Hope & Values Driven Education Reform
Dearest Liz,
Thanks for the piece you sent to National Council on Educating Black Children (NCEBC) board members (see reference below). Reminds all of us to get to work after the euphoria of an inauguration and a moment in history we will never forget -- must never forget. I am certain Gus, Asa, Althea, Thurgood, Eldredge, Shirley, Barbara, Rosa and so many more are reaching out to us to remember and redouble our efforts. Why? Because as we all know, this is an opportunity, a window of opportunity which has been flung wide open for the first time, enabling advocates and activists in organization such as NCEBC to scale the miracles enabled by education reform, gained through the lens of education as a civil and human right. A social intervention framework which recognizes the leadership of people such as Bob Moses who helped to coin the term in the 70s.
As we celebrate America's new leader and family in the White House, certain all of us feel the collective and renewed impulse to charge into the fray which is urban education, framed by the structural and institutional racism that still pervades America's communities -- rural, suburban and urban. While we celebrate the hope that America has regained, too many of our children are in prison, in dead-end special education programs located in the basements of schools, in behavioral modifying boot-camps which don't work, are too often homeless, left at home alone because the mother is working 2 - 3 jobs just to make ends meet, are born out of wedlock, are dismissed as not smart, are tracked in the lowest academic classrooms away from those children whose parents feel they and they alone are gifted, and still beyond sad, are physically injured, or murdered in unacceptable numbers.
So I say yes to the author of the piece you sent! Yes to the policy makers who recognize the balance between individual and institutional responsibility for social change! And no to those who continue to extend the beliefs of Rudyard Kipling, assuming they and only they are sufficiently "smart" to educate our children. The failed policies of exclusion have not worked for 400 years. The future will be shaped when all are recognized as part of the solution to what remains the proxy for America's promise: "the education of black and brown schoolchildren, those of color and those living in poverty." Because of an election critical mass may now be attainable.
Those of us who attended the inauguration witnessed history. And those of us who had an opportunity to
share in a celebration of the promise of urban education and the leadership of President Obama, along with
those of his advisors such as Linda Darling-Hammond, recognize the unique opportunity America has to
reach out to all of its citizens for answers to the Gordian Knot of education reform. We will only be able to unravel this proverbial knot by working together and seeking to take the work we all share to scale: "Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave (Henry Peter Brougham, "The Present State of Law, 1828).
Yes a terrific opportunity has been delivered to those of us who labor with heart, hand and mind in the vineyards of social justice. One out of exuberance for past and fallen heroes, I shared with Brother John Smith and President Daniels at the reception cited in the press release below: "Holy shit what an opportunity for schoolchildren and youth!" With apologies for my exuberance and vernacular, but this is OUR time. All the best and trust our paths will soon cross at the historic NCEBC gathering which remembers Hunt Valley 1986, EJC:
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| • | NUA Sponsors A Celebration for Linda Darling-Hammond |
| NUA Press Release | ||
| To mark the historic inauguration of President Elect Barack Obama, the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education (NUA), with the support of McGraw-Hill Education, honored Dr. Linda Darling Hammond for her leadership in promoting the Promise of Urban Education. Read NUA press release here; read EdWeek coverage item here |
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