conix, I read in one, before being asked to register, that Georgia hadn't basically changed the funding formula for public school funding for 40 years. 40 years! And book banning et al. Conservatives as you drive many blacks from public schools. Your policies are divisive.
Black parents seek schools affirming their history amid bans
By Michael King April 26, 2023 / 2:06 PM / AP
DECATUR, Ga. (AP) — Every decision Assata Salim makes for her young son is important. Amid a spike in mass killings, questions of safety were at the top of her mind when choosing a school. Next on her checklist was the school's culture.
Salim and her 6-year-old, Cho'Zen Waters, are Black. In Georgia, where they live, public schools are prohibited from teaching divisive concepts, including the idea that one race is better than another or that states are fundamentally racist.
To Salim, the new rules mean public schools might not affirm Cho'Zen's African roots, or accurately portray the United States' history of racism. "I never want to put his education in the hands of someone that is trying to erase history or recreate narratives," she said.
Tashiya Umoja M'kanga, of Atlanta, right, instructs students during a math lesson at the Kilombo Academic and Cultural Institute, Tuesday, March 28, 2023, in Decatur, Ga. Alex Slitz / AP
Instead, Cho'Zen attends a private, Afrocentric school — joining kids across the country whose families have embraced schools that affirm their Black heritage, in a country where instruction about race is increasingly under attack. At Cho'Zen's school, Kilombo Academic & Cultural Institute in an Atlanta suburb, photos of Black historical figures hang on the walls. And every single student and teacher identifies as Black or biracial.
In recent years, conservative politicians around the country have championed bans on books or instruction that touch on race and inclusion. Books were banned in more than 5,000 schools .. https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/ .. in 32 states from June 2021 to June 2022, according to free-speech nonprofit PEN America. Instructional bans have been enacted in at least 16 states since 2021.
Even when a topic isn't explicitly banned, some teachers say the debates have caused them to back away from controversy. The situation has caused more Black families to leave public schools, opting for homeschooling or private schools that embrace their identity and culture. Public school enrollment of Black students between pre-K and 12th grade has declined each year .. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d22/tables/dt22_203.65.asp?current=yes .. measured in federal data since 2007.
"I think it is important to teach those harsh moments in slavery and segregation, but tell the whole story," said Salihah Hasan, a teaching assistant at Kilombo Institute. "Things have changed drastically, but there are still people in this world who hate Black people, who think we are still beneath them, and younger children today don't understand that. But that is why it is important to talk about it."
Kilombo goes further, focusing on the students' rich heritage, from both Africa and Black America. "I want him to know his existence doesn't start with slavery," Salim said of her son.
The private, K-8 school occupies the basement of Hillside Presbyterian Church just outside Decatur, an affluent, predominantly white suburb. Families pay tuition on a sliding scale, supplemented by donations.
Classrooms feature maps of Africa and brown paper figures wearing dashikis, a garment worn mostly in West Africa. In one class, the students learn how sound travels by playing African drums.
The 18-year-old school has 53 students, up a third since the start of the pandemic. Initially, more parents chose the school because it returned to in-person learning earlier than nearby public schools. Lately, the enrollment growth has reflected parents' increasing urgency to find a school that won't shy away from Black history.
"This country is signaling to us that we have no place here," said Mary Hooks, whose daughter attends Kilombo. "It also raises a smoke signal for people to come home to the places where we can be nourished."
Notably, the student body includes multiple children of public school teachers.
Simone Sills, a middle school science teacher at Atlanta Public Schools, chose the school for her daughter in part because of its smaller size, along with factors such as safety and curriculum. Plus, she said, she was looking for a school where "all students can feel affirmed in who they are."
Before Psalm Barreto, 10, enrolled in Kilombo, her family was living in Washington, D.C. She said she was one of a few Black children in her school.
"I felt uncomfortable in public school because it was just me and another boy in my class, and we stood out," she said.
"I'm Blackity, Black, Black!" said Robyn Jean, 9, while spinning in a circle. Her sister, Amelya, 11, said their parents taught them about their Haitian American heritage — knowledge she thinks all children should have. "I want them to know who they are and where they come from, like we do," Amelya said. "But in some schools, they can't."
Last year, Georgia passed a bill known as the Protect Students First Act, which prohibits schools from promoting and teaching divisive concepts about race. Elsewhere, bills that restrict or prohibit teaching about race- and gender-related topics passed in states including Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. In other states, such as Arkansas .. https://governor.arkansas.gov/executive_orders/executive-order-to-prohibit-indoctrination-and-critical-race-theory-in-schools/ , restrictions have come via executive orders.
Proponents say the restrictions aim to eliminate classroom discussions that make students feel shame or guilt about their race and the history and actions of their ancestors.
The bills have had a chilling effect. One-quarter of K-12 teachers .. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA134-16.html .. in the U.S. say these laws have influenced their choice of curriculum or instructional practices, according to a report by the RAND Corporation, a global policy think tank.
At Kilombo, daily instruction includes conversations about race and culture. Founder Aminata Umoja uses a Black puppet named Swahili to welcome her students, ask how they are doing and start the day with morals and values rooted in their African heritage.
The puppet might say: "'Let's talk about iwa pele. What does that mean?' and then one of the children will tell us that it means good character," said Umoja, who teaches kindergarteners through second graders.
Teaching life skills and values, Umoja said, has its roots in freedom schools started during the Civil Rights Movement, in response to the inferior "sharecropper's education" Black Americans were receiving in the South.
The school follows academic standards from Common Core for math and language arts and uses Georgia's social studies standards to measure student success. But the curriculum is culturally relevant. It centers Black people, featuring many figures excluded in traditional public schools, said Tashiya Umoja, the school's co-director and math teacher.
"We are giving children of color the same curriculum that white children are getting. They get to hear about their heroes, she-roes and forefathers," she said.
The curriculum also focuses on the children's African heritage. A math lesson, for instance, might feature hieroglyphic numerals. Social studies courses discuss events in Africa or on other continents alongside U.S. history.
When she was in public school, Psalm said she only learned about mainstream Black figures in history, such as Barack Obama, Martin Luther King Jr. and Harriet Tubman. Now, she said, she is learning about civil rights activist Ella Baker, journalist Ida B. Wells and pilot Bessie Coleman.
Said Psalm: "Honestly, I feel bad for any kids who don't know about Black history. It's part of who we are."
February 21, 2023 by Josh Cowen Our guest author today is Josh Cowen, Professor of Education Policy at Michigan State University.
What if I told you there is a policy idea in education that, when implemented to its full extent, caused some of the largest academic drops ever measured in the research record?
What if I told you that 40 percent of schools funded under that policy closed their doors afterward, and that kids in those schools fled them at about a rate of 20 percent per year?
What if I told you that some the largest financial backers of that idea also put their money behind election denial and voter suppression—groups still claiming Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Would you believe what those groups told you about their ideas for improving schools?
What if I told you that idea exists, that it’s called school vouchers, and despite all of the evidence against it the idea persists and is even expanding?
That’s the reality of education policymaking in 2023. Despite an ever-growing volume of data showing that direct and sustained dollar investments in public schools yields large and inter-generational opportunity, the alternative scheme to divert those dollars into individual accounts for private tuition and side-item educational expenses is alive and well.
But so is the evidence against school vouchers schemes, and because that evidence grows so quickly it’s important from time to time to stop and take stock. So here’s what a combination of independent analysis from the research community and old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting by journalists has shown us to be true today:
First, vouchers mostly fund children already in private school. Despite supporter rhetoric that voucher schemes are about new opportunities, the reality is 70-80 percent of kids in states like Arizona, Missouri, and Wisconsin were already in private school before taxpayers picked up the tab. In New Hampshire, that number is 9 out of 10 already-private kids. At the end of the day, vouchers are just a mundane lobbying attempt to win new tax goodies for a particular special interest.
Second, about that catastrophic academic harm. Although a few tiny studies from the late 1990s and early 2000’s showed small gains in test scores for voucher users, since 2013 the record is dismal. For the few kids who did use vouchers to leave public schools, their test score drops are between -0.15 and -0.50 standard deviations. That’s almost unprecedented. As a comparison, we have to look to education policy but to natural disasters to find a similar loss. On the low end of that range is the academic loss suffered by New Orleans kids after Hurricane Katrina. On the middle end is about what COVID19 did, on average, to student growth rates. In Louisiana, Ohio—where those harmful voucher effects approach half a negative standard deviation—the loss is almost twice the pandemic’s academic impact.
Even Betsy DeVos, as a public official leading Donald Trump’s Education Department, had to answer for those test score drops. Asked by reporters about the Louisiana voucher results she admitted the program was not very well conceived.” That hasn’t stopped her from trying to spread those programs with her inherited fortune now that she’s back in the private sector.
Third, the evidence also shows it’s no mystery why these voucher results are so academically bad. The typical private school in-line for a voucher handout isn’t one of the elite, private schools in popular narrative. The typical voucher school is what I refer to as a sub-prime provider: small, often run out of a church property like its basement, often popping up specifically to get the voucher. Think of the way we know now that the PPP Covid relief fund for small businesses drew all kinds of shady applicants and fraudsters. That happens a lot when states expand voucher programs. In Wisconsin for example, 40 percent of schools have opened and then failed and closed their doors since the voucher program grew.
The fourth pattern is related: kids flee those sub-prime schools. Also in Wisconsin, my team found that about 20 percent of kids left their voucher school every year and most went into a public school. These tended to be the lowest scoring kids, and kids of color—and they tended to leave those newest pop-up schools. We did find that their academic outcomes improved once they landed in their public schools, but they paid a price beforehand. Conservatives like to say that’s the market correcting itself. But tell that to the parents who put their trust in those sub-prime providers—even for a short time.
Fifth comes the issue of transparency and oversight. All of the above evidence should already tell you why it’s critically important that states passing voucher laws also include strong academic and financial reporting requirements. If we’re going to use taxpayer funds on these private ventures, we need to know what the academic results are and what the return on government investment is. We could settle on whatever public schools are required to do to test and report on their own finances. Not only does that help tell us who the private fraudsters are and what’s actually being taught by those vendors, it actually improves voucher academic results.
Finally, I want to say something about discrimination. And about civil rights. Imagine you had no access to the evidence I just laid out above. Imagine you had no idea that vouchers caused extraordinary academic declines or that they mostly funded kids in private schools already. Or that almost half of all voucher-receiving schools had to close.
Imagine you simply knew that written into the legislation for voucher programs is the explicit right of private schools to turn down any child they wanted to reject so long as something about that child varied from the school’s so-called “creed” (that’s the term usually used in statute) or value. We know that in Indiana, where one of the largest and lowest-performing voucher programs exists, more than $16 million in taxpayer dollars went to schools discriminating against LGBTQ children. Similar story in Florida—and that includes kids whose parents are gay regardless of how the children identify.
None of that should be surprising. In fact it’s a homecoming of sorts for school vouchers, which began as an attempt by segregationists in Virginia to get around the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. With all the vitriol today about “woke” and “DEI ” among voucher backers, what’s to say they can’t reject Black children or other kids whose very presence might offend a school’s creed too?
And then there is the simple fact that groups like the Bradley Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, and the Koch’s—all major players in voucher research and advocacy—are also major backers of voter-suppression and outright rejection of the 2020 election results. The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer—perhaps the pre-eminent expert on dark money in American politics—has carefully tied those activities together in her reporting. The journalist Anne Nelson has written exhaustively on the role of the Council for National Policy and its role in that, and how leaders of far-Right education reform plans like vouchers are also closely tied to the Right’s political organizing.
So there you have it: catastrophic academic harm. A revolving door of private school failures. High turnover rates among at-risk children. Avoiding oversight and transparency. Overt, systematic discrimination against vulnerable kids and families. Deep and sustained ties to anti-democratic forces working in the United States today.
That’s school vouchers in 2023.
That’s the evidence, it’s all right there, and the only question remaining is what to do about it.
The Albert Shanker Institute, endowed by the American Federation of Teachers and named in honor of its late president, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to three themes - excellence in public education, unions as advocates for quality, and freedom of association in the public life of democracies. With an independent Board of Directors (composed of educators, business representatives, labor leaders, academics, and public policy analysts), its mission is to generate ideas, foster candid exchanges, and promote constructive policy proposals related to these issues.
This blog offers informal commentary on the research, news, and controversies related to the work of the Institute.
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