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FEATURED
VIDEO |
AQE's
Zakiyah Ansari Talks School Closures on the Melissa
Harris-Perry Show!
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UPCOMING
EVENTS
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Monday, Feb. 11th
New York State Museum, Albany, NY
Click here to register!
Screening of "It's Our
Time:
The Empathy Gap for Girls of Color"
Monday, Feb. 11th in Wellesley, MA
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here for details!
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OTL
HIGHLIGHTS |
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Don't
Close Schools, Invest in Them!
Education organizers and
advocates from 18 cities across the country made a
"Journey for Justice" to the nation's capitol this week to
make their case in person against school closures. They
testified at a hearing before the US Department of
Education and even met with Secretary of Education Arne
Duncan! The DOE's policies that favor closing
underperforming schools rather than investing in improving
them is doing irreparable harm is doing irreparable harm
to students by disrupting their communities and
disproportionately impacting schools that serve majority
Black and Latino students. Read
more>
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"Opportunity
Is Too Important to Leave to Chance"
In his State of the State Address,
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is calling for
universal pre-K and a historic investment in the state's
early learning programs. The governor is proposing a $1
billion dollar education investment package over the next
four years – with almost $350 million going towards
early childhood care and education – paid for by an
increase in the state income tax. Read
more>
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AR
OTL: Policymakers Should Stay the Equity Course
Over 200 people attended a press
conference this week held by the Arkansas Opportunity to
Learn Campaign and other education groups from across the
state. AR OTL and the groups voiced their opposition to
policies that would lead to an unaccountable expansion of
the state's charter school network and undermine the
principles of equity and adequacy that have guided the
state's progress in public education over the past decade.
Read
more>
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Don't
Get Tough With School Discipline, Get Smart
"Get tough" school discipline
policies aren't doing anything to make schools safer. In
fact, they're creating a school-to-prison pipeline and
exacerbating the school pushout crisis that is curtailing
access to educational opportunities for students of color
and students with disabilities. In a powerful op-ed,
Derrick Johnson, President of the Mississippi State
Conference NAACP, and Gina Womack, Executive Director of
Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children,
write that what we need instead is to "get smart" with
school discipline policies and implement practices that
keep students in the classroom. Read
more>
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Raising
the Stakes: Investing in NY Community Schools
New York City's Community School
District 16 (CSD16), in the heart of Central Brooklyn, is
the center of a bold new approach to grassroots,
community-based reform. A new report from the Brooklyn
Community Foundation, Brooklyn Movement Center and the
Black Male Donor Collaborative lays out a blueprint for
collaboration between school leadership, community
stakeholders and philanthropic partners to support local
schools and ensure access to educational opportunities for
all students. Read
more>
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Handcuffs
On Success: Mississippi's Discipline Crisis
Meridian, MS, has been in the news often
over the past several months for it's horrendous
school-to-prison pipeline. But the sad reality is that the
injustices committed there – the harsh punishments
levied for minor offenses, the absurd amount of police
involvement in school discipline, and the denial of
students' right to due process – are happening
across the state. A new report from OTL allies at the
Mississippi NAACP, the ACLU, and the Advancement Project
reveals that "Mississippi is mired in an extreme school
discipline crisis," one that disproportionately hurts
students of color and students with disabilities. Read
more>
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Through
the Looking Glass – The WI State of the State
Have you ever felt that you fell through
the looking glass hand-in-hand with Alice to a place where
up is down, north is really south, and wrong is actually
right? If you watched Governor Scott Walker’s State
of the State message, you might very well have felt you
were in Wonderland where everything you know in your heart
of hearts is wrong for kids and public schools was talked
about as a viable education reform strategy. Read
more>
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Resources
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Greatness
by Design: Supporting Outstanding Teachers
Need a blueprint for recruiting,
developing and retaining high quality teachers in your
state? Look no further than this report from CA State
Superintendent Tom Torlakson's Task Force on Educator
Excellence. Drawing on the expertise of educators and
thought leaders like Linda Darling-Hammond, the report
lays out precisely how states should invest in their
teachers and their schools to ensure that every student
has access to well-prepared and effective teachers. Read
more>
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IN
THE NEWS |
- Justice
is Fair Funding: CA Governor Jerry Brown has made
education equity a priority this year with an increased
education budget and a proposed weighted funding formula
that focuses more funds toward the low-income districts
that need it most. "Equal treatment for children in
unequal situations is not justice," he said in his State
of the State Address. Read
more>
- AR
State Supreme Court Won't Re-Hear Fair Funding Case:
Despite the statewide outcry over a recent Supreme Court
ruling that endangers the state's fair funding system,
the Court denied a rehearing request, putting the onus
for change once again on policymakers and advocates to
fix a system they have spent decades fighting for. Read
more>
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