Posts Tagged ‘social justice’

In the States: Office of Civil Rights Enters Agreements with California and Iowa School Districts

The new “In the States” feature by Kaitlyn Brennan is a weekly update to keep members informed on state-level activities impacting the education and educator preparation community.

OCR Enters Resolution Agreement with (California) Davis Joint Unified School District

This week, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that the Davis Joint Unified School District in California has entered into a resolution agreement to ensure that its restraint and seclusion policies and practices do not deny students with disabilities a free appropriate public education (FAPE).

Call for Manuscripts: The Teacher Educators’ Journal

The Teacher Educators’ Journal (TTEJ) is published by the Virginia Association of Colleges and Teacher Educators (VACTE), a state unit of the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). The journal aims to stimulate discussion and reflection about issues related to teacher education; authors need not be based in and research need not be conducted in Virginia for manuscripts to be considered for publication. Manuscripts submitted for consideration may be research/empirical reports and analyses, position papers, book reviews, or conceptual essays.

To facilitate collaboration amongst teacher education scholars and practitioners and improve teaching, research, and student learning, the Fall 2023 special issue of the journal will call on authors to address two related sub-themes in two distinct sections.

  • Section I: The sub-theme for this section is “Opportunity Gaps and Collaborative Inquiry: Structures, Explorations, and Early Outcomes of the ATE Inquiry Initiative.”
  • Section II: The sub-theme for this section is “From Policy to Practice: Striving for Inclusive Excellence through Personal Reflection, Connectivity, and the Building of Support Systems for Leaders, Educators, Students, and Families.”

Doctoral Candidate Accepted to National Fellowship to Study Test-Optional Policies

This article originally appeared on the Texas Christian University News site and is reprinted with permission.

Leslie Ekpe, a Texas Christian University doctoral candidate in higher educational leadership and Holmes Scholar, was named a fellow at the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) Center for Leadership and Social Justice. Ekpe was motivated to apply after learning that the fellowship’s foundation was social justice, something that aligns with her current research work.

$1.4M Grant for New JMU Upward Bound Program Aims to Help Underrepresented Students Prepare for College

JMU College of Education program will empower first-generation college and at-risk local students to unlock potential

James Madison University’s College of Education will receive $1.4 million over the next five years to help eligible high school students in the Shenandoah Valley overcome social, emotional, and academic barriers to achieve success in education beyond high school.

JMU will receive a total of $1,437,685 to create a JMU Upward Bound Program. The funds will support two programs, one at Harrisonburg High School in Harrisonburg City Public Schools and one at Spotswood High School in Rockingham County Public Schools, supporting a total of approximately 30-35 high school students at each school. 

Attend the ‘Teaching Truth: Messaging the Moment’ Webinar

Every student deserves to learn and thrive in a school environment that supports student identities, equips them for the future, and teaches the truth. Unfortunately, across the country, we have seen attempts to surveil and gag educators and whitewash the history of the United States by attacking culturally responsive curriculum, respect for LGBTQ+ students, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. We need to teach students the truth of our history to enable them to learn from the wisdom and mistakes of our past to help create a more just and equitable future. We must ensure students have an honest and accurate education that helps them develop critical thinking skills.

On Tuesday, May 24, The Leadership Conference Education Fund will host the second webinar in its Teaching Truth series in collaboration with AACTE, Ed Trust, GLSEN, IDRA, and National Black Justice Coalition. In this webinar, we will hear from messaging experts on how to break through the noise and make a proactive, compelling, and mobilizing case for the importance of teaching the truth in our schools. Additionally, we will hear from advocates who are taking messaging research and putting it into action to fight against the attacks on honest teaching in our schools. 

Speakers include

  • Victoria Kirby York, National Black Justice Coalition 
  • Anthony Torres, ASO Communications
  • Thomas Marshall, IDRA 
  • Sumi Cho, African American Policy Forum 

RSVP for the webinar today.

National Urban League VP to Speak at Washington Week

AACTE’s upcoming Washington Week conference will feature speakers from national civil rights and advocacy organizations who have sought to empower and increase educational access and opportunities for disenfranchised communities. One of these organization is the National Urban League. Founded in 1910, the National Urban League, also known as The League, is a historic civil rights organization whose mission is to help African-Americans and underserved communities achieve their highest true social parity, economic self- reliance, power, and civil rights. The League promotes economic empowerment through education and job training, housing and community development, workforce development, entrepreneurship, health, and quality of life. Through their signature education programs, The League strives to ensure that every child is ready for college, career, and life. 

Representing The League at the upcoming Washington Week conference is Horatio Blackman, vice president of education policy, advocacy, and engagement. Blackman’s work has focused on educational improvement, access, and opportunity for marginalized communities, specifically Black youth, utilizing data and evidence to support change efforts at the local, state, and national levels. Central in his practice is engaging communities in education improvement efforts. In his role at the National Urban League, Blackman leads the Equity & Excellence Project and related education policy and advocacy work.

Blackman joined the League after serving as an assistant professor in the College of Education and Human Development and a research associate with the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy at the University of Delaware. Blackman is an expert in connecting evidence to policy, practice, all with a focus on supporting the needs of historically underserved communities. He is a graduate of Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.

Register today for AACTE’s Washington Week conference.

A Call to Action: Rethinking Intro to Education through a Racial Equity and Social Justice Lens

The 100Kin10 Project Team is seeking applicants to serve as faculty interested in implementing a re-imagined Intro to Education Course through a racial equity and social justice lens.

 

The Project Team is interested in exploring how the course can be used as a recruitment tool to diversify the teacher workforce by centering racial equity and social justice in the course content. With support through 100Kin10, the Redesigning Introduction to Education Project Team is looking to work with five faculty who can teach this course during the Fall 2022 semester and participate in a community of practice to inform the work and foster discourse around its impact on students. Faculty participants will receive $5,000 as compensation for their efforts.
 

For more information, visit RedesigningIntrotoEd. The application deadline is June 1, 2022.

 

Sharon Porter Robinson Recognized for Civil and Human Rights in Education

This article originally appeared in Kentucky Teacher and is reprinted with permission.

Sharon Porter Robinson Sharon Porter Robinson has spent almost five decades working in and for education and a lifetime doing civil rights work. On April 7, she was recognized for her efforts with the 2022 Lucy Harth Smith-Atwood S. Wilson Award for Civil and Human Rights in Education at the 50th Kentucky Education Association (KEA) Delegate Assembly.

“I come here today accepting this award in all humility and with a sense of urgency, that I guess has never left me … since the early days,” said Robinson. “It was a journey of learning that was driven by a sense of urgency to make matters right.”

The Smith-Wilson Award is given annually to a person or organization that has made notable contributions in any of the following areas: encouraging and supporting minorities to enter the teaching profession; advancing opportunities, especially educational opportunities, for youth of color; initiating or continuing impactful work in the areas of human and civil rights; or leading in the field of innovative, creative, and equitable education for all students.

Recap and Reflection of AACTE and AERA Joint Session: Youth, Censorship, and Academic Freedom

Youth, Censorship, and Academic Freedom Panel

The white folk of Altahama voted John a good boy, – fine plough-hand, good in the rice-fields, handy everywhere, and always good-natured and respectful. But they shook their heads when his mother wanted to send him off to school. “It’ll spoil him, – ruin him,” they said; and they talked as though they knew. (W. E. B. Du Bois, 1903/2015, p. 173)

This excerpt is a great representation of the fear fueling the push behind the call for censorship of critical race theory (CRT) and stages the focus of a Deeper Dive session at the AACTE 2022 Annual Meeting for educators to discuss how to address some of the challenges related to the threat that banning CRT has on American democracy. The “AACTE and AERA joint session: Youth, Censorship, and Academic Freedom” was moderated by Marvin Lynn (Portland State University), and the panelists were Michael Dantley, (Miami University) Kimberly White-Smith (University of La Verne), and Jacob Easley (Touro College). The discussion started with recapping the timeline of efforts to constrain teaching about race in higher education, followed by organizing faculty and staff, the role of education leaders in advancing social justice, and how to work with state and national organizations to address issues of education and censorship.

Educating for American Democracy: Educator Preparation Program Possibilities

In this blog post, members of the Educating for American Democracy (EAD) pilot program outline how EAD can best work with educator preparation programs to address threats to schools’ ability to prepare civically engaged students, the topic of discussion at their 2022 Annual Meeting Learning Lab session. 

In 2021, AACTE released a report, Revolutionizing Education for All Learners, that detailed its strategic plan for following the COVID-19 pandemic with a revolution in education intended to address long-standing and newly discovered educational inequities (AACTE, 2021). Among its strategic planning outcomes was a dedication and commitment to have democratic principles guide the education revolution, stating “democratic principles must guide what we revolutionize toward” (p.8).  Democratic principles, coupled with inclusive pedagogies, specifically inquiry, encompass great potential in addressing stagnant educational gaps. AACTE’s recommitment to democratize teacher education pedagogy and principles culminated in a Pilot program, Educating for American Democracy, in which both authors were participants. Struck by the possibilities of enhanced democratic principles guiding teacher preparation and teaching and learning in K-12 schools, the authors share about the pilot experience. The authors also offer their view on the shift’s constraints and possibilities to enhance educator preparation and ultimately to address longstanding questions about equity and school outcomes in American public schools (Fuentes, 2022).

The AACTE Racial and Social Hub: It’s Not for You, Without You

AACTE Social and Racial Justice Hub screenshotThis month, AACTE launched its Racial and Social Justice Hub, a place to learn, grow, inquire, and share resources with one another that address social injustices and advocate for the preparation of profession-ready educators. To help ensure AACTE is meeting the needs of the educator preparation community in advancing racial and social justice work, you are invited to complete a 90-second survey to inform future content – it’s not for you, without you.

Introducing the AACTE Racial and Social Justice Resource Hub

AACTE Social and Racial Justice Hub screenshotAACTE is committed to tackling systematic censorship within our country’s education system, alongside our members and partners, and it does so through an intersectional lens.

As an organization whose mission is to revolutionize education for all learners, AACTE developed the Racial and Social Justice Resource Hub to be a place for members to learn, grow, inquire, and share resources with one another that address social injustices and advocate for the preparation of profession-ready educators.

The Hub includes three sections: Education Censorship, Combating Racism, and LGBTQ+ Rights. Each section offers resources created by AACTE and its members and strategic partners, including articles, webinars and workshops, curriculum tools, and calls for action. Considering the ongoing efforts underway that limit educators’ teaching and discussion of our nation’s history, and other so-called divisive topics, AACTE is encouraging members to engage with the Hub to support your own teaching and scholarship.

Educators Won’t Be Silenced: Register for Webinar Addressing Book Banning

Ed Censorship and the Role of Book BanningSince the historic SCOTUS ruling in 1982, Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico, which ruled that school boards cannot remove books because they disagree with them, describing libraries as spaces of “voluntary inquiry,” book bans and challenges have continued. The education field is based upon the values of intellectual freedom that were upheld by this and other Supreme Court decisions; however, the executive director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom recently stated in an interview, “We’re seeing an unprecedented volume of challenges.” While there is a formal “challenge” process for censoring information in libraries and curriculum, the enormous increase in political pressure has prompted some school districts to abandon their policies and begin pulling the books without undergoing this review process. As a result of not abiding by this process, which is legally reserved for challenging content that is “obscene,” books that overwhelmingly depict LGBTQ+ and BIPOC stories are removed from shelves, having been deemed “obscene” by local opinion.

Members Only: Attend Educating for American Democracy Professional Development

Embedding Educating for American Democracy In Teacher Education A Pilot Professional Development for Educator Preparation ProfessionalsHistorical tensions and the bipartisan polarization of many topics deemed essential to a well-rounded, inclusive civic education has made teachers, especially those just entering the classroom, hesitant to engage students in civics in their classrooms. However, civic inquiry should be introduced early and often, by incorporating these frameworks across subject areas.

AACTE has partnered with iCivics and Educating for American Democracy (EAD) as part of its efforts to ensure every educator is prepared to help students understand the pillars and principles of democratic society and be engaged citizens regardless of their background and discipline.