Schools: Plus Ça Change Plus C'est la Même Chose*

*The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Last week I wrote about Freedom Schools and the Freedom School curriculum, and I was looking for an Ann Arbor connection.

Didn't find a direct one (although if I had actually visited the Ann Arbor library I am sure I would have). I did find this interesting article in the aadl.org "Old News" section at oldnews.aadl.org.

I was looking for information on Freedom Summer Schools and I found that in 1971 Ann Arbor had a Black Liberation School.

"Members of the Black Liberation School staff requested permission to use the facilities of Northside school this summer without paying rent," arguing that they were serving the Northside school district.

[Was anyone who read this a part of that? Please post some information about the Black Liberation School in the comments!]

But also, there were many things that sound like the themes of the Ann Arbor school board meetings today: budget cuts, layoffs and resignations. When more people resigned than expected, Superintendent Westerman (who still lives in Ann Arbor and is on the Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel) told the school board, "We now have some freedom not anticipated to extend invitations to more of the probationary staff that were sent termination notices."

A citizen argued for transportation services to low-income students. "It is inhumane for the board to not at least give some assistance to these students." 

Last, but not least, the board recognized the retirements of custodians Clifford Bryant and Mikkel Thomsen, "for serving 'our school system with great loyalty and distinction.'"

*******************

Screen shot of a June 17, 1971 Ann Arbor News story.
Found online at: http://oldnews.aadl.org/taxonomy/term/48518

*******************
I would be remiss, I think, if I didn't mention that the Ann Arbor District Library has a wonderful summer game, which you can play both off-line and on-line, and can be found at: play.aadl.org.





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Freedom Summer (50 Years Old) and Independence Day Thoughts

I was trying to think of an appropriate blog post in honor of Independence Day, when I heard on the radio that this summer is the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer.

Ahhh. Something I know a little bit about. Something highly meaningful. Something with an interesting curriculum!

What was Freedom Summer? According to the Congress of Racial Equality:

Freedom Summer was a highly publicized campaign in the Deep South to register blacks to vote during the summer of 1964.

During the summer of 1964, thousands of civil rights activists, many of them white college students from the North, descended on Mississippi and other Southern states to try to end the long-time political disenfranchisement of African Americans in the region. Although black men had won the right to vote in 1870, thanks to the Fifteenth Amendment, for the next 100 years many were unable to exercise that right. White local and state officials systematically kept blacks from voting through formal methods, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, and through cruder methods of fear and intimidation, which included beatings and lynchings. The inability to vote was only one of many problems blacks encountered in the racist society around them, but the civil-rights officials who decided to zero in on voter registration understood its crucial significance as well the white supremacists did. An African American voting bloc would be able to effect social and political change.Freedom Summer officials also established 30 "Freedom Schools" in towns throughout Mississippi to address the racial inequalities in Mississippi's educational system. Mississippi's black schools were invariably poorly funded, and teachers had to use hand-me-down textbooks that offered a racist slant on American history. Many of the white college students were assigned to teach in these schools, whose curriculum included black history, the philosophy of the Civil Rights Movement, and leadership development in addition to remedial instruction in reading and arithmetic. The Freedom Schools had hoped to draw at least 1000 students that first summer, and ended up with 3000. The schools became a model for future social programs like Head Start, as well as alternative educational institutions.Freedom Summer activists faced threats and harassment throughout the campaign, not only from white supremacist groups, but from local residents and police. Freedom School buildings and the volunteers' homes were frequent targets; 37 black churches and 30 black homes and businesses were firebombed or burned during that summer, and the cases often went unsolved. More than 1000 black and white volunteers were arrested, and at least 80 were beaten by white mobs or racist police officers. But the summer's most infamous act of violence was the murder of three young civil rights workers, a black volunteer, James Chaney, and his white coworkers, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. On June 21, Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner set out to investigate a church bombing near Philadelphia, Mississippi, but were arrested that afternoon and held for several hours on alleged traffic violations. Their release from jail was the last time they were seen alive before their badly decomposed bodies were discovered under a nearby dam six weeks later. Goodman and Schwerner had died from single gunshot wounds to the chest, and Chaney from a savage beating. (Emphasis added.)

Wait--there was a Freedom Schools Curriculum?

Yes--they took themselves seriously! There was a full and interesting curriculum.
The Freedom Schools met across the state of Mississippi, and you can access the curriculum right here.
Details of the curriculum and PDFs can be found here.

Take a Look

Here is a short excerpt from Unit IV: Introducing the Power Structure.

Concept: That there are many kinds of power we could use to build a better society. What is power? (Power is the ability to move things.) What kinds of power are there? Discuss.

MississippiPolice state Intimidation One party No vote Unjust laws Citizens Council control, banks, jobs etc

Physical Power(Power to coerce or frighten) Political Power (Power to influence) Economic Power (Power to buy)

Freedom MovementFederal intervention Vote Convention Challenge Negro candidates Boycott, Strikes

Do these “powers” balance each other? Do they succeed in bringing the two sides together or do they tend to pull apart? Are there other kinds of power?

Truth Power

(Power to Convince or Persuade)

Does persuasion pull people apart? Is it a different kind of power? Can we use truth to reveal the lies and myths? What happens once they are revealed? Once someone is convinced or persuaded, can they join with us? Is the better world for them too?

Soul Power

(The Power to Love)

Can you love everyone like you love your family or your friends? What does compassion mean? Is that a kind of love? Is there something in other people that is like what is in you? Can soul power change things? How?

The Freedom Schools had a convention in August 1964, and this was the Education Platform that resulted. A lot of it will sound familiar!

     In an age where machines are rapidly replacing manual labor, job opportunities and economic security increasingly require higher levels of education. We therefore demand:
1. Better facilities in all schools. These would include textbooks, laboratories, air conditioning, heating, recreation, and lunch rooms.
2. A broader curriculum including vocational subjects and foreign languages.
3. Low fee adult classes for better jobs.
4. That the school year consist of nine (9) consecutive months.
5. Exchange programs and public kindergarten.
6. Better qualified teachers with salaries according to qualification.
7. Forced retirement (women 62, men 65).
8. Special schools for mentally retarded and treatment and care of cerebral palsy victims.
9. That taxpayers’ money not be used to provide private schools.
10. That all schools be integrated and equal throughout the country.
11. Academic freedom for teachers and students.
12. That teachers be able to join any political organization to fight for Civil Rights without fear of being fired.
13. That teacher brutality be eliminated.

Why do I share all of this? 

Two reasons.

1. From the editors of Education and Democracy,

The Freedom School Curriculum is one of the best examples of an effective progressive curriculum whose goal was to give students academic as well as democratic citizenship skills.  This site includes the original curriculum with supporting primary source materials, a brief historical context (editor’s introduction) and suggestions for how to use the FSC as curriculum today. Among those that we hope will find this material helpful are people starting modern freedom schools, high school and middle school teachers as well as progressive historians and teacher educators.

Photo by Tom Arthur. Used under a Creative Commons license.
Found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting#mediaviewer/File:Voting_United_States.jpg

2. It's Independence Day this week. While we are out celebrating with fireworks, popsicles, parades and barbecues, let's not forget that a lot of the history of this big and beautiful country rests on the right to vote. The original "tea party" wasn't about "no taxation." It was about "no taxation without representation." Voting--it's something we shouldn't take for granted.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

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Love, Michigan (=)

It's a New Day in Michigan. Read Judge Bernard Friedman's excellent ruling here.

My friends' daughter holds her moms' wedding rings
during their ceremony today (Saturday, 3/22/2014). The hands, of course,
are every Michigander's symbol of Michigan.

IV. Conclusion 

In attempting to define this case as a challenge to “the will of the people,” Tr. 2/25/14 p. 40, state defendants lost sight of what this case is truly about: people. No court record of this proceeding could ever fully convey the personal sacrifice of these two plaintiffs who seek to ensure that the state may no longer impair the rights of their children and the thousands of others now being raised by same-sex couples. It is the Court’s fervent hope that these children will grow up “to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.” Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2694. Today’s decision is a step in that direction, and affirms the enduring principle that regardless of whoever finds favor in the eyes of the most recent majority, the guarantee of equal protection must prevail.

Accordingly, 

IT IS HEREBY DECLARED that Article I, § 25 of the Michigan Constitution and its
implementing statutes are unconstitutional because they violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Today, at the Washtenaw County Clerk's Office, Clerk Lawrence Kestenbaum had posted this sign: 

I especially appreciated this part of Judge Friedman's ruling:

Taking the state defendants’ position to its logical conclusion, the empirical evidence at hand should require that only rich, educated, suburban-dwelling, married Asians may marry, to the exclusion of all other heterosexual couples. Obviously the state has not adopted this policy and with good reason. The absurdity of such a requirement is self-evident. Optimal academic outcomes for children cannot logically dictate which groups may marry. 

Congratulations!

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OCR Complaint Resolved; Ann Arbor News Article Sows Some Confusion

Community High School. Picture taken from the CHS web page.

Last spring (May 2013), a family leveled a complaint against the Ann Arbor Public Schools regarding the admissions process to Community High School. The complaint alleges that Community High School discriminates against special education students in the admissions process and that this student was discriminated against because his/her IEP team (team that recommends how a student's special education needs should be handled by the district) was not allowed to recommend CHS as a placement for him/her.

When I read the article about the complaint in the Ann Arbor News, it led me to believe that the US Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) was forcing the district to change its policy around the Community High School lottery in regards to the admission of special education students.

The article also led me to understand that the complaint alleged that the district allowed CHS to decide whether kids with disabilities would be allowed into Community High School, after they got in through the lottery.

I do not have access to the actual complaint that was filed, nor to the Agreement submitted to OCR by the Ann Arbor Public Schools.  I have read the letter from OCR confirming the Agreement, and you can read it right here. Re-reading both the Ann Arbor News article and the OCR letter, I still find the writing confusing.

The student's family did allege that the district would only allow students with disabilities to enroll at Community High School if CHS offered the disability-related services that were needed by that student. They also alleged that the student's IEP team was not allowed to recommend CHS as a placement option for him. They provided as proof some language from the CHS admissions/applications handouts.

Based on two conversations I had with AAPS staff members, it seems that the student's family wanted to go around the lottery system, and use the IEP team's recommendation that CHS would be the best environment for the student to get the student placed at Community. (I presume--but don't know for sure--that they went this route because the student did not get in by the lottery.)  The district said no, the IEP team cannot recommend CHS as a placement, the lottery determines placement at CHS.

Although the discussions that ended in the settlement are shrouded in attorney-client privilege, based on the OCR letter it looks like the district proved to Office of Civil Rights that they will provide whatever services are needed (presumably following the recommendations of the IEP team) at CHS for a student with disabilities who gets into CHS via the lottery.  But is also seems clear that the district will still not allow an IEP team to determine that CHS needs to be the placement for a student with an IEP outside of the lottery system.

In other words, the Office of Civil Rights will allow AAPS to continue to use the lottery as the way that students are admitted--or denied admission--to Community.  Only after a student gains access to a Community slot through the lottery will the IEP team help CHS figure out what accommodations/supports the student needs.

It does appear that some of the CHS admissions/applications language that was a subject of the complaint was changed.  The OCR letter indicates that the District agreed

to eliminate any statements advising or suggesting that special education services are not available at CHS or similar statements that might discourage students with disabilities from applying for enrollment at CHS

so that the district is fully in compliance with federal law.

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W.E.B Du Bois: Of The Color Line, the Class Line, and a Boyhood in Western Massachusetts

Photo by Ruth Kraut, 2010

To close out Black History Month,* I thought I'd share some thoughts I had about a visit I made a few summers ago to the W.E.B. Du Bois Boyhood Homesite in western Massachusetts. Before that, I knew about Du Bois' as a wonderful thinker. I had read--more than once--his book The Souls of Black Folk, in which he wrote that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." [Read the Souls of Black Folk online here, check it out from the library, or invest in a copy!]

Photo by Ruth Kraut, 2010

I did not realize, until I passed this historic site, and stopped to visit, that Du Bois had graduated from the mostly white high school in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. I wonder how that experience affected his thinking about education?

In Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois spends some time talking about the Talented Tenth, the idea that an elite group of intellectually-motivated black students should be encouraged in intellectual pursuits.

In Chapter 3 of Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois also takes on the legacy of Booker T. Washington, who promoted the idea of industrial/trade education for the majority of black students.

Photo by Ruth Kraut, 2010

Photo by Ruth Kraut, 2010. Part of the caption here reads,
"Violence is black children going to school for 12 years
and receiving 5 years of education."

Taken together, these two trains of thought--W.E.B. Du Bois' Talented Tenth on the one hand, and Booker T. Washington's belief in trade education on the other hand, created--and continue to elucidate--our understanding of education for people of color today.

Yet as I once heard Ted Shaw, former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund say (paraphrasing here, I wasn't taking notes at this speech! but I think I found an account of the speech here): "If the issue of the 20th century was the color line, the issue of the 21st century is likely to be the class line."

According to this account, Shaw also commented that: "Race has always masked class differences in the United States. . . Why are educational opportunities at the best universities and colleges so limited? . . .
Shaw described the tracking, sorting and labeling of young students by ability as 'diabolical.'"

Are we--should we be--training students to be automatons, cogs in an industrial machine? Or are we--should we be--training students to be intellectual leaders? And are those our only choices? I find echoes of these discussions in the arguments around the narrowing of the curriculum that is in part caused by high-stakes standardized testing and the reduction of the arts in public schools.

I'll close with this excerpt from Souls of Black Folk, Chapter 1, Of Our Spiritual Strivings, because in this excerpt Du Bois writes of his time in the western Massachusetts Berkshire Mountains:

And yet, being a problem is a strange experience,—peculiar even for one who has never been anything else, save perhaps in babyhood and in Europe. It is in the early days of rollicking boyhood that the revelation first bursts upon one, all in a day, as it were. I remember well when the shadow swept across me. I was a little thing, away up in the hills of New England, where the dark Housatonic winds between Hoosac and Taghkanic to the sea. In a wee wooden schoolhouse, something put it into the boys’ and girls’ heads to buy gorgeous visiting-cards—ten cents a package—and exchange. The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer, refused my card,—refused it peremptorily, with a glance. Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil. I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows. That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads. Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the worlds I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine. But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them. Just how I would do it I could never decide: by reading law, by healing the sick, by telling the wonderful tales that swam in my head,—some way. With other black boys the strife was not so fiercely sunny: their youth shrunk into tasteless sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking distrust of everything white; or wasted itself in a bitter cry, Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house? The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak of blue above.

*As it happens, I have been thinking about writing this post since I took these pictures in the summer of 2010, and because of Black History Month I decided that I should finish the post now. As I was getting ready to hit the "publish" button, I came across something that gave me Du Bois' birthdate--February 23, 1868. And the date of today's post? February 23, 2014. Today is, in fact, the 146th birthday of W.E.B. Du Bois. He died in Accra, Ghana (in self-imposed exile!), the day before the 1963 March on Washington. So much of what Du Bois wrote, over 100 years ago, is still relevant now. And that's why, if you haven't yet picked up and read the Souls of Black Folk, I'd recommend you put it on your "short list" of books to read in 2014. 


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Student Advocacy Center: Solutions, Not Suspensions Campaign

The Student Advocacy Center in Ann Arbor is part of a Solutions, Not Suspensions Campaign. This is part of a national movement to reduce suspensions in schools and promote positive behavioral interventions.

Here are a few facts from the campaign:

Michigan ranks 5^th in the country for highest rates of student suspensions, with students of color, students with disabilities, and students in foster care being suspended at significantly higher rates. 

Every dropout costs society an estimated $250,000 over the student’s lifetime in lost income. Research shows that students who are expelled are more likely to drop out of school and/or get arrested.  

Michigan law does not currently require schools to work to reduce suspensions and expulsions and informal guidance by the State Board of Education, while a step in the right direction, has been largely ignored.

Here is the current list of organizational endorsers. (There are also individual endorsers. You can be one of them!) The Student Advocacy Center recently approached the Ypsilanti Community Schools with an informational letter, asking them to be the first school district to sign on to this pledge. That would be timely, too, considering that the YCS school board recently voted on some expulsions, including an expulsion of an elementary school child!  (I believe they were all mandatory, but I'm not positive about that. Did you know that students who are suspended are twice as likely to drop out? Or that black students are are 2-1/2 times more likely to be suspended than white students, according to the U.S. Department of Education?)

Organizations

1. ACLU of Michigan 
2. Ann Arbor Concerned Citizens for Justice
3. Association for Children's Mental Health 
4. Better Detroit Youth Movement 
5. Cherish Our Youth
6. Citizens for Prison Reform 
7. Education Trust – Midwest 
8. Greater Works Youth Empowerment 
9. Harriet Tubman Center 
10. Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice
11. Keeping Them Alive 
12. Matrix Human Services
13. Michigan Alliance for Families 
14. Michigan's Children
15. Michigan Council on Crime and Delinquency
16. Michigan County Social Services Association
17. Michigan League for Public Policy 
18. Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service, Inc. 
19. National Association of Social Workers - Michigan Chapter
20. Shetroit.com 
21. Sower Center for Successful Schools 
22. Student Advocacy Center of Michigan 
23. The Arc of Michigan
24. Youth Voice 

You can sign the pledge, or work to get your school district to sign on to this.

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I'm Proud. . .

I'm proud of the brave teachers who are plaintiffs in the American Civil Liberties Union suit over the ban on domestic partner benefits. The American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Michigan filed a federal lawsuit today asking the court to strike down a new Michigan law that bans many public entities from providing health care insurance to the domestic partners of their employees.

Two of the plaintiffs are teachers, and they are both teachers in the Ann Arbor public schools. I'm so proud of Peter Ways (Ann Arbor Open teacher) and Theresa Bassett (Slauson Middle School teacher)--and their families. (The other plaintiffs work for the City of Kalamazoo and Ingham County.)

Ways is quoted as saying, in the ACLU press release,
“This is not about politics or ideology for us,” said Peter Ways, an Ann Arbor Public Schools teacher whose partner will lose his benefits. “This is about real families who are facing the real consequences of discriminatory laws. Just like our colleagues whose families will continue to receive health insurance, we want to care for our families.”
Kary Moss, the ACLU of Michigan executive director, said, “Although justified by the Governor as a cost-cutting measure, the numbers don’t hold up,” said Kary L. Moss, ACLU of Michigan executive director. “The reality is that the legislation was intended to disenfranchise LGBT families."

According to the ACLU web site, 


Peter Ways and Joe Breakey of Ann Arbor have been in a committed relationship for more than 20 years and have a nine-year-old daughter. Peter works for Ann Arbor Public Schools. The district extends insurance coverage to his partner Joe who is self-employed as a licensed therapist. Being self-employed gives Joe the flexibility to be home for their daughter after school. Due to the added expense that comparable individual coverage will cost, Peter and Joe are considering a move back to Washington so that Peter could take a job that provides family benefits.






Theresa Bassett and Carol Kennedy of Ann Arbor have been in a committed relationship for 25 years and have six kids ranging in age from six to 20 years old. Theresa has worked for the Ann Arbor Public Schools for 28 years and currently teaches 6th grade and 8th grade math. Theresa’s employer extends health insurance coverage to Carol who is self-employed as a daycare provider. Because of Carol’s family history of breast cancer, individual comprehensive insurance coverage will be extremely expensive. In fact, Carol estimates that purchasing comprehensive coverage on her own will cost the family an additional $800 a month, putting considerable pressure on their finances, which are already strained by a mortgage and the cost of sending two children to college.

If you see these teachers, tell them you're proud of them too.
And if you have some change to spare, support the ACLU's work by donating now.

Pilgrims and Indians

True, this post is not really about Pilgrims. Growing up in an east coast town where the first European settlers arrived in 1630, and where my neighbor's ancestor came over on the Mayflower, we spent a lot of time on the Thanksgiving story, and the histories of the Pilgrims' descendants were present in the graveyards nearby.

The presence of the Indians, though, was muted. We didn't learn too much about their post-Revolutionary War history, probably because they were mostly eradicated from the Boston to Washington DC corridor. 

In college, though, I spent a month in a tiny town in South Dakota on the Cheyenne River Reservation. [It turns out that this county currently holds the honor of the poorest county in the nation.] While there, I stayed with an Indian (Sioux) family and I learned quite a bit more about Indian history. The mom in the family had gone to one of the Indian boarding schools. I hadn't heard about them, either.

So I wasn't entirely surprised (but I was disturbed) to hear this NPR special on the South Dakota foster care system and how it affects Indian kids.

I also recently got, from a friend, a curriculum/history piece about Indian boarding schools. There was one in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan that her relatives had gone to. The ones in South Dakota, I was surprised to see, are still in operation. Visit this link and scroll down for the curriculum guide. There's also a note that says additional teacher materials are coming.

And/or listen to this NPR story, Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many.

In any case, this Thanksgiving, let's all brush up on the Indian side of the equation.

Reprise: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Astute readers of this blog will know that I've already written, at length, about the book that I bought my youngest son a couple of years ago for Chanukah, a book that he loves but--at the time--described to me as "inappropriate." Honestly, it's one of my favorite posts, so you should read it.

But you might be wondering, well if she already wrote about The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, what more is there to say? Plenty, as it turns out. I think my son has read this book 9, 10, 11 times, and I had read it about 1-1/2 times (what can I say--I'm a skimmer, and some parts of this book are rather painful). The part I'm going to quote is rather painful, and yet it's a part I didn't even notice until I decided to get the audiobook for last year's Thanksgiving pilgrimage out east. (By the way, it is an excellent audio book.)

Sometimes when I listen to a book, I notice parts of it that I didn't notice when I read the book. And so it was that I caught this passage, which is in the chapter, "Because Geometry Is Not A Country Somewhere Near France."

"All right, kids, let's get cracking," Mr. P said as he passed out the geometry books. "How about we do something strange and start on page one?"
I grabbed my book and opened it up.
I wanted to smell it.
Heck, I wanted to kiss it.
Yes, kiss it.
That's right, I am a book kisser.
Maybe that's kind of perverted or maybe it's just romantic and highly intelligent. 
But my lips and I stopped short when I saw this written on the inside front cover.

THIS BOOK BELONGS TO AGNES ADAMS
Okay, now you're probably asking yourself, "Who is Agnes Adams?"
Well, let me tell you. Agnes Adams is my mother. MY MOTHER! And Adams is her maiden name.
So that means my mother was born an Adams and she was still an Adams when she wrote her name in that book. And she was thirty when she gave birth to me. Yep, so that means I was staring at a geometry book that was at least thirty years older than I was. 
I couldn't believe it.
How horrible is that?
My school and my tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from. That is absolutely the saddest thing in the world.
And let me tell you, that old, old, old, decrepit geometry book hit my heart with the force of a nuclear bomb. My hopes and dreams floated up in a mushroom cloud. What do you do when the world has declared nuclear war on you?

This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful that I--and my kids--have never had 30-year-old geometry books. So may it always be.

Area Teens: Let's Make It Better Now

EMU is having a contest around LGBT Bullying issues. Money is involved. Yes, a $500 prize! Plus--it looks fun!

EMU's first annual advocacy speech competition! The focus of the competition is LGBT bullying among youth, titled "Let's Make It Better Now" (a spin-off of the "It Gets Better" campaign). Participants are invited to write and record a 4-7 minute persuasive speech articulating how students can "make it better now" for LGBT students within educational institutions and beyond. Speeches are due by December 1st . Participants must be EMU undergraduates and/or Washtenaw County youth (ages 16-24). Visit www.makeitbetternow.weebly.com or contact The Center for the Study of Equality and Human Rights out of the CMTA department at msage@emich.edu for more information.

Find more details here: http://makeitbetternow.weebly.com/

Pass this jobs bill and...

. . . hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged young people will have the hope and dignity of a summer job next year.  (President Obama's Jobs Speech, 9/9/11)

As soon as President Obama said that, I flashed back to this memory:

In 1983, I scored a summer job working for the Parks Council in New York City.  I was a "supervisor" of two team leaders and 24 high school students for a CETA jobs program. There were 20 African-American kids and 4 Latino/Latina kids; the team leaders were a Latino community college student and an African-American student from Howard University. I was the only white person, for the first time in my life.

Do you remember CETA? It was the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, a federal program that offered people with low incomes, as well as the long-term unemployed, with jobs and job training programs in the public and non-profit centers.

I think because I was white, I got assigned to the tony southern end of Central Park. Some of the other New York City parks were not so nice, and they had longer commutes from my house. At lunchtime I could sit by myself, or with my boyfriend, and watch Dustin Hoffman eat his lunch with his friends. Yes, he would come to the park too.

The animals had been removed from the Central Park Zoo by 1983.

Our headquarters were in the Central Park Zoo, which was mostly closed for renovation in 1982--a good thing since the original animal stalls were truly prison cells. There is a nice history of the zoo here. The only animals that I remember still being at the zoo were the sea lions. (Photo taken from here.)

The kids taught me slang--"I've got my main squeeze and my two side squeeze"--as well as why we couldn't rake leaves in certain areas (rats). I'm not sure what I taught them. . .

But one day we were on a field trip and one of the girls came up to me. She had just finished 10th grade and she was probably the most diligent worker in the group. Her mother was from Jamaica and worked as a nurse's aide.

"I was thinking," she said to me, "that maybe I could become an LPN [Licensed Practical Nurse]."
"Great!" I said. "That's a great idea!"

But in my heart, I thought, "Why be an LPN? You're smart enough to be an RN or a BSN. In fact, why not be a doctor? You're smart enough to be a doctor."

I didn't say that to her though.

Why didn't I say that to her? Well, probably partly because I was only 20. I couldn't even give myself career advice.
But probably also because I wasn't trained to have Great Expectations from poor black kids.

I wasn't trained. I don't honestly think it's a good excuse. Part of the achievement gap comes from the unconscious assumptions that we make and pass on to others, even when we are trying to do the right thing, and even when we are working on an "employment and training" program.

CETA wasn't perfect, but it did offer those kids jobs, and it did mostly keep them out of trouble that summer.

I hope that Obama gets to pass a good strong jobs bill.


And I hope--I really hope--that someone else told that kid she could be a doctor.

Whatever Happened?

To the state budget? The House votes tomorrow; the Senate voted today. You'll find more information at mipfs.org. This rolls back funding to what it was in the 2005-2006 year.

To our Local Boy Makes Good story about Shael Polakow-Suransky? I got this note from my New York City activist parent friend this morning, and she writes, "Do you know anyone who can talk some sense into Shael?" She pointed me to this New York Times article: Tests for Pupils, but the Grades Go to Teachers.  And she said to especially read the comments. Then, if you do know Shael, feel free to give him a call or an email...

To the WISD Superintendent Search? Scott Menzel has been chosen to be the district’s next superintendent. Menzel is in his fourth year as the superintendent of the Livingston Educational Service Agency (LESA)--yes, that's our sister program. By the way, I'm super annoyed that I couldn't find the information about the new superintendent on the WISD web site. It's really hard to find things. I had to go outside the web site and google it to get the press release!
In addition, I couldn't find any information about his compensation. The press release says it will be "brought back" after a subcommittee negotiates with him. Recent agendas have closed sessions for "Authorization." I think that this probably violates open meetings notice, I think you have to specify why you are closing the meeting. The last approved minutes published, are from mid-April, even though they've met several times since then. I am not impressed. This is a group that needs a watchdog!

To the Achievement Gap? It's still there. I liked this article, which reminds us how long it has been there! This Week in Ann Arbor History: 1967: Future mayor Albert Wheeler alleges racial discrimination in Ann Arbor schools, police department.

Saline Non-Discrimination Policy: More News

Saline Schools Superintendent Scot Graden has a blog post that describes the recent history of the Saline Schools non-discrimination ordinance. Most usefully, it has current and proposed language, as well as information about what the bullying ordinance says.

This post also says that at the board's next meeting there will be discussion (not a vote, as previously reported) of the ordinance, and that it is scheduled as an action item (likely vote--but it could always get tabled) will occur on October 12th.

The bullying ordinance includes language about sexual orientation but not gender identity.

Of course there are concerns about safety, because hate crimes and bullying do occur based on individuals' sexual orientation.

But--just for the record: Not all bullying involves sexual orientation, or gender identity. And not all issues around sexual orientation and gender identity involve bullying.

Including this language is important as a matter of basic civil rights, fairness, and human dignity.

All meetings are held at the Liberty School Media Center, 7265 Saline-Ann Arbor Road, and start at 6:30 p.m.

Saturday Night's Fun: Skyline Soccer, MHSAA, and Title IX

 My Saturday Night

The Skyline women's soccer team made it to the District 2 regionals and I went to see my daughter's friend play. Saturday night, at Trenton High School, this group of 9th and 10th graders played a Livonia Ladywood team (grades 9-12) that included at least one all-stater. Skyline lost, 1-0. Their best chances to score came in the last 15 minutes.  Read all about it here (with video). 
(The team runs the field--out to the bleachers and back--at the end of the game.)

Watching the game sent me down Memory Lane. I was in high school in the years post-Title IX.
 

Title IX is a law passed in 1972 that requires gender equity for boys and girls in every educational program that receives federal funding.
Many people have never heard of Title IX.  Most people who know about Title IX think it applies only to sports, but athletics is only one of 10 key areas addressed by the law. These areas are: Access to Higher Education, Career Education, Education for Pregnant and Parenting Students, Employment, Learning Environment, Math and Science, Sexual Harassment, Standardized Testing and Technology. (From TitleIX.info)

From a Sports Perspective
What a difference a few years make! When I was in middle school, all the girls (grades 7-12--the middle school was separate, but attached to the high school) were consigned to the small gym. All the boys (grades 7-12) got the big and beautiful gym. By the time I got to high school, the powers-that-be were beginning to implement Title IX (it took them a few years). By 1976, the middle school students got the small gym, and the high school students got the big gym. Did that mean more juggling of space? You bet. And with physical education four days a week, for four years, space got tight. That is, actually, how I learned to juggle--in the wrestling room. They made it work though, and juggling space just seemed normal.
In retrospect, the physical education department at my high school seemed to want to make Title IX work--but they had a lot of catch-up to do. There were hardly any girls' after-school sports at the time. And that's probably why, when my friends Denise and Anne lobbied for a girls' soccer team (we weren't called "women's" soccer), they let us form one. So as a senior, I was on the first girls' soccer team for our high school.
Then and Now
Here are a couple of differences between then and now: the skill level of the Skyline players is vastly vastly better, and the women's game is much more physical. It was fun to watch.

Another thing that was different--and completely, totally, outstandingly cool? The men's soccer team showed up as the cheer section--with face paint and school colors. And they brought the mascot!

If we had made it to regionals back in 1980, I think we would have gotten the parents. But the boys' team? No way! (Yes, of course the parents were there Saturday night. My favorite parent line was from a parent who didn't think the ref was being fair: "Ref, you're missing a great game here!") Digression: Did you know that the chant "Go Blue" works for Skyline as well as UM?

MHSAA: Dumb Decisions, and Where Does My Money Go?
The game cost $5 per ticket to get in (I spent $15), and the tickets are stamped MHSAA: Michigan High School Athletic Association. MHSAA is, essentially, the statewide high school sports organization. I believe all of the local schools that field sports teams are members, and I'm including private, parochial, and charter schools (e.g., Greenhills, Gabriel Richard, and Central Academy).

If you want, you can think of it as a monopoly. On the one hand, maybe a monopoly makes sense for coordination purposes.
On the other hand, MHSAA spent the last ten-or-so years strenuously fighting a Title IX challenge. Remember, school districts around the state support MHSAA with their dollars (our tax dollars), and I certainly didn't support the MHSAA fight. So I started thinking about the lawsuit.

CFE v. MHSAA
Here is the very quick summary:
Communities for Equity, a Grand-Rapids-based group, sued MHSAA over the placement of sports seasons. It's not illegal to have (for instance) one season of basketball in the fall or spring, and a different season in the winter--and obviously that makes it easier to schedule gym time. However, in Michigan, the "worse" or non-traditional season was always given to the women's sports season. Under Title IX, the discriminatory practice--always giving women the less desirable season--is illegal. So--Communities for Equity sued, and won. MHSAA appealed, and lost. Appealed, and lost. . . The lawsuit went on for nine years (!). In the end, the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
During those nine years (that is nine graduating classes), other states' high school athletic associations had the same issue. But instead of pursuing ongoing legal action, and racking up millions of dollars in legal fees, those states' athletic associations changed their practice. In the end: Michigan had to align their seasons the same way that 49 other states had already done. (That's right, we were LAST to adopt a practice everyone else had already done.) As far as I'm concerned, that was the right thing to do--but it would have been the right thing to do many years earlier. Hey people, you were a little late to the party!
Further--if it were up to me, I would have changed the MHSAA leadership a long time ago. What were they thinking, fighting this for so many years? What's more, they are still whining about the change. Want some cheese with that whine?

From a Detroit News article written 2/25/2010,

 "I don't think people are much happier about it today then they were when the court ruling was made," said John "Jack" Roberts, executive director of the MHSAA, which opposed changes to the seasons.

WAIT A SECOND. Who is "people?" I'm people. And I am VERY HAPPY about the change.

Then the article quotes Connie Engel:

Engel, who lives in Grand Rapids, is one of the founders of the Communities of Equity, the group that sued the MHSAA in 1998 for what it described as discriminatory scheduling practices at the convenience of boys sports.
"Looking through the eyes of Title IX, gate receipts can't be a persuasive factor," she said. "It isn't anything about the public, it's about the children's legal rights to be treated without discrimination. I just opened the newspaper Saturday morning and there were two big spreads on each side with boys and girls basketball."

RIGHT ON!
It was MHSAA's own damn fault that they ended up with a huge legal bill at the end. They didn't need to appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court. They could have changed their practice. After the final ruling stood, MHSAA started moaning and groaning. They said that they might need to file for bankruptcy. They said they might need to assess all of the high schools in the association a special (and very large) assessment.
So I wondered, after I noticed that my ticket money was going to MHSAA, what ever happened to that legal bill? It was hard to find out.
You know that iPhone commercial, "There's an app for that?" Well, it turns out that--almost whatever you are looking for--"There's a blog for that." In this case, title-ix.blogspot.com had the answer. (They have several posts on the case. If you are interested, click on the Michigan tag.)

In summary, instead of paying $7 million all at once, MHSAA is paying less and paying gradually, with final payments coming in 2014. And they can't get out of paying by filing for bankruptcy. The details of the agreement were originally covered by the Downriver News-Herald. (Which brings me back to the soccer game, I guess, since Trenton is Downriver.) What's surprising to me is how little news follow-up there was of this huge story that affects thousands of student-athletes--and all the Michigan high schools--every year.

In the Billie Jean King/Chris Evert/Martina Navratilova era, Virginia Slims supported the women's tennis tour, with the tag line "You've come a long way, baby."
We sure have. But we have a long way to go.
Read more about Title IX and athletics at TitleIX.info and at title-ix.blogspot.com.

Race/ism & Disparities

Just a few days apart, two thought-provoking articles show up in Annarbor.com. In the first article, Simone Lightfoot--relatively new AAPS school board member--says that she is concerned about student achievement numbers.

“These (numbers) for African-American and Hispanic children are abysmal,” she said. “The seeming sentiment of ‘Hold on, we’ll get there,’ isn’t working for me.”

I appreciate Simone Lightfoot's honesty. As I noted several weeks ago in a series of posts (start here), segregation--and its cousin, the so-called achievement gap--have been with us for over thirty years. And note, that by "us," I don't just mean Ann Arbor schools, although we're obviously talking about Ann Arbor. This is true throughout the U.S.

This gap is not only true in education outcomes. It is true in health outcomes and it's true in housing outcomes. Have you ever looked at the difference in how many African-Americans (and Hispanics) are likely to get diabetes, compared to whites? What about heart disease? Age until death? How about rates of foreclosure? The numbers are not pretty.

Sure, we can research, and act, and research, and act, but a lot of things that we thought would work to improve outcomes have not actually improved outcomes. (A few have.) Is that simply how it is? Does race stand in for something else? Is it racism?

Just over a year ago, the Ann Arbor News reported this:

The Ann Arbor school district has started correcting problems that were causing a disproportionate number of black students [47%] to be labeled as cognitively impaired, the district's special education director told the school board Wednesday night.

47%!? How do those numbers look today, a year and a half later?

Interestingly (but I'm not happy about this), in the Ann Arbor school district, we have been sued for reverse discrimination. In the late 1990s, there was a Saturday Academy for African American Youth--but the focus on African-American Youth was considered a problem by some. (I couldn't find a link to any of the news stories, or the summary, of the case. Point one my way if you know it, or write more in the comments.) It's my understanding, though, that part of the settlement was that the Saturday Academy could not be largely focused on African Americans.

And this week the same issue raises its head, when Mike Madison, a principal and an African-American man, offers a field trip to a select group of kids: African-American kids. Talk about controversy! The article doesn't explain why they could only invite a certain number of kids, and I'm troubled by the allegation that some African-American girls were disinvited. 
Do I think that this is the solution to the achievement gap? No.
But do I think that this is the worst idea ever and Mike Madison is a total idiot? No, that is not it either.


My personal experience of Mike Madison is that he is a creative thinker. And quite honestly, dealing with the achievement gap requires thinking outside the box, and probably providing multiple solutions. If the achievement gap were easy to deal with, it would have been dealt with already! And when we think outside the box, we often find that our attempts are not successful. 

So--Simone Lightfoot--thank you for keeping your eye on our failures as well as our successes.
And--Mike Madison--thank you for trying out a solution. Try a different one next time.

As Thomas Alva Edison said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

We need to keep working on this.

Image is from here.

Desegregation Outcomes

The primary focus of the 1985 reorganization was integrating the schools--in particular, integrating the black and white populations. The Asian, Latino, and Middle Eastern populations were much smaller than they are today.
I was interested in the immediate impacts of this reoganization, but unfortunately I did not have time to dig through the microfiche and find the 1986 enrollment numbers. As a result, this post takes a much longer view of this reorganization. On the one hand, this is somewhat unfair, since the committee that developed the reorganization was only able to estimate out about five years. In taking the long view, I also need to recognize that there have been some (relatively minor, with the exception of the re-opening of Lakewood and the opening of Skyline) changes to the individual school boundaries over the years.
[By the way, his post gets a little numbers-heavy. I think the numbers tell the story, but if you don't, skip to the end. Also, for the purposes of counting here, I count Ann Arbor Open as an elementary school.]

At the time of the report (1985), the AAPS African-American population was 17% of the total schools population, and the state considered a school out of balance if the African-American population was + or - 15% points compared to the district average, which is how the state recommended a 2-32% guideline for Ann Arbor. The Committee on Excellence chose a more restrictive +/- 5-15% range.

If we look at the racial makeup of the schools today, the African-American population average is still between 12 and 27%, the goal of the committee. In September 2009 it was at 14.5%. Some individual schools are much higher or lower.  Angell School, for instance, has an African-American population of only 3.6%, and in total, the following schools fall below 12%: 9 elementary schools (give Logan a pass at 11.8%), 2 middle schools, and Community High School.

On the other end of the spectrum, Roberto Clemente's African-American population is 82.3%--but I should note that this was true back in 1984, and I guess because Clemente and Community were and are magnet schools, the committee was unable to address the numbers through redistricting--though they did say they hoped to reduce the achievement gap. (In fact, lawsuits against the schools, and Proposal 2, have limited options on this front even more.

So, aside from Clemente, the schools that are over the 27% number today comprise a much smaller number: Mitchell, Scarlett, and Stone.

[In 2002, by comparison, 8 elementary schools and Community High School were below 12% (Not including Forsythe, at 11.7%). No elementary schools were above 27%, but Scarlett, Clemente, and Stone were above 27%.]

If we look at the 2009 African-American AAPS population percentages, however, we only get part of the story. 
For while the African-American school population has shrunk slightly as a percentage of the school population, the Asian, Latino, and Middle Eastern populations have increased greatly. Where the fall 2009 headcount counts African-American students as 14.5% of the population, the Asian population comprises 14.2% of the population.
So, using a broader lens, let's take a look at Angell School again:

3.6% African American

32% Asian, 

4.2% Middle Eastern, 

5.8% Multi-ethnic, 

.3% Native American, 

.6% Other, 

4.9% Latino/Hispanic, and 

48.5% White. 

In other words--even though Angell doesn't meet the criteria of 12-27% African American, it clearly is diverse.
You might be surprised to know that the district, on average, is now 52.8% White. If I were to say that a range of 42-62% White was acceptable as a range for desegregation, these schools would be below 42% White: 7 elementary schools (at 41.9% I will give Thurston a pass), Scarlett Middle School, and Clemente and Stone high schools. These schools would be above 62%: 4 elementary schools, Forsythe Middle School, and Community High School.

And if we were to set up a committee to strive for racial balance today, we would find that the Asian AAPS population is highly concentrated in some schools, and barely present in others. Using that same 12-27% range, there are 10 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, and 3 high schools that that come in under 12% Asian population, and there are 5 elementary schools that are over the 27% number.

It is worth noting, however, that the 1985 reorganization had at its core, not 1, but 2 significant goals related to racial integration. One goal was "the elimination of racial isolation," which was considered an important value in and of itself. Although I hesitate to call that the "primary goal," it was in fact the driving force behind the reorganization. And although the reorganization was not, and is not, perfect--from the point of view of eliminating racial isolation, I think the work of the committee stands on its own, and 25 years later, it stands pretty well.

At the time, the Committee on Excellence of Education noted that

On a district wide basis, the academic performance of minorities lags far behind that of the majority population. Minorities are significantly overrepresented in lower curricular paths and significantly underrepresented in advanced courses of study. Disproportionately high numbers of minorities are the subject of disciplinary action. . . Measured by the critical index of progress toward educational opportunity, the Ann Arbor School District, in this regard, is in crisis.

The second goal, then, was the goal of reducing the achievement gap. Twenty-five years later. . . countless policy papers later. . . many efforts later (and whether these efforts have been wrong or inadequate--or both--we'll leave for another time). . . this goal remains elusive, and has not been achieved.

Some Interesting Links

A tweet from DavidNGoodman (Detroit-area AP reporter) led me to this teacher blog from someone who started out in Teach For America: Not Much, Just Chillin' and to this very interesting article from the New York Times, Building A Better Teacher by Elizabeth Green. The article gives a shout-out to both the Michigan State University and University of Michigan schools of education. And I don't necessarily agree with all of the conclusions, but it is interesting to read about. The article also links to the Uncommon Schools web site (which is promotional--just a warning). I wouldn't normally link to it but I did like the teaching clips on the right hand side.

[There is a recent post on the teachers' blog Not Much, Just Chilling that talks about what this teacher gets paid as a teacher in eastern North Carolina. It struck me just how little she is getting paid, after 5 years on the job, and how low pay is in eastern North Carolina as compared to Michigan.]

Also in the New York Times, as part of a series on the impact of immigration, you can look up every school district in the country (yes, including Washtenaw County), and check out both racial/ethnic makeup and the assigned diversity index (the percent chance that two students selected randomly would belong to different ethnic/racial groups).  The key question--is diversity increasing or decreasing? The data spans 1987 to 2006, so you can really see some trends. In Washtenaw County, for 2006, Fortis Academy is #1 in diversity. Check out #2... (I had fun guessing.) I went back and looked at my hometown in a New York suburb. Racial and ethnic diversity is still every bit as low as I remembered from high school.

In graduate school in education, I often found myself disagreeing with Diane Ravitch, a leading educational thinker. So I was surprised to listen to this NPR interview with her, and find that for the most part I agreed with her. [I think she may have changed more than me. And she essentially says, "I thought this, but now I have changed my mind." Kudos to her for being willing to admit to a change of mind.]

And today, NPR has an article about the Department of Education stepping up civil rights enforcement. It's about time...

On a totally separate topic--not education, but yes, local--The Farmer's Marketer is doing a series on the various community farm/share options in the area. I tried one a few years ago but didn't like driving out to the farm every week, so I'm shopping around, and maybe you are shopping too! There are a lot more choices now.

Racial Discrimination and Tracking

There was an interesting story on NPR the other day on how tracking plays out in one middle class community.

Here's the link, and I suggest you listen to the story rather than simply read it.

My friend in Pittsburgh described to me his daughter's high school. It's an "urban" school, and it has metal detectors and the kinds of rules you primarily find in large urban schools. However, the neighborhood they live in is a middle class neighborhood, and in an effort to keep the middle class in the city, and in the school system, this is what tracking looks like in her school.

Four levels.
The top level has an average of 18 kids in each class.
The second level has closer to 22-25 kids in each class.
The third tier has close to 30 kids in each class.
The lowest tier? Over 30 kids in each class.

Guess which classes have the most white kids?
Guess which classes have the most middle and upper middle class kids?

And who, he asked me, needs the small class size?

Summary: Tracking is great for the kids at the top.
For everyone else, it's not so hotsy-totsy, and it's not so ai-yai-yai.

It's About Communication

Last night at Skyline's PTSO meeting, principal Sulura Jackson gave a pretty good summary of the events and AAPS follow-up to the first day of school bus fight. First, she characterized it as a fight that originated in the community, not in the school. Second, the school district does not at this point believe the fight to be a hate crime, although of course the police are doing their own investigation. The school district is following through with discipline for the students involved, as well as conflict resolution/mediation efforts that will go on throughout the year. And--finally! On Wednesday during "Skytime" (digression: everything at Skyline seems to have a "sky" pun in it--this refers to homeroom) the whole school will have a scripted/organized discussion. I believe that Ms. Jackson is right to keep the focus on ways to make the schools welcoming, and not focus on the incident itself. And, I'm relieved to hear, they are working with Peace Neighborhood Center as well.

So that's all well and good. I think they are on the right track. Yet I still have something to kvetch about: communication and transparency. Schools need to wake up and realize that they are service organizations, serving not just students but parents too. They will get a lot further if they communicate with transparency. I'm not asking for the moon--I should not have to go to a PTO meeting to find out basic information. That's what emails and letters are for! (And I didn't go to the meeting, actually, because I have found that you can't be in two places at once. I got this information from asking others.)

It may just be me, but: if I don't know what the schools are doing, then I am often not going to trust that they are doing the right thing. A paternalistic attitude that "we know what we are doing" doesn't get very far with me. I like to think for myself. I want openness and communication. At least as a place to start.

Ramadan Mubarak: A Blessed Ramadan

First--to any Muslim readers--may you have a Ramadan Mubarak, a blessed month of Ramadan.

I started this post a few weeks ago, intending to write about whether or not the Ann Arbor Public Schools are welcoming to Muslims--and what more AAPS could do. And now that seems even more relevant, following the incident at Skyline. I have no doubt that--whether it was the "fault" of the school district or not, whether the fight was ethnically/religiously motivated or not--the perception of the fight in the Muslim and Arab communities will be that it was related to prejudice.

So--did I mention that there are two schools in the county that cater to Muslim and/or Arab families? The Islamic Academy is a parochial school with something in the neighborhood of 100 kids; and Central Academy is a charter school with over 350 kids enrolled. Admittedly, not all of those kids come from Ann Arbor, but I do know that when Central Academy opened, the Ann Arbor schools felt the loss, particularly in a few schools. Parents vote with their feet.

And remember--every pupil lost=thousands of dollars lost to the school.

So--are we welcoming? My guess is that some AAPS schools are, and some schools aren't, but institutionally--I don't think so. (Part two of this post will be whether or not we are welcoming to Jewish students, and it's my perception as a Jewish family that the schools are not too welcoming to minority religions. In general.)

The AAPS has a calendar that designates religious holidays as 1, 2, or 3 star. (3-star are the most "important" holidays.) Guess what happens on 3-star Christian holidays, and sometimes even 2-star Christian holidays? [Yes--school day off.] How about 3-star Muslim or Jewish holidays? [School day on.] It is a lot more complicated. There are lots of holidays. And yes, I know that there are way more Christians than Muslims or Jews in town. But (if you go) school by school, there can be a significant number of kids who are from practicing families. I worked in a school on the southeast side of town where 1/4 of the kids in my classes were out on the last day of Ramadan. But another couple of kids attended school, because their parents felt conflicted about the students missing schoolwork. Any time parents feel that conflict, and have another option, they may choose to go to a different school.

There is also a point to be made regarding perception. Giving one measly day off--say, for Id al-Fitr (Muslim holiday), or for Yom Kippur (Jewish holiday)--makes the district seem more welcoming to parents who are nervous about being a minority in a majority world. Yes, it is agesture--there are still other religious holidays where observant students would have to take off from school. It's a gesture, but I think it is an important action--it is not strictly symbolic. And, it raises awareness that the holiday exists.

And how about those languages? What if the Ann Arbor schools were to offer Arabic? Would that be so hard? I would think it would attract more students.

Last--but not least--where, and how, are we educating kids about prejudice. . . discrimination. . . other cultures and religions. Yes, lots of things are happening--multi-cultural festivals--SEEDS program at the Neutral Zone going into middle schools--but the only time my kids have ever had specific exposure to (some piece of) the Muslim experience was when there was a Muslim in their class. And even then, it tended to be more of the 'chance exposure' and teachable moment than the sustained effort. What, exactly, do our teachers know about Islam? What do we teach the teachers?

Whatever we are doing--it seems like it is not enough. Can we do more?