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Thinking and Linking

Sense of belonging leads to college success

Joanne Jacobs

Apr 17, 2018
1 min

Sense of belonging leads to college success

Most KIPP graduates feel a sense of belonging in college, according to a survey released by the charter network. However, “the majority also worry about being judged based on their race or socioeconomic background,” reports Kate Stringer on The 74. KIPP alumni who attend historically black colleges feel a greater sense of belonging, a finding echoed in other research on black college students, writes Stringer. Ninety-five percent of KIPP alumni are African American or Latino

Joanne Jacobs

Mar 18, 2018
1 min

‘White privilege’ goes too far in Oconomowoc

“Privilege” is too touchy a topic for parents in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, a mostly affluent, mostly white town, reports Annysa Johnson for KHOU. After a Martin Luther King Day exercise — a “privilege aptitude test” — offended parents, Superintendent Roger Rindo said future assemblies will stick with “teaching diversity.” Teachers will be allowed to discuss privilege, when relevant, with proper context. Some parents disagree. “I don’t know how you can have a discussion about rac

Duluth kids won’t read uncomfortable books

Joanne Jacobs

Feb 9, 2018
1 min

Duluth kids won’t read uncomfortable books

To protect students from racial slurs that might make them feel uncomfortable and “marginalized,” Duluth public schools will drop To Kill a Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn from required reading lists, reports Lisa Kaczke in the Duluth News Tribune. Brock Peters played Tom Robinson in the movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird. “We felt that we could still teach the same standards and expectations through other novels that didn’t require students to feel humiliated or margina

How Miami diversifies gifted classes

Joanne Jacobs

Dec 12, 2017
1 min

How Miami diversifies gifted classes

Gifted classes in Miami schools include a mix of low-income and minority students, reports Claudia Rowe for the Seattle Times. That’s because the district uses a different standard for identifying disadvantaged children as “gifted.” In Miami, middle-class and affluent kids need IQ scores of at least 130, while low-income children or those whose first language is not English can get in with scores 13 points lower — provided they rate highly in measures of creativity and academ

Soft discipline is bigotry of low expectations

Joanne Jacobs

Nov 28, 2017
2 min

Soft discipline is bigotry of low expectations

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos appears to be gearing up to rescind Obama-era discipline policies. A 2014 “Dear Colleague” letter warned that discipline policies could constitute “unlawful discrimination” if they had “a disproportionate and unjustified effect on students of a particular race,” notes The 74. Obama’s Education Department also pushed restorative justice to reduce suspensions and expulsions. At an Education Department listening session on school discipline, John

Why I’m not involved in my kid’s school

Joanne Jacobs

Nov 13, 2017
2 min

Why I’m not involved in my kid’s school

Jung-ah Choi, a “college faculty member, teaching and writing about social justice, race, and education,” isn’t involved in her son’s school she writes on Kappan Online. An immigrant from South Korea, she thought she’d forge a partnership with her son’s teacher. Instead, she found teachers uninterested in her culture or parenting style. At her first parent-teacher conference, the teacher discussed her son’s progress in math and reading, then said he had a hard time following

Teaching ‘social justice’ — or propaganda?

Joanne Jacobs

Nov 7, 2017
2 min

Teaching ‘social justice’ — or propaganda?

St. Louis teachers are turning their classrooms into “hubs of social justice,” reports Kristen Taketa for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. A local group called Educators for Social Justice “supports and encourages teaching that challenges students to become involved in social change and to see history and current events from the eyes of the marginalized.” Teachers at an Oct. 1 event told Taketa they “avoid impressing their own views on students, while also bringing up points or e

White teachers expect less of black students

Joanne Jacobs

Oct 24, 2017
1 min

White teachers expect less of black students

White teachers’ low expectations for their black students could become “self-fulfilling prophecies,” concludes an analysis published in Education Next. When evaluating the same black student, 33 percent of black teachers expected the student to finish college, compared to 24 percent of white teachers, the study found. There was no difference in predictions for white students. Teacher expectations affect student success, conclude Seth Gershenson, a public policy professor at A

Prof: Math ‘operates as Whiteness’

Joanne Jacobs

Oct 24, 2017
2 min

Prof: Math ‘operates as Whiteness’

A free online class on integrating social justice into high school math has been revised to focus on “social issues,” reports Toni Airaksinen on Campus Reform. The class was designed by Teach for America and offered by EdX. The class, formerly titled Teaching Social Justice Through Secondary Mathematics, was aimed at teaching math instructors how to create lesson plans to teach their students about privilege, racism, and inequality using concepts like geometry and ratios. Tea

Scores slip after ‘equity’ focus

Joanne Jacobs

Oct 9, 2017
2 min

Scores slip after ‘equity’ focus

“Racial equity” became the priority in Edina Public Schools (EPS), an affluent Minneapolis suburb, in 2013. Test scores are falling, writes Katherine Kersten, senior policy fellow at the Center of the American Experiment, in the Star Tribune. (Thinking Minnesota has a longer version.) The district’s “All for All” plan called for hiring “racially conscious teachers and administrators,” writes Kersten. Students must “acquire an awareness of their own cultural identity and valu

Educational TV: What’s an Oreo?

Joanne Jacobs

May 5, 2017
1 min

Educational TV: What’s an Oreo?

Reason’s Hit & Run reminds us that they used to do children’s TV differently. The ’70s show Vegetable Soup, produced by the New York State Department of Education from 1975 to 1978, aired on both PBS and NBC. In a scene on black slang from a 1975 episode, the characters “casually throw in an expression that these days would’ve been vetoed long before the show got to air,” writes Jesse Walker. Nick Sagan remembers the “nightmarishly weird” side of Vegetable Soup. The diversity

Why can’t Johnny read? It’s a parenting gap

Joanne Jacobs

Mar 28, 2017
2 min

Why can’t Johnny read? It’s a parenting gap

Focusing on the racial achievement gap obscures the underlying problem, argues Ian Rowe, a visiting fellow at Fordham. The family structure gap is huge and widening. Reformers ignore “the explosion in unplanned, out-of-wedlock pregnancies and births,” he writes. Fatherless kids struggle, regardless of their race, writes Rowe. If Johnny can’t read, there’s a good chance he’s growing up in a fractured family. Consider a 2016 MIT research study that assessed the family character

High school band buys only ‘composers of color’

Joanne Jacobs

Mar 8, 2017
1 min

High school band buys only ‘composers of color’

Band directors at a Minnesota high school include at least one piece by a composer of color and one by a female composer in each band concert, reports NPR. “We made a commitment this year to only buy music from composers of color,” says Brian Lukkasson, one of the directors at Spring Lake Park High near St. Paul. The school displays composers’ photos. Photo: Evan Frost/MPR News It’s difficult to find band music by non-whites, he said. “There’s just not a lot of composers of c

Parents debate ‘racial civil rights’ day

Joanne Jacobs

Feb 9, 2017
2 min

Parents debate ‘racial civil rights’ day

John the Author is scheduled to speak at New Trier High on Feb. 28. New Trier High School on Chicago’s wealthy, white North Shore has scheduled a day of workshops on “racial civil rights,” reports the Chicago Tribune. Students must attend the keynote speech. After that, they can choose which sessions to attend. A group called “Parents of New Trier” is demanding that moderate and conservative speakers be added to the Feb. 28 event, known as “Seminar Day.” If not, it should be

Include working-class whites in ed reform

Joanne Jacobs

Jan 1, 2017
1 min

Include working-class whites in ed reform

By framing education as the “civil rights issue of our time” and focusing on the racial achievement gap, reformers “tacitly made education reform a race-based endeavor,” Robert Pondiscio wrote last year. There’s been much praise for inner-city charters for black and Hispanic students, little attention to small-town schools that educate (or fail to educate) white working-class kids. Pondiscio didn’t think Trump would win. But he saw the people who might be drawn to Trump. Ther

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