STORYTIME:

Everett Mitchell had a troubled childhood, but his life took a radical turn when he was fifteen. One of his teachers noticed his despondency and urged him to discuss it. Everett confided in her that he was being abused at home.

His circumstances changed from there. Everett's teacher reported his abuse to Child Protective Services, and they were able to force his abuser out of their house. This intervention felt like a miracle, giving Everett and his siblings three things all children need: hope, peace, and safety.

politico.com/news/magazine/…

We need to do better at catching kids being good.

Here's a story about Michael Todd, a student in Memphis, who had been bullied for his appearance all his life by his new classmates at MLK College Preparatory School. However, one Monday morning something changed. Not only did his peers' attitudes towards him shift, but he also underwent a transformation himself. Kristopher Graham and Antwain Garrett called him out of class and brought him to his locker.

#KidsBeingKind #SEL #EmpathyForAll

Oliver James is one of the most positive and endearing voices on TikTok. His 112,000 followers didn't know his secret until he put it in a video.

In an upbeat, matter-of-fact delivery, he said:

"What's up! I can't read."

[1] In fact, Oliver's struggle with reading went back to his elementary school days. He was part of a special education class where physical discipline - which he described as "torture" - was an everyday occurrence.

[2]

Polls have shown that the public favors school choice, yet this support does not necessarily translate to votes for elected leaders who advocate for it.

Where is the disconnect?

[1] #SchoolChoice
thehill.com/opinion/congre… Values-based issues – such as the economy, social safety net, reproductive health, climate, and social justice – motivate voters' choices.

But, school choice advocates ignore or discount these "other" issues because they lack answers for the complexities they represent.

[2]

Looking at the current anti-woke campaign as if it is a contemporary phenomenon without historic context helps it succeed. It is a campaign dependent on ignorance.

I'm no historian, but here are some reference points from the past that I think link today's issues to the past.. 1915: Thomas Dixon, author of the book that became D.W. Griffith's "Birth of A Nation," said his work "was to revolutionize Northern audiences" and to "transform every man into a Southern partisan for life."

This was America's first blockbuster movie.

thirteen.org/wnet/jimcrow/s…

New polling from the Committee for Children shows that Americans have a positive understanding of Social Emotional Learning (SEL).

“Parents and families across the country believe in the importance of teaching social-emotional skills both at home and in our schools" Among the 54% of parents who believe SEL is being taught at their child’s school, 52% believe that schools should continue teaching SEL (with 29% wanting schools to do more on SEL).

Chartered schools are the only ones in the public school portfolio that require a “high-quality” label to gain support from the establishment. They don’t say “I support high-quality magnet schools” or “magnet schools should have to play by the same rules as” public schools.” Why?

https://twitter.com/laurenonthehill/status/1524752314929664000

I don’t mind the drive to push charters to be better if the drive is honest, but the push to “reform” charters looks like another ploy to sabotage them. It would look better if the effort also sought improvements to the 90% of schools that aren’t chartered. Starting with magnets.

Those who don't know their history....

"In Brooklyn, in the early spring of 1968, Black and Puerto Rican parents organized for better schools for their children."

Their demands were as follows: 1. The right to hire and fire all principals, assistant principals, and teachers. Those who work hard to teach our children are welcome to stay. Those who won’t cooperate — must and will go!

You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. - Deuteronomy 10:19

The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself. - Leviticus 19:34

khou.com/article/news/l… ‘Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow.’ Then all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’ - Deuteronomy 27:19

The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
Psalm146:9

"Discrimination in City Schools Lives On" But Basis Is Magnet Schools, Not Race"

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
February 20, 1994

Between 1983 and 94 the district spent $ 1 billion in state money to implement all aspects of a court-ordered desegregation plan.

This is how it went. "For at least 10 of those years, the district has consistently spent more money per student on those attending magnet schools than on those in non-magnets. Last year(1993), average spending per student at magnets was 30 percent higher than spending at non-magnets."

Magnet schools have a historic bias problem. How do they escape scrutiny?

This from 1992: "At some magnet programs in Broward County's public schools, a sign might as well read: "Blacks need not apply."

sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-19… And this from Baltimore 1994:

"Even before they open, two of Baltimore County's new magnet schools are drawing fire from families whose children were denied admission because of their race, their sex or the neighborhoods where they live."

An interesting bit of history for my "school-choice-originated-in-segregation" folks.

"For Klansmen, like many nativists, public education was the best, indeed, the critical, means of Americanizing "Un-American" foreigners."

Awkward.

cuomeka.wrlc.org/exhibits/show/… "The public school, Oregon nativists claimed, was the "only sure foundation for the perpetuation of and preservation of our free institutions."

Open Tweet to @professorJVH.

Sir,

It has come to my attention that the @JoeBiden is considering you for a position at the Dept. of education.

Congrats.

Perhaps this is why you have scrubbed and protected your Twitter account, and paused your website.

A few thoughts... For a guy who has talked a lot about democracy and community control of school policy, it's odd that you would avoid contact with the same public you want to represent in @JoeBiden's administration. Shouldn't you be vetted by the public rather than installed behind closed doors?

About 10 education truths I hope the next president understands.

1. Our kids are capable of achieving far more than their teachers and schools think they are capable of achieving.

The #BeliefGap is real and dangerous.

#HowAreTheChildren @JoeBiden 2. Money matters in education, but money properly spent matters much more.

The way districts spend money on staffing, programs, and buildings is rife with inequity and waste.

#HowAreTheChildren @JoeBiden

Thinking people have to stop talking about public education with the emotive, illogical, and ahistorical happy talk.

No, public education is not and never has been the "cornerstone of democracy" or the "great equalizer" or a "public good." Trading in these memes stunts us. In truth, the public education system was a Prussian project intended to create unthinking soldiers and model citizens/workers for elites to use. It may be too late to revisit the true origins of what is now a $750 billion public ignorance project, but there's time for truth.

Since we are kissing another Black History Month goodbye, and there have been so many posts about the importance of Black educators, I thought I'd offer a few historical points I gathered from Dr. Vannessa Siddle-Walker and old news stories. In 1954 82,000 Black teachers taught 2 million Black children.

In the 11 years immediately following Brown, more than 38,000 Black teachers and administrators in 17 Southern and border states lost their jobs.

90% of Black principals lost their jobs in 11 Southern states.

Tell me if this story makes any damn sense:

A wealthy white woman (Diane Ravitch) starts a “grassroots” org (@NPEaction) with funding from a union leader (CTU) who had three houses (one in Hawaii!), and Warren Buffet’s daughter (Sherwood) and then... they hire a white woman (Carol Burris) out of retirement from a white school district to work with a white male (Jeff Bryant) for-profit communications consultant who writes “reports” and articles and blog posts and ghostwritten campaign documents and talking points that...

Wherever your political leanings, I hope there are moments where you rationally consider "what is true" to be more important than what you wish is true for political purposes.

This @Salon about @BetsyDeVosED is a test case - for progressives.

h/t to @NealMcCluskey First, progressive politics usually make a nod toward the proletariat, working people, the little guy.

But that's not Salon's audience. By their own admission: "Salon readers are affluent, well-educated and highly influential."

I suspect they're leaving out a racial descriptor.

Open letter to people who are vying to be the arguable leader of the free world. I am watching you. There is nothing more important to me than the intellectual development of young people - especially those who have been marginalized by race, class, and perceived ability.

And... I'm watching you, and listening to how serious you are about ensuring parents the rights and power to determine how, when, what, and where their children learn and grow.

And...

American teachers' unions are waging war on charters and attacking school reform infrastructure. Key to their strategy is to create union assets in elected offices by either getting them elected, paying them off and/or ending their tenure as elected leaders when they disobey. Their most effective message is to paint charters as unregulated hotbeds of fraud. It's a remarkable claim because while causing suspicion of charters, it also positions districts as exemplars of transparent institutions.

Of course, they are not.

goldwaterinstitute.org/article/the-sc…

Read me for five minutes and you know one problem that gets in my grill is when "journalists" fail to make the public smarter about issues of great importance (like how their government runs). Such is the case today with a new anti-school choice hit piece by @valeriestrauss.

1] 2] The first sign of trouble is in her headline: "Betsy DeVos and her allies are trying to redefine ‘public education."

She says Florida's Gov. Desantis wants to "redefine" public ed because he says “Look, if it’s public dollars, it’s public education.”

washingtonpost.com/education/2019…