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TexasTowelie

(111,283 posts)
Mon Oct 26, 2015, 10:20 AM Oct 2015

Teach for America leaves Black Lives behind

[font color=330099]Note: JustAnotherGen requested that I cross-post this article from General Discussion into this group.[/font]

A debate has developed among leading voices of the Black Lives Matter movement about the connection, or lack of one, between the antiracist struggle to the battle against the education reform movement, including Teach for America (TFA), an organization that recruits college graduates without any teaching experience and places them in schools in low-income communities, often in cooperation with charter school operators. Here, New York City educator, activist and writer Brian Jones sets out the context of this discussion and examines the arguments of those who believe Teach for America can help make Black Lives Matter.


THE DIVERSE and determined movement against police violence and murder--now known to so many as Black Lives Matter--is facing a series of political challenges, as grassroots movements inevitably do. Choosing demands, deciding on strategy and tactics, selecting leaders and holding them accountable--all of these are difficult matters, and the road to success has potholes to avoid at every turn.

The phrase "Black Lives Matter" is open to a wide number of interpretations. Making Black lives matter in anonymous encounters with police officers is one, obviously. But many in the movement make connections to the fight for the $15-an-hour minimum wage or the struggle against violence directed at Black women and LGBTQ Black people. Connecting these proverbial dots will only make the movement stronger.

Another obviously connected issue is K-12 schooling. Sixty years after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, American schools are more racially segregated than ever, with Black children overwhelmingly concentrated in underfunded schools. They are disproportionately subject to significantly harsher disciplinary procedures than their peers, starting from pre-K--to such an extent that there is even a phrase for it: the "school-to-prison pipeline."

Across the country, parents, teachers and students have challenged the policies that uphold these patterns, consciously seeking to connect the Black Lives Matter movement to the effort to end institutional racism in public schooling. The students in Seattle who walked out of school to protest the decision not to indict Darren Wilson for the murder of Mike Brown are just one example.

Read more: http://socialistworker.org/2015/10/26/teach-for-america-leaves-black-lives-behind

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Teach for America leaves Black Lives behind (Original Post) TexasTowelie Oct 2015 OP
I know I've yammered on an and about this JustAnotherGen Oct 2015 #1
Lack of updated school supplies, large class rooms. When I was in school every JRLeft Oct 2015 #3
Kick! JustAnotherGen Oct 2015 #2

JustAnotherGen

(31,681 posts)
1. I know I've yammered on an and about this
Mon Oct 26, 2015, 11:05 AM
Oct 2015

But that 'free college' - our young black recent high school grads will NOT be prepared en masse in September 2017. They just aren't. We cheated them.

And this is a great companion thread to the one (correction) kindablue posted this weekend.

Fed Gov deliberately established rules to keep blacks in low income housing/supporting white flight and it's subsequent community by laws -

And a one two punch of not educating those who they trapped in those ghettos.


Where exactly were the Great Migrationists allowed to go once they got where they were going?


kinda's thread back here -
http://www.democraticunderground.com/118730207

 

JRLeft

(7,010 posts)
3. Lack of updated school supplies, large class rooms. When I was in school every
Tue Oct 27, 2015, 10:19 AM
Oct 2015

teacher of the year was moved to the white schools.

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