Fenwick Delivers 20th Annual Brown Lecture in D.C.

By Tyler Pointer

AACTE’s Dean in Residence Leslie T. Fenwick, Ph.D., recently delivered the 20th Annual Brown Lecture in Education Research in Washington D.C.

According to the American Educational Research Association, which hosted the event, the Annual Brown Lecture in Education Research illuminates the important role of research in advancing the understanding of equality and equity in education.

Fenwick’s lecture, “Otherwise Qualified: The Untold Story of Brown and Black Educators,” offered a newly excavated history of implementing the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. It also advances her theory of “cultural elision” to explain how Brown is still misdefined.

Opinion: The Ugly Backlash to Brown v. Board of Ed That No One Talks About

By Leslie T. Fenwick

This article, by AACTE dean in residence Leslie T. Fenwick, Ph.D., was originally published in Politico and is reprinted with permission.

Today, most Americans think about the segregation-shattering 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision in one of three ways. We may think about Linda Brown, the plaintiff in Brown, a little girl forced to walk miles to a segregated Black school instead of attending the white school down the block. We may remember the famed Norman Rockwell painting featuring 6-year-old Ruby Bridges escorted by U.S. Marshals past a wall splattered with tomatoes and a racial slur. Or we may recall the tumult of busing in the South — Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia… and even much further north of the Mason-Dixon Line in South Boston, too.

But there is plenty that we have not been taught about Brown, which turns 68 today, or how it continues to impact us. We know about Linda Brown and Ruby Bridges. But we don’t know about Pressley Giles, Mary Preyer, Virgil Coleman and Jewel Butler. They were among the 100,000 exceptionally credentialed Black principals and teachers illegally purged from desegregating schools in the wake of Brown.

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

By Allison Little

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.

Join AACTE in Growing and Sustaining White Racial Allyship in Education

By Nicole Dunn

AACTE invites like-minded educators to attend the webinar, “Combating Racism in Education Prep: An Introduction to Authentic, Action-Oriented Allyship as Educators.” As part of AACTE’s Combating Racism in Educator Preparation series, this webinar is the first one produced for a “White Racial Justice” affinity group. The webinar takes place July 14 at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Who should attend?
This is an opportunity for anyone who is an educator or education advocate to learn more about and/or re-energize and re-frame the conversation on creating equitable educator preparation programs that prepare teachers to enter the nation’s schools armed with not just an understanding of how we got here, but also with strategies to be advocates for themselves and their students who may have less institutional agency.

AACTE Combating Racism Webinar Focuses on Authentic, Action-Oriented Allyship

By Nicole Dunn

A panel of experts who have dedicated their careers to the pursuit of equity in education will present AACTE’s first webinar produced for a “White Racial Justice” informal affinity group as part of AACTE’s in Combating Racism in Educator Preparation series. Join your like-minded peers and attend the webinar, “Combating Racism in Education Prep: An Introduction to Authentic, Action-Oriented Allyship as Educators” on July 14 at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Through the panelists’ diverse background and experiences, the presenters will introduce language, frameworks, resources, and strategies for the audience to use in their learning and reflection to be anti-racist educators and learn discussion and advocacy techniques to use in their professional and personal lives.

This is an opportunity for anyone who is an educator or education advocate to learn more about and/or re-energize and re-frame the conversation on creating equitable educator preparation programs that prepare teachers to enter the country’s schools armed with not just an understanding of how we got here, but also with strategies to be advocates for themselves and their students who may have less institutional agency. 

AACTE’s ‘Combating Racism is Educator Preparation Series’ Offered to Informal Affinity Groups

By Nicole Dunn

You are invited to register for the upcoming BIPOC affinity webinar and White Racial Justice affinity webinar offered as part of the “AACTE Racism is Educator Preparation” series.

AACTE’s “Combating Racism is Educator Preparation Series’ began in 2021 with three specific objectives for our membership, audience, and the field at large:

1. Contextualize the role of racism in structural oppression and how the education system at large maintains and promulgates these oppressive systems.
2. Engage with you, our audience, to understand you and your organization’s understanding and capacity to address racism using antiracist, abolitionist, inclusive, and intersectional policies.
3. Normalize and humanize critical conversations around racism within the field that will lead to collaborative action around structural oppression in education.

Congress Faces Packed Summer Agenda

By Jane E. West

This blog post is written by AACTE consultant Jane West and is intended to provide updated information. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE. 

 Congress Will Sprint to the Fall with a Packed July Agenda

As we head into the final week of June, Congress is poised for an intense July. Between the upcoming July 4 recess and the coveted month-long August recess, there are only a few legislative weeks in which to complete action on critical measures to keep the wheels of the federal government in motion. This week, the House began marking up the first two (of 12 in total) appropriations bills. Many insiders report that the House is on track to pass most, if not all, of the appropriations bills in July. But the Senate is still lagging well behind with no set plans for markups or floor consideration. However, the markups and floor considerations of appropriations bills are just one piece of the larger, more complicated summer Congressional agenda.

AACTE Celebrates Juneteenth

By Michael Rose

AACTE will close its offices tomorrow in recognition of Juneteenth, which honors the day when Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, to enforce the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. Until that day, June 19, 1865, Black men, women, and children in Texas remained enslaved, despite the provisions of the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth, as named by the newly freed citizens, is celebrated annually on June 19. Congress voted this week to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.

AACTE staff pauses its work to reflect on the violence, including murder, that our Black, Latinx, Native American, Asian-American Pacific-Islander, and Transgendered populations are particularly experiencing, in addition to the long history of violence against these groups of people. AACTE condemns, in the strongest terms, this violence and invites all its colleagues to work together to create a society in which no one should fear for their lives based on the color of their skin or gender identity. 

AACTE’s ‘Combating Racism in Educator Prep’ Series Will Explore Justice and Joy

By Nicole Dunn

AACTE’s “Combating Racism is Educator Preparation Series” began in 2021 with three specific objectives for our membership, audience, and the field at large:

1. Contextualize the role of racism in structural oppression and how the education system at large maintains and promulgates these oppressive systems.
2. Engage with you, the audience, to understand you and your organization’s understanding and capacity to address racism using antiracist, abolitionist, inclusive, and intersectional policies.
3. Normalize and humanize critical conversations around racism within the field that will lead to collaborative action around structural oppression in education.

Lawmakers Continue to Politicize Teaching About Racism

By Jane E. West and Kaitlyn Brennan

This blog post is written by AACTE consultant Jane West and is intended to provide updated information. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE. 

The Attack on Critical Race Theory Continues 

In a Washington Update last month, we offered a distressing summary of how the teaching of our nation’s racial history has been thrown into the heart of the political arena. Unfortunately, the trend is continuing and gaining traction. Last week, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee,  announced her support for two bills intended to block the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 schools. This week Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mike Braun (R-IN) and Rick Scott (R-FL) introduced a resolution condemning the use of critical race theory in K-12 schools and teacher preparation programs. “Critical race theory has no place in American schools,” Blackburn said in a statement. “This resolution is an important step to prevent the far left from pushing their radical political agenda in our classrooms.”

States Pass Laws Restricting How Teachers Can Discuss Racism

By Jane E. West

This blog post is written by AACTE consultant Jane West and is intended to provide updated information. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE. 

States Placing Legal Limits on How Educators Can Address Race

On the heels of Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, backing two bills aimed at blocking the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 schools—four states have now passed legislation that would limit how teachers can discuss racism and  sexism, among other topics. The legislation, passed so far in Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, bans teachers from introducing certain concepts, including that any individual is consciously or unconsciously racist or sexist because of their race or sex, and that anyone should feel discomfort or guilt because of their race or sex. A similar law also passed in Arkansas. In total, lawmakers in at least 15 states have introduced bills that seek to restrict how teachers can discuss racism, sexism, and other social issues.

Biden Moves Budget Forward, Republicans Act to Block CRT School Curriculum

By Jane E. West

This blog post is written by AACTE consultant Jane West and is intended to provide updated information. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE.  

President’s Detailed Budget to be Released May 27

President Biden will release his full FY 2022 funding proposal on May 27.  In April, he released a budget framework (often called a “skinny budget, though there is nothing “skinny” about the numbers in it), a  $1.5 trillion proposal that provided the rough contours of his vision for $753 billion in defense spending and $769 billion in non-defense discretionary spending. The proposal in the “skinny” budget represents a 41% increase in spending to the Department of Education—the largest increase since the Department’s inception in 1979. The full budget proposal will include more details on proposed funding levels for specific programs.

Join the Discussion on The Current State of Education: Challenges, Opportunities and the $125 Billion Dollar Question

By Mandi Jo John

Exactly two months to the day after President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 with $125 billion carved out for education, Mursion will host Jacqueline Rodriguez, vice president for research, policy, & advocacy at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), for a candid discussion on the challenges and opportunities ahead. From her unique perspective, Rodriguez will share AACTE’s continuing important work for addressing learning loss, critical societal matters that affect education, and the shortage of teachers that has not abated.

Considering the Impact of COVID-19 on Teacher Education: What Really Matters

By Marquita Grenot-Scheyer

This article originally appeared in Diverse Issues in Higher Education and is reprinted with permission.

The COVID-19 pandemic shed a harsh light on the systemic inequities in schools and communities. If we believe schools are the epicenter to dismantle racism and inequities, then we must examine our role as teacher educators to address these issues of inequality. How can we use this inflection point to positively and substantively change educator preparation?

Both at the system level and on individual campuses, colleges of education must ensure that programs prepare graduates to enter the teaching profession ready to advocate for and implement racial and social justice and advance the transformation of inequitable structures in schools. The pandemic has opened a window into the complexities of the teaching and learning process, which has resulted in greater collaboration among educators and families. As we move forward, we must ensure that candidates’ dispositions reflect and respect the importance of collaboration with students, families, and educational colleagues.

Responding to Anti-AAPI Racism in Educator Preparation: Seizing the Present Moment

By Nicole Dunn

Asian American educator Elizath Kleinrock described her mindset after the reading about the anti-Asian hate crimes in Atlanta last March as, “[un]able to express my sadness, frustration and rage … how could I face my students in class when my body and voice are noticeably shaking?”  With anti-Asian hate crimes up 149% in major cities due to increased negative stereotyping amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the educator preparation community must increase its awareness and efforts by teaching true allyship in U.S. schools and communities.

In AACTE’s next Combating Racism in Educator Prep series webinar, a distinguished panel will guide a conversation that addresses the often-omitted civil rights history of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) here in the United States and resources for teaching that history and why it’s essential in our collective fight to combat systemic racial oppression in our education system. AACTE is ready to seize this present moment to respond to Anti-AAPI racism as an association and hopes you join in these efforts.

Register today to attend the webinar on April 29, 3:30 p.m. EST.