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Communities
for Public Education Reform: Who We Are and What We Do
New York City's public schools are being redlined: the practice of systematically denying resources to poor and minority neighborhoods. Tell Mayor Michael Bloomberg to stop redlining schools!
Connect with advocates for quality public education across the country. Send us success stories, information to share, grassroots mobilizing stories, policy ideas and other news. Forward this newsletter to your networks and urge them to subscribe. |
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HIGHLIGHTS |
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Millions
of Students Locked Out of the Classroom There's no other way to put it. Through misguided discipline policies, which have a clearly disparate impact on students of color, millions of students are being denied an opportunity to learn. The result? Ever more youth are driven out of the classroom and into the pipeline to prison. In "Opportunities Suspended: The Disparate Impact of Disciplinary Exclusion From School," the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA's Civil Rights Project analyzes data from 7,000 school districts across the country and paints a distrubing picture of ineffective policies and systemic bias. Read more> |
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Seriously,
What's the Holdup With Early Childhood Ed? It seems we have another case of politics and penny-pinching overriding common sense and educational research, writes Thomas Beebe, Project Manager for Opportunity to Learn - Wisconsin. High-quality early childhood education for all children is one of the best investments we can make. So why aren't we doing it? Because our elected officials lack the will and the courage to do what is right and help communities find the resources they need to provide all students with access to quality early education opportunities. Read more> |
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About
Time: New MA Panel To Focus on Early Reading Early reading skills lay the foundation for all later learning, which makes closing the achievement gap in early reading particularly important. Thanks to the work of Massachusetts advocacy groups like Strategies for Children's Early Education for All campaign, MA policymakers are taking steps to close the state's achievement gap in third grade reading by creating an "Early Literacy Expert Panel." Read more> |
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Will
You Stand Up For Your Local School? The New York Education Commission is holding public hearings in cities across New York and they want to hear from you! Take advantage of this opportunity to defend local schools and advocate for a fair and equitable opportunity to learn for all children. Check out this flyer from Educate NY Now to learn how to register to speak at a Commission hearing and post comments on the Commission's online forum. Read more> |
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It's
Time For a Reality Check on Teacher Quality The current "Highly Qualified Teacher" (HQT) amendment to the federal Appropriations Bill allows teachers-in-training to be designated as "highly qualified." In a column for the Huffington Post, John Affeldt, Managing Attorney at Public Advocates, deftly explains what the HQT amendment does, what faulty logic and research support it and why we need a reality check on how this misleading label has allowed teachers-in-training to be concentrated in struggling schools to the detriment of our nation's low-income students and students of color. Read more> |
| RESOURCES |
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Rising
Income Segregation & What It Means For Schools The Pew Research Center's new report "The Rise of Residential Segregation by Income" finds that neighborhoods in cities across the country are becoming increasingly poorer or richer. With public school funding systems that are predominantly based on local property taxes, the rise of income segregation is decreasing equitable opportunity in our nation's schools. The report includes interactive maps of residential segregation in the top 10 metropolitan areas. How has income inequality affected your local community? Read more> |
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Full-Length
Video of Our Education Redlining Webinar Weren't able to tune in for the National OTL Campaign's webinar on education redlining? Don't worry, we recorded the whole thing! Watch and learn how to identify instances of education redlining, in which bad policies systematically deny resources and opportunities to certain communities, and what you can do to stop it. You'll hear from panelists Michael Holzman, Senior Research Consultant for the Schott Foundation for Public Education, and Jennifer LaFleur, Director of Computer Assisted Reporting at ProPublica. Read more> |
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