How Urban Moms of Color- UMOC's- Are Revitalizing the Opt Out Movement

Based on what I have seen in the Bronx, and in Philly, I think we need a new acronym to describe the leadership of the Opt Out movement, replacing Arne Duncan's pejorative category WSM's-- White Suburban Mothers. The new category is UMOC's-- Urban Moms of Color.

More and more , resistance to testing is finding a home in inner city communities where testing has been linked to school closings, charter school favoritism, elimination of recess, physical education and the arts, humiliation of ELL and special needs students and adoption of zero tolerance disciplinary policies.Parents in these communities are getting fed up with the tests and are rejecting the "testing is civil rights" mantra promoted by all to many of those shaping education policy

Three weeks ago, Philly moms headed up an incredible session at the United Opt Out Conference and yesterday, Bronx moms were the leading voices at a press conference sponsored by Opt Out NYC on the steps of City Hall

And this is grounds for hope. When the WSM's and UMOC's start joining forces, they represent an unbeatable combination.

Restore Recess Party Ten Point Education Program--2016

1. End Receivership, Trusteeship, School Takeovers, School Closings once and for all. Not only have these been unsuccessful, they have created an atmosphere where everyone in schools in low income communities works and learns in fear.

2. Pass laws requiring that every school from Pr-K to 6 grade have a certain amount of time of recess and mandating that recess can NEVER be used for test prep.

3. Protect the freedom of speech of students, parents, teachers and principals on all matters relating to education policy, including the right to refuse to take or administer tests.

4. Use tax incentives and government subsidies to vastly expand the supply of affordable housing, including affordable housing for teachers, so that teachers can live in the communities they teach in

5. Reject all contributions to public education from foundations and corporations for any purposes other than expanding arts, science, sports, vocational and technical and agriculture programs in the public schools.

6. Limit the time assigned to standardized tests in Pre-K to 6th Grade to 10 hours PER SCHOOL YEAR. That includes pre-tests and practice tests.

7. Create financial incentives for teachers to live in the communities they teach in and to work in the same schools for more than 10 years. We need teachers for LIFE, not Teacher Temps..

8 Allow no teachers to enter public schools through alternative certification programs which do not have at least a FULL YEAR of mentored classroom experience.

9. Exempt Special Needs students and ELL students from standardized testing in circumstances where such testing exposes them to humiliation and abuse.

10. End paddling, corporal punishment, and zero-tolerance disciplinary policies in public schools. And.funding MUST be provided for schools to have more school social workers, guidance counselors, and psychologists to provide students with the social emotional support many students desperately need!

Oakland Schools in Turmoil as District Threatens to Remove 17 Principals

Prescott Principal Enomwoyi Booker

By Ken EpsteinPosted March 25, 2016 3:05 pm

As the school year begins to wind down, planning is underway for next year. But many of Oakland’s schools – especially flatland schools – are in turmoil and are anxiously worrying whether the district administration will allow them to maintain the progress and stability they have worked so hard to build.

 

Seventeen principals have received warning letters that they may be removed or reassigned. A number of schools have learned that they may have to move for charter schools to “co-locate” onto their campuses and a large number of new teachers have just learned they will be fired at the end of June.

Staff at Place@Prescott in West Oakland are fearful about what will happen to their elementary school if they lose their principal, Enomwoyi Booker, who is one of the principals who received a March 15 warning letter, according to a teacher at the school who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The teacher said the principal, who has been at Prescott for over a decade, “is building rapport with the community. She is popular with the staff and the community. We have spent years building a (community) core that comes together and helps out.”

“We’re fragile,” a poor school in a poor community, the teacher said. “We are partial to our leadership from the years of being deprived of materials. We (finally) get some money and some inkling of materials, and then they take the leadership away.”

“The district administration says one thing, but the next thing you know, they shut you down or throw schools together. We don’t know what’s really going on.”

The teacher said she did not want Prescott to have to share its campus with a charter school.

“If we have to share it with another school, that will kill it,” she said. “With all the gentrification that is going on (in West Oakland), we feel kind of threatened.”

This is also the time of the year the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) sends out “probationary release” letters to teachers who are in their first or second year in the district – a state-approved procedure that allows the district to fire teachers and rule them ineligible ever to work again in an OUSD school, without right to appeal or a hearing.

According to Trish Gorham, president of the teachers’ union, 60 teachers have received probationary releases this year.

“Many have lacked proper support, have never been properly evaluated or coached,” she said. “Many have been thrown in difficult classroom management situations (such as coming in after a succession of substitute teachers), and they receive no help.”

“Some of them have asked for help over and over and have not received it,” said Gorham. The district generally never tells teachers why they are being released, she said.

“Of course, there needs to be a process of evaluation to earn tenure, but you’d think it would be beneficial to support a first-year teacher into a second year, rather than to have an endless cycle of brand new teachers who come into a school without any training,” said Gorham.

She said that the numbers of teachers of color who are receiving probationary releases are disproportionately higher than the numbers of white teachers who are being released.

As a result of constantly removing principals and teachers, many schools are unstable, she said.

One of the schools where parents and teachers are fighting to keep their principal is Westlake Middle School, which is next to Whole Foods by Lake Merritt.

The Westlake community is fearful that their school will be destabilized like other OUSD schools if they lose their principal, Misha Karigaca, who has been at the school for 15 years and leads staff and a group of parents who are enthusiastic about what they have built in the face of years of low funding and lack of district support.

At a meeting with parents and staff last week, district administrators cited persistent low test scores as the reason for removing Karigaca, who they said would be given another position in the district.

Speakers after speaker at the meeting in the school library warned that this was an especially bad time to remove their principal because the school may have to “co-locate” a charter school on its campus next year, a serious disruption when they feel they need a veteran, respected leader and a united faculty to see them through the transition.

Network Superintendent Ron Smith speaks last week at a parent and teacher meeting at Westlake Middle School. Photo by Ken Epstein.

Replied Ron Smith, OUSD Network Superintendent, “It’s a challenging, challenging time – it’s probably not a good time. But two years, three years, five years, there’s probably not going to be a good time.”

A parent said she was not swayed by the test score rationale.

“Eighty-eight percent (of our students) are low income. We have two or three jobs, many parents don’t have both partners at home. I don’t care about these numbers,” the parent said.

“My daughter is receiving music lessons and learning to write down music. She’s in the after school engineering program. I am proud my kid is here – she feels like this is her home,” the parent said.

Network Supt. Smith responded to parents who were fearful that programs at the school will be lost or wrecked as demoralized parents and veteran, beloved teachers flee the school next year.

“If someone says, ‘I’m not going to be here because Misha (Karigaca) is not going to be here,’ that’s their choice to make,” said Smith, who assured the meeting that the school would not be closed in the fall.

“My sole goal is to ensure that to the best of my ability, the doors (will) open next school year,” he said.

Magic in the Classroom

The classroom should be a magical place- filled with wonder and surprise, leaving space for play, fantasy and the joy of discovery. That is how you create lifetime learners and critical thinkers. Filling it with fear and stress builds the expectation that life will be barren and harsh. If you impart that lesson to children who have already experienced too much of life's pain, you are lowering their expectations of a caring and benign world to dangerous levels. And encouraging them to inflict as much pain as they receive because pain is all they know. Current education policy is child abuse writ large. Like most forms of abuse, it turns its victims into agents of its continuation.

Rejecting the Theology of LGBTQ Oppression: A Message to the Black Church by Desmera Gatewood

I grew up in the ministry.  Whether it were a home church or one of the churches we visited, I can recall very little mention in support or opposition to the LGBTQ movement.  Yet, the lack of a conversation spoke volumes as well.   The first time I had openly heard black folks in my community talk about LGBTQ, was in reference to a scandal of a local prominent preacher who had been caught in an affair with a man.  

What I can recall that folks were most  appalled by were not his faith in contradiction to his dishonesty (we wouldn't have enough appall left in the world if we were appalled by that phenomenon), but his faith in contradiction to his sexuality.  What's fascinating is that the bible emphasizes truthfulness and love as much as anyone can claim it justifies any form of fear or hate towards anyone.  But, let's get back to the scandal, would folks have been appalled if he used church funds to buy a jet? Would Jesus have been?   Yes.  The only time Jesus throws a tantrum in the bible is when he goes to the church and sees the officials exchanging money: not when he encountered anyone with a what some would call a (but he didn't) a deviant lifestyle.  

The bible preaches against what would be known today as Capitalism, materialism, yet folks conveniently forget that when holding clergymen accountable.  Interestingly, even on the subject of what some would call "deviant" behavior, there isn't a broad application of accountability either.   The Catholic Church internationally has priests who are called out daily by victims of sexual abuse, degradation and torment.  Where's that public outrage?

Let's bring it back home though, to the black church.  The black church in many ways is marred and tainted by those white slave masters who sang Amazing Grace How Sweet The Sound from the pulpit while raping their slaves, auctioning off families, and getting rich off of chattel.  They told their very slaves, who they dismembered for learning to read, that a book they had no knowledge of, justified all of the oppression taking place on the plantation.   They took truths and created myths that the bible was the reason that it was ok to brutalize, degrade and take ownership of other people.  One must wonder how often they told the story of Moses.  The same Moses whose story began with him being born a slave and dying as the one who let his people go.  One must wonder how often they told the story of Jesus who said He has been sent to heal the broken heart and set at liberty them that are captive.  I imagine never.  Because had they, their slaves would have been privy to a phenomenon that would become a pattern in America and globally for centuries:  the Bible being used as a means and justification to hate and oppress and to hate THE oppressed.  

The slave masters however were only taking cues from religious predecessors and movements in the past like the Crusades, a genocide led by the church which slaughtered people for simply not believing in the Father, the Son and the blessed Holy Ghost.  They were setting the tone for the reinforcement of those hateful movements led in the name of Christianity, like The Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the Moral Majority.  Those slave masters were laying the foundation in the Americas for the church to be used as a tool to reinforce oppression instead of dismantling it.

So black people in America learned very quickly that there was a place, filled with the pandemonium of beautiful music and call and response , that could say one thing in the name of God and do something completely different in the name of God, without consequence.  Or, that there was a place that taught people to not rebel against their rulers, and to just pray their way to salvation.  Ironically,  the bible's hall of fame, from Jesus flipping tables in the Church, David sling shotting Goliath, Daniel being sentenced to the lion's den, Miriam leading Moses to mobilize the liberation of the slaves, Moses taking out a slave master and watching a sea of oppressors drown, Shadrack, Meshack and Abendigo taking a death sentence before they would bow before the king,  is stacked with stories of not just praying against but FIGHTING against oppression: by any means necessary.

Even currently, the stories of only certain religious leaders are heralded as examples of how one fights oppression.  The pacifists and the peaceful are deemed as the good Christian fighters, but the Rev. John Brown who led an uprising against slavery with an army armed with pikes, is rarely recognized as a model "Christian".   What that has created is a double whammy for some black folks and the oppressed religious classes: either you bow to your oppressor, or if he hits you, turn the other cheek and let him hit you again.  Not only does that model contradict "Christianity" and American Culture in general, but it contradicts natural human fight or flight response and every animal's instinct to defend and fight for its life.  Is a dog going to hell for attacking you if you take his meal?   (we all know All Dogs Go to Heaven [sorry I couldn't resist]) Is a bear going to hell for ripping you apart if you cross her cub? Is a bird going to hell for pecking your eyes if you dismantle their nest?  No.  And when we get out the I am superiority complex, we'll recognize humans have those same natural instincts as all animals do, to fight threats to their survival.

So what threats to survival do we see in the Black Church? I'm generally speaking, so excuse my political incorrectness while I paint this picture (if your church doesn't apply, congratulations, it doesn't apply). We see a replication of that Slave Master inspired behavior, of using a book and a theology to justify hate.  But the hate I'm talking about this time, isn't limited to white people hating black people, but black people hating black people.  Yeah I said it.  Black people using a book to hate their own people.  Which people am I referring to? Their own products of the black village, the black home, the black womb, the black family, the black community: black LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer folk).  

The bible was written during an era (depending on whether you believe King James or King "David" wrote which parts, but either era applies) that in no way could've understood the psychological and physiological nuances associated with gender and sexuality.  So even IF the bible can be interpreted as a text used to justify the oppression and exclusion of LGBTQ folk, what was that even remotely based on? Divine truth?  That's ignorant as hell.  

Let's step outside of the Bible for a second:  let's just go cerebral, under what logic model, for just basic preservation of humanity, does it make sense for you to ostracize your own child? Let's go back to the bible, Jesus said come as you are.  He didn't say leave differently.  He didn't specify how "who you are" had to be.   He didn't specify if you had to be born that way or if you had to choose who you were, just come as you are.  

So what happened where we left all of that behind and told black folk who were LGBTQ to not come as they were and to not even come at all?  What happened to lead us to  believe Jesus, who I believed behaved and in almost all ways (regardless of which racial depiction) looked to be gender androgynous and non-conformist, would sanction that?   That didn't come from anywhere but each individual's "choice" to be an oppressive bigot against their own people.

We are coming off of an era where black people espoused Black Power and entering one where black people are widely espousing that Black Lives Matter.  I believe in Black Power (and power to All People) and that Black Lives matter,  but what I know is that I can't believe in those concepts and leave my black LGBTQ people excluded in fighting for either of those causes.  

What God do you serve that doesn't believe all Black Lives Matter?  What Jesus do you follow who told you to beat the gay out of your child?  What theology do you ascribe to that told you a gay person can't come into or lead your institution?  What science were you taught that told you homosexuality was a disease?  What life did you live that led you to believing your identity was a choice?

I'm not saying you don't have justification based on any of those things to believe what you do, I'm saying IF you do, in order for all of us to be free even by the American hog-wash standards of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you have to make a choice to reject those teachings and gain new knowledge.  You know what else the bible you use to justify your hate tells us: My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge, because thou has rejected knowledge I will also reject thee. So your own ignorance is even inexcusable by your own theology.

But once you learn why you should love your LGBTQ kinfolk, even if you don't believe your identity aligns with their plight, if you must still look to the guidance of religious leaders to make decisions on how you as an individual fight back, make like John Brown and pick up your pike, and bring down those systems with the wrath of God behind you.

 

Why? Because this patriarchial, oppressive racist system is literally sanctioning the persecution of LGBTQ people.  The HB2 legislation passed in North Carolina legalizes the discrimination of people who we claim to love: black people.  Yes, those LGBTQ people who the NC General Assembly is ok'ing the dehumanization of are part of our black communities, black churches, HBCUs, and our black entertainment industry. Their stories are told through  our black present-day icons like Laverne Cox who uses her platform to advocate for black trans incarcerated women like CeCe McDonald,  or black elders like Bayard Rustin and Paulie Murray who had to conceal parts of their identity from their own people while they fought for their own people.  All of black LGBTQ folk deserve our attention, love, space time and our fight for justice for all people because when partriarchial, sexist, homophobic, classist, racist, transphobic systems are in motion, they're coming for us all.

Texas Children Deserve Better by Jennifer Rumsey

March 24, 2016

Texas Children Deserve Better
Jennifer Rumsey

It’s that time again. Time for STAAR testing in Texas. STAAR is the legislatively mandated series of high-stakes tests for public school children in Texas, and it is the most recent and most difficult of several testing program iterations that began in the 1980’s. I have been a Texas public school teacher since 1999. I have experienced TAAS, TAAS prep, TAAS workbooks, TAAS-aligned textbooks, TAAS packets, and even a TAAS pep rally.

Once students’ statewide overall scores became pretty high, the legislature made the costly move (paid to Pearson) to TAKS. The public schools adjusted: we adopted TAKS-aligned textbooks (published by Pearson), bought TAKS workbooks, held TAKS bootcamps and tutorials. During this time, the lawmakers instilled the Student Success Initiative (SSI), claiming that 5th and 8th grade students would “benefit” by being required to pass the TAKS reading and math tests. If students don’t pass, don’t worry…they “get” two more tries to pass the tests. But if they fail it repeatedly, these children can be retained in grade. Nevermind that research shows that students who are retained are more likely to suffer from low self-esteem and to dropout of high school.

And then there was STAAR, the most ambitious testing program yet. The Texas legislature decided to gut public education funding that year, 2011. The cuts amounted to a loss of $5.4 billion, while they voted to create STAAR and pay Pearson $500,000.00. At first adoption, high school students were required to pass 15 End of Course exams to graduate. Now, thanks to grassroots efforts to change excessive testing requirements, high school students only take 5 graduation exams. However, their future life success remains impacted by rules that they must pass these exams to graduate, even with their Carnegie credits earned.

Tuesday my freshmen students must take the 5 hour English I End of Course Exam. I will be one of the lucky test administrators. During one of my test administration trainings, I found out that I am now required to write down the name of each student who leaves the testing room to use the bathroom, the time the student leaves, and the time that they return. This information, along with a seating chart, will be turned in to the Texas Education Agency. I am not sure why. Is it an additional measure of control over the students? Is it an additional measure of control over myself and other education professionals? Is it a deliberate attempt at de-professionalization of educators? When I mentioned to my students that I had to keep track of their times in and out from the restroom, they were puzzled and irritated. One savvy freshman girl asked, “Do they want to know the stall I used also?”

What I do know for sure is that these tests have become far too important. They are treated as top secret, national security-level documents. Why is the material in a standardized test treated as more confidential than the information in the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails? I have already signed my oath, and in my test administrator’s manual I am threatened with the loss of my hard-earned professional certification if I share information relating to what is on the test. I am cautioned to in no way purposely view the tests. Ironically, I am allowed to read the writing prompt to a student who requests it... My students are asked to sign an honor statement as well about not sharing the test material. During the five-hour testing block, I must “actively monitor” the students in my room, making sure they don’t cheat, don’t forget to bubble their answer document, don’t sleep. In the past, I have been warned that I am in not allowed to sit down during this all-important monitoring session. I may not read or write anything. I may only monitor, monitor, monitor, resting only on a “perch” of a stool for a short while before getting back up and walking the silent room filled with stressed students whose self-worth depends on their bubbled answers.

Tuesday is a big day for my little family. If my daughter doesn’t pass the math STAAR test, she will face the possible future of retention in fifth grade. My 10-year-old daughter is one of the unlucky guinea pig fifth graders in the state of Texas. My sweetie is a captive of the Student Success Initiative and one of the unlucky children impacted by a State Board of Education decision from 2015 that “pushed down” developmentally inappropriate math TEKS objectives. Some of the newly required 5th grade material was, until 2015, not taught until the children were in the 7th grade. What does this “pushing down” of objectives do? It requires more material to be taught during the school year, stealing valuable time that math teachers need to teach the foundational material for that year. It makes math harder and more rushed for the children. It is wrong. The TEA suspended the math passing requirements for 5th graders last year. But not so this year. Nope. My child and her peers must pass this test or face retention in grade. And wait, the news just gets better. The outgoing Commissioner of Education announced near his departure that, “STAAR performance standards have been scheduled to move to the more rigorous phase-in 2 passing standard this school year. Each time the performance standard is increased, a student must achieve a higher score in order to pass a STAAR exam” (http://tea.texas.gov/About_TEA/News_and_Multimedia/Press_Releases/2015/Commissioner_Williams_announces_STAAR_performance_standards_for_2015-2016_and_beyond/).
Thus, my daughter and all her little 10 and 11 year old friends are being held accountable for inappropriate math standards and will be judged at a higher performance standard at the same time. Something is not right here. Something is very, very wrong. My child is not a subject to be experimented on.

While my child is held to harder performance standards, the TEA has failed to comply with laws passed this legislative session. The 2015 legislature passed HB 743, and Governor Abbott signed it into law. This law requires that the TEA redesign STAAR assessments in grades 3-5 so that 85% of children testing can complete them in two hours. Currently, the assessments are four hours in length, far too long. The TEA has not shortened the tests for this year, ignoring the law. Why is my 10 year old held to higher performance standards on developmentally inappropriate math objectives, threatened with grade retention if she fails, but the TEA is getting away with ignoring the law? In my view, this refusal to follow the law invalidates all test scores for all children in grades 3-5 this year.

Research shows that standardized tests are not a true measure of what a child knows. I can tell you that they are not any kind of measure of a child’s worth. The children in the state of Texas deserve better than to be over-tested and experimented on. I am an expert in the field of education. I am a professional. I am a teacher. I know when my students are learning. I love seeing the light in their eyes when they have mastered a difficult concept, the excitement on their faces when they ask if they can continue reading a novel that they truly enjoy, the beauty in their smiles when I praise their successes. As far as being accountable, all teachers are accountable. We always have been. We are accountable to the children in our care, the children who become ours for a year, the ones we listen to when they are sad, the ones we feed when they are hungry, the ones we teach. It is time for the lawmakers and the TEA to be held accountable. Texas children are not subjects for your high-stakes experiments. They deserve better.

Defend Casey Young! Stop Receivership in Buffalo and New York State

Several years ago, my great friend Dr Henry Louis Taylor took me on a tour of the East Side of Buffalo where his students were part of a movement to get neighborhood residents to take the lead in shaping their communities future. One of the stops of the tour was East Side High School, where Dr Taylor said," I want you to meet someone who reminds me of you.". He then took me up to the principal's office where I was introduced to a powerfully built white man  with a shaved head who looked to be in his late 30's . His name was Casey Young.

After the introductions, Mr Young gave me a brief synopsis of his own life before coming to this new position. which had been filled with hardship and challenges. He then proceeded to talk about East Side High School. "I love this school and I love the kids here" he told me, "but they are going to get rid of me in three years. No matter what I do, my graduation rates probably won't meet the state standard because I have been sent all the kids with low test scores that other schools have pushed out. Of my 163 freshmen, 160 scored 1's and 2's on the state tests. I am going to give them everything I have, but I am playing with a stacked deck."

After I digested what Mr Young had told me, I toured the school, talked to some of the teachers and students and came away with a sense that some real idealism, energy and hope were present in the building. But I pondered the numbers that Mr Young had given me, and knowing the rigidity of the state education department, wondered whether the scenario he gave me would come true

Then yesterday, I found out, that Mr Young was not wrong. On a Buffalo education page, I saw an article which said that Mr Young was being brought up on by local education officials, which were under huge pressure from the State Education Department to close low performing schools, on charges of tampering with graduation rates.

 This accusation had set up written all over it! What a disgrace! When you find a principal with the passion and energy Casey Young has, who loves working with children others have rejected, you need to support him in every way possible, not harass him and remove him.

But in the rush to close public schools, even those with the long and noble history East Side has, and replace them with charters, the kids interests easily get lost

This is yet another reason why school closings are community destroying and the receivership program must be ended.

Defend Casey Young! Stop Receivership in Buffalo and New York State!

What the Appointment of Betty Rosa As Regents Chancellor Means for Education Policy in New York State

The appointment of Dr Betty Rosa- who i know well from private correspondence- as Regents Chancellor means a few things.

1. Reducing excessive testing will become a major priority for the Regents.
2. Charter schools will no longer be seen as the saviours of public education
3. Teachers and parents voices will matter a great deal in debates on education policy in the state
4. Schools in low income communities will be seen as important community institutions which should be nurtured and preserved rather than closed and replaced with charters
5. The Opt Out movement will be honored and supported
6. Billionaires trying to influence education policy will be viewed with extreme skepticism.
7. The needs of ELL and Special Needs students will be given the highest priority.
8. The Common Core Standards will no longer have a powerful champion on the State Board of Regents

How the impact of Dr Rosa's appointment will affect the Governor the Legislature and NYSED remains to be seen, but it certainly reflects a huge change in tone of education policy debates in NY State.

Catholic Social Teaching and Fordham's Dining Hall Negotiations

In the context of a discussion of economic policy and economic ethics, the bishops of the United States, in Economic Justice for All, par. 24, wrote, "Decisions must be judged in light of what they do for the poor, what they do to the poor and what they enable the poor to do for themselves. The fundamental moral criterion for all economic decisions, policies, and institutions is this: They must be at the service of all people, especially the poor."

Insofar as a large number of the unionized employees of Sodexho who serve Fordham are "poor," and that especially the least well paid and the newest workers are likely "poor" by any Just Wage or Family Wage standard (which is also part of traditional Catholic Social Thought), I urge you to continue to remind the administration -- as I do through this email -- of the moral judgment the bishops have given and that they claim applies to all institutions.

One may contextualize the application of a fundamental moral criterion, but one cannot properly deny that it is the fundamental moral criterion.

Terrence W. Tilley
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Professor of Catholic Theology
Fordham UniversityI

Stuart Rhoden's Review of "Teaching While Black"

Review of Teaching While Black: A New Voice on Race and Education in New York City by Pamela Lewis

 Ms. Lewis is accurate when she starts by stating that this story is a “love story.” The totality of this story takes us across a journey from the streets of the Bronx, to Fordham University, to the New York Teaching Fellows and finally into her own classroom. I found her narrative to be told in such a beautiful way that I sometimes wanted her to make the narrative match the grittiness and difficulty of the struggle. That Ms. Lewis presents this story, a story of struggling through college as a woman of color, coming from the projects of the Bronx and being in a teaching program with very few persons of color, as a love story speaks to her maturity not just as an educator but as a writer as well.
In the first chapter of the book, she describes her self as “an educated sister from the hood” and she never wavers from that narrative. Her account is, as Gilberto Conchas describes, “one part streetsmarts and one part booksmarts.” Her combination of street and academia is what makes her such an effective educator, and this a must read tome. Her ability to fluidly transition and code switch between the narratives of students and faculty is of critical importance. Most significantly, what makes her streetsmarts critical to her success is how she is able to swiftly draw conclusions about her students that most young educators her age simply are not able to conclude because of their age or lack of experience. Her awareness of the lived experiences of her students adds years of experience to her resume and highlights a blind spot that many educators never reach.

Those of us in higher education wish we could teach what Ms. Lewis intuitively knows about her students, because as she says “I must admit that my kids “got me” more than they got their other teachers because I was them…that is if they didn’t get caught up in the realities of ‘hood living.” Being able to understand the cultural experiences and personal narratives of students of color in urban environments is not something that is easily ingested by many students in teacher training programs. Many young, would-be teachers feel as if they are already “down” simply by being familiar with a particular pop or hip-hop artist, current film, or speaking the latest urban vernacular. While those things are important, and are entry points into learning about urban students cultural background and lived experiences, they are just that, an entry point. Too many educators, both veteran as well as novice, end with being comfortable using students vernacular or knowing the latest musical artist. Ms. Lewis starts there and zooms past that marker with ease.

While Ms. Lewis highlights that her story is a love story, she doesn’t shy away from the struggles of being a pre-service and in-service teacher. Her articulation of the challenges she had with professors while in college resonates to those doing work focusing on culture and diversity, particularly focusing on microaggressions. She was fortunate enough to find a professor who gave voice to her negative experiences, and in many ways gave her hope. Her ability to reach out for assistance and to go to another professor, one who is a white male, speaks to her deeper understanding that not everyone who is of the same race, or gender, shares the same experiences. Dr. Mark Naison, a Professor of African and African-American studies at Fordham University, eloquently describes Ms. Lewis’ circumstance as “aversive racism.” His articulation led her to see a bigger picture, many young future educators simply do not see. She goes on to state that because of her problematic collegiate experience she “realized that the entire public school system was an aversively racist institution” meaning that students of color in urban school districts across the country are not overtly denied rights, but rather are covertly denied access and opportunity based on where they live.

When Ms. Lewis describes her first time entering her own school classroom and meeting her students, you can see how this is a love story. Many fear urban classrooms full of Black and Brown students, and in her case Special Education students, but she ran towards them. Many see “these students” as deficits; Ms. Lewis saw their potential and abilities. As she succinctly articulates about one of her most challenging students, all he needed was “love and respect.” Too few teachers, no matter their color, age or experience level enter their classrooms with this type of reverence, or humility. There is ample room for classroom management to include love, trust and respect.

This book, Teaching While Black: A New Voice on Race and Education in New York City, highlights relationships not just between Ms. Lewis and her students, but also her colleagues, most of whom are significantly older than she is. Her descriptions of the culture of the school are some of the most well written prose concerning this issue. Her juxtaposition of understanding the landscape of public education as an entry-level non-tenured teacher is spot on. Ms. Lewis seeing the totality of the situation, not in an exclusively negative light, like many teachers who end up leaving the profession, but rather as a challenge, speaks to her urban grit and resilience. She is extremely open to being mentored by her colleagues and has a wonderful relationship with her Principal. However, she is also pragmatic and authentic when it comes to the multitude of inequities and ineptitude that is taking place at the school site level to her students, and in the school.

Ms. Lewis in this must read tome, highlights how all people are not one identity. She speaks to the intersectionality of her neighborhood, her gender, her race and her educational level in a way that is much needed in the discourse surrounding public education. Here is hoping that educators, academics as well as policymakers all learn from her experiences navigating urban public schools in New York City.

Why Mr Trump's Language Has Backfired: Lessons From a Brooklyn Coach

In the late 1980's and early 90's, most of my spare time was spent coaching CYO basketball and sandlot baseball. My teams, based in St. Saviour's parish in Park Slope, played games all over Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. At that time, New York was a racial tinderbox, with killings of Black men in Howard Beach and Bensonhurst producing huge protests and bitter counterdemonstrations. There was tremendous tension in the city, affecting people in the neighborhoods which fielded teams, many of which were highly segregated . Our multiracial teams from Park Slope played all Black teams from Red Hook, Farragut Houses and Flatbush, while competing against all white teams from Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Marine Park Howard Beach and Rockaway.

How did the coaches, families and players handle the tensions surrounding them? How did they prevent basketball games and baseball games between kids from different neighborhoods, and from different racial backgrounds, from devolving into fights, riots and communal warfare?

The answer was very simple. There was an unspoken agreement among the coaches, parents, and referees that in the heat of closely contested games NO ONE WOULD EVER MENTION SOMEONE'S RACE! You could insult a player by referring to his weight, height, size of his butt, the way he walked talked or shot, but never ever by referring to his race. You could call someone an asshole, but never a Black or White asshole.

People stuck to this rule religiously and the result was that in more than 10 years of coaching, there only one game I coached that turned into a riot even though many were hotly, even bitterly contested. And that one exception was when white parents form a parish in Marine Park claimed that a black player on our team was intimidating their kids and use a racial term to get their point across.

The lesson. to me is clear. People in public life, if they want to prevent tensions from exploding into violence, have to refrain from openly attacking people by race, religion or nationality, even when they are angry.

Mr Trump failed to follow that rule and now we are about to reap the whirlwind.

Why Elites Have to Destroy Public Education

I just had an epiphany. I've been thinking about why our economic and political elites are devoting so much energy to destroying public education. What's in for them, other than the profits to be made from investments in technology, software, real estate and other direct benefits to corporations from testing and school privatization?.
And then I realized something- the generation of Sixties rebels that I was part of were products of the greatest investment in public education in US history! The schools we attended, starved for resources during the Depression, still often segregated by race and class, benefited from a huge investment of funding in response to postwar economic growth and the Cold War. In New York City, this investment was reflected in the creation of incredible music and arts programs, excellent science labs, after school programs and night centers; regular recess and physical education, and lots of school trips. And from what i have gathered from talking to friends who grew up in LA, Newark, Detroit, Buffalo and Chicago, the same kinds of programs were available in public schools throughout the nation's cities. Schools, even those in working class neighborhoods and communities of color,had bands and orchestras, plays and debates, science fairs and great school teams.
The young people attending those schools, me among them, believed that the American dream of freedom and economic opportunity was really for THEM,and when they discovered injustices not discussed in their homes and schools, responded fiercely, not only with indignation, but with the confidence to challenge entrenched hierarchies.
So many of the great young leaders of 60's protests from founders of the Student on Violent Coordinating Committee, to those who led campus protests against the Vietnam War, to the activists in the radical Women's Liberation movement which did so much to change gender relations in the US,, were product of public schools
As wealth has concentrated at the top levels of American society to an unprecedented degree, the last thing our elites want to see is another wave of rebellion like we had in the Sixties.
Starving, privatizing and scripting what goes on in public schools seems like an excellent strategy to prevent that from happening.

Sample Letter To School Districts That Force Students to Take Tests Against their Parents Wishes

Dear ................

I am writing to urge you to reconsider your efforts to force ........... to take state tests against the will of his parents. I am doing so as part of an informal committee of scholars, journalists, and civil rights lawyers monitoring how school districts around the nation handle children and families who are refusing tests they consider invasive and developmentally inappropriate. We regard
resistance to testing as one of the great civil rights causes of our time, as we believe testing in our educational system has reached dangerous proportions and is doing especial harm to ELL students and special needs who are forced to take tests which they experience as humiliating and demoralizing.

Given that perspective, which is shared by a growing number of educators, education scholars, and psychologists, I urge you as a matter of conscience and sound education practice, to abide by the wishes of ............parents and refrain from requiring him to take tests which they choose to exempt him from. Hundreds of thousands of parents around the country have taken this step, more than 220,000 in my home state of New York. School districts which have chosen to force children to take tests over the protests of their parents are likely to face much negative publicity and lawsuits.. While this possibility may seem remote in your own school district in South West Texas, I can assure you that the test resistance movement is national and reaches into every portion of the nation. It is truly a cause whose time as come as it has the best interests of children and teachers at heart

I realize that I have no institutional standing to address you this way, but I do so from a strong moral foundation. I am among many
who care deeply about education policy, and about justice who believe that children and families should be free from intimidation and deprival of school recources to which they are entitled when facing the very serious decision whether to participate in state tests

Sincerely,

Mark D Naison
Professor of African American Studies and History
Fordham University

The Grim Future of Public Education in the Face of "Personalized Learning"

As a student of history, who has watched how the financialization of capital and the expansion of technology has affected labor markets, housing markets, and the political process, I am incredibly pessimistic about the future of public education. After the recent financial collapse, more and more of those with investment capital seeking profitable outlets have are seeing education, and educational technology, as potential growth areas. Resistance to standardized testing and Common Core confronted them with a temporary setback, but now they are poised to make an end run around the Opt Out movement by concentrating on "personalized learning" which requires a huge investment in computerization of classrooms as well as software. Along with this remaking of schooling, they plan a data based reinvention of teacher education which will require the closing, or reinvention of colleges of teacher education. If these plans go through, and majority of the nation's teachers and teacher educators are likely to lose their jobs in the next 10 years, to be replaced by people who will largely be temp workers making little more than minimum wage. This has already happened in higher education with the switch to adjunct labor. It is about to sweep through our public schools with the force of a juggernaut.
Can it be stopped? Based on the reports I am getting from places as far apart as Colorado, Maine, Florida and Connecticut, it is going to require resistance on a scale far beyond anything we have seen to prevent this from going into effect.
Given the impact on wages, and jobs, along with the destruction of any forms of collective experience in a school setting, it looks to me like the Oligarchy is ready to make itself invulnerable for the next `100 years.

We Are All "Illegals"

One of the things that perplexes me most in the current political landscape is the use of the term "illegals" to refer to undocumented immigrants. If there is ever an example of the pot calling the kettle black, this is it. There are very few working class, and even middle class Americans, who can support themselves strictly through legal means, especially now that wages have plummeted and many available jobs have become part time. To get by,and support their families, almost everyone has an off the books source of income, ranging from painting houses, to fixing cars, to tutoring or styling hair, to producing or selling iilegal substances, and huge numbers of families rent out rooms, and in some cases portions of rooms, to help meet mortgage payments or pay the rent. This isn't accidental, it is institutionalized The economic system would collapse without these supplementary sources of income. You can't live on Wal- Mart or K-Mart wages.or by driving for Uber.

But though wage compression and the arrival of the "gig economy" have made participation in underground/off the books economies an essential part of most peoples lives, these activities have always been a part of American working class history. I have often argued that few working class Americans were able to pull themselves out of poverty strictly by legal means, and my own family is a great example of this. My mother's side of the family, Jews from various parts of Eastern Europe, included bootleggers, gamblers, and,enforcers for the mob along with people who worked in retail outlets, sold food from pushcarts,, worked in the garment district, drove trucks and taught school. More than that, the mob was an integral part of our neighborhood. Barry H's father, the neighborhood bookie, was as much a fixture of the community as the grandmothers sitting on the benches commenting on everyone's behavior.

And lest you think this behavior is just urban or "ethnic";think of all the country music songs about moonshiners, gamblers, and people being chased by sheriffs or revenue men ( e,g, Steve Earle's "Copperhead Road")
And this isn't just historic. Until legalizatiion started to gain traction,, marijuana was the second largest cash crop in the nation- behind corn- and the people growing it, in most cases, were people who had been in the US for generations.

So, the next time you hear someone refer to undocumented immigrants as "the illegals" you might want to remind the person using that term that we are not only a nation of immigrants, but a nation of "illegals."

I am proud to be part of a family of "illegals"- people who worked hard to support their families "by any means necessary."

Donald Trump and "Whiteness"

I have not been at a Donald Trump Rally, but from what I have been able to observe from photos and video cllps posted by both supporters and opponents, attendance at them has been overwhelmingly white. In a society which is increasingly multiracial, that cries out for explanation.Is that accidental, or does it reflect some underlying divisions in the society or the segregated nature of our social networks?

Please understand that this comment is not intended to demonize supporters of Donald Trump. I made the same comments about education activist events I have attended, ranging from the first big Save our Schools March, to the founding conference of the Network for Public Education, and have applied a similar critique to recruitment and admissions policies of my own university.

The big issue here is not the raw facts of this observation. but how Trump supporters deal with the "Whiteness" of their movement. Is this something they see as problematic, and want to change, or is it something that they draw strength from and is essential to the movement's appeal?

If Trump's support is driven by an affirmation of Whiteness,and an implicit if not explicit connection between Whiteness and Americanness, it is only a matter of time before the movement comes to grief. You cannot in this society, given its demographic composition, base a political movement on the solidarity, defiance and rage of a single racial group without increasing division and inciting people to violence.

White Trump supporters may in fact be more diverse than I am suggesting. I certainly hope so. But if they aren't. we are in for a very rough ride, and not only during this election cycle. We don't need another George Wallace unleashing the demons of White Racial Angst. We need leaders who understand the danger that path entails, even while they make sharp criticisms of how the country has been run.

How Age and Race Discrimination Laid the Groundwork for the California Teachers Shortage- A Report

March 4, 2016


Valerie Trahan
2045 Emerson St Lower
Berkeley, CA
Retired Teacher
Masters in Education; Harvard University
510-689-6123


To:  Dr.Linda Darling Hammond; Professor Emeritus Stanford University; (indadh@suse.stanford.edu)
 Dr. Louis Freedberg; University California at Berkeley  (lfreedberg@edsource.org)
Dr. Bill Koski; Stanford University; (bkoski@law.stanford.edu)


SUBJECT: A QUANTITATIVE AND STATISTICAL STUDY ON CALIFORNIA TEACHER SHORTAGES AND AGE DISCRIMINATION


Query: Is the California Teacher Shortage caused by an intentional age discrimination policy?

Subject Area 1: Referrals to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing for Discipline

Subject Area 2: Referrals to Peer Assistance and Review (PAR)

Subject Area 3: Los Angeles Unified School District Teacher Jail; Housed Teachers


This letter is in direct response to the Legislative Analyst Office Report on teacher shortages. This report was reported to media on March 1st, 2016.

http://edsource.org/2016/debate-surfaces-over-how-much-state-action-needed-to-ease-teacher-shortages/95302



1.The data used for this query was taken from Public Records Requests. The data acquired from the CTC is teachers referred for discipline between January of 2003 to August of 2014. On the list, their are 3771 teachers. We do not know why these teachers were referred or the disposition of their cases. However, we can do an empirical analysis and measure the probability that the demographics referred due to random or non random events. As a benchmark we will use the Biddle method(http://www.biddle.com/documents/twostats.htm). Utilizing the 1 Z proportion test or the binomial distribution test to measure the likelihood of the observed event. Methodology: I will perform the which is a recognized methodology to measure expected results vs. observed results. The also measures the actual standard deviation and whether the standard deviation meets the legal threshold for a prima facie case of discrimination. The 1 Z Proportion Test shows 6.54 standard deviations for teachers referred to the CTC over the age of 56. According to Biddle, (http://www.biddle.com/documents/twostats.htm) two to three standard deviations is used in Disparate Impact Cases and 5 Standard Deviations for Disparate Treatment Cases. I will use these recognized metrics for my

Our next test to probe discriminatory findings is the Heads or Tails Binomial Distribution Test. This test is also recognized to measure statistical discrimination as recognized by judicial courts. For the CTC Analysis (see attached) The heads or tails binomial distribution test shows 0.00 probability of a random event. This also is for teachers referred to the CTC for discipline over the age of 56.
2. Peer Assistance and Review. PAR is a popular teacher remediation program supported by School Districts and Unions to “improve teacher performance”. However, as you will see, persons referred to PAR have high degrees of education, thousands of hours of professional development, are above 50 years of age, and not coincidently the highest salaried teachers. We will begin with data on Los Angeles Unified School District’s use of PAR.
2A. Peer Assistance and Review Los Angeles Unified School District
2B and 2C Combined-Peer Assistance and Review San Francisco Unified School District and Oakland Unified School District
2C-1 Oakland Unified School District PAR- Binomial Distribution age 56 and over
3A. Teacher Jail Housed Teachers-Los Angeles Unified School District

Objective Findings:
1.The data from the Commission on Teacher Credentialing shows a bias towards persons over the age of 56 not explained by random events.
2A. The data regarding PAR from Los Angeles Unified School District shows racial discrimination towards African American Teachers and teachers over the age of 56. Again the numbers are not explained by random events, and suggest Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact Discrimination.
2B and 2C. The data from San Francisco and Oakland Unified School District shows a bias towards teachers over the age of 56.
2C-1. The data from Oakland Unified School Districts use of Peer Assistance and Review in particular shows intentional age discrimination and not a chance of a random event.
3A. The data from Los Angeles Unified School District regarding “Teacher Jail” or Housed Teachers shows a massive age bias of teachers over the age of 40. In this query 93% of the Housed Teachers are over the age of 40.

Summary:
The teacher shortage in California is caused by deliberate age and in some cases racial discrimination in School Districts state wide. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing and Los Angeles Unified School District using teacher jail executed byCalifornia Education Code 44939(c) are deliberately forcing veteran teachers out of the profession.
The teacher shortage in California is also caused by the use of Peer Assistance and Review (codified in California Education Code 44500) to drive high salaried, highly educated, and veteran teachers out of the profession. The idea that teachers referred to PAR suddenly forgot how to teach is absurd on its face. Veteran teachers are lifelong learners and work constantly to maintain their content knowledge and pedagogy.
The financial motive for these policies is clear.1. For every maxed out salaried teacher that is removed, employers save a huge premium on salaries and benefits. 2. These policies weaken the institutional memory of school sites and force teachers in to retirement before they are fully vested in the system. 3. The precision of these polices are clear and the effects have been devastating. It is no wonder that teacher preparation programs in the state are in a heavy state of decline. In a profession where bullying, harassment, and the anti teacher narrative dominate the education debate, the honor of the profession has been tainted to a large degree. I challenge the recipients of this communication to re examine and amend their report to probe for age discrimination and cost cutting as the cause for the California Teacher Shortage. Having survived the horrid process of Peer Assistance and Review myself, and being forced into early retirement, I can speak on these issues with much authority.
Valerie Trahan
Masters Degree in Education
Harvard University
March 4, 2016


Valerie Trahan
2045 Emerson St Lower
Berkeley, CA
Retired Teacher
Masters in Education; Harvard University
510-689-6123


To:  Dr.Linda Darling Hammond; Professor Emeritus Stanford University; (indadh@suse.stanford.edu)
 Dr. Louis Freedberg; University California at Berkeley  (lfreedberg@edsource.org)
Dr. Bill Koski; Stanford University; (bkoski@law.stanford.edu)


SUBJECT: A QUANTITATIVE AND STATISTICAL STUDY ON CALIFORNIA TEACHER SHORTAGES AND AGE DISCRIMINATION


Query: Is the California Teacher Shortage caused by an intentional age discrimination policy?

Subject Area 1: Referrals to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing for Discipline

Subject Area 2: Referrals to Peer Assistance and Review (PAR)

Subject Area 3: Los Angeles Unified School District Teacher Jail; Housed Teachers


This letter is in direct response to the Legislative Analyst Office Report on teacher shortages. This report was reported to media on March 1st, 2016.

http://edsource.org/2016/debate-surfaces-over-how-much-state-action-needed-to-ease-teacher-shortages/95302



1.The data used for this query was taken from Public Records Requests. The data acquired from the CTC is teachers referred for discipline between January of 2003 to August of 2014. On the list, their are 3771 teachers. We do not know why these teachers were referred or the disposition of their cases. However, we can do an empirical analysis and measure the probability that the demographics referred due to random or non random events. As a benchmark we will use the Biddle method(http://www.biddle.com/documents/twostats.htm). Utilizing the 1 Z proportion test or the binomial distribution test to measure the likelihood of the observed event. Methodology: I will perform the which is a recognized methodology to measure expected results vs. observed results. The also measures the actual standard deviation and whether the standard deviation meets the legal threshold for a prima facie case of discrimination. The 1 Z Proportion Test shows 6.54 standard deviations for teachers referred to the CTC over the age of 56. According to Biddle, (http://www.biddle.com/documents/twostats.htm) two to three standard deviations is used in Disparate Impact Cases and 5 Standard Deviations for Disparate Treatment Cases. I will use these recognized metrics for my

Our next test to probe discriminatory findings is the Heads or Tails Binomial Distribution Test. This test is also recognized to measure statistical discrimination as recognized by judicial courts. For the CTC Analysis (see attached) The heads or tails binomial distribution test shows 0.00 probability of a random event. This also is for teachers referred to the CTC for discipline over the age of 56.
2. Peer Assistance and Review. PAR is a popular teacher remediation program supported by School Districts and Unions to “improve teacher performance”. However, as you will see, persons referred to PAR have high degrees of education, thousands of hours of professional development, are above 50 years of age, and not coincidently the highest salaried teachers. We will begin with data on Los Angeles Unified School District’s use of PAR.
2A. Peer Assistance and Review Los Angeles Unified School District
2B and 2C Combined-Peer Assistance and Review San Francisco Unified School District and Oakland Unified School District
2C-1 Oakland Unified School District PAR- Binomial Distribution age 56 and over
3A. Teacher Jail Housed Teachers-Los Angeles Unified School District

Objective Findings:
1.The data from the Commission on Teacher Credentialing shows a bias towards persons over the age of 56 not explained by random events.
2A. The data regarding PAR from Los Angeles Unified School District shows racial discrimination towards African American Teachers and teachers over the age of 56. Again the numbers are not explained by random events, and suggest Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact Discrimination.
2B and 2C. The data from San Francisco and Oakland Unified School District shows a bias towards teachers over the age of 56.
2C-1. The data from Oakland Unified School Districts use of Peer Assistance and Review in particular shows intentional age discrimination and not a chance of a random event.
3A. The data from Los Angeles Unified School District regarding “Teacher Jail” or Housed Teachers shows a massive age bias of teachers over the age of 40. In this query 93% of the Housed Teachers are over the age of 40.

Summary:
The teacher shortage in California is caused by deliberate age and in some cases racial discrimination in School Districts state wide. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing and Los Angeles Unified School District using teacher jail executed byCalifornia Education Code 44939(c) are deliberately forcing veteran teachers out of the profession.
The teacher shortage in California is also caused by the use of Peer Assistance and Review (codified in California Education Code 44500) to drive high salaried, highly educated, and veteran teachers out of the profession. The idea that teachers referred to PAR suddenly forgot how to teach is absurd on its face. Veteran teachers are lifelong learners and work constantly to maintain their content knowledge and pedagogy.
The financial motive for these policies is clear.1. For every maxed out salaried teacher that is removed, employers save a huge premium on salaries and benefits. 2. These policies weaken the institutional memory of school sites and force teachers in to retirement before they are fully vested in the system. 3. The precision of these polices are clear and the effects have been devastating. It is no wonder that teacher preparation programs in the state are in a heavy state of decline. In a profession where bullying, harassment, and the anti teacher narrative dominate the education debate, the honor of the profession has been tainted to a large degree. I challenge the recipients of this communication to re examine and amend their report to probe for age discrimination and cost cutting as the cause for the California Teacher Shortage. Having survived the horrid process of Peer Assistance and Review myself, and being forced into early retirement, I can speak on these issues with much authority.
Valerie Trahan
Masters Degree in Education
Harvard University