Take to the streets for Freddie Gray, for equity

About a year ago, Freddie Gray’s death was ruled a homicide. Today, per the Baltimore Sun, a third officer’s trial ended without a conviction.

 

Officer Caesar Goodson Jr., 46, who was driving the transport van in which Gray sustained fatal injuries, became the second officer cleared in the case. Circuit Judge Barry Williams found Goodson not guilty on charges that included second-degree murder and three counts of manslaughter.

The acquittal throws the rest of the cases into jeopardy, as the other officers charged face similar but lesser accusations. Legal observers said Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who drew widespread praise and also condemnation after charging the officers in May 2015, must now re-evaluate the remaining cases.

Prosecutors had alleged Goodson deliberately threw the shackled, but unrestrained Gray around the back of the van by giving him a "rough ride." Williams said the state lacked evidence and was asking him to make assumptions.

The verdict drew mixed reaction. Outside the downtown courthouse, dozens gathered including a handful of people who carried signs calling for justice for Gray, and many expressed frustration at the not-guilty verdicts. Meanwhile, there were calls from supporters of the officers for the remaining charges to be dropped.

Tessa Hill-Aston, president of the Baltimore NAACP, called the verdict very disappointing and said it shows flaws in the system. She said many were expecting the Goodson case to be the one in which prosecutors had the best chance of a conviction.

"We have to go back to the drawing board here in Baltimore and Maryland with rules and regulations and laws that affect the police behavior," she said, "because it's clear that they can do action that we feel is not correct, but in the courtroom ... is not a criminal act."

The city police union called on Mosby to "reconsider her malicious prosecution" of the officers and said she was wasting taxpayer money.

 

Last year’s autopsy report found Gray had sustained a "high-energy injury" to his neck and spine.

According to the Baltimore Sun, “the state medical examiner's office concluded that Gray's death could not be ruled an accident, and was instead a homicide, because officers failed to follow safety procedures ‘through acts of omission.’”

The thing is, we know who “did it.” This isn’t like a civilian-on-civilian murder where someone is found dead, we know it’s a homicide, but we can’t find or figure out who did the murdering.

In this case, “who” isn’t the question. It was Goodson and Edward Nero, who have already been acquitted. It was William Porter, whose first trial ended in a mistrial with a hung jury. It was Brian Rice, Alicia White and Garrett Miller, who are still awaiting trial.

One way or another, Freddie Gray was murdered.

One way or another, these were the perpetrators.

Yet each trial ends without conviction because we live in a country that knows no other reality than police violence and systemic racism. We are part of a society in which the lives of people of color — especially black men and women — can be taken by police without repercussion. Without fear of conviction.

Meanwhile, we have large swaths of the population who believe we can and should “fix” education without discussing or acknowledging race. Many don’t even believe anything is wrong with the status quo to begin with.

Our ills as a society are interconnected.

Freddie Gray’s death is going unpunished because the system teaches us to view him as less than human, as violent and aggressive — as one of Hillary’s super-predators.

That same perspective bleeds into the workforce, creating employment and pay disparities. It shows up on baseball diamonds and football fields, where we find strangely few non-white coaches and managers, quarterbacks and pitchers. It lives in our schools, where too many of our teachers suffer from the same spoon-fed biases against black and brown kids, fundamentally changing the trajectories and possibilities for their students of color.

Fighting for equity in education is not its own fight so much as an arena in which to fight for equity, period. It could just as easily be a fight for equity in housing or employment, or a fight against police brutality.

Join the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality today at 6 p.m. at Westlake Park (4th and Pine in Seattle) to be part of the mass resistance. Take to the streets.

We are all in this together.

Emerson Elementary is losing most of its teachers next week

Somewhere between 10 and 15 teachers have reportedly resigned from Emerson Elementary School effective at the end of the school year.

By my count, that’s most of the teachers at this little neighborhood school in Rainier Beach. And if it's most of them, that means my son’s kindergarten and first-grade teachers are probably among the soon-departed.

Emerson lost former principal Farah Thaxton to the same position at West Woodland Elementary about a year ago now, so current principal Andrea Drake is days away from the end of her first school year.

There's been a different energy this year, and what feels to an outsider-looking-in like lower expectations school-wide, but if my son is a representative sample, the kids have no idea they're about to lose their teachers.

I don’t know much about this situation yet, so I don’t really know what to make of it except that it hits close to home. It doesn’t take much squinting to see this mass exodus as a sign that something is very much not right at Emerson. It could also mean the new principal is pushing such changes as to alienate her stagnant teachers. It could mean any number of things. I don’t know.

I do know that it’s been a bit of a leap of faith sending Julian to Emerson in the first place. Just about everyone in the neighborhood with the means and/or system wherewithal to opt out of their neighborhood school has done so.

Of course, most of them don’t seem much happier or more assured than we feel with Emerson. Orca and SouthShore are the two most common alternatives, and while they’re on steadier footing than Emerson, they’re suffering from the same south-end disparity and from calling a dysfunctional district home.

To its credit, the school has been safe and welcoming for my son, and he goes to school with a truly diverse group of classmates -- and research has shown that going to school with a diverse student population is actually connected to positive outcomes for students.

So far, it's been fine. He says he wants to stay. It's working for us.

But now most of the teachers are leaving. So, I don't know.

I’ll find out more soon about what’s happening at Emerson, and I’ll write about it.

In the meantime, what’s happening at your school? What’s the story nobody is telling? What’s missing that nobody is talking about?

Or better yet, what’s working? What is your school doing to help insulate itself, to reach all students, to stand up for families?

Appalling displays of privilege and ignorance from our elected officials

On a recent school visit, Washington State Superintendent Randy Dorn asked a Latino high school student if he was “legal or illegal.”

Sen. Mark Miloscia, a Republican from Federal Way running for state auditor, does not believe that racism is real anymore.

Sen. Mark Miloscia, a racism-denyer holding public office

These are men elected to positions that have a huge impact on kids in our state, and these displays of privilege and ignorance are happening in public.

According to Alan Preston, managing director of Real Change, Miloscia attended a workshop on race and class at the 2016 Conference on Ending Homelessness and openly disagreed with the presentation, with the idea that race and racism are still playing a role in modern American society:

"Some of the stuff you guys are saying about class is true," he said, "but I disagree with 90 percent of what you are saying about race. It might have been true in the 1870s, but it isn't true today."

This guy was conveying an opinion that an alarming number of Americans share. It's an assertion steeped in the invisibility of White privilege.

It dismisses the suffering of newly freed Blacks after abolition, the cruel segregation of the Jim Crow Era, and the current racist system of mass incarceration. His comment was completely ignorant of how racism is baked into our educational, judicial, financial, employment and other institutions, and how that renders people of color vulnerable to poverty and homelessness.

Further showing his privilege, of the two presenters, Miloscia specifically sought out the woman of color as opposed to Preston to whitesplain all the reasons she was wrong about race and racism.

Meanwhile, there’s so little else to tell about the Dorn story that there’s basically no way to sugarcoat it. From the Seattle Times:

During a visit to Raisbeck Aviation High School on Thursday, Randy Dorn, the state’s top schools official, asked a few students their names, grade levels and where they were from. Students come from all over the region to go to Aviation, so Dorn was curious about the students’ home districts.

One student said he first went to school in Mexico. The two talked about the student’s transition to the Tukwila school, then Dorn said:

“Now I’ll ask you under my breath, are you legal or illegal?”

As a KOMO News photographer recorded the conversation, the student replied “I’m legal, I’m half American.”

These are two elected officials putting these levels of ignorance on proud display. These are two privileged white men charged with protecting and advocating on behalf of our kids and families, and they’re operating with blinders on.

Miloscia is vice chair of the Senate Human Services, Mental Health & Housing Committee, which “considers issues relating to services to children and families, including child welfare, child protection, dependency, and foster care. The Committee deals with mental health treatment, chemical dependency, at risk youth, and juvenile justice. The Committee also considers bills relating to housing, including state assistance to low-income housing, housing authorities, and the Housing Finance Commission.”

He is also a member of the Senate Higher Education Committee, dealing with “issues relating to the state's public and independent baccalaureate colleges and universities, public community and technical colleges, and private career schools. Issues include governance and coordination of higher education, financial aid, tuition, and workforce training.”

That means Miloscia, in committee meetings discussing things like homelessness, foster care, at-risk and homeless youth, housing, and higher education, just to name a few, is advocating that race plays no factor. He is arguing in these meetings and in our state legislature that systemic racism is a myth.

Then, when presented with information that runs counter to his privileged belief system, rather than considering the possibility that he has something to learn, he seeks out the least privileged presenter -- an expert in her field -- to paternalistically explain she is wrong.

What voice do his constituents have with that approach? What hope do we have?

And then we have Dorn, the superintendent of a public school system that has a growing opportunity gap and that claims it's working on its disproportionate discipline problem.

As long as these are our decision-makers, how can possibly expect to do right by our students and families of color?

We elected this ignorance. If Miloscia and Dorn don't hear from us now, we are complicit. If we re-elect them, we are complicit. Let's not make the same mistake again.

If Dorn and Miloscia want to continue serving people of color, which is inevitable as an elected official, they should be forced to take an implicit bias test and publicly discuss the results. We must force them to confront their privilege or show them the door.

Q&A with State Superintendent Candidate Erin Jones

Erin Jones has spent her career working for equity in education, and her track record as an educator and as an advocate for all students has few peers in our state.

Erin was selected as a Milken Educator of the Year for Washington state in 2007, as one of 10 White House Champions of Change for Educational Excellence for African Americans in 2013 for her work promoting educational excellence for African-Americans in the community, and in 2015 as the Washington state PTA Educator of the Year.

In three years as the Assistant Superintendent of Student Achievement in the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), her work centered around developing policy recommendations and promoting instructional best practices for diverse student groups.

Erin is now running to be our next state superintendent, and I had a chance to ask her a few questions about her campaign and her vision for our schools.

Matt Halvorson: Hi Erin! Thanks for sharing a few minutes from your busy schedule with us.

First off, what motivates you? What drives your desire to work in education?

Erin Jones: I came to the US after being raised in the Netherlands with an expectation that I would get a law degree and return to the Netherlands to work as an international lawyer. After one year in the US, I became very aware that students who looked like me were not getting the same kind of education I had received in Europe. After my second year in the US, I knew I couldn't go home. I realized race, zip code and home language were the greatest predictors of the kind of school experience kids would get, and I wanted to be part of changing that.

After serving as a classroom teacher for 12 years and an administrator for 8, the desire to better serve all kids hasn't changed. I know this is the work I am called to for a lifetime. This is the greatest civil rights issue the 21st century!

Matt: What has it been like to transition from working in schools and administration to navigating the world of politics?

Erin: I absolutely must stay connected to schools in order to do the politics. The children and the teachers are in the reason I am running for election. In my opinion, when one becomes removed from school building and disconnected from the real work, one can no longer represent the people. We see evidence of this every day in the kinds of decisions legislators and other leaders make on behalf of people they don't know.

I am also still working as an administrator as I run for office... I will be resigning, however, at the end of my contract in June.

Matt: In what ways would you say the politics in our state and the political process for this role are contributing to the educational inequities in our state?

Erin: There are many ways the politics and political processes contribute to inequity in public service, whether that relates to healthcare, housing or education. There are many unspoken rules in the political process. There are ways that political insiders and those with money have an advantage - because they can take off work or not work at all, because they're connected to money and can get big donations. The challenge with political insiders and wealthy people getting elected over and over is that they cannot represent the voices of the most marginalized, so inequity is perpetuated. This is exactly how the Legislature could decide on opening day this year not to make a dent in McCleary. When the lack of funding doesn't impact your children, it's easy to push that decision off... so inequity continues.

Matt: Washington is one of a handful of states with a growing opportunity gap between students of color and white students, and between low-income students and their more affluent peers. In your opinion, what is contributing to those gaps in our state specifically?

Erin: 1. Inequity in funding and support. Who gets access to arts programming and electives? Who gets to take Advanced Placement or College in the High School classes? Who is able to benefit from Running Start? These things contribute to inequities in public education. Our poorest schools continue to struggle to pass levies and bonds, which means schools cannot be fixed and poor rural districts don't have the same ability to purchase FTE or access wi-fi.

2. Bias and prejudice. We all have it, but in the Northwest, we don't want to admit our issues with "others." Unfortunately, we have all been exposed to negative media and a culture that undervalues people of color, which shows up in our expectations for students and how they are provided (or not provided) with opportunities. We need to be willing to unpack our biases and the ways we have been trained to think about ourselves and others in order to better serve all students.

3. Lack of training and support. 20 years ago, our state was primarily white. Our teachers were trained to serve middle class white children. Now, suddenly, with an influx of students of color and recent immigrants, staff need to know how to more effectively communicate with and instruct a new demographic. It means we must begin to prepare students differently for the classroom. It means all teachers must know how to instruct students who don't show up in school with academic English.

Matt: What bold actions will you take for equity? What bold actions will you take for families?

Erin: Bold actions: I'm the first black woman to run for statewide office. That in itself is a bold move. I am aware of the power of modeling and the change I can create by rewriting the narrative about the potential of students of color or those "othered" for whatever reason.

I have a 4-step plan for addressing equity in our state:

1. Recruit, hire, train and support staff to increase the number of educators of color in schools, AND better prepare support white teachers to serve students of color and students who enter classrooms without fluency in English.

2. Create a model for authentic family and community engagement that recognizes the value of parent as first teacher and the need for schools to partner with community organizations to provide needed non-academic resources necessary to serve the Whole Child. Families are CRITICAL to the success of students, but we must listen and engage families in meaningful ways. OSPI used to have a family engagement office - CISL. That office must be reinstated. We find and promote what we believe has value. When there is no one at OSPI dedicated to family/community engagement, that sends a clear message.

3. Address the needs of the Whole Child - the academic, social-emotional, physical and cultural needs of our children.

4. Create a smooth pathway/pipeline for students to move from early childhood to post-high school. This pathway should help students and families navigate public education, help students connect early to their passions and then create a roadmap to ensure students develop the skills and have the experiences they need to be able to pursue their passions beyond high school (whether that requires 2/4-year college, tech school, apprenticeships, military).

Learn more about Erin Jones and her campaign at www.erinjones2016.org.
Follow her on Twitter: @Jones4WA.

Rise Up For Students Podcast #1: MRC Coalition

Check it out! The first-ever episode of Rise Up For Students: The Podcast.

I talked with McKenzi Bravo, Liza Wyckoff-White, Zeena Rivera and Robert Devino about the sit-in at Matteo Ricci College, the placement of Dean Jodi Kelly on administrative leave, and the power of youth in the fight for equality.

MRC Dean placed on leave amid student protests at Seattle U

Seattle University placed Matteo Ricci College Dean Jodi Kelly on administrative leave this week in specific response to the student protest demanding her removal.

The MRC Coalition has been leading a sit-in for more than three weeks because of a discriminatory culture and Eurocentric curriculum. They released the following statement after the university announced Kelly's leave:

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City Councilman Burgess: 'You'd think the district would be horrified'

Seattle city councilman Tim Burgess has a vision for closing the opportunity gap, and it starts before students ever step foot in the classroom.

The man behind the program that provides free preschool to low-income kids in Seattle is using student and school performance data to try to convince Seattle Public Schools that they have a problem. That they need to address certain inequities in a different way.

From the Seattle Times:

“You’d think the district would be horrified,” he said in an interview, noting that Seattle’s worst-rated elementary schools have clustered in the south end of the city for years and all of its best are located up north. Overall, the city’s white students outperform the state on math and language tests, while black children here do worse than those in other districts.

“It’s a systemic evil,” Burgess said. “We think of education as our springboard to getting out of poverty, but when the system isn’t adequately serving students, we’ve just built another barrier.”

The councilman, an architect of Seattle’s program to provide free preschool to low-income kids, is focused on Seattle’s youngest citizens because research suggests that any effort to improve public education without addressing early childhood is as productive as trying to fill a bathtub with an open drain.

People have been up in arms in the past about the fairly silly idea that the city is angling to take over Seattle Public Schools, and you could make this fit that narrative if that’s your goal.

Instead, let’s stray from paranoia and possibility to focus on what’s irrevocably true: someone is talking loudly about educational inequity and is trying to do something about it. He's asking about the district's role in that inequity, and he's working on solutions.

And he has some amount of political power, some ability to actually make things happen.

Let's stay focused on kids as this moves forward, even as it's tempting to take sides and talk politics.

Charter school parents, brace yourself, the haters have returned