorblind society, and we must be colorblind in our schools,” said Rep. Scott Cepicky of Culleoka.

“We should judge people on the content of their character, not the color of their skin,” added Cepicky, paraphrasing the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., who spent his life discussing and fighting systemic racism and systemic oppression. “We cannot teach the next generation to feel guilt and anguish simply because of the color of their skin.”

Rep. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat, said America is not colorblind and that the legislation seeks to diminish the experiences of people who look like her.

“Every day as you grow up, you know your whole history in America was that you and your people were slaves. That’s our history,” she said. “Every educator should be able to have in-depth conversations with their students about race in America.”

Earlier, the Tennessee Alliance for Equity in Education, a statewide coalition of organizations, educators, and student leaders, expressed opposition to the proposal in an open letter to House leadership.

“The [legislation] represents an egregious and contradictory overreach aiming to prohibit complex but necessary classroom discussion topics and will cause an undue burden, confusion, and instill fear of repercussion in Tennessee’s public school educators as they teach significant social and historical events,” the letter said.