The Oakland Education Week in Review: 8/18-8/25

All of last week’s news, including OUSD’s school year starts with some questions, the ethical challenges in school choice, a rope resembling a noose at an OUSD school, looking at the grand jury report, ethnic studies goes statewide, the latest educational polling numbers, all that and much much more with links, please read, share and get involved

Oakland:

California:

Other Stories:

Oakland:

California:

Other Stories:

  • White House Looked Into Ways to Block Migrant Children From Going to School
    • Some top aides to President Donald Trump sought for months for a way to give states the power to block undocumented immigrant children from enrolling in public schools — all part of the administration’s efforts to stem illegal crossings at the southern U.S. border.
  • Daniel Pantaleo, Officer Who Held Eric Garner in Chokehold, Is Fired
    • The New York City police officer whose chokehold led to Eric Garner’s death in 2014 was fired from the Police Department and stripped of his pension benefits on Monday, ending a bitter battle that had cast a shadow over the nation’s largest police force.
  • The Way We Grade Students is Biased and Unsound: A Conversation on “Grading For Equity”
    • Joe Feldman‘s new book, Grading for Equity disembowels the way we grade students, hanging the entrails to show how inequitable and really illogical our present grading practices are, and how we can improve them– which he has been doing in real life for years with schools, it’s a must read for educators and those who want to improve how schools function.  After his book launch in Oakland, we discussed the book and his work
  • Public Support Grows for Higher Teacher Pay and Expanded School Choice
    • With the 2020 presidential election campaign now underway, education-policy proposals previously at the edge of the political debate are entering the mainstream. 
  • Letter to the Editor: A Tale of Two APSs
    • For parents with black children in Arlington Public Schools, hope and wariness accompanies the experience. Like other families, we have hopeful expectations about our community’s excellent schools. We read the headlines. APS Named Top School System in Virginia for the second year in a row. Four of our high schools are ranked in the top 2% of schools nationwide. We hope our children will also be beneficiaries of that excellence. Yet, the data tells a different story. It tells a tale of (at least) two school systems in one County. One which offers countless advantages to white children, the other which offers far less to black children.
  • ‘We are committing educational malpractice’: Why slavery is mistaught — and worse — in American schools.
    • Unlike math and reading, states are not required to meet academic content standards for teaching social studies and United States history. That means that there is no consensus on the curriculum around slavery, no uniform recommendation to explain an institution that was debated in the crafting of the Constitution and that has influenced nearly every aspect of American society since.
  • The Black Panther Party: from Black power to people’s power
    • Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in October 1966 in Oakland, California. The Panthers practised militant self-defence against the US government and fought to establish revolutionary socialism through mass organising and community-based programs. At its peak in 1969, the party had a membership of 10,000. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called the Panthers “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country”. Though the party disintegrated due to a combination of state assassinations and internal splits, it left an indelible impression on US politics. Former Panther Billy X Jennings spoke to members of Socialist Alternative when he visited Australia several years ago. The following is a transcript of the discussion. 
  • 30 Years Ago Today Civil Rights Activist Huey Newton Was Killed
    • On August 22, 1989, Huey P. Newton, a civil rights activist and co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was shot-and-killed in Oakland, California.
  • How ‘Sesame Street’ Started a Musical Revolution
    • Fifty years ago, the television show united children’s education, puppetry and songs. Pop stars have been singing the Muppets’ tunes (and vice versa) ever since.
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