U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Announces Date for Briefing Related to its Report, Public Education Funding Inequality in an Era of Increasing Concentration of Poverty and Resegregation

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Announces Date for Briefing Related to its Report, Public Education Funding Inequality in an Era of Increasing Concentration of Poverty and Resegregation

WASHINGTON, April 26, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights announced today that it will hold a public briefing on Friday, May 20, 2016, to examine the funding of K-12 education and how the inequitable distribution of these funds negatively and disproportionately impact the educational opportunities of low-income and minority students. The briefing will also address how the practice of underfunding public schools has exacerbated the academic achievement gap in an era where the nation's most vulnerable children are increasingly educated in highly segregated and under-resourced schools.

Read the press release here.

Recruitment and Retention Key in Diversifying Faculty at Public Schools

by Jamaal Abdul-Alim, Diverse Issues in Higher Education

Washington — The longstanding demographic mismatch between America’s public school teachers and the students they serve got a fresh airing Tuesday at Howard University, where a panel explored the nature of the problem and discussed a variety of potential solutions.

Acting U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. said the lack of diversity among America’s teachers emanates from problems of recruitment and retention.

Read the story here.

Related content:

• Why Teach for America Is Scrapping Its National Diversity Office (The Atlantic)

How Children Around the World Learn to Be Sexist

Gender bias is rampant in textbooks in multiple countries, researchers argue.

By By Lauren Camera, U.S. News & World Report

Sexism is rife in textbooks all across the globe, with many portraying girls and women in submissive household roles – or not at all.

Read the story here.

Related content:

• Young children must be protected from ingrained gender stereotypes (The Guardian)
• Women around the world on how sexism affects their daily lives (The Guardian)

The Concentration of Poverty in American Schools

An exclusive analysis uncovers that students of color in the largest 100 cities in the United States are much more likely to attend schools where most of their peers are poor or low-income.

By Janie Boschma and Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic

In almost all major American cities, most African American and Hispanic students attend public schools where a majority of their classmates qualify as poor or low-income, a new analysis of federal data shows.

Read the story here.

Feds launch probe into racism allegations at Boston Latin School

By David Harris, Boston Business Journal

Federal authorities have launched an independent investigation of alleged civil rights violations involving alleged race-related incidents at the prestigious Boston Latin School, the nation's oldest public school.

Read the story here.

Related content:

• U.S. launches probe of alleged civil rights violations at Boston school (Reuters)
• U.S. Attorney’s Office To Investigate Civil Rights Complaints At Boston Latin School (WBUR)

Virginia parents are outraged after 'white guilt' affirmative action video is shown to high school students

By Alexandra Klausner, The Daily Mail

A Virginia community is reeling after students at a high school were made to watch a video about racial inequality during Black History Month.

Read the here.

State Senator Stands Up for High Schoolers Racially Harassed at Texas A&M

By Sheryl Estrada, DiversityInc.

A group of approximately 60 Black and Latino high school juniors from Uplift Hampton Preparatory School in Dallas toured the Texas A&M University’s College Station campus last week. They were subjected to racial slurs from white college students, who also shouted “Go back where you came from.”

Read the story here.

Related content:

• One A&M student gone after racist confrontation with Dallas teens, but school won’t say more (The Dallas Morning News)
• U.S. Attorney’s Office To Investigate Civil Rights Complaints At Boston Latin School (The Guardian)
• What’s the Best Way to Lead After a Racial Incident on Campus? (The Chronicle of Higher Education - requires paid subscription)
• After Black High Schoolers Harassed, A&M Apologizes (Texas Tribune)
• Texas A&M apologizes after minorities told to ‘go back where you came from’(The Washington Post)
• A&M says it has identified some of the students involved in racial harassment of high schoolers; sends thousands of letters of apology (Dallas Morning News)
• Texas A&M Investigating After Black High Schoolers Harassed on Campus (Texas Tribune)
• Texas A&M investigates alleged racial abuse of black high schoolers on visit (The Guardian)

Toledo Public Schools, U.S. Education Department Reach Agreement to Address Issues of African American Student Access to Resources

U.S. Department of Education

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights and Toledo Public Schools announced today that the district has entered into a resolution agreement to ensure compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in providing equitable resources to African American students.

Read the press release here.

Chicago Public Schools settle civil rights lawsuit from pregnant teachers

Aamer Madhani, USA Today

CHICAGO — The Justice Department announced Wednesday it has reached a settlement with the nation's third-largest school system over allegations that it discriminated against pregnant teachers and new mothers in violation of federal law.

Read the story here.

Most New York City Elementary Schools Are Violating Disabilities Act, Investigation Finds

By Bejnamin Weiser, The New York Times

A two-year federal investigation has concluded that 83 percent of New York City’s public elementary schools are not “fully accessible” to children with disabilities, in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Read the story here.

Black parents protest charge for teen tossed from desk

Jeffrey Collins, Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A group of black parents and civil rights activists presented a petition Thursday calling for officials to drop charges against a 16-year-old South Carolina high school student who was videotaped being yanked from her desk and thrown to the floor by a police officer in her classroom.

Read the story here.

Related content:

• Petition Contests Charges Against Black Student Flipped in Desk by Officer (Diversity Inc.)

Documentary Focuses on Entry Barriers to Elite New York City Schools

By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, NBC News

About 30,000 New York City eighth graders last Saturday took the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT), the only way to gain admission into one of New York City's eight elite public high schools, especially Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech.

For many students, this exam is their ticket to a better education and a path out of poverty. However, this testing process has come under fire because although African Americans and Hispanic Americans make up 70 percent of New York City's school-aged population, they represent less than 5 percent at the city's most elite public high schools, while Asian Americans make up as much as 73 percent.

Read the story here.

Feds say Illinois school district broke law by banning transgender student from girls’ locker room

By Michael E. Miller, The Washington Post

Around the country, high schools are increasingly confronting a thorny issue: Should transgender students be allowed into the locker room?

And increasingly, the federal government is stepping in to provide an answer: Schools must give trans students full locker room access.

Or else.

On Monday, the Obama administration again weighed in on the issue with the release of a report slamming a suburban Chicago public school district for not providing a transgender student with access to the girls’ locker rooms.

Read the story here.

Related content:

• School district faces government sanctions under Title IX for denying transgender female student access to locker rooms (Jackson Lewis PC)
• The bathroom dilemma in the news - transgender rights on the front page (Kelley Drye & Warren LLP)
• As Transgender Students Make Gains, Schools Hesitate at Bathrooms (The New York Times)

Statement from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on School Discipline and Civil Rights

Department of Education Office of Civil Rights

At a press conference today in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan made the following statement about the classroom arrest at Richland County's Spring Valley High School in South Carolina:

"Before I take your questions, I want to do a quick statement about an important conversation that's happening across America right now. This city was the site of so many important moments in the struggle for civil rights. But this week, we've been forced to again confront how far we still have left to go in the struggle for true equality. There's an important discussion taking place in America this week about school discipline, and the role of law enforcement in our schools, and the well-being of our nation's children. Our partners at the Department of Justice have opened an investigation into what happened recently in South Carolina, so I'm not going to be able to comment on the specifics there.

Read the press release here.

Related content:

• U.S. Departments of Education and Justice Release School Discipline Guidance Package to Enhance School Climate and Improve School Discipline Policies/Practices
• Schoolkids in Handcuffs (New York Times)
• Civil rights groups: Cops in schools don't make students safer (USA Today)
• Violent SC Arrest Reflects How African-American Girls Are Disproportionately Disciplined in Schools, Study Author Says (ABC News)
• Study: Black Girls Are Being Pushed Out of School (NPR)
• The Assault At Spring Valley High Shows The School-To-Prison Pipeline In Action (The Huffington Post)
• She was guilty of being a black girl: The mundane terror of police violence in American schools (Salon)
• ADL, Deeply Concerned By Video of Officer Throwing Student in South Carolina Classroom, Calls for Reform

Will the Obama administration now focus on desegregating schools?

By Emma Brown, The Washington Post

When Arne Duncan steps down as education secretary in December and John King takes over, nothing much is expected to change in the world of federal education policy.

Except for maybe one thing.

King will perhaps take steps to focus the department’s energy — and money — on encouraging states and school districts to create integrated schools. That’s what a number of activists, lawyers and researchers are hoping, based on King’s past actions and recent statements.

Read the story here.

Related content:

• The Evidence That White Children Benefit From Integrated Schools (NPR)

The number of black teachers has dropped in nine U.S. cities

By Lyndsey Layton, The Washington Post

The number of black public school teachers in nine cities — including the country’s three largest school districts — dropped between 2002 and 2012, raising questions about whether those school systems are doing enough to maintain a diverse teaching corps, according to a new report to be released Wednesday.

The study by the Albert Shanker Institute, a think tank funded by the American Federation of Teachers, looked at teacher data from nine cities: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, New Orleans, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The research found that each city saw a drop in the number of black teachers in traditional and charter schools.

Read the story here.

Click here for the official Albert Shanker Institute report on teacher diversity.

Related content:

• Failing Grade: Why There Aren’t More African-American Teachers in Classrooms (Diverse Issues in Higher Education)

U.S.: Georgia illegally segregating students with disabilities in inferior buildings with inadequate instruction

By Valerie Strauss, Washington Post

The U.S. Justice Department is accusing the state of Georgia of segregating thousands of students with behavior-based disabilities from their peers in inferior buildings that formerly served as schools for black students back in the years of legal segregation. Furthermore, the students are receiving unequal educational opportunities but instead many are getting only computer-based lessons rather than direct instruction from a certified teacher.

Read the story here.

The Death of Affirmative Action, Part 2: Education as a Finite Resource

The Chronicle of Higher Education
March 21, 2012, 2:47 pm

By Michele Goodwin

Part 1 of this series addressed gender and the Fisher case, which will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court later in the year.

According to the CIA, Cuba’s literacy rate is 99.8%. Why does Cuba, an incredibly poor nation, have a higher literacy rate than the U.S.? Education is regarded as a priority for all; their poorest youth are treated to boarding schools. The same is true in China. Some of the most attractive architecture in China happens to be its boarding schools—and those institutions are public. That’s right—free boarding-school education and dormitories for students.

Full Story: http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/the-death-of-affirmative-action-part-ii-education-as-a-finite-resource-the-us-model/45046?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en