Last week, reducing homicides, the High school that graduates 94% of Black students with the A-G, looking at the data on Black and Latinx students, a Mills event on the pushout of Black girls, student narratives on skipping class and living trans, the loss of a true ally, all that and more, please read share and get involved
Oakland:
- His mission: Cut Oakland’s homicide rate 80 percent in three years
- A Look Back on Our Impact in 2019, Top Posts, Student Stories, and Policy Changes
- Walking Tour Attempts to Explain Proposed Changes To Prop 13
- Black Student Support and Success at Envision Academy
- Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools
- Why Students Are Skipping YOUR Class: Improving Teacher Practice from a Student’s Perspective
- Two Numbers that Explain Why Oakland’s Black families Aren’t Caught up in the Public School Wars
- Oakland History: 1917 African American Directory of Northern California Residents
- My PE Experience as a Trans Student; Swim Class, Changing Rooms and Sometimes Ignorant Adults
- Black Student Support and Success at Envision Academy
- DATA: How well are Oakland schools serving low-income Black and Latino/a students?
- Noname’s Book Club Comes to the Oakland Library
California:
- Big promises for little kids: Has California governor delivered on early education?
- CORE Growth Data: It’s time to get know California’s schools better
- California’s effort to turn school staff into teachers starts to pay off
- Campaign Unveils Hidden History of Slavery in California
- California to house homeless people on vacant state land
- LAUSD Has A New (And Complicated) Way To Score Schools. We Explain
- West Contra Costa School District Putting A Half-Billion Bond Before Voters In March
- Follow the money: Are changes coming for California’s school funding law?
- Analysis: With school revenues at record highs, why are California districts facing insolvency? Auditor offers a case study in Sacramento
- Nearly half of California students can’t read at grade level. Here’s what we must do about it
- California governor proposes nearly $1 billion to tackle teacher preparation, shortages
- Soda, cigarettes, and charter schools: How Michael Bloomberg used his fortune to shape California politics
- California budget plan aids teachers, those in US illegally
Other Stories:
- Drawing lessons from her own missteps, activist Courtney Everts Mykytyn urged white parents to integrate schools with respect
- New Study Finds Black Teens Face Racial Discrimination 5 Times A Day On Average
- We Need to Teach Young Men of Color Differently. That Starts With Books Where They Are Celebrated
- More toddlers appear alone in court for deportation under family separation
- After Bryce Gowdy’s suicide, let’s elevate the conversation about poverty’s effects on youth
- ‘Set your price for a slave,’ a fifth-grade worksheet read
- Courtney Everts Mykytyn, Crusader for School Integration, Dies at 46
Resources:
Oakland:
- His mission: Cut Oakland’s homicide rate 80 percent in three years
- When hired to head Oakland’s newly created Department of Violence Prevention, Guillermo Cespedes had a tall order: Help the city figure out how to cut its homicide rate by 80 percent in three years.
- A Look Back on Our Impact in 2019, Top Posts, Student Stories, and Policy Changes
- Appreciate everyone who has made the blog a success, not just in telling our stories, and adding light to the fiery arguments in Oakland, but for the actual policy changes we have made together for Oakland children. I wanted to look back, share some of the top posts, and outcomes, and hope that folks are gearing up for more in 2020.
- Walking Tour Attempts to Explain Proposed Changes To Prop 13
- Saturday’s tour through downtown Oakland was led by Derek Sagehorn, a member of East Bay for Everyone. The walking tour is a way to help interested parties better visualize the impact of Prop 13 over the years.
- Black Student Support and Success at Envision Academy
- African American students are thriving at this school, with the highest A-G completion rate in the city and where students founded a Black Student Union
- Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools
- On Saturday, February 8, 2020 (5:30-9:00PM), join Mills College, School of Education for its culminating Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action event: a screening of PUSHOUT and townhall panel discussion moderated by Dr. Margo Okazawa-Rey. Dr. Monique Morris will provide opening remarks. In collaboration with the Mills College Black History Month programming and the Ethnic Studies Department, we are proud to host this screening of PUSHOUT.
- Why Students Are Skipping YOUR Class: Improving Teacher Practice from a Student’s Perspective
- A school is a place that we are supposed to be getting “educated.” If school is such a beneficial place for us, why are there so many students failing most of their classes? Why are students complaining every day about coming here?
- Two Numbers that Explain Why Oakland’s Black families Aren’t Caught up in the Public School Wars
- Fifteen percent and fourteen percent. If you wonder why you largely don’t see Black parents engaged in the vitriolic debate over charters in Oakland—those numbers are the answer.
- Oakland History: 1917 African American Directory of Northern California Residents
- My PE Experience as a Trans Student; Swim Class, Changing Rooms and Sometimes Ignorant Adults
- Being transgender and trying to comfortably take a PE class is nearly impossible. So much of it revolves around gender, whether it be the changing rooms, teams, or simply passing the class.
- DATA: How well are Oakland schools serving low-income Black and Latino/a students?
- There are a few schools that are truly beating the odds and setting their low-income Black and Latino/a students up for a brighter future. But as a city, we are overall failing to provide these students with the opportunities they deserve. We need bold, radical changes to shift this reality.
- Noname’s Book Club Comes to the Oakland Library
- The Oakland Public Library has announced a partnership with Noname’s Book Club, promoting and helping people find the selected readings each month. And the library is reportedly looking at scheduling in-person meet-ups to discuss the book club’s selections.
California:
- Big promises for little kids: Has California governor delivered on early education?
- As he was campaigning for governor, Gavin Newsom made some enormous promises for the youngest Californians and their families — universal preschool, affordable, high-quality child care, six months of paid family leave. And he’s delivered — on the first few steps.
- CORE Growth Data: It’s time to get know California’s schools better
- There’s a more holistic way to measure school performance beyond test scores. The CORE Growth model provides actionable data and detailed insights on school performance in a way that is fair and measurable.
- California’s effort to turn school staff into teachers starts to pay off
- State program that recruits classroom aides, food service workers and bus drivers — who are already on campus and invested in local schools — and trains them to become teachers is one innovative way California is trying to combat its teacher shortage.
- Campaign Unveils Hidden History of Slavery in California
- The role of slaves in the Gold Rush — and the ways slaves and free black people were systematically excluded from the resulting wealth by laws and court rulings — does not make it into most U.S. history books. But it is a central narrative of Gold Chains: The Hidden History of Slavery in California, a public education campaign launched by the ACLU of Northern California late last year.
- California to house homeless people on vacant state land
- Cities will be able to open emergency homeless shelters on vacant state land under a new executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom that escalates his attempts to handle the growing crisis.
- LAUSD Has A New (And Complicated) Way To Score Schools. We Explain
- We could look at its standardized test results — but those scores arguably track poverty levels in a school just as well as they reflect the amount of learning happening. But the Los Angeles Unified School District just unveiled a new metric that claims to offer a new perspective on school performance with the effects of poverty and other societal stressors filtered out. It’s called an “Academic Growth” score.
- West Contra Costa School District Putting A Half-Billion Bond Before Voters In March
- One of the most financially mismanaged school districts in California has found a solution to their financial challenges – borrow more money, and let the voters pay more in property taxes.
- Follow the money: Are changes coming for California’s school funding law?
- Galvanized by a state audit that criticized California’s lax oversight of school spending, legislators are ringing in the new decade with proposals that would require the state to follow the money that districts get to educate disadvantaged kids.
- Analysis: With school revenues at record highs, why are California districts facing insolvency? Auditor offers a case study in Sacramento
- California State Auditor Elaine Howle can’t be making too many friends among the state’s education policy establishment. After releasing a report concluding that the state’s system for financing public education “has not ensured that funding is benefiting intended student groups and closing achievement gaps,” Howle followed up with another, warning that the Sacramento City Unified School District would soon face insolvency unless drastic measures were taken.
- Nearly half of California students can’t read at grade level. Here’s what we must do about it
- Results from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress show that only 32% of fourth graders are reading proficiently. These results put California below the national average and behind 25 other states.
- California governor proposes nearly $1 billion to tackle teacher preparation, shortages
- Anticipating nearly $4 billion more in revenue for K-12 schools and community colleges in the next state budget, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday proposed to continue massive investments for teacher recruitment and training and for transforming special education.
- Soda, cigarettes, and charter schools: How Michael Bloomberg used his fortune to shape California politics
- The former NYC mayor has bankrolled efforts to raise cigarette and soda taxes, groups advocating for charter schools, and politicians of both parties, including Govs. Gavin Newsom and Arnold Schwarzenegger
- California budget plan aids teachers, those in the US illegally
- California Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to give $20,000 stipends to teachers at high needs schools and extend health care to older low-income immigrants who are in the country illegally. He outlined the plans during an announcement Friday of his $222 billion budget proposal.
Other Stories:
- Drawing lessons from her own missteps, activist Courtney Everts Mykytyn urged white parents to integrate schools with respect
- As an integration advocate, Courtney’s work was twofold. First, she had to help parents with the luxury of many options see the value in public schools that others might dismiss as “under-resourced,” “struggling,” or simply “bad.” Next, she had to convince them to join those schools, not as “saviors,” but as members of a school community committed to the best interests of all students.
- New Study Finds Black Teens Face Racial Discrimination 5 Times A Day On Average
- A new Rutgers University study finds that Black teenagers in the United States face discrimination multiple times a day, most frequently online.
- We Need to Teach Young Men of Color Differently. That Starts With Books Where They Are Celebrated
- Icurated the Rising Voices Library in partnership with Scholastic in order to address an enduring problem: Young men of color do not see their own lives and backgrounds reflected in positive ways in the authentic text they read in their classrooms. Comprised of two copies of 25 titles per grade level from K-5 for a total of 300 books, each of them an inspiring narrative featuring a protagonist who is a man or a young man of color, Rising Voices is a landmark in the movement for culturally relevant curricula.
- More toddlers appear alone in court for deportation under family separation
- As the White House faces court orders to reunite families separated at the border, immigrant children as young as 3 are being ordered into court for their own deportation proceedings, according to attorneys in Texas, California and Washington, D.C.
- After Bryce Gowdy’s suicide, let’s elevate the conversation about poverty’s effects on youth
- Shibbon Winelle said those were among the final words uttered by her son, Bryce Gowdy, before he left their motel room and stood in front of a freight train. Bryce, who was 17, died of suicide a week before the Deerfield Beach football star was due to start classes at Georgia Tech on a scholarship Jan. 6.
- ‘Set your price for a slave,’ a fifth-grade worksheet read
- The worksheet asked fifth graders to think like colonial traders, deciding how much they’d charge for bushels of grain, bags of apples and jars of turpentine. Human beings were the final “product” needing a dollar value.
- Courtney Everts Mykytyn, Crusader for School Integration, Dies at 46
- Courtney Everts Mykytyn, a California activist who battled educational segregation by urging white parents like herself to send their children to public schools with largely black and Latino student bodies, died on Dec. 30 when she was struck by a car in Los Angeles. She was 46.
Resources:
- Our Best Education Articles of 2019
- Readers and editors pick the most interesting and insightful articles from the past year about teaching, learning, and the keys to well-being at school.
What do you think?