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The REWire is a monthly email newsletter -- distributed by The Center for Racial Equity in Education (CREED) -- dedicated to curated Race + Education news, views and research. In the effort to achieve racial equity in education, CREED serves as a reliable channel of information that keeps practitioners, policymakers and advocates up-to-date on the latest developments. Topics covered in The REWire range from national and local articles, academic literature, to events exploring the intersections of race and education. Links are provided to information sources for more in-depth reading. We hope that you find this service useful and encourage you to forward to your colleagues, encouraging them to subscribe.
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Superintendent Statement on District's Commitment to Equity, Equality, and Justice
Asheboro City Schools Newsletter
"In the last few days, I have had the opportunity to honor our graduates from the Asheboro High School Class of 2020. It has reminded me of the rich diversity of our community and the reasons why I chose to work in public education. While I celebrate with each of our students and their family members, I’m also saddened by the nation’s current state of affairs. As the superintendent of Asheboro City Schools, I want to assure our families, students, and the community at-large that we are committed to equity, equality, and justice for each and every student. For the first time in our 115-year history, the Asheboro City Board of Education passed the Race and Equity Policy in March 2020. The Race and Equity Policy makes creating equitable practices one of our governing principles. The policy, “acknowledges that complex societal and historical factors contribute to inequities in our school district.” While there is much work to be done, our goal is to ensure students feel safe, supported, and valued. We are committed to enriching the lives of our students academically, culturally, and socially. Together, we can build the future our children deserve."
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School Segregation Endures in New York and Beyond
Fox NY 5
New York City is home to one of the most segregated public school systems in the country, according to former New Orleans educator and current Director of The Century Foundation’s Bridges Collaborative Stefan Lallinger. "What if George Floyd and Derek Chauvin had gone to elementary school together? Lallinger said. "Do we think the events of last week would have unfolded in the manner in which they did?"
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Kindergarten teacher gently explaining racism to her students is a must-see for all kids
Upworthy
For many, talking about race is hard. And talking about race to 5 and 6 year-olds can be even more challenging. However, Booklyn kindergarten teacher Vera Ahiyya, makes these conversationd accessable to young children."... known affectionately as the 'TuTu Teacher,' [Ahiyya] created a great video explaining the issue of race in America for her students." Click here to watch her video 'Let's Talk About Race.'
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From Zoom to the streets, students and schools find teachable moments in protests of police violence
Washington Post
"In much of the country, teachers and students are pushing what have been seen as uncomfortable conversations to the front of their virtual classrooms... As an educator, one of your roles is to dismantle inequities. This is our work,” Nubia Gerima-Rogers, a black teacher in the Black Studies Academy at Dunbar High School in Washington D.C.
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U of Alabama to Remove 3 Confederate Plaques
Inside Higher ED
"The University of Alabama will remove three Confederate plaques from campus, AL.com reported. The plaques honored Alabama students who served in the Confederate army. Trustees are also reviewing the names of campus buildings and may change them in the future."
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Beheaded Christopher Columbus Statue In Boston Will Be Removed From North End Park
CBS Local Boston
"The Christopher Columbus statue in Boston’s North End will be removed after it was beheaded early Wednesday morning." Although not the first time the statue has been vandalized-- the statue was previously beheaded in 2006 and, in 2015, was covered in red paint with 'Black Lives Matter' spray-painted on its base-- due to the recent global protests, the city has decided to remove the statue all togther.
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The Black Teacher Archives to Launch at Harvard University
Harvard News
"A major new research project to explore the history of African American education will launch [June 10th] at Harvard University, funded by a two-year, $610,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The project, called The Black Teacher Archives, will be led by co-principal investigators Jarvis Givens, an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Imani Perry, a professor in Princeton University’s Department of African American Studies."
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4 Ways Racial Inequity Harms American Schoolchildren
NPR
Although the recent and ongoing protests have helped shed light to many about America's criminal justice system, racial inequity has been-- and still is-- rampant in all other systems and institutions in this country, especially in the education system. So, "here are four things to know about how racial inequity affects the nation's school children:
1. Black students are more likely to be arrested at school.
2. Black students are more likely to be suspended.
3. Implicit bias isn't just a police problem — it happens in preschool, too.
4. White school districts receive more funding on average than nonwhite districts."
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Video recorded at George Floyd’s alma mater says Black students should be ‘euthanized’
The Grio
"Over the weekend, a video filmed at George Floyd’s alma mater Texas A&M University depicting a young man using racial slurs who wants to “euthanize” Black people surfaced online. There are now calls for the university to publicly condemn the action." Although the university has now publically disaproved of the perpetrator's actions and has vowed to "take appropriate action" against the individual via Twitter, many have expressed their dissapointment over the university's response to the incident.
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A Raleigh school named after a white supremacist is getting a new, inclusive name
The News & Observer
"On the same day a statue of white supremacist Josephus Daniels came down in Raleigh, Wake County school leaders voted to remove his name from a Raleigh middle school... "It is important when you walk on a campus and see a name and see the doors and see the logo of the Wake County Public School System that this is a welcoming place — and a welcoming place to all residents, all students and all families," said school board chairman Keith Sutton."
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‘The Students Were the Danger’: In Racially Diverse Schools, Police Were More Likely to View Students as Threats, Study Shows
The 74 Million
"[N]ew research finds an unsettling racial gap in the way campus officers perceive threats. In a predominantly white and affluent suburban community, school resource officers worried most about intruders. Yet in an urban district made up predominantly of students of color and those who were low-income, police perceived students as the primary threat."
“It’s not necessarily individual officers, but it’s sort of the way that people, and especially law enforcement, make sense of what counts as criminal,” said Ben Fisher, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Louisville. "While police tend to view places with large concentrations of people of color “as more dangerous and scary,” the opposite is true in areas that are predominantly white, where they view people as “pure and deserving of protection,” Fisher said.
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Police Do Not Belong in Our Schools.' Students Are Demanding an End to Campus Cops After the Death of George Floyd
Time Magazine
"Student activists across the country are calling for their schools to cut ties with police departments and remove officers from campuses in response to a national uprising against police brutality. And school leaders in Minneapolis and Portland, Ore., have already taken that step."
Dream Cannon, a junior at Lindblom Math and Science Academy in Chicago and a member of the activist group Assata’s Daughters says she has "always felt unsafe and uncomfortable around police, especially within my schools. Maybe now the message is being amplified because we’re seeing how much police brutality is going on in the world. People are maybe starting to realize that it doesn’t stop at schools. It doesn’t stop when you walk in those doors. It continues.”
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Why There's A Push To Get Police Out Of Schools
NPR
According to a study conducted by the Urban Institute, "At least two-thirds of American high school students attend a school with a police officer, and that proportion is higher for students of color."
"There isn't much evidence indicating that police officers in schools make schools safer," says Dominique Parris of the research organization Child Trends. "What they do do is increase the likelihood that Black and brown children are going to be involved in the legal system early and often."
Instead of using fear and corporal punishment to discipline students, alternative intervention methods like restorative justice programs are greatly preferred to build trust among students and staff and create an environment of safety in schools.
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Magnet Programs, Segregation, and the Anti-Blackness of the Asian Model Minority Myth
Medium
"... there is undoubtedly a rotten core to our nation’s education system, and many of us have been used to uphold it. All across the country, resources are funneled exclusively to pockets of affluent white and Asian students within the public school system, while schools in Black and Brown communities are de-funded or completely shut down. All across the country, police officers flood schools in Black and Brown neighborhoods, sniffing out opportunities to criminalize students and feed them into the prison pipeline... None of us are fully innocent... we will be doing this reckoning all our lives [but] as long as these systems are operating, as long as we are still inside these systems and these systems are still inside us, we should be working."
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How to Root Out Anti-Black Racism From Your School
Ed Week
"...There are four steps that educators can take to ensure that anti-Black racism does not persist in their schools:
1. Name anti-Black racism for what it is;
2. Believe Black students;
3. Stop challenging 'Black Lives Matter';
4. Identify and speak about Black excellence.
Anti-Black racism needs to be understood, addressed, and ultimately uprooted in schools and society. The fact that countless people are marching, protesting, and risking their safety in the midst of a global pandemic to end anti-Black racism speaks to the sense of urgency to eliminate it."
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Attention School Leaders: Students Are Demanding Anti-Racist Curriculum and Instruction
Ed Week
"As massive social-justice demonstrations continue after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, students in cities around the country are organizing to demand that their school and district leaders provide them with anti-racist curricula and instruction."
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An Essay for Teachers Who Understand Racism Is Real
Ed Week
"This essay is not to enumerate the recent murders of Black people by police, justify why protest and uprising are important for social change, or remind us why NFL player Colin Kaepernick took a knee. If you have missed those points, blamed victims, or proclaimed “All Lives Matter,” this article is not for you, and you may want to ask yourself whether you should be teaching any children, especially Black children."
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A More Equitable Future: Combating Unconscious Bias and Systemic Racism in Schools
Panorama Education
"Talking about race, identity, and bias is difficult. If you feel uncomfortable having these discussions, you are not alone. But, as Dr. Tracey Benson–academic activist and author of Unconscious Bias in Schools–put it: "Our inability to have these conversations in our schools is preventing students from building a more equitable future."
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‘We Can’t Ignore This Issue’: How to Talk With Students About Racism
The Chronicle of Higher Education
As protests over the police killing of George Floyd and other Black people, the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, and debates about policing put the spotlight on the country’s struggles with racism, many professors are wondering how to address those events in their classrooms this fall. Should they talk about race and racism with their students? And if so, what should they say? What connections could they make to their coursework, or their discipline? And how do professors, whose ranks are disproportionately white, prepare themselves for those difficult conversations and explorations?
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As Black Educators, Will America Include Us?
EdLanta
During this past school year, I took eight minutes out of each lesson to address social justice and the realities of being Black and brown citizens in America facing an evergoing battle for diversity, equity, and inclusion. They won’t get realistic, real-life messages of struggles Black Americans have faced from the ’80s until now. Most public education systems don’t have culturally inclusive curriculums that address the social justice issues our youth are facing in and out of the classroom.
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Police don’t make most black students feel safer, survey shows
Chalk Beat
According to a recent survey of New Orleans' Public schools called "Voices of New Orleans Youth: What Do the City's Young People Think About Their Schools and Communities?", "69% of white students said they felt safer in the presence of police, while only 40% of black students said the same."
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Police Shootings Lower Black and Latino Students' Grades, Graduation Rates, Study Shows
Ed Week
"As police shootings take the national spotlight, sparking reflection and discussion about racial equity, one researcher has released a study showing how the effects of those shootings seep into nearby schools and affect students' learning. The report shows that police shootings, particularly when victims are unarmed, lower black and Latino students' grades and the chances they'll graduate from high school."
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Teachers Are People Too: Examining the Racial Bias of Teachers Compared to Other American Adults
Sage Pub
"In this article, we employ data from two national data sets to investigate teachers’ explicit and implicit racial bias, comparing them to adults with similar characteristics. We find that both teachers and nonteachers hold pro-White explicit and implicit racial biases. Furthermore, differences between teachers and nonteachers were negligible or insignificant. The findings suggest that if schools are to effectively promote racial equity, teachers should be provided with training to either shift or mitigate the effects of their own racial biases."
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White men have the edge in the school principal pipeline, researchers say
Hechinger Report
"Educators who run U.S. schools aren’t a diverse group. Almost 80 percent of the nation’s 90,000 principals are white. Only 11 percent are Black and 9 percent are Latino, according to federal data. That doesn’t come close to reflecting the demographics of the nation’s 50 million public schoolchildren who are 46 percent white, 15 percent Black, 28 percent Latino and 6 percent Asian... “Diversity does exist in the leadership pipeline,” said Sarah Guthery, a co-author of the study and an assistant education professor at Texas A&M University – Commerce, “but it tends to squeeze out women and Black candidates much earlier than studies of school leadership usually capture.”
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A Look at Implicit Bias and Microaggressions
Ed Utopia
"A primer on the impact of implicit biases in schools and how they can be expressed by students and faculty."
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School Segregation Is Still A Thing, And You Won’t Believe How Common It Is
Ben and Jerry's
"Way back in 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the concept of “separate but equal” education was unconstitutional. The much-celebrated Brown v. Board of Education decision addressed and repaired a glaring injustice, and segregation was forever banished from American schools.
That’s the story most of us learned, anyway.
The reality is much more complicated"
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Inequities Exposed: How COVID-19 Widened Racial Inequities in Education, Health, and the Workforce.
Education and Labor Committee
Education and Labor committee hearing.
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