Louisiana Lesson #1: Plessy v Ferguson

I spent part of my winter break in New Orleans. And during a cemetery tour, I saw the grave of Homer Plessy.

Plessy, as in the famous "Separate but Equal" 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson.

What I didn't know is that the Plessy v. Ferguson case, which was applied to schools until the case of Brown v. Board of Education, did not start out as an education case. It was a case about separate transportation on street cars. It was a transportation case (think Rosa Parks), but its impact was felt on education. 

The family grave, which includes Homer Plessy,
and is in French, says that Homer Plessy
died March 1, 1925, age 63. Photo by Ruth Kraut

From oyez.org:

Facts of the Case 
The state of Louisiana enacted a law that required separate railway cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Adolph Plessy--who was seven-eighths Caucasian--took a seat in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train. He refused to move to the car reserved for blacks and was arrested.

[Editors note: Back then, Plessy was described as an "octroon," since he was only 1/8 black. I always loved the sound of that word, though not what it connotes--that someone with only a single drop of blood ascribed to a black ancestor would be considered black.]

Question 
Is Louisiana's law mandating racial segregation on its trains an unconstitutional infringement on both the privileges and immunities and the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment?
Conclusion
Decision: 7 votes for Ferguson, 1 vote(s) against
Legal provision: US Const. Amend 14, Section 1
No, the state law is within constitutional boundaries. The majority, in an opinion authored by Justice Henry Billings Brown, upheld state-imposed racial segregation. The justices based their decision on the separate-but-equal doctrine, that separate facilities for blacks and whites satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment so long as they were equal. (The phrase, "separate but equal" was not part of the opinion.) Justice Brown conceded that the 14th amendment intended to establish absolute equality for the races before the law. But Brown noted that "in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races unsatisfactory to either." In short, segregation does not in itself constitute unlawful discrimination. 

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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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Interesting Meeting Choices Monday Night 2/25/13

Ypsilanti/Willow Run residents:

So you know, based on my previous posts [here, and here] that the Ypsilanti/Willow Run school board (the new Ypsilanti Community Schools school board) has an important decision to make on Monday night about the Superintendent choice for the new district. If you can come out and be part of the democratic decision-making process, that would be great. Here are the details:

2/25/2013. 7:30 p.m.. Willow Run Community Schools Auditorium, 235 Spencer Lane. 

Here is the agenda. 

Now, should you happen to be

Ann Arbor residents:

I got an interesting email and flyer the other day, it starts out like this:

“New Jim Crow” Injustice In Ann Arbor:  A case of selecting the most vulnerable and overcharging for a conviction

The cases that are being discussed here is fallout from the fall football brawl that happened the night of the Pioneer-Huron football game. If you recall (the information is all taken from the flyer that is linked to below),

The incident began when Vince Wortmann, an assistant coach at Pioneer shoved Huron
head coach Cory Gildersleeve. Wortmann believed Gildersleeve was physically
threatening Pioneer head coach Paul Test. Some say that Coach Gildersleeve pushed
Coach Test. This melee was started by the actions of the adults, the football coaches.

In spite of inciting what most would call riot-like behavior, only one adult was criminally
charged. Of a large diverse group of players, three students, all Pioneer teammates were
criminally charged. All three students are African Americans. At least two of the
students are economically disadvantaged.

Well now, none of the coaches have charges pending against them (one had some charges that were later dropped), but three of the students have had charges elevated against them, and in fact one of those three was not one of the twelve students that AAPS disciplined.

It's a complicated story, and you can get all the background if you read more here.

And there is an informational meeting on Monday night. Here are the details:

Call to Action
On Monday, February 25, 2013, at 7 pm, please plan to attend a community meeting
hosted by the Ann Arbor Community Center, 625 N. Main Street. We will address
any questions and hopefully have enough people to execute our action plan.

The group planning this (which includes AAPS school board member Susan Baskett) is trying to raise awareness; raise money for the students' defense; and put pressure on the prosecuting attorney.  For more information or to volunteer to help with fundraising and strategy development, contact: 734-478-3338 or baskett1@hotmail.com.

Showing Real Promise

There's an excellent story in the New York Times about the Kalamazoo Promise. It's a nice overview, and it raises some interesting questions about incentives for learning and about the achievement gap.

Roberto Clemente: It Starts When You Care to Act

By now you have probably heard that Roberto Clemente will stay open for (at least) another year. Over the next year the board will thoroughly evaluate both Roberto Clemente and and Ann Arbor Tech. And that is good news. But that is not the real victory.

The real victory is that a group of students who--for the most part--have never seen the power of community organizing and social action, have now seen how that can make a difference. I was so impressed by the speeches that these kids wrote--and delivered--in front of the school board.

Project-based education research suggests that you need a) meaningful projects; b) hands-on experiences; and c) performance-based presentations. Although this was thrust upon them, this turned out to be a great and meaningful learning experience for those students who decided to participate. Kudos to the parents, teachers/staff, and principal who facilitated this experience (and who spoke up themselves)

I hope that is the lesson these "at-risk" kids take from this. When you see something you want to change, you can advocate, agitate, and organize. And yes, it is worth it. (By the way, sometimes it is worth it even if you feel you will lose.)

From newlabor.org

In their honor, a poem by Marge Piercy: The Low Road.

Dreaming of Desegregation, Elections, and Barbers

Two weeks ago I was at the 20th anniversary event for the Fair Housing Center of Southeastern Michigan. The evening included a showing of the Oscar-nominated short documentary, The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement. No, the movie didn't win the Oscar for short documentary. It was, however, very moving (and worth your time)--and in its honor, I have two thoughts on the second-to-last day of Black History Month 2012 and the day of the Republican primary.

I was--literally--toddling around my house at the time of the civil rights movement. So the history of the civil rights movement is just that to me--history--even though many of the struggles live on today. This documentary brings that history alive. In particular, the barber (James Armstrong) gave me a renewed appreciation for how groundbreaking the election of Barack Obama was. .  . and the path that connects those civil rights activists with his election. The documentary shows some moving footage of the day of the 2008 election, and it honestly did get me excited for the 2012 election. When the "foot soldiers" describe the difficulties they had in registering to vote, it is a reminder to me of how much we should cherish that opportunity. So often history is told in a dry manner. Not in this case.

And part of that history involves the desegregation of the schools. I've written in the past about efforts to desegregate the Ann Arbor schools. In Birmingham, James Armstrong's children were part of the desegregation effort of the Birmingham schools, and there is historic footage of those children walking to school, as well as contemporary footage of one of them as an adult. There is also discussion of the church bombings in Birmingham. Really, there is a lot packed into a short film!

I'm hoping that you will see The Barber of Birmingham, but whether you do or not, it is important to remember that school segregation--though banished by law--still exists in many many schools around the nation. To keep that history alive, I'm including here a video produced by the Baltimore Sun about the history of school desegregation in Baltimore.

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.

Racial Disparities in Special Education

If you are a parent in the Ann Arbor Public Schools, last week you got a letter that was nearly unintelligible.

You might have wondered what that meant--I know I did, and I know that others asked me what it meant.

Let's start with the basics. School districts are supposed to track and explain whether, or if, some racial/ethnic groups are disproportionately enrolled in special education program. There's a really nice explanation of how this gets calculated in this document, but if you don't want to read the whole thing, here is a thumbnail sketch. (If you understand risk ratios, skip the part that is in red.)

The whole point of using these statistics is to describe and understand sub-groups in the school environment. Don't be scared that math is involved.

Composition: Let's say that 10% of the district population is Hispanic/Latino, but 20% of the students who are identified as having a disability are Hispanic/Latino. Then we know that there is a disparity, because twice as many Hispanic/Latino students are enrolled in special education compared to the Hispanic/Latino population. (This is a good basic number, but it may be less accurate when we are talking about groups that make up a small percentage of a district's population.)

Risk Ratio: A Risk Ratio compares one population (say, African American students diagnosed with autism) to a comparison group. According to what I read, generally the risk comparison that is preferred is to compare one population group to the risk for all other students combined, because that way you can use a consistent comparison group for all calculations.

So. . . the equation for the risk ratio would be:

Risk ratio = Risk for racial/ethnic group for disability category / Risk for comparison group for disability category

Let's say that the autism risk for Black students is 4%, but for all other students is 2%. Then the Risk Ratio is 2.0. In other words, in this example, Black students are two times more likely than all other students to receive services for autism. A risk ratio of 1.0 means there is no difference between the two groups. (Risk ratio >1 equals increased risk for the identified sub-group; risk ratio <1 equals decreased risk for the identified sub-group.)

Weighted Risk Ratios allow you to compare data across school districts, where (as we know) the racial/ethnic composition varies greatly. Read about the math of the weighted risk ratios in the link I gave you earlier--but they are similar to Risk Ratios in the way that they work: weighted risk ratio >1 equals increased risk for the identified sub-group; weighted risk ratio <1 equals decreased risk for the identified sub-group.

So--now that we've taken a statistical detour, what exactly did that letter that we got mean?

1. We know that it was written because it was state-mandated.
1. We know that it was based on data from 2009-2010.
2. The issues raised center on suspensions, expulsions, and the category of students labeled as "cognitively-impaired."
3. The first few times I read the letter, I assumed that the problem with suspensions and expulsions was specific to African American students, but let's note that the letter doesn't say that. I therefore believe that this is a problem for more than one group. The letter also doesn't state the weighted risk ratio for suspensions and expulsions.
4. In the cognitive impairment group, African Americans are more than 3 times more likely than the statewide comparison group (of all other students, I believe--although it is not stated in the letter!) to be identified as cognitively impaired.

To put it baldly, the letter is terribly-written, and it was clearly written just to meet the letter of the law and not the spirit.  I'd say that the district missed an important chance to really explain (not just in vague platitudes) what it is doing to improve things.

The district writes:
"Ann Arbor Public Schools was also determined to have significant disproportionality because..."

The English teacher in me notes the passive tense here--who exactly is responsible for the problem?


The letter doesn't explain this at all, but I dug up an old Ann Arbor News article which says that in 2007-2008, 47% of the students who were identified as cognitively impaired were African American.  The article (David Jesse, 3/12/2009) says, "the district was not complying with federal and state law in the way it determined which students were cognitively impaired." So was misdiagnosis involved? The letter doesn't say. If kids were misdiagnosed, were they moved out of the "cognitive impairment" group and is that responsible for the slight improvement in numbers?

Based on the ratios disclosed in the letter, I believe that while things may have improved somewhat, I am not sure they have improved at all significantly. And in using the word "significantly," here, I'm talking about statistical significance. Is it just a fluke the numbers have dropped slightly or are the results related to something specific?

Further, the letter only addresses the areas of disparity which reached a state-mandated benchmark. There are other areas of disparity--many other areas of disparity--in special education, that fall short of the benchmark.

But any time there is a big disparity, we need to ask why the disparity exists:


1. Is it because different races/ethnicities are differentially diagnosed? In other words, is the bar for "cognitive impairment" set equally for everbody?

Translation: This could be due to obvious or subtle racism. Historically, kids who had trouble switching from Black English to Standard English were sometimes labeled cognitively impaired or placed in other special education categories.

2. Does the disparity represent a real difference? In other words, using the same exact standards, are more African Americans in the Ann Arbor schools cognitively impaired than other kids in the Ann Arbor schools?

Translation: The numbers could be describing real differences. For instance--more African American babies are born prematurely than White or Hispanic/Latino babies, and premature babies are more likely to grow up to have cognitive impairments.

3. Does the racial disparity mask a different disparity?

Translation: Is this problem really about poverty, and because proportionally more African American kids live in poverty, a disparity based on class shows up as a disparity based on race? For instance--do poor housing conditions lead to increased exposure to lead paint and thereby to cognitive impairments?

You can read an earlier post I wrote on disparities here, but to cut to the chase: racial disparities have been with the district for over 30 years. There are no easy solutions, or we would have solved the problem.

On the other hand, I think the conversations about how to solve the problems need to take place with more parental and taxpayer involvement than has been the case previously. This letter is a weak start.

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.

The Warmth of Other Suns

For my book group I'm reading Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns. It's the story of the Great Migration of black families north in the middle of the 1900s, as told through the eyes of three families. The title, The Warmth of Other Suns, comes from a Richard Wright poem, which says in part,

I was taking a part of the South
To transplant in alien soil...
Respond to the warmth of other suns
And, perhaps, to bloom. 

I am only a short way into the book, but I caught this description of the author's mother, as seen in a photo:

The one in the pearls used to greet the train when she was little and dream of going with it. She would become a teacher and, years later, my mother (p. 12, emphasis added).

Which made me stop and think. I already wrote, in the comments of this post, about how 60% of public sector workers are women. But also, it's well documented that both public sector workplaces and unionized workplaces have been more likely to hire people of color.  (According to the AFL-CIO, public sector workplaces are the leading employer of black men, and the second leading employer of black women.) And my friends tell me that in the black community, public sector jobs are seen as a source of stability and equality--and that the crown of public sector jobs is the job of a teacher.

So--is what is going on in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, to name a few places--simply an attack on unions and collective bargaining, a promotion of private enterprise? Or is it, ultimately, an attack on women that goes along with a "women belong in the home" mentality? Is it a racially-motivated attack? I don't say that lightly, but I also think that it has to be part of the question.

Disintegration

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Disintegration
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

It's Not a Black and White Question

According to the New York Times' Caucus Blog of 1/16/2011, the Children's Defense Fund has found the following:

Four in 10 black children are born into poverty. Fewer than one in 10 white children are. Fewer than four in 10 black children live with two parents, compared with three in four white children.
Black children are significantly more likely to die before their first birthday or to become obese. In school, black children are more likely to be held back, suspended, drop out of high school or end up in prison.
A report by Andrew Sum, director of Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, documents how the Great Recession has exacerbated the lagging economic status of young black workers. Fully 40 percent, nearly twice the rate among whites, are what Mr. Sum called “underutilized” in the labor force — either unemployed or underemployed.
Moreover, the trend toward income inequality in America over all is most pronounced among blacks. The top 10 percent of black families, with average incomes of around $95,000, “received as much income as the bottom 70 percent of young black families combined,” Mr. Sum found.

But you knew that, right? The question is, how can education make a difference? And how can we stop racism--both in terms of personal actions and structural decision-making?

Reprise: MLK Day

What do you do with your kids on MLK Day? (Last year's post, but it is still relevant.)

As I said, I have wanted the Michigan Theater to have some MLK movies, and this year...they do!

This one is not appropriate for kids, at least not below high school age--it's about the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. 

UM Institute of Social Research presents DEADLY DECEPTION on Monday, January 17 at 1 PM at the Michigan Theater. Admission is FREE!

This one is appropriate for kids, I believe. In fact I hope to take mine!

BILAL'S STAND, a special MLK Jr. screening directed by Michigan's own Sultan Sharrief, is playing Monday, January 17 at 5 PM at the Michigan Theater. Tickets are $6!

Events This Week! SISS, Physicals

The Black Parents Association and the NAACP (I believe) are sponsoring a reception for the incoming SISS Director. (That is the person in charge of special education for the Ann Arbor Public Schools. The acronym stands for Student Intervention and Support Services.) You may recall that Ann Arbor had a disproportionate number of African-American special education students labeled as cognitively-impaired. (That, by the way, is not unique to Ann Arbor, and changes have been made, but that does explain the interest.)

In any case, if the intersection of special education and the achievement gap interest you, you can meet the new SISS Director, Elaine Brown, at an informal reception Wed. September 8th from 3:30-6:30pm at the David Byrd Center on Lohr Rd.

Sports Physicals: If your middle school children need sports physicals, they are being offered tonight, Tuesday 9/7 at Scarlett Middle School, and tomorrow night, Wednesday 9/8 at Slauson Middle School--both evenings they will be offered from 6:30-9:30 p.m.

Dog Days of August

Why are they called dog days? I have no idea--I thought maybe because of the idea that dogs lie around and don't do anything?

In any case, if August has the reputation that not much happens, that hasn't been true this past week.

Here are a few things you can read about (with my comments after each link):

Todd Roberts is leaving as Ann Arbor superintendent. He is going to be the chancellor for the North Carolina School for Science and Math.
What do I think? I think Todd Roberts did a fairly good job here--not perfect, but being a superintendent in Ann Arbor is a lot like herding cats--and I'm glad he's able to make a job choice that will allow him to spend time with his (and his wife's) parents. I think I'd prefer naming an interim superintendent in order to not rush the job search.

Race and ethnicity sagas continue.
So the "Skyline bus fight" was not deemed a hate crime after all. (You can go back to this earlier post or this one if you need to refresh your memory.) Of course the big bugaboo in the room: how can we de-escalate tensions before they start?

And although Mike Madison made a mistake, he won't be disciplined. I'm glad about that. Let us learn from our mistakes, and move on. That's what we tell students to do, and honestly? We are all still learners. We still have an achievement gap...

And a Willow Run building supervisor is suing Doris Hope-Jackson and the Willow Run school district for race discrimination and for discrimination based on the Family Medical Leave Act. (Todd LaPrairie is white, Hope-Jackson is black.) Is it true? I don't know, but at this point, let's remember that the school board is trying to dismiss Hope-Jackson, and it's tempting to believe almost anything...but, that's why we have courts and due-process hearings.

In other news...

Annarbor.com has an extensive special report on the idea of consolidating school districts. The full study (done by Michigan State University) can be found here. The net result: if all of the districts in the state were to undergo some consolidation, we could save 4% of our expenses. My feeling is, it might make sense to consolidate some districts, but not others--size matters, local control matters. Having to drive hours to a school board meeting matters. Closing down charters would probably save more, but nobody is suggesting that.
I wrote about some of the roadblocks to consolidation in this post. Here are the roadblocks:

First, the districts considering consolidation (or annexation) need to have their school boards decide it is worth pursuing.
Second, the voters in each district need to agree. Jack Lessenberry had a good essay about why the Montague and Whitehall districts (near Muskegon) voted no many years ago. And the moral is that both small and large things can deter people from voting yes. On the other hand, this seems pretty reasonable to me if a district is either merging or dissolving. The people should have a say. (Want to see what the county school district map looks like? You can find it here.)
Third, the way state law is currently written, the merged district gets the average of the per pupil allocations. And the districts don't have the same per pupil allocations.

In the article, former state superintendent Tom Watkins says that the consolidation push has to come from Lansing because local schools are "too close" to the issue. NO. That is rubbish. The consolidation push has to come from Lansing because the laws which set up the roadblocks are made in Lansing. The fact that the merged district gets the average per-pupil funding of the two districts (and not the higher per-pupil funding) is a disincentive even if the difference is $100/per pupil.

Last, but not least...

I keep seeing signs up for WISD hiring bus drivers, and I am pretty nervous that my kids' routes are going to be screwed up this fall. When I was in kindergarten, I took the bus for three days. The bus driver got lost on the way to my house all three days. After that, I walked or got a ride. I WANT kids to be comfortable using the bus.

Yeah, lazy, hazy summer...

This Week: Bullying and Safety Meetings

Monday, 5/17/10: The Saline School District is having a meeting to discuss safety, racism, and bullying--6:30 p.m. Pleasant Ridge Elementary School cafeteria. Read more here.

Thursday, 5/20/10, 7 p.m.: Bullying panel, hosted by Annarbor.com, at 301 E. Liberty in Ann Arbor.
Presenters:
Robin Batten, Washtenaw Area Council for Children
Annie Zirkel, a relationship and parenting consultant (and Ann Arbor Public Schools parent)
Michael Benczarski, principal at Whitmore Lake Middle School

The Washtenaw Area Council for Children is an excellent, if little-known, group in the county that works to prevent abuse and increase safety for kids. I've heard and read Annie Zirkel before and really like what she has to say. (See her work at practicehow.com.)And Michael Benczarski has a very interesting personal history and is living proof that you can overcome significant disadvantages. I'm excerpting his biography from this Annarbor.com article which gives more details about the event.

Michael Benczarski, principal at Whitmore Lake Middle School, was emancipated and became his own legal guardian at the age of 16. A high school dropout, he became a graduate of high distinction from the University of Michigan with a bachelor's in education in 1999, and graduated from Marygrove College in 2002 with a masters in education. Benczarski has 12-plus years experience in education including work as a paraprofessional, fifth-grade teacher, eighth-grade teacher, elementary principal, middle school assistant principal and middle school principal. He is trained in Love and Logic and has experience utilizing the concept of Restorative Conferences.

The Wisdom of a Three-Year Old

When my oldest was three, some dear friends of ours (graduate students) were moving out of town. We had a goodbye picnic at Gallup Park. They had two kids, and the younger one was (and still is) exactly one month younger than our son.

After we ate, the kids were off playing on the playground. We looked over, and found them doing something that we didn't like. (No, I don't remember what it was.) We intervened and called them over.

And as they walked away, back to the playground, we overheard their daughter saying to our son, "Let's not do that again."

I imagine that is how the Ann Arbor schools are feeling now, regarding the Dicken lunch bunch field trip.

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.

Conference: Educational Inequalities in Michigan

This looks interesting...from my email inbox.

EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY: AN INEQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITIES IN MICHIGAN
The Jack L. Walker Conference on Political Affairs at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The theme of this conference is Educational Inequality in Michigan - An Inequality of Opportunities. The conference will be held at the Annenberg Auditorium (Ford School) on April 14, 2010 from 4.15 - 7 pm. On April 15, 2010 from 3 - 5 pm., at the Blau Auditorium of the Ross Business School, Lt. Gov. Cherry and various community organizations will speak about their efforts to advance educational equality in Michigan!

The Political Science Department and the Undergraduate Political Science Association are proud to host this annual conference. The conference honors Professor Jack L. Walker, who encouraged students to organize an annual forum to discuss current issues.
The Walker Conference seeks to provide an arena for developing community among our students; to provide a forum for discussing critical issues of an academic nature; to enhance the value of the University of Michigan as a learning community; and to immerse students in an academic culture. Our goal for this year's Walker conference is to provide a sense of the central issues and the contextual factors that have shaped public education policy and the delivery of public education in the past decade, as well as the present prospects for the immediate and longer-term future.The conference will have four speakers, Prof. Gregory Markus, Prof. Brian McCall, Prof. Maris A. Vinovskis, and Prof. Elizabeth Moje, giving brief presentations on their academic research. The presentations will be followed by an hour long panel discussion. [I don't know about the others, but I have enjoyed hearing Elizabeth Moje speak in the past.]

Also, Lt. Gov. Cherry will serve as our Keynote Speaker for the event on April 15 3-5 pm in the Blau Auditorium (Ross School of Business). The Director of America Reads and Student Organizations such as Detroit Partnership will speak on their efforts in the hopes of helping to shape the future of public education policy in this state. We expect attendance this year to be the highest ever; in the area of 200 guests. We are already receiving inquiries from all over the state about the conference. In closing, we would be pleased and honored to have you join us at the the Jack L. Walker Conference this year.