Links:The Black Star Project's website:
Black Star Journal:
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Student: My school district
hires too many white teachers
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This is what the teaching corps
should look like, too. (Photo by Matt McClain for The Washington
Post)
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Students are better off when they can see themselves in their
instructors.
By Glenn Sullivan
June 26, 2014
Glenn Sullivan, 19, recently graduated from New Orleans' Lake Area
New Tech Early College High School.
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Glenn Sullivan
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High school is full of, well,
high schoolers. We are not naturally the most self-disciplined group. When the
bell ending the lunch period rings, for example, students finish socializing and
playing with their friends rather than rush to class.
At Lake Area New Tech High School
in New Orleans, from which I just graduated, we often talked to girls or texted
each other instead of studying in our spare time.
But one day I started noticing
exceptions. My fifth period history and civics teacher, Mr. Allen, was one of
them. When chaos erupted at the end of the lunch hour, he simply
opened his door and let his students into his classroom.
They filed in
respectfully, unlike in other classes. By the time the tardy bell
rang, we'd all taken our seats and opened our history books, quietly awaiting
further instructions.
Mr. Allen is one of
too few black teachers in a school system where about 90 percent of students are
black, and I think that shared background helped explain our
behavior. Many other teachers cannot control their classes, let
alone get their students interested in the work. Mr. Allen can do
both.
In my school, as in many schools
- especially in reform-oriented school districts - a lot of the
good, black teachers have been replaced by younger white
teachers.
When I talked to administrators
about the departures of good black teachers, I was told that students need
diversity in order to receive a high quality education .
Students do need diverse
educational experiences, but that diversity doesn't need to be about a teacher's
race. Hiring more white teachers is not the best way to improve education for
students, particularly students of color.
The
fact that the city's public schools now accept students from all over the city
only makes this problem worse since it breaks the connection between schools and
their neighborhoods.
I firmly believe that
having more local teachers and more teachers who understand the city's social
and political problems can provide students with the training they need to be
successful as students and as adults.
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Rich Kid, Poor Kid:
For
30 Years, Baltimore
Study
Tracked Who Gets
Ahead
By Juana
Summers
August 7,
2014
Education is historically
considered to be the thing that levels the playing field, capable of lifting up
the less advantaged and improving their chances for success.
"Play by the rules, work hard, apply yourself and do well in school, and that will open doors for
you," is how Karl Alexander, a Johns Hopkins University sociologist, puts
it.
But a study published in
June suggests that the things that really make the difference - between prison
and college, success and failure, sometimes even life and death - are money and
family.
Alexander is one of the authors
of " The Long Shadow," which explored this
scenario: Take two kids of the same age who grew up in the same city - maybe
even the same neighborhood. What factors will make the difference for each?
To find the answer, the Hopkins
researchers undertook a massive study. They followed nearly 800 kids in
Baltimore - from first grade until their late-20s.
They found that a child's
fate is in many ways fixed at birth - determined by family strength and the
parents' financial status.
The kids who got a better
start - because their parents were married and working - ended up better off.
Most of the poor kids from single-parent families stayed poor.
Just 33 children - out of nearly
800 - moved from the low-income to high-income bracket. And a similarly small
number born into low-income families had college degrees by the time they turned 28. |
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UDÉ YAH 2nd Annual
Tribute
to Chicagoland
Elders
featuring the
daughters
of the Legendary Oscar Brown,
Jr.,
Maggie and Africa
Brown
Saturday, August
16, 2014
7:00 pm
Logan Center for
the Arts
915 East 60th
Street
Chicago, Illinois
Please call 773.888.1208 to reserve your
seats.
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Chris Curry's 5 "Stop The
Violence" Songs And Videos
PLEASE ..Take just
a few minutes to click on the 5 youtube links below to view these thought
provoking "Stop The Violence" videos. It's
also important that you share these links with others so that we may
perhaps save some lives. Collectively WE
CAN DO THIS! Thank you.
Chris Curry, (212) 502-1122 or Click Here for FACEBOOK
Page
Video #1
"The Shoe's On The Other Foot"
A young man's joy and
passion for violence impacts his entire family.
Video #2 "Stop the
Violence"
Individually and
collectively a community can make a difference by saying something.
click this link to
view http://youtu.be/VL49KpFOLPY
Video #3 "Who Will Be
Next?"
Portrays the daily concern
of a 10 year old trying to cope with the possibility of being shot or
killed.
Video #4 "You Know Who You
Are"
Hiding from yourself after
committing a crime or an act
of violence isn't always
easy.
Video #5 "Because of
You"
A litany of grievous
messages to the perpetrators of violent acts in our communities from
various
victims families, friends
and outraged citizens.
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Honor Papa Dallas
Stewart,
Who Was Beaten and
Blinded
for Wanting to Read,
by
Sending Your Children to the WCDC
Saturday University to Improve Their Reading
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Dr. Tonea Stewart
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"When I
was a little girl about five or six years old, I used to sit on the garret, the
front porch. In the Mississippi Delta the front porch is called the garret. I
listened to my Papa Dallas. He was blind and had these ugly scars around
his eyes. One day, I asked Papa Dallas what happened to his
eyes.
'Well Daughter, he answered, when I was mighty young, just about
your age. I used to steal away under a big oak tree and I tried to learn my
alphabets so that I could learn to read my Bible. But one day the overseer
caught me and he drug me out on the plantation and he called out for all the
field hands. And he turned to em and said, Let this be a lesson to all of you
darkies. You ain't got no right to learn to read! And then daughter, he whooped
me, and he whooped me, and he whooped me. And daughter, as if that wasn't
enough, he turned around and he burned my eyes out!
At that instant, I
began to cry. The tears were streaming down my cheeks, meeting under my chin.
But he cautioned, Don't you cry for me now, daughter. Now you listen to
me. I want you to promise me one thing. Promise me that you gonna pick
up every book you can and you gonna read it from cover to cover. You see, today
daughter, ain't nobody gonna whip you or burn your eyes out because you want to
learn to read. Promise me that you gonna go all the way through school, as far
as you can. And one more thing, I want you to promise me that you gonna tell all
the children my story."
---Papa Dallas Stewart,
telling the story of how he was blinded to his granddaughter Dr. Tonea
Stewart.
Call 773.285.9600 to register
your kindergarten through 9th-grade students for the WCDC Saturday University,
every Saturday, through September 6, 2014. Classes are free and no one will
blind our children for their wanting to
read.
Click Here to See This Story
about Papa Dallas Stewart
Click Here to learn more
about the WCDC Saturday
University
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Jackie Robinson
West
going east to
Williamsport
August 9, 2014
INDIANAPOLIS -
The chants of "Let's go, West" followed soon after Cameron Bufford's grand slam
danced gently over the right-field fence Saturday.
Now Jackie Robinson West is
headed east to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa., after a 12-7
victory over New Albany (Ind.) in the Great Lakes Region final at Stokely
Field.
"I was trying to get a base hit,"
said Bufford, West's No. 9 hitter. "But it went over the fence."
The home run came on the first
pitch he saw from New Albany reliever Cody Medley in the fifth inning and gave
West its first lead, 10-7. Bufford trailed Darion Radcliff, Josh Houston and Ed
Howard around the bases before ducking and weaving his way toward home, where
his teammates were waiting eagerly.
"When he hit the ball over the
fence I said, 'Ballgame,'" West manager Darold Butler said. "We had the best
pitcher (Marquis Jackson) in the Great Lakes Region on the mound.
"Games like that are character-builders. It was bound to happen. The good
thing about it is (the contributions) came from everywhere." West outscored
opponents 61-19 in six region games.
The celebration spread to the
stands behind the first-base dugout, where parents, fans and supporters,
suddenly came alive.
"I was just praying it went
over," Bufford's father, Robert Bufford, said. "I'm not just happy for him, but
for the city of Chicago. ... You couldn't write it any better than that."
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Call 773.285.9600 for your school, band, cheer
team, National Honor Society, acrobatics team, debate team, dance team, drill
team, chess team, sports team, math team, robotics team, church, community organization, business, fraternity, sorority,
marching unit or social club to participate in one of the best back-to-school
parades in the country.
The 2014 Million Father
March
Back-to-School
Parade
Saturday,
August 30, 2014, 10:00 am
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Kids Count with PNC
Bank
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