The Occupy Movements and the Universities
Mark Naison
Fordham University
The Occupation movements spreading around the nation and the world have the potential to revitalize University life, particularly those initiatives involving community activism and the arts.. The role of arts activists in Occupy Wall Street is a story that has not been fully told,. Community arts organizations in New York such as the South Bronx's Rebel Diaz Arts Collective and Brooklyn's Global Block Collective have been involved with Occupy Wall Street for almost a month, making music videos on the site, documenting the movement's growth through film, and trying to bring working class people and people of colore into the movement. The Occupation has become an essential stopping point for a wide variety of performing artists, none of whom have asked for payment for their appearances ( see videos below)
Musicians Occupy Wall Street - YouTube
2 min - Oct 13, 2011
Uploaded by okayafrica
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCRm_zXrwEc
Bronx Hip-Hop Duo Rebel Diaz, Live From Occupy Wall Street ...
3 min - Oct 6, 2011
Uploaded by democracynow
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkPzXW1hpbA
Occupy Wall St. Hip Hop Anthem: Occupation Freedom ... - YouTube
3 min - Oct 10, 2011
Uploaded by djvibetv
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pl0pHJg_
University faculty and participants in community outreach initiatives can only benefit from tapping into this tremendous source of energy and idealism. I have never seen students on my campus so excited about anything political or artistic as they have about these Occupation movements, which have spread into outer borough New York neighborhoods ( We have had "Occupy the Bronx") as well as cities throughout the nation and the world. What the movement has done is reinvigorate democratic practice- much of it face to face- widely regarded as nearly extinct among young people allegedly atomized by their cell phones and ipods. One my students, a soccer player at Fordham said the following about her experience on a march across the Brooklyn Bridge that led to mass arrests
"Going to the protest I felt like this was the closest I was going to get to reliving my father/uncle's young adulthood! While we were stuck on the bridge people were passing around cigarettes, water, food anything anyone had they shared. Announcements were organized so everyone knew what was going on. People were yelling were changing the world! THE WOLRD IS WATCHING. I called my father on the bridge told him I was getting arrested, and I could tell he was proud! It was unbelievable".
Her sense of excitement about the energy and communal spirit at OWN mirrors my own. Each time I have been at OWS I have sat in on discusion groups created on topics ranging from Mideast politics, to understanding derivatives, to educational reform. The discussions I have participated in have been rigorous, political diverse, and to be honest much more virbrant than most comparable discussions I have been part of at universities.
Those of us who work at Universities need to find ways of connecting to a movement which has inspired so much creativity and intellectual vitality.. As someone who has been to many “Occupation” events, ranging from teach ins, to grade ins, to marches, and has spoken about this movement at my own university and to global media, I have experienced this energy and vitality first hand. But most important, my STUDENTS have experienced this and it has given them a sense that they have the power to make changes in a society which they feared had become hopelessly stagnant and hierarchical. Consider the remarks of 2010 Fordham grad Johanne Sterling who works at Fordham's Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice, about what participating in this movement meant to her, even though the experience got her arrested and sprayed with mace
"
"I had plans to attend a peaceful protest on Wall Street . . . I was happy to know that I was offering my voice and my support to a movement I believed in. As a young person in this country, I cannot say that I have not grown more and more unnerved with the injustices I see every day. The fact that our governmet is quietly but surely taking away our democratic rights (First with the Patriot Act, ironically named, and then with new voting restrictions that are being put into law), the fact that so many of my fellow graduates cannot find meaningful, rewarding work no matter how hard they try, the fact that our country's infrastruture is falling apart while the richest 1% continue to increase astronomical amounts of wealth, and the fact our justice system was able to execute and continue to execute and/or imprison innocent individuals disproportionatey based on their socio-economic position and their ethnicity are simply a few reasons as to why I decided to attend the rally."
This kind of civic consciousness and social justice activism is precisely what so many progressive scholars and university based community outreach programs have sought to inspire. It is being brought to life by young people themselves in this growing national movement.
There are now over 100 Occupations in cities throughout the nation. They are part of a global awakening of young people that has caused governments around the world to tremble, and financial elites to face the first real challenge to their power in decades
We in the Universities did not create this movement. But we ignore it at our peril. It brings to life many things we have been teaching. And it does something that we should be doing, but aren't doing enough- it empowers our students!
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Occupy History! The Fall Fundraising Drive of the Bronx African American History Project
October 29, 2011
Friends
We live in challenging and exciting times. While the global recession continues to impose severe hardships, young people throughout the world are rising up to demand that governments respond to the will of their people and distribute wealth and resources more equitably.
Never has the uncovering and sharing of historical knowledge become more important and no research project in the nation does this more effectively than the Bronx African American History Project. The BAAHP is not merely an internationally known community history project, it creates partnerships between scholars, community leaders, and ordinary citizens that gives a voice to people who would otherwise be left out of history books and neglected by those formulating social policy. Members of our research team not only write books and articles, and archive oral histories as a data base for scholars around the world, we are out in the community giving tours, workshops and lectures and helping residents tell their stories in ways that empower them and bring needed resources to their neighborhoods.
Here are some examples of ways the BAAHP brings history to life:
Worked with community leaders to rename a park and a street in the Bronx’s Historic Morrisania neighborhood after the great coach and mentor Hilton White and to rename a street in that same neighborhood after a pioneering singing group “The Chords”
Collaborated with social workers, teachers and performing artists to have a third group from Berlin come to New York as part of the Bronx Berlin Youth exchange and a first group from the Bronx go to Berlin.
Sponsored conferences, health fairs, and cultural festivals in collaboration with leaders of the Bronx’s growing African immigrant community to make more resources available to this dynamic new population and to make scholars and public officials more aware of this community’s cultural traditions and needs.
Helped affordable housing groups plan and construct a new apartment building in the Bronx- the Melody- that honors the music traditions of the neighborhood, while working with our longtime community partner WHEDco ( Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation) to create the Bronx Heritage Music Center, an innovative complex which will include apartments, a school, and a performance space.
Worked with educators to create a “Teachers Talk Back Project” which helps teachers in the Bronx, and throughout the nation, fight for more arts, more history, and more community outreach projects in the public schools and encourages teachers to challenge testing and privatization schemes which erase creativity from the classroom.
If you are interested in promoting research that empowers Bronx residents, that creates an archive on Bronx history consulted by scholars around the world and inspires Fordham to place more of its resources at the disposal of people in Bronx communities, there is there is no better way of doing so than contributing the Bronx African American History Project.
Please make your checks out to the “Bronx African American History Project” and send them to BAAHP, 641 Dealy Hall, Fordham University, Bronx, NY 10458
Or, if you would like to Donate Online, go to http://fordham.edu/gifts_to_fordham/ Click on “Make a Gift Online” then select “BAAHP” under “Annual Giving and Resticted Funds”
Thank you for considering the BAAHP!
Sincerely
Mark D Naison
Founder and Principal Investigator
Bronx African American History Project
Friends
We live in challenging and exciting times. While the global recession continues to impose severe hardships, young people throughout the world are rising up to demand that governments respond to the will of their people and distribute wealth and resources more equitably.
Never has the uncovering and sharing of historical knowledge become more important and no research project in the nation does this more effectively than the Bronx African American History Project. The BAAHP is not merely an internationally known community history project, it creates partnerships between scholars, community leaders, and ordinary citizens that gives a voice to people who would otherwise be left out of history books and neglected by those formulating social policy. Members of our research team not only write books and articles, and archive oral histories as a data base for scholars around the world, we are out in the community giving tours, workshops and lectures and helping residents tell their stories in ways that empower them and bring needed resources to their neighborhoods.
Here are some examples of ways the BAAHP brings history to life:
Worked with community leaders to rename a park and a street in the Bronx’s Historic Morrisania neighborhood after the great coach and mentor Hilton White and to rename a street in that same neighborhood after a pioneering singing group “The Chords”
Collaborated with social workers, teachers and performing artists to have a third group from Berlin come to New York as part of the Bronx Berlin Youth exchange and a first group from the Bronx go to Berlin.
Sponsored conferences, health fairs, and cultural festivals in collaboration with leaders of the Bronx’s growing African immigrant community to make more resources available to this dynamic new population and to make scholars and public officials more aware of this community’s cultural traditions and needs.
Helped affordable housing groups plan and construct a new apartment building in the Bronx- the Melody- that honors the music traditions of the neighborhood, while working with our longtime community partner WHEDco ( Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation) to create the Bronx Heritage Music Center, an innovative complex which will include apartments, a school, and a performance space.
Worked with educators to create a “Teachers Talk Back Project” which helps teachers in the Bronx, and throughout the nation, fight for more arts, more history, and more community outreach projects in the public schools and encourages teachers to challenge testing and privatization schemes which erase creativity from the classroom.
If you are interested in promoting research that empowers Bronx residents, that creates an archive on Bronx history consulted by scholars around the world and inspires Fordham to place more of its resources at the disposal of people in Bronx communities, there is there is no better way of doing so than contributing the Bronx African American History Project.
Please make your checks out to the “Bronx African American History Project” and send them to BAAHP, 641 Dealy Hall, Fordham University, Bronx, NY 10458
Or, if you would like to Donate Online, go to http://fordham.edu/gifts_to_fordham/ Click on “Make a Gift Online” then select “BAAHP” under “Annual Giving and Resticted Funds”
Thank you for considering the BAAHP!
Sincerely
Mark D Naison
Founder and Principal Investigator
Bronx African American History Project
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
The Best Response to Police Violence: A Lesson From the Great Depression
The Best Response to Police Violence- A Lesson From the Great Depression
Mark Naison
In 1931, the Communist led Unemployed Councils started a movement to put back the furniture of families evicted from their apartments, and organize their neighbors to resist when the police and marshals tried to put the furniture back. Several months after the campaign began, three black Communists in Chicago were killed by police during such an eviction protest. Two days later, 50,000 people, from every one of Chicago's ethnic neighborhoods, joined a funeral march for the 3 men that police looked upon in silence and awe. No one was ever killed again resisting an eviction in Chicago and in some Chicago neighborhoods, it was impossible to kick families out of their homes!! The same was true in the Bronx. By the beginning of 1933, it was virtually impossible to conduct an eviction in the Bronx because so many people would congregate in the street and block the marshals.
When the police and the state use force to suppress protest, and use deadly violence against innocent people, the best weapon of organizers is the mass indignation and mass mobilization of those who suffer from the very conditions that protesters were challenging
There IS strength in numbers. I hope that our brothers and sisters- in Oakland and elsewhere- take this lesson to heart. The Oakland police and Oakland Mayor and those who would take similar actions around the nation must see-and feel- the full strength of our movement
Mark Naison
In 1931, the Communist led Unemployed Councils started a movement to put back the furniture of families evicted from their apartments, and organize their neighbors to resist when the police and marshals tried to put the furniture back. Several months after the campaign began, three black Communists in Chicago were killed by police during such an eviction protest. Two days later, 50,000 people, from every one of Chicago's ethnic neighborhoods, joined a funeral march for the 3 men that police looked upon in silence and awe. No one was ever killed again resisting an eviction in Chicago and in some Chicago neighborhoods, it was impossible to kick families out of their homes!! The same was true in the Bronx. By the beginning of 1933, it was virtually impossible to conduct an eviction in the Bronx because so many people would congregate in the street and block the marshals.
When the police and the state use force to suppress protest, and use deadly violence against innocent people, the best weapon of organizers is the mass indignation and mass mobilization of those who suffer from the very conditions that protesters were challenging
There IS strength in numbers. I hope that our brothers and sisters- in Oakland and elsewhere- take this lesson to heart. The Oakland police and Oakland Mayor and those who would take similar actions around the nation must see-and feel- the full strength of our movement
Sunday, October 23, 2011
The Progessive Roots and Disastrous Consequences of Test Driven Pedagogy
The Progressive Roots and Disastrous Consequences of Test Driven Pedagogy
A Brief Reflection
Mark Naison
When the nation turned to the right in the 1980's and 1990's and neo-liberalism in its many manifestations began to dominate the policies of both political parties, parents in inner city neighborhoods desperate to do something in their increasingly violent, impoverished neighborhoods turned to schools to try to reverse the growing class and race inequality in the nation which they feared- quite accurately- was putting their children gravely at risk. In looking for help, they turned their attention to the one institution that had not abandoned their neighborhoods, the public schools and tried to figure out some way to have schools serve their needs. In trying to make schools work better, they ended up, making what turned out to be a Faustian bargain with leaders in corporations and foundatioins looking to revolutionize American education through technology. In city after city across the country, inner city parents and their advocates decided to endorse the application of universal testing in the schools to show how far their children were falling behind, and with it, the imposition of a test driven pedagogy, pioneered by charter schools, desgned to bring their children up to the levels of middle class and upper middlle class children in the acquisition of basic skills, and with it give their children an opportunity, in an increasingly hierarchical society, to gain entry into the middle class
Unfortunately, the whole strategy was destined to fail. It is difficult, if not impossible, to use the public schools to create greater class and race equality , when tax policy, income policy, and numerous informal dimensions of class privilege maximize those polarities., especially when the pedagogy involved discouraged creativity and critical thinking. The result proved to be the exact opposite of what is intended, despite the enthusiastic support of all levels of government and corporations and private philanthpy. Since No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have been institutioned, Black, Lationo and poor pepole, have fallen further behind the white middle class and upper class in every important social indicator, from unemployment rates, to the wealth gap, to home ownership and life expectancy.
And this leaves supporters of democratic education in a difficult position. We have to challenge a strategy that originally had widespread support in inner city communities. But challenge it we must. Just because minority parents, in their desperation to do SOMETHING about rampant inequality, decided to push for more testing and more accountability for schools based on those tests, doesn't mean the strategy was sound. In my judgment, it made schools in poor communities less able to prepare their students for college and a demanding job market than schools in middle class communities- including the ones policy makers send their children- which rely far less on standardized tests.
Moreover, such pedagogy discourages introducing young people in struggling neighborhoods to the critical thinking skills necessary to foster social justice activism--the only force that can realistically reduce racial and class in equality in this society. Teaching students individual mobility skills is a poor substitute for direct involvement in neighborhood redevelopment and in political movements- like Occupy Wall Street-that put demands on all levels of government for a redistribution of wealth.
A test driven pedagogy aimed at reducing "The Achivement Gap" is not only counterproductive in its own terms, it underminds the acquisition of the very skills necessary to reinvigorate democracy and fight effectively for racial and economic equality.
.
Or to put the matter more bluntly, anyone who supports the imposition of more standardized tests in the nation's public schools is PLAYING THE MAN'S GAME!!!
A Brief Reflection
Mark Naison
When the nation turned to the right in the 1980's and 1990's and neo-liberalism in its many manifestations began to dominate the policies of both political parties, parents in inner city neighborhoods desperate to do something in their increasingly violent, impoverished neighborhoods turned to schools to try to reverse the growing class and race inequality in the nation which they feared- quite accurately- was putting their children gravely at risk. In looking for help, they turned their attention to the one institution that had not abandoned their neighborhoods, the public schools and tried to figure out some way to have schools serve their needs. In trying to make schools work better, they ended up, making what turned out to be a Faustian bargain with leaders in corporations and foundatioins looking to revolutionize American education through technology. In city after city across the country, inner city parents and their advocates decided to endorse the application of universal testing in the schools to show how far their children were falling behind, and with it, the imposition of a test driven pedagogy, pioneered by charter schools, desgned to bring their children up to the levels of middle class and upper middlle class children in the acquisition of basic skills, and with it give their children an opportunity, in an increasingly hierarchical society, to gain entry into the middle class
Unfortunately, the whole strategy was destined to fail. It is difficult, if not impossible, to use the public schools to create greater class and race equality , when tax policy, income policy, and numerous informal dimensions of class privilege maximize those polarities., especially when the pedagogy involved discouraged creativity and critical thinking. The result proved to be the exact opposite of what is intended, despite the enthusiastic support of all levels of government and corporations and private philanthpy. Since No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have been institutioned, Black, Lationo and poor pepole, have fallen further behind the white middle class and upper class in every important social indicator, from unemployment rates, to the wealth gap, to home ownership and life expectancy.
And this leaves supporters of democratic education in a difficult position. We have to challenge a strategy that originally had widespread support in inner city communities. But challenge it we must. Just because minority parents, in their desperation to do SOMETHING about rampant inequality, decided to push for more testing and more accountability for schools based on those tests, doesn't mean the strategy was sound. In my judgment, it made schools in poor communities less able to prepare their students for college and a demanding job market than schools in middle class communities- including the ones policy makers send their children- which rely far less on standardized tests.
Moreover, such pedagogy discourages introducing young people in struggling neighborhoods to the critical thinking skills necessary to foster social justice activism--the only force that can realistically reduce racial and class in equality in this society. Teaching students individual mobility skills is a poor substitute for direct involvement in neighborhood redevelopment and in political movements- like Occupy Wall Street-that put demands on all levels of government for a redistribution of wealth.
A test driven pedagogy aimed at reducing "The Achivement Gap" is not only counterproductive in its own terms, it underminds the acquisition of the very skills necessary to reinvigorate democracy and fight effectively for racial and economic equality.
.
Or to put the matter more bluntly, anyone who supports the imposition of more standardized tests in the nation's public schools is PLAYING THE MAN'S GAME!!!
Saturday, October 22, 2011
A Buffalo Story: How School Turnaround Mandates Undermine Effective Community Organizing
A Buffalo Story: How Mindless Application of Federal and State School Turnaround Mandates Undermine Effective Community Organizing
Dr Mark Naison
Fordham University
During mid October, I had the privilege of spending two days getting an in-depth exposure to one of the most radical experiments in democratic urban transformation in the nation- a Choice Neighborhoods initiative in the East Side of Buffalo created by SUNY Buffalo’s Center for Urban Studies in partnership with Buffalo’s Municipal Housing Authority and Erie County’s community action agency. The brainchild of the Center for Urban Studies visionary leader, Dr Henry Taylor, the initiative seeks to engage residents in some of Buffalo’s poorest neighborhood in redesigning and transforming public housing projects, business districts, schools, and vacant properties in the target area. Improving schools is one of the key objectives of the initiative; but it seeks to do that not by insulating school children from the forces surrounding them and educating them to escape the neighborhood, but by engaging them in a democratic community planning process along with their teachers, their parents and their neighbors and by making a problem centered pedagogy part of the school curriculum. Even before the Choice Grant, the Center had gotten students in one of the schools involved in the initiative- Futures Academy- involved in transforming a rubble strewn lot across the street from the school into a beautiful park and vegetable garden and another smaller lot nearby into a bird park. The students had also done remarkable arts work for the initiative, both in public spaces, and the school. They had become agents of neighborhood change
What the students had accomplished was nothing short of miraculous, but unfortunately, such accomplishments did not register on the metrics mandated for low performing schools by No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top and mechanically applied by the State Education Department in Albany. As a result, Futures Academy, whose school population was drawn from students who could not get into or were pushed out of charter schools and magnet schools, went through three different principals in the ten years the Center had worked in it, each one forced out solely because of poor student performance on standardized tests. Student participation on democratic neighborhood transformation could not save those principals; they were judged solely test performance and Futures Academy, for school administrators, became a revolving door.
While Professor Taylor and his colleagues realize they cannot change educational policies being shaped in Washington and Albany, it is sad to see how these policies place handicaps on what they are trying to accomplish. In a neighborhood where over 90 percent of the residents are black, most are poor, half of the land sits vacant, public transportation is inadequate, and abandoned stores and factories dot local business districts, the public schools are one of the few remaining neighborhood anchors. They are not only the largest remaining buildings in the East Side neighborhood, they contain space and resources – auditoriums, gymnasiums, class rooms computer labs- which could be vital assets to all neighborhood residents as they participate in the planning ,well as underutilized cultural capital in the form of student creativity/ Professor Taylor’s goal, through in school and after school programs is to enlist public school students in every part of the neighborhood redevelopment initiative, from having them involved in public art projects, neighborhood beautification initiatives and urban agriculture, to having them help redesign local business districts, to having them imagine new neighborhood institutions which enhance public safety and democratic participation. But to have students play this role effectively, the project needs on stability and continuity in the administration in the administration of the three public schools included in the initiative- Futures Academy and ML King School, both K-8 schools, and East High School. And unfortunately state and federal mandates are making that difficult to impossible.
Let us take East High School, the one secondary school in the planning zone. Although East has had a rich history serving Buffalo’s Black community, producing many famous and accomplished graduates, in recent years, as the East Side neighborhood has undergone disinvestment, depopulation and decay, it has become a school of “last choice” in the Buffalo school district and a revolving door for principals. Now, a brilliant new principal has been brought in who specializes in “turning around” tough schools and who is an enthusiastic partner in Professor Taylor’s initiative. But as he told me when we met, the first day he entered the school, he realized he would be out in three years because he could never raise graduation rates to meet national and state mandates. Why?
Because of the 160 students in his freshman class, 157 were “1’s” ( on state reading and math tests), 2 were “2’s, and 1 was a “3”! Essentially, ONE student in his freshmen class tested above grade level, 157 below!!
How did this happen? Basically because after magnet schools and charter schools picked their students, those who were left went to schools like East Side. Not only did these students test poorly, they disproportionately came from troubled families that moved from house to house with great frequency and occasionally disappeared. Given this population, it was going to be virtually impossible to meet the graduation rate targets established by the state and the school would have to be placed in receivership once again with the principal removed, and up to 50 percent of the teachers replaced!
Given this tragic and absurd outcome, why did the principal take the job and why did Dr Taylor choose to make East High School one of the anchors of his community development initiative.. The answer is simple. Because both saw East students as more than the sum total of their scores on standardized tests, and the problems they experienced in their homes and places of residence. They saw them as citizens in the making possessed of invaluable knowledge about their neighborhood and a deep reservoir of cultural capital not only in artistic and musical talent, but in resilience, endurance and ability to overcome great obstacles. They wanted to incorporate them in the neighborhood planning process, get their frank assessment of what needed to be preserved and what needed to be retained, and involve them in hands on tasks ranging from cleaning up the local business district, to organizing talent shows and oral history projects to highlight the community’s past strengths and future potential. In the process, their test scores might go up, and attendance might improve. But that was not the major goal. The goal was to tap the full range of East students talents in a process of community renewal and to encourage them to see East Buffalo as a place to be re-imagined and rebuilt, not as human toxic waste site that all people with skill and talent seek to escape/
This kind of idealism and faith in the human potential of students and neighborhoods is at the very heart of what Democratic Education should be about. Unfortunately, it is being undermined, in the name of equity, by federal and state policies which reduce students to test scores and graduation rates,
Dr Taylor,the Principal of East High School, the principal of the other two schools in the East Buffalo Choice neighborhood initiative will persevere no matter what, but wouldn’t it be better if state and federal authorities relaxed automatic school closing triggers and allowed schools the flexibility to become true centers of community empowerment?
We can only hope that at some point, sanity will prevail in the US Department of Education and the New York State Board of Regents. Hopefully, that moment will come sooner, rather than later
Mark Naison
October 21, 2011
Dr Mark Naison
Fordham University
During mid October, I had the privilege of spending two days getting an in-depth exposure to one of the most radical experiments in democratic urban transformation in the nation- a Choice Neighborhoods initiative in the East Side of Buffalo created by SUNY Buffalo’s Center for Urban Studies in partnership with Buffalo’s Municipal Housing Authority and Erie County’s community action agency. The brainchild of the Center for Urban Studies visionary leader, Dr Henry Taylor, the initiative seeks to engage residents in some of Buffalo’s poorest neighborhood in redesigning and transforming public housing projects, business districts, schools, and vacant properties in the target area. Improving schools is one of the key objectives of the initiative; but it seeks to do that not by insulating school children from the forces surrounding them and educating them to escape the neighborhood, but by engaging them in a democratic community planning process along with their teachers, their parents and their neighbors and by making a problem centered pedagogy part of the school curriculum. Even before the Choice Grant, the Center had gotten students in one of the schools involved in the initiative- Futures Academy- involved in transforming a rubble strewn lot across the street from the school into a beautiful park and vegetable garden and another smaller lot nearby into a bird park. The students had also done remarkable arts work for the initiative, both in public spaces, and the school. They had become agents of neighborhood change
What the students had accomplished was nothing short of miraculous, but unfortunately, such accomplishments did not register on the metrics mandated for low performing schools by No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top and mechanically applied by the State Education Department in Albany. As a result, Futures Academy, whose school population was drawn from students who could not get into or were pushed out of charter schools and magnet schools, went through three different principals in the ten years the Center had worked in it, each one forced out solely because of poor student performance on standardized tests. Student participation on democratic neighborhood transformation could not save those principals; they were judged solely test performance and Futures Academy, for school administrators, became a revolving door.
While Professor Taylor and his colleagues realize they cannot change educational policies being shaped in Washington and Albany, it is sad to see how these policies place handicaps on what they are trying to accomplish. In a neighborhood where over 90 percent of the residents are black, most are poor, half of the land sits vacant, public transportation is inadequate, and abandoned stores and factories dot local business districts, the public schools are one of the few remaining neighborhood anchors. They are not only the largest remaining buildings in the East Side neighborhood, they contain space and resources – auditoriums, gymnasiums, class rooms computer labs- which could be vital assets to all neighborhood residents as they participate in the planning ,well as underutilized cultural capital in the form of student creativity/ Professor Taylor’s goal, through in school and after school programs is to enlist public school students in every part of the neighborhood redevelopment initiative, from having them involved in public art projects, neighborhood beautification initiatives and urban agriculture, to having them help redesign local business districts, to having them imagine new neighborhood institutions which enhance public safety and democratic participation. But to have students play this role effectively, the project needs on stability and continuity in the administration in the administration of the three public schools included in the initiative- Futures Academy and ML King School, both K-8 schools, and East High School. And unfortunately state and federal mandates are making that difficult to impossible.
Let us take East High School, the one secondary school in the planning zone. Although East has had a rich history serving Buffalo’s Black community, producing many famous and accomplished graduates, in recent years, as the East Side neighborhood has undergone disinvestment, depopulation and decay, it has become a school of “last choice” in the Buffalo school district and a revolving door for principals. Now, a brilliant new principal has been brought in who specializes in “turning around” tough schools and who is an enthusiastic partner in Professor Taylor’s initiative. But as he told me when we met, the first day he entered the school, he realized he would be out in three years because he could never raise graduation rates to meet national and state mandates. Why?
Because of the 160 students in his freshman class, 157 were “1’s” ( on state reading and math tests), 2 were “2’s, and 1 was a “3”! Essentially, ONE student in his freshmen class tested above grade level, 157 below!!
How did this happen? Basically because after magnet schools and charter schools picked their students, those who were left went to schools like East Side. Not only did these students test poorly, they disproportionately came from troubled families that moved from house to house with great frequency and occasionally disappeared. Given this population, it was going to be virtually impossible to meet the graduation rate targets established by the state and the school would have to be placed in receivership once again with the principal removed, and up to 50 percent of the teachers replaced!
Given this tragic and absurd outcome, why did the principal take the job and why did Dr Taylor choose to make East High School one of the anchors of his community development initiative.. The answer is simple. Because both saw East students as more than the sum total of their scores on standardized tests, and the problems they experienced in their homes and places of residence. They saw them as citizens in the making possessed of invaluable knowledge about their neighborhood and a deep reservoir of cultural capital not only in artistic and musical talent, but in resilience, endurance and ability to overcome great obstacles. They wanted to incorporate them in the neighborhood planning process, get their frank assessment of what needed to be preserved and what needed to be retained, and involve them in hands on tasks ranging from cleaning up the local business district, to organizing talent shows and oral history projects to highlight the community’s past strengths and future potential. In the process, their test scores might go up, and attendance might improve. But that was not the major goal. The goal was to tap the full range of East students talents in a process of community renewal and to encourage them to see East Buffalo as a place to be re-imagined and rebuilt, not as human toxic waste site that all people with skill and talent seek to escape/
This kind of idealism and faith in the human potential of students and neighborhoods is at the very heart of what Democratic Education should be about. Unfortunately, it is being undermined, in the name of equity, by federal and state policies which reduce students to test scores and graduation rates,
Dr Taylor,the Principal of East High School, the principal of the other two schools in the East Buffalo Choice neighborhood initiative will persevere no matter what, but wouldn’t it be better if state and federal authorities relaxed automatic school closing triggers and allowed schools the flexibility to become true centers of community empowerment?
We can only hope that at some point, sanity will prevail in the US Department of Education and the New York State Board of Regents. Hopefully, that moment will come sooner, rather than later
Mark Naison
October 21, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Parliament of the People
Parliament of the People: Occupy Wall Street Brings Back a Great New York Tradition of Street Speaking and Open Air Debate
Dr Mark Naison
One of the most remarkable features of Occupy Wall Street is the number of teach ins, discussions and debates that take place at Zucotti during day light hours. Discussion and debate is continuous, some of it one on one, some of it in small groups, some taking the form of large
assemblies. And the range of topics is broad, ranging from education policy, to problems in the middle east, to the sources of the current economic crisis, to problems of racism and anti-semitism, to how to diversify the Occupation. I have not, since the days I was an undergraduate at Columbia in the mid 60’s and participated in debates and rallies at the Sundial in the middle of campus experienced this much intellectual vitality in an outdoor setting. And it was something I had never seen first hand in a New York neighborhood.
But as a historian of social movements, who had once written a book about Harlem in the 1920’s, 1930’s and 1940’s this was all familiar to me. There was once a time in the history of New York City when Harlem, and to a lesser degree the Lower East Side, Brownsville and the South Bronx were filled with speakers on every corner explaining Socialism and Capitalism, promoting or attacking organized religion, extolling the value Zionism, Black Nationalism, or Irish Independence, and at times, giving impromptu courses on world history.
No place was this tradition of street speaking more developed than in Harlem, the nation’s largest and most diverse Black community during the years in question, where one commentator referred to it as the “Parliament of the People.” On any afternoon in
1919, you might fight Marcus Garvey, A Phillip Randolph, Richard Moore and the Hubert Harrison on different street corners, each espousing their particular philosophies before large and enthusiastic crowds. During the 1930’s, those same streets featured debates between Communists and Garveyites, while leftists organized community members to put back the furniture back of evicted families, nationalists urged them join “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaigns,” and religious orators promised salvation in various forms. This tradition continued on into the 50’s and early 60’s where on a given day, you could hear Malcolm X holding forth about the Nation of Islam, Queen Mother Moore and Carlos Cooks talking about reparations, or Charles Kenyatta urging the community to “Buy Black.”
This open air forum created an atmosphere where working class people in Harlem and other New York neighborhoods, whether domestics, Pullman porter, cab drivers, factory workers or teachers and nurses,, had an almost daily exposure to politics, religion, history and current events right in their own neighborhood. It created a working class public that was alert, vigilant, and politically active and fought for its interests. It was no accident that in the post war years, New York was a city which had free zoos and museums, great after school programs and sports and arts in its public schools, and free tuition at its City Universities, as well as a vibrant civil rights movement that fought discrimination in housing, education and employment.
Through the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s this tradition of street speaking and public debate gradually disappeared. The streets of working class neighborhoods retained their vitality, but it came largely from street vendors and religious speakers rather than people promoting political activism or knowledge of world history.
Now however, at Zuccotti Park, the Parliament of the People seems to have returned. Debates, both organized and spontaneous, break out at all hours of the day (and for all Iknow, the night!) and people are able to get many points of view across to eager listeners. All of a sudden, political discussion has become cool again, but more importantly, people are beginning to feel their views matter because they have seen, as the Occupation evolves, how ordinary people when joined together for action can do things they previously thought were impossible.
Now you can say that Occupy Wall Street is an elitist movement and that the political vitality in open space displayed there once spread to the working class communities where it is most needed. But there are signs that it is spreading to communities of color around New York
On Saturday, I was at an Occupy the Bronx event on Fordham road which began with a Teach in about green cooperatives and ended with a speak out on conditions in the Bronx at which more than 15 people presented their views. There were 75 to 100 people assembled, but passerby’s often stopped to listen. When I got up to speak, it was an incredibly moving experience because I had not given a speech on Fordham road since the heyday of the anti-war movement in the early 70’s. But the issues here were not ones that were going away-unemployment, the mal-distribution of wealth, poor health care , lack of affordable housing, police harassment of Black and Latino youth. If the Occupation Movement continues to grow, discussions like this may proliferate, bringing with it a renewed confidence, not only that ideas matter, but that people can change their communities through collective action
Space matters. The ability of the Occupy Wall Street movement to hold Zuccotti Park in the for more than five weeks in the face of first profound skepticism of the movement’s staying power and more recently of efforts by authorities to evict it has turned that park into a center of grass roots democratic practice and discourse. But thought the occupation is new, the discourse is not! It is something we once had in many New York working class neighborhoods.
So let us follow the example of the Occupation and transform streets like Fordham Road, 125th Street, Jamaica Avenue and Fulton Street into “Parliaments of the People” where political discussion and debate and thrive and people can plan the next steps to revitalize neighborhoods without driving working class people out, and to use the wealth created in our city to advance the common good rather than the interest of the 1 Percent
Mark Naison
October 17, 2011
Dr Mark Naison
One of the most remarkable features of Occupy Wall Street is the number of teach ins, discussions and debates that take place at Zucotti during day light hours. Discussion and debate is continuous, some of it one on one, some of it in small groups, some taking the form of large
assemblies. And the range of topics is broad, ranging from education policy, to problems in the middle east, to the sources of the current economic crisis, to problems of racism and anti-semitism, to how to diversify the Occupation. I have not, since the days I was an undergraduate at Columbia in the mid 60’s and participated in debates and rallies at the Sundial in the middle of campus experienced this much intellectual vitality in an outdoor setting. And it was something I had never seen first hand in a New York neighborhood.
But as a historian of social movements, who had once written a book about Harlem in the 1920’s, 1930’s and 1940’s this was all familiar to me. There was once a time in the history of New York City when Harlem, and to a lesser degree the Lower East Side, Brownsville and the South Bronx were filled with speakers on every corner explaining Socialism and Capitalism, promoting or attacking organized religion, extolling the value Zionism, Black Nationalism, or Irish Independence, and at times, giving impromptu courses on world history.
No place was this tradition of street speaking more developed than in Harlem, the nation’s largest and most diverse Black community during the years in question, where one commentator referred to it as the “Parliament of the People.” On any afternoon in
1919, you might fight Marcus Garvey, A Phillip Randolph, Richard Moore and the Hubert Harrison on different street corners, each espousing their particular philosophies before large and enthusiastic crowds. During the 1930’s, those same streets featured debates between Communists and Garveyites, while leftists organized community members to put back the furniture back of evicted families, nationalists urged them join “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaigns,” and religious orators promised salvation in various forms. This tradition continued on into the 50’s and early 60’s where on a given day, you could hear Malcolm X holding forth about the Nation of Islam, Queen Mother Moore and Carlos Cooks talking about reparations, or Charles Kenyatta urging the community to “Buy Black.”
This open air forum created an atmosphere where working class people in Harlem and other New York neighborhoods, whether domestics, Pullman porter, cab drivers, factory workers or teachers and nurses,, had an almost daily exposure to politics, religion, history and current events right in their own neighborhood. It created a working class public that was alert, vigilant, and politically active and fought for its interests. It was no accident that in the post war years, New York was a city which had free zoos and museums, great after school programs and sports and arts in its public schools, and free tuition at its City Universities, as well as a vibrant civil rights movement that fought discrimination in housing, education and employment.
Through the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s this tradition of street speaking and public debate gradually disappeared. The streets of working class neighborhoods retained their vitality, but it came largely from street vendors and religious speakers rather than people promoting political activism or knowledge of world history.
Now however, at Zuccotti Park, the Parliament of the People seems to have returned. Debates, both organized and spontaneous, break out at all hours of the day (and for all Iknow, the night!) and people are able to get many points of view across to eager listeners. All of a sudden, political discussion has become cool again, but more importantly, people are beginning to feel their views matter because they have seen, as the Occupation evolves, how ordinary people when joined together for action can do things they previously thought were impossible.
Now you can say that Occupy Wall Street is an elitist movement and that the political vitality in open space displayed there once spread to the working class communities where it is most needed. But there are signs that it is spreading to communities of color around New York
On Saturday, I was at an Occupy the Bronx event on Fordham road which began with a Teach in about green cooperatives and ended with a speak out on conditions in the Bronx at which more than 15 people presented their views. There were 75 to 100 people assembled, but passerby’s often stopped to listen. When I got up to speak, it was an incredibly moving experience because I had not given a speech on Fordham road since the heyday of the anti-war movement in the early 70’s. But the issues here were not ones that were going away-unemployment, the mal-distribution of wealth, poor health care , lack of affordable housing, police harassment of Black and Latino youth. If the Occupation Movement continues to grow, discussions like this may proliferate, bringing with it a renewed confidence, not only that ideas matter, but that people can change their communities through collective action
Space matters. The ability of the Occupy Wall Street movement to hold Zuccotti Park in the for more than five weeks in the face of first profound skepticism of the movement’s staying power and more recently of efforts by authorities to evict it has turned that park into a center of grass roots democratic practice and discourse. But thought the occupation is new, the discourse is not! It is something we once had in many New York working class neighborhoods.
So let us follow the example of the Occupation and transform streets like Fordham Road, 125th Street, Jamaica Avenue and Fulton Street into “Parliaments of the People” where political discussion and debate and thrive and people can plan the next steps to revitalize neighborhoods without driving working class people out, and to use the wealth created in our city to advance the common good rather than the interest of the 1 Percent
Mark Naison
October 17, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Occupy The Public Schools?
Occupy The Public Schools? Will ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Trigger A Movement to Reclaim Our Schools From Test Driven Pedagogy
Dr Mark Naison
Yesterday’s Global Day of Protest was a milestone in modern history. Demonstrations in support of Occupy Wall Street took place in more than 950 cities around the world, with more than 300,000 coming out in Madrid, and 100,000 in Rome. In the US, demonstrations and marches took place in more than 240 cities. Young people in the US, watching the news, listening to the radio, or even seeing first hand what was going on in their neighborhood, or their city’s downtown business district, couldn’t help but be aware that there was a protest movement taking place that involved many people their age and that the mood of these protests was alternately defiant, festive and joyful.
But when Monday comes around, will there be any discussion of these events in our public schools? The Occupation movement would be a perfect subject for classes in History or Social Studies. It could
Involve discussion of the global economic system, the impact of the current recession on employment prospects for young people , the history of social justice movements, the role of young people in movements for social change and many other important issues. It could allow students to connect what is going on in their own lives to historical events, something which any teachers knows is a great way to get students excited about studying history.
But given the pressure put on students teachers and principals to register high scores on standardized tests, there is little chance of this happening unless these constituencies join together in a mini-revolt. The way current social studies curricula are set up in most public schools, virtually every day is devoted to some form of test prep, and since teachers and administrators job prospects are increasingly determined by results on those tests, little risk taking can be expected in opening up classes to free discussion .
Or can it? Could this be the moment that teachers say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and actually teach about something that students are interested in, and which open up avenues for students to become critical thinkers and social activists who think they have the power to make history.
We have seen hundreds of thousands of people in the US, during these past weeks, overcome their fears and apathy, to step forward and protest against an economic system that has left large portions of the nation’s population without employment, without security, without hope. They have marched, they have chanted, they have camped out in the cold and rain to make their point.
And they have prevailed in the face of police violence, and threats of eviction from the spaces they have gathered, to build a movement that grows larger every day.
Perhaps the same thing can happen in our schools. Perhaps teachers, students and parents can step forward and demand that schools make standardized tests secondary, that they set aside time for students to discuss issues of the day, that they give students outlets to express their thoughts, and over time real influence over what goes on in their schools.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has marked a new phase in US and World History. The Global Economic system is broken and those of in education must adapt to the times. This is the moment to begin transforming our schools from centers of obedience into center of critical thought and action that will allow young people to participate in the greatest change movement of the 21st Century. They have little to lose The tests that are being shoved down their throats prepare them for jobs that no longer exist. It’s time to tell them the truth, let them draw their own conclusions, and take actions they deem appropriate
Isn’t that what education is supposed to be about. To give students confidence in themselves and the power to make positive changes, not only in their own lives, but in the lives of those around them
The Revolution in our nation’s classrooms can begin Monday. It’s time to “Occupy Our Public Schools”
Teachers, students, and parents, are you ready?
October 16, 2011
Dr Mark Naison
Yesterday’s Global Day of Protest was a milestone in modern history. Demonstrations in support of Occupy Wall Street took place in more than 950 cities around the world, with more than 300,000 coming out in Madrid, and 100,000 in Rome. In the US, demonstrations and marches took place in more than 240 cities. Young people in the US, watching the news, listening to the radio, or even seeing first hand what was going on in their neighborhood, or their city’s downtown business district, couldn’t help but be aware that there was a protest movement taking place that involved many people their age and that the mood of these protests was alternately defiant, festive and joyful.
But when Monday comes around, will there be any discussion of these events in our public schools? The Occupation movement would be a perfect subject for classes in History or Social Studies. It could
Involve discussion of the global economic system, the impact of the current recession on employment prospects for young people , the history of social justice movements, the role of young people in movements for social change and many other important issues. It could allow students to connect what is going on in their own lives to historical events, something which any teachers knows is a great way to get students excited about studying history.
But given the pressure put on students teachers and principals to register high scores on standardized tests, there is little chance of this happening unless these constituencies join together in a mini-revolt. The way current social studies curricula are set up in most public schools, virtually every day is devoted to some form of test prep, and since teachers and administrators job prospects are increasingly determined by results on those tests, little risk taking can be expected in opening up classes to free discussion .
Or can it? Could this be the moment that teachers say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and actually teach about something that students are interested in, and which open up avenues for students to become critical thinkers and social activists who think they have the power to make history.
We have seen hundreds of thousands of people in the US, during these past weeks, overcome their fears and apathy, to step forward and protest against an economic system that has left large portions of the nation’s population without employment, without security, without hope. They have marched, they have chanted, they have camped out in the cold and rain to make their point.
And they have prevailed in the face of police violence, and threats of eviction from the spaces they have gathered, to build a movement that grows larger every day.
Perhaps the same thing can happen in our schools. Perhaps teachers, students and parents can step forward and demand that schools make standardized tests secondary, that they set aside time for students to discuss issues of the day, that they give students outlets to express their thoughts, and over time real influence over what goes on in their schools.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has marked a new phase in US and World History. The Global Economic system is broken and those of in education must adapt to the times. This is the moment to begin transforming our schools from centers of obedience into center of critical thought and action that will allow young people to participate in the greatest change movement of the 21st Century. They have little to lose The tests that are being shoved down their throats prepare them for jobs that no longer exist. It’s time to tell them the truth, let them draw their own conclusions, and take actions they deem appropriate
Isn’t that what education is supposed to be about. To give students confidence in themselves and the power to make positive changes, not only in their own lives, but in the lives of those around them
The Revolution in our nation’s classrooms can begin Monday. It’s time to “Occupy Our Public Schools”
Teachers, students, and parents, are you ready?
October 16, 2011
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