Ethnic Studies to be required in San Francisco Unified

antiracismdsa: Ethnic Studies to be required in San Francisco: Ethnic Studies Victory! San Francisco Unified, 3rd District in CA Making it a Graduation Requirement T he San Francisco Unified School ...

The great uninformed- When policy wonks and editorial boards listen mostly to themselves

Headlines and articles in recent press reports raise an alarm about low voter turnout while ignoring some of the most obvious causes.

On Sunday, the Sacramento Bee editorial noted low voter turn out and insisted  on a need for change.  But, these establishment sources seek minor technical changes restricted by their own narrow views of the problem  rather than looking at more  substantive issues.

Young people, particularly students of color, have low levels of attachment to California and U.S.  civil society  messages to vote  in significant part because the government institution they encounter the most- the schools- ignore the students own history, cultures and experiences. Children and young adults need to see themselves in the curriculum. 

Policy wonks and the Bee Editorial Board   urge changing registration and voting systems because  I guess in their segregated white world, students of color are not seen, they are not important. This is, I grant, a little better than the civics curriculum promoted by the Koch brothers in the post below. 

When the 51 % of the California students who are Latino , and the 9 % who are Asian do not see themselves as part of  official history,  for many their sense of self is marginalized.   Marginalization negatively impacts their connections with school their success at school and the likelihood that they will vote as adults.   Marginalization  contributes to an up to  50% drop out rate for Latinos and some Asian students. 

An Economic Agenda for America: 12 Steps Forward

How the Koch Brothers Are Sneaking Their Way Into Public Schools

Bill Bigelow: 

In November  in Boston, thousands of teachers will gather for the annual National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) conference.
Two non-teachers will be there, too: Charles and David Koch, the notorious right-wing billionaires.

Well, the Kochs won’t be there in person, but they will be represented by a Koch-funded and controlled organization: the Arlington, Virginia-based Bill of Rights Institute. For years, the Bill of Rights Institute has shown up at NCSS conferences to offer curriculum workshops, distribute teaching materials, and collect the names of interested educators. What the Bill of Rights Institute representatives fail to mention when they speak with teachers is that they have been the conduit for millions of dollars from Charles and David Koch, as the brothers seek to influence the country’s social studies curriculum. (When I attended a Bill of Rights Institute workshop at an NCSS conference, I asked the presenter who funds their organization. “Donations,” she replied.)

With assets of more than $80 billion, the Koch brothers, who control Koch Industries, are together richer than Bill Gates. As a recent Rolling Stone exposé (“Inside the Koch Brothers’ Toxic Empire”) by investigative reporter Tim Dickinson details, the Kochs made that money largely by polluting the Earth and heating up the climate, with massive oil and gas holdings. And through their network of far right foundations and front groups, they lobby for policies and fund politicians in line with their free market, fossil fuel interests.

Banned Mexican American Studies improved student a...

antiracismdsa: Banned Mexican American Studies improved student a...: by Roque Planas The Mexican-American Studies curriculum in Tucson public schools banned by the conservative-dominated Arizona legislatu...

Community Control and School Budgets

Whats Happening in Mexico. Why we say #YaMeCanse

antiracismdsa: Whats Happening in Mexico. Why we say #YaMeCanse



Good short video.

antiracismdsa: Dr. Martin Luther King- Race Riots and The Other ...

antiracismdsa: Dr. Martin Luther King- Race Riots and The Other ...: " The Other America " - Speech by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Grosse Pointe High School - March 14, 1968 ] Rev. Dr. Har...

Thanksgiving- a troubled legacy

by Tim Weed,
In 1620, searching for a place to practice their dissident religion in peace, a small group of English separatists sailed to the wilderness coast of America. They were helped by local Indians, who shared with them a great feast comprised of native foods: turkey, cornbread, pumpkin, cranberries. The Indians taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn and squash together with a fish placed in the soil to encourage robust growth; the colony survived and prospered. Jump cut to the Boston Tea Party, Concord and Lexington, and the modern world’s first successful experiment in democracy.

If you add the Salem Witch trails and the French and Indian War, this summary pretty much covers the average American’s vision of the century and a half that passed between the landing at Plymouth Rock and the fireworks of July 4, 1776. It’s what might be called the Thanksgiving Myth — and it’s not wildly off base as far as it goes. But some important context is missing. This is a problem, because a nation’s foundational mythology determines its self-image and deeply affects the behavior of its government and citizenry.
From 1616 to 1619, a series of virgin-soil epidemics spread by European trading vessels ravaged the New England seaboard, wiping out up to 95 percent of the Algonkian-speaking native population from Maine to Narragansett Bay. The coast was a vast killing zone of abandoned agricultural fields and decimated villages littered with piles of bones and skulls. This is what the Pilgrims encountered when they landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. Not a pristine wilderness, but the devastated ruins of a once-thriving culture, a haunting boneyard which English libertine Thomas Morton later described as a “newfound Golgotha.”
The collision of worldviews is almost impossible to imagine. On the one hand, a European society full of religious fervor and colonizing energy; on the other, a native society shattered and reeling from the greatest catastrophe it had ever known. The Puritans were forever examining their own spiritual state. Having come to America with the goal of separating themselves from polluted forms of worship, a great deal of their energy was focused on battling demons, both within themselves and at large in the world. Puritan clerics confused the Indian deity Kiehtan with God, and they conflated Hobbamock, a fearsome nocturnal spirit associated with Indian shamans, or powwows, with Satan. Because of this special connection many Puritans believed that the powwows, and by extension all the New England Indians, were bound by a covenant with the devil. Indians thus became symbolic adversaries, their very existence a threat to the Englishmen’s prized religious identities.

The Language of Reform: English Learners in California's Shifting Education Landscape | Education Trust

The Language of Reform: English Learners in California's Shifting Education Landscape | Education Trust

This Black Friday, Workers to Challenge the Waltons

The Los Angeles School Board votes to require Ethnic Studies

by Duane Campbell 

On Tuesday, the LAUSD board voted to require courses to offer ethnic studies classes at all of the district high schools.  A few courses had already been offered, but this provides a substantial increase in offering.

San Francisco Unified will consider a similar decision at their December meeting.

Children and young adults need to see themselves in the curriculum.  Students, particularly students of color, have low levels of attachment to California and U.S.  civil society  messages in significant part because the government institution they encounter the most- the schools- ignore the students own history, cultures and experiences.

A fundamental way to engage students in civic culture is to engage them in their own schools and communities.  That is where the students most encounter civic opportunities.

When the 51  % of the California students who are Latino , and the 9  % who are Asian do not see themselves as part of history,  for many their sense of self is marginalized.   Marginalization negatively impacts their connections with school and their success at school.  It contributes to an up to  50% drop out rate for Latinos and some Asian students.  A more accurate, more complete  history  provided in Ethnic studies courses  would provide some students with a  a sense of self, of direction,  of purpose, even a sense that  they should stay in school and learn more.  And, ethnic studies would provide Anglo  students with an informed, accurate history of the political and cultural development of our society. Ethnic studies classes should help young people acquire and learn to use the civics  skills, knowledge, and attitudes that will prepare them to be competent and responsible citizens throughout their lives.   

Add their history to the textbooks.  Add their literature to the literature books.  Include all students in Ethnic Studies classes.  These students are are California’s children.  You can start by revising the California History/ Social Science Framework to include their history.

Actress: My Parents were Deported

In "Orange Is the New Black," I play Maritza Ramos, a tough Latina from the 'hood. In "Jane the Virgin," I play Lina, Jane's best friend and a funny know-it-all who is quick to offer advice.

I love both parts, but they're fiction. My real story is this: I am the citizen daughter of immigrant parents who were deported when I was 14. My older brother was also deported.

My parents came here from Colombia during a time of great instability there. Escaping a dire economic situation at home, they moved to New Jersey, where they had friends and family, seeking a better life, and then moved to Boston after I was born.

Actress Diane Guerrero is seen in the movie "EMOTICON ;)." (Indican Pictures)

Throughout my childhood I watched my parents try to become legal but to no avail. They lost their money to people they believed to be attorneys, but who ultimately never helped. That meant my childhood was haunted by the fear that they would be deported. If I didn't see anyone when I walked in the door after school, I panicked.

And then one day, my fears were realized. I came home from school to an empty house. Lights were on and dinner had been started, but my family wasn't there. Neighbors broke the news that my parents had been taken away by immigration officers, and just like that, my stable family life was over.

CURMUDGUCATION: Green Dot Offers View of Alternate Universe

CURMUDGUCATION: Green Dot Offers View of Alternate Universe: Say hello to Marco Petruzzi, CEO of Green Dot Public Schools. Today he made his first blog entry at Green Dot's Website of Bloggy Goodne...

The Democrats abandon the working class

by William Grieder,

The blowout election of 2014 demonstrates that the Democratic Party is utterly out of touch with ordinary people and their adverse circumstances. Working people have known this for some time now, but this year, the president made the disconnection more obvious. Barack Obama kept telling folks to brighten up: the economy is coming back, he said, and prosperity is just around the corner.

A party truly connected to the people would never have dared to make such a claim. In the real world of voters, human experience trumps macroeconomics and the slowly declining official unemployment rate. An official at the AFL-CIO culled the following insights from what voters said about themselves on Election Day: 54 percent suffered a decline in household income during the past year. Sixty-three percent feel the economy is fundamentally unfair. Fifty-five percent agree strongly (and another 25 percent agree somewhat) that both political parties are too focused on helping Wall Street and not enough on helping ordinary people.

Instead of addressing this reality and proposing remedies, the Democrats ran on a cowardly, uninspiring platform: the Republicans are worse than we are. Undoubtedly, that’s true—but so what? The president and his party have no credible solutions to offer. To get serious about inequality and the deteriorating middle class, Democrats would have to undo a lot of the damage their own party has done to the economy over the past thirty years.

Is Tenure Justified?

Is Tenure Justified?

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

Democracy and school reform win

Ed. This of us who fought this fight for Torlakson and against the neoliberals, know this.  But, here is a national view of issue. Thank you for your votes,

Torlakson Victory 

by Jeff Bryant

The other notable constituent for education reform – business interests and wealthy private foundations – also clashes with a cause that claims to have roots in underserved communities.

That contradiction was most glaringly revealed in the race for state superintendent of schools in California, where incumbent and former teacher Tom Torlakson squared off against Marshall Tuck, a charter school administrator with a background in finance.

The contest was cast as a clash over “education reform,” and the candidates, both Democrats, indeed presented strong contrasts, with Torlakson being supportive of public schools and classroom teachers and Tuck advocating the need to “disrupt” education with more charter schools and stricter, managerial oversight of educators and school performance.

Torlakson Wins

Thank you to all who supported teachers against the neoliberal crowd. 

You can make a difference. Vote.