SOBE RANTS: Are Allies in Education Getting in the Way of Black Excellence?

The following post is from your host of SOBE Rants, MarQuis Evans, and is intended as an introductory companion piece for the next SOBE Rants podcast . Follow Quis on this journey by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify!

On top of there being a shortage of teachers overall, there’s critically a lack of cultured educators who possess the ability to effectively educate our scholars. Due to this, many of our schools that provide service for our scholars blessed with melanin superpowers are populated with educators/administrators who claim to be “allies” to provide quality education for our scholars, but are slick getting in the way of their elevation. Willingness to educate Black scholars, however, is not the only ingredient required to get the job done. For quite some time now, Black educators have been voicing that our “allies” are unintentionally getting in the way, and make decisions that ultimately result in the miseducation of our Black scholars. This leaves us Black educators furious, feeling unheard, and thinking out loud, “What in the pumpkin pie is going on here?”  #TakesShotOfDrink


SOBE RANTS S4E1: Before You Curse That Teacher Out About Grades, Listen to this Next.

The podcast episode is out now!

A strong S.O.B.E. style rant that for sure shined light on a needed conversation, while providing the solution for the State Of Black Education. Now you can hear what Michelle Coleman, Assistant Principal, has to say. Michelle Coleman is a former ELA educator, now Administrator, who’s experienced both the positive and negative interactions with parents of the scholars she holds to a high academic and cultural standard. Though she’s experienced some challenges and pushback, her methods resulted in her having the highest ELA growth scores in her school’s network. In this episode, we discuss the 5 solutions stated in the previous blog, as well as digging into the grades versus the mastery of the standards and lessons taught.