“Matt Halvorson, an education blogger from Seattle who happens to be a White man who has two beautiful children with his partner, a Black woman, noticed my visceral reaction and empathetically consoled me with a pat on my back and a look of equal frustration and bewilderment. Matt gets the plight of Black people in America as much as any White man can and, like me, fights our institutionalized racist systems through education. There’s just something about a White man who recognizes his privilege and uses it to fight for equity and equality for Blacks in America that I respect so much. Our plight, at its core, in not a Black or a White one — it is a human one.”
Read MoreMatt Halvorson and Rise Up For Students in the media:
On the Green Dot Public Schools blog: Walter Chen in the News→
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“Thanks to Matt Halvorson for featuring Green Dot's Walter Chen, founding principal of Rainier Valley Leadership Academy, on the Rise Up For Students blog, a publication about creating diversity in Seattle public schools.
Beginning with the emphasis his parents placed on education, the Rise Up For Students piece describes Chen's road to becoming Green Dot's newest school leader. Chen told Halvorson that, ‘[I plan] as much as possible to provide opportunities for people of color to work in education, because if [students] don’t see themselves in their teachers, then we won’t have teachers who are people of color who are representative of the community. If you don’t have teachers of color, you’ll never have leaders of color either.'"
Read MoreIn Seattle Weekly: "Parents and Teachers: South Seattle Principal’s Suspension Is Not About Race," by Sara Bernard→
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“Some Emerson parents are shocked that race has been brought in as an issue; still others are surprised that Drake is so divisive. ‘I don’t know her really well, at all,’ says parent Matt Halvorson, author of a blog focused on equity in education, and thus doesn’t feel strongly one way or the other about her leadership. Mostly, he says, this should be a much larger conversation about systemic inequity in Seattle public schools.
‘The vast majority of parents that have the privilege to do so are choosing another school’ thanks to Emerson’s poor reputation, he says. ‘We have a different principal now, and almost every teacher left after last school year, [so] the faces are different… But it seems like we are still struggling with the same basic issues… still dealing with the same fundamentally underresourced, low-achieving school that we started with.’ Drake has only been at Emerson for a year, he adds. ‘The school’s problems were… well-established before she came and will be the same after she leaves, unless we as a district and a community actually do something different to bring equity to Emerson. If she’s gonna be the one to do that, then great. If she’s not, then we need somebody to do that.’”
Read MoreIn Seattle Weekly: "Parents Protest Suspension of South Seattle Principal, Considered an Advocate of Racial Equity," by Sara Bernard→
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“Not every parent or teacher is wholly pleased with Dr. Drake, though. One blog post written by an Emerson parent refers to a curriculum night that was ‘far more focused on the importance of attendance and uniforms — essentially showing up and wearing the right clothes — than anything academic,’ and some commenters on the post had other, more critical views.
Still, Cross, Gaines, and other teachers, parents, and school staff were shocked when, suddenly, last week, they were informed via email that Drake would be taking a leave of absence, effective immediately. It was not, apparently, her choice.”
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