Stories tagged: students of color
Esos vatos locos forever! And school racial violence, Somali pirates
Submitted by Gustavo Martínez on Fri, 02/19/2010 - 13:26 Posted in Social justice in education | Permalink
I'm supposing none of y'all know what the title to this post means. I'll put it this way: that's proper Chicano English, a southwestern US of A dialect of Spanglish, for "aw yeah, crazy dudes!"
Down there, by our own Berlin Wall, we live in español, but go to school in Spanglish, which goes to show how unsuccessful Operation Wetback was.
What worries me is that still, today, there are people who think that English is the only language that should be spoken in this land. But I take relief when amigos gabachos stand in defense of the many tongues spelling out life in the today's United States. So, gracias to attorney and blogger Len Rieser for his post in response to a Christopher Paslay's op-ed piece that appeared in The Inquirer earlier this week.
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Something that can be said for districts
Submitted by Len Rieser on Thu, 02/11/2010 - 13:09 Posted in Education law corner | Permalink
To the blizzard (oh, just a word that came to mind) of questions being asked on these pages about the Renaissance School plan, I’d like to add a legal worry. It has to do with the enthusiasm for spinning schools off to become charters or “contract” schools, operated by private managers.
One can say lots of justifiably critical things about school districts, and about this one in particular. But to those who believe the response to failures by this (or any) school district should be to remove schools from its control, I suggest some caution.
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You bring out the Latin-Caribbean in me...
by Samuel Reed III Posted in February 2010 | Permalink
Why should I teach a predominantly African American class about Latin-Caribbean culture?
My school, like many schools in Philadelphia, is racially isolated. Consequently, tensions exist regarding meeting the School District’s expectation of promoting multicultural studies.
Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic group in the greater Philadelphia area, with over 129,000 in the city. Puerto Ricans are the largest Latino group with an estimated 91,527 residents. Latino students represent close to 17 percent of the total School District population.
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Tepid response to attacks against Asians is nothing new
by Gustavo Martínez Contreras Posted in February 2010 | Permalink
In 1981, two stabbings and a series of brawls between African American and Asian students disrupted school life at University City High School.
Two years later, a Vietnamese student named Do Manh spent a month in traction after a pair of attacks at University City left him with a broken neck and a Laotian girl needing stitches in her lip.
Then, as now, in the aftermath of attacks on Asian students at South Philadelphia High, District officials were slow to recognize the problem as ethnic violence and take action. Only after community outcry did they move to respond.
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Blame won’t help boys who act out
Posted in Fall 2009 | Permalink
To the editors:
Reading “A national trend: Black and Latino boys predominate in emotional support classes,” in the Winter 2008 edition, truly impressed me – especially the work of an intern (Sylvia Morse), while a senior in college.
That being said, let’s turn to the rest of the story, of failure on the part of the District to serve African American and Latino boys.
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Valuing diversity is the key to learning
Ernst Ford Posted in Summer 2009 | Permalink
To the editors:
I service the School District’s public and charter school students through a school bus company. My job is to pick up and drop off students and make sure they’re on time. Some students are well behaved and others are difficult to deal with. It is not an easy task, but I am glad to be of service to our children.
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Where have all the teachers of color gone?
by Wendy Harris Posted in Summer 2009 | Permalink
It's 11:05 a.m. and 28 students at Fulton Elementary School in Germantown quietly file into Christopher Wright's 6th grade math class. After taking their seats, they dive into their daily series of equations on the blackboard. After making his way around the room checking each student's progress, he asks for the answers. Hands shoot up, and Wright dashes back to the blackboard.
One girl points out a mistake in one of the problems. "That number should be negative, instead of positive," she said with confidence.
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Shortchanged ... on school funding
Posted in Fall 2007 | Permalink
- Philadelphia, with an enrollment that is mostly low-income and Black and Latino, spends $2,100 less per pupil than the median amount spent in surrounding suburban districts, even though its students have more needs.
- Pennsylvania contributes barely one-third of local school costs, compared to an average of 50 percent in other states. School districts have to rely on local property taxes to pay for schools, and many property-poor districts cannot raise enough money for quailty education.
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'What's behind being behind:' The birth-to-five gap
by Meghan McHugh Posted in Winter 2008 | Permalink
The racial and socioeconomic achievement gap often first surfaces as children begin to take standardized tests, usually around third grade.
But in reality the gap opens long before that – at or before birth, experts say, arguing that kindergarten is way too late to start.
President-elect Barack Obama agrees, promising to focus much of his education agenda on investing in the nation’s youngest children.
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Education and racial equity in the U.S.: Dates to remember
Posted in Winter 2008 | Permalink
The Common School
1838 Horace Mann, Secretary of Massachusetts Board of Education, launches The Common School Journal, pioneering the idea that free public education, with instruction by professional teachers, should be provided in schools for children of all backgrounds.
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Renaissance School provider applicants await the first cut
by Dale Mezzacappa
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