[BRC] The Battle to Create Great Public Schools

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 02:02:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: Black Radical Congress <blackradicals@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: cage@mobtown.org
To: brc-press@lists.tao.ca
Subject: CAGE: [BRC] The Battle to Create Great Public Schools

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This is a Press Release/Statement from the Black Radical Congress
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Black Radical Congress (New York Metro Chapter) 

For Immediate Release

May 21, 2001

Contact: New York Metro Co-Chair, Sam Anderson,
         ebontek@earthlink.net, 718.535.2863 

THE BATTLE TO CREATE GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS
WITH PARENT/STUDENT POWER

A BLACK RADICAL CONGRESS (NEW YORK METRO CHAPTER)
EDUCATION VISION PIECE

Introduction:
The Crisis of Miseducation is a Crime Against Humanity

The crisis in our public schools has reached epidemic
proportions. We are seeing our children being trained to
become the prisoner part of the growing prison-industrial
complex. We are seeing testing being used to further divide
a rigidly segregated school system. We are seeing tens of
thousands of our children being guaranteed a
drop-out-of-school pass by the time they reach seventh
grade. We are also seeing less and less Black, Asian, and
Latino teachers being hired by the New York City (NYC) Board
of (mis)Education... and many of those who are teaching in a
positive manner have been harassed and/or removed from the
classroom.

NYC Schools Chancellor Levy is very busy implementing
Giuliani's and his Rightwing cohorts' racist privatizing
policies of school vouchers (which have been rejected by a 3
to 1 margin in California and Michigan) and attempts at
giving for-profit corporations complete control over the
miseducation of our children for the sake of social control
and profit maximization. Fortunately, we have witnessed a
recent parent-teacher led victory over the first privatizing
attempts by the Edison Schools, Inc.

Parents have even been given the illusion of having power
over the daily operations of schools through poorly
developed "School Leadership Teams" which are, in reality,
run by the principal and/or teachers.

It is in this inhumane and criminal context that we must
understand what we are up against, how we fight and what we
envision in making quality education a reality for our
children.

The New York Metro Chapter of the Black Radical Congress is
dedicated to helping inform and organize parents and youth
to stop the dehumanizing criminalization and miseducation
process and replace it with a parent/student-centered policy
that reflects the power and diversity of the 8 million New
Yorkers and the intellectual capabilities needed to not only
survive in the 21st Century, but also for our children to
become the leaders and thinkers in the shaping of a new
world based on "Humanity and Nature Before Profits."


The Political, Racial, Class and Economic Setting

        * The concept of free public schools to train a
skilled working class has run its course because capitalism
no longer needs -- for profit maximization -- a large and
skilled working class, due to its imposition of automation
and cybermation (advanced robotics) and use of the Third
World working class as "New Age" slave labor. "New Age"
because we are trained to be consumers of things and not
critical thinkers.

        * The white supremacist ruling class and their
"colored allies" continue to institutionalize the myths of
Black and Latino intellectual inferiority and being
"criminal-by-birth." These myths help generate more wealth
for themselves through the creation of a highly profitable
prison industrial complex that incarcerates more and more
Black & Latino working class youth.

        * This very same ruling class, thus continues to
render antiracist and multicultural education as irrelevant
and not cost effective. This attitude is also emanating from
the need to rationalize the racist fear of being a "white"
bourgeoisie in a nation soon to be comprised of a majority
people of color.

        * Just like capitalism rendered the "nuclear" family
useless to its needs of socializing the working class to
help justify capitalism, it has now begun to atomize it
(tear the nuclear and extended family apart). So too must
capitalism do it to the public learning institutions. Thus,
in the transition to a total demise of free public
education, capital seeks to profit off the assassination of
public educational institutions through privatizing them.

        * This privatizing process also wrenches even more
power away from the working class and folk of color (working
class and petty bourgeois) that are struggling to reform
public education. It dismantles the power of the teachers'
unions and parents' organizations. It is also dividing and
diverting people into two camps: pro-voucher/privatizing and
anti-voucher/privatizing.

        * Thus, the Black Radical Congress (BRC) nationally
and locally have joined in the fight to maintain and develop
free public education as a basic human right that actually
has its origin in our ancestors' struggle to be free and
self-determinant. African-Americans in 18th century New York
city were the initiators of the first free public education
schools open to all, but especially Blackfolk.

        * The NY Metro BRC is about supporting and/or
initiating as many grassroots parent-led and student-led
efforts to not only maintain and develop quality free public
education, but also stopping and reversing any and all local
efforts by the NYC Board Of Education to privatize the
school system.

        * The NY Metro BRC is about contributing to the
overall theoretical analysis of the battle for free quality
public education in the US. We have contact with a wealth of
experienced progressive educators, parents and students to
provide a formidable and highly respected education resource
and information center.

        * The NY Metro BRC is in the process of creating an
Ella Baker Organizers' Training Center that, among other
things, will be a model for public schools to look upon when
it comes to ways of presenting as irresistible, rigorous
intellectual development for the sake of progressive and
fundamental social change.


The Vision and Struggle for a Free Peoples' Public Education
System

We have already run down what's run down about our public
schools, but few of us have laid out what a new school
system would look like. What would a system for more than
1.2 million children -- based on an antiracist and
multicultural curriculum and teaching staff -- look like and
how would it operate? What would a system -- based on
parent, teacher and student involvement as the central
decision-makers -- look like? How would there be unity and
coordination between all the different neighborhood schools
based on the acknowledgment of cultural and "racial"
differences?


A New Model for Administering the School System

        * First, we would help organize a major citywide
Peoples' Convention on School Restructuring where
progressive ideas and visions would be deliberated and voted
upon by hundreds of parents, teachers and youth.

        * There would be no central Board of Education as we
know it today: a top-down bloated bureaucracy that
perpetuates its racist self no matter who's on top. There
would, instead be a five borough coordinating committee made
up of 7 representatives from each borough that includes at
least one student and two parents from each borough. There
would also be an autonomous student board of education that
would have periodic joint meetings with the general board of
education. These two bodies will find ways to cut the
bureaucracy at 110 Livingston in half or more. They will
oversee the development and coordination of the curriculum,
teacher training, buildings & grounds, and capital
development in consultation with local parent groups.

        * The election process of proportionality will be
continued, but the petitioning process would be
streamlined... details to follow the Peoples' Convention On
School Restructuring.

        * The mayor's office would have only an advisory
council to the school board. They would not set policy or
determine how monies are spent. Each of the borough
presidents will have a similar council that will meet with
the citywide board and its respective borough constituency.


Develop and Reinforce School Structure, Curricula, and
Creative Programs that Work

        * School breakfast and lunch would be coordinated
through the local community school boards so that healthy
dietary variety would be implemented based upon the cultural
realities of each school. There would be no soda and candy
machines on school grounds.

        * During the first phase of the citywide
restructuring, there would be an office of positive
replication whose responsibility would be to coordinate the
replication of schools that "work." Local parent/student
groups will decide on which model of a "working" school they
will try to replicate in their respective failing schools.
This model of educational reconstruction takes at least 4 or
5 years to see a significant turnaround in some of the more
devastated schools: it's hard work for students, parents and
staff to unhinge bad schooling habits and replace it with
good educational habits.

        * The issue of school uniforms would be discussed
and decided by parents AND students. And if uniforms are
chosen, design concepts would be selected by the students --
NOT their parents or teachers or administration.

        * The school year would be 12 months... using the
summer months (July & August) for open ended explorations,
creativity and research as well as for some students playing
academic "catch up."

        * There would not be any "special education"
students or classes. There would first be a complete
overhaul of the concept of "special ed" to de-racialize it
and restructure it to be truer to its original concept:
finding ways to bring severely mentally and/or physically
challenged students into the general public learning
environment without stigma.

        * There would be an institutionalized process of
bringing more parents into the formal learning process: a
whole citywide program that recruits parents to become
public school teachers. This would be linked to tuition-free
CUNY education programs at Medgar Evers, City, Hunter, and
Lehman Colleges, as well as to some of the private colleges
and universities who would be willing to give free tuition
and stipends to community folk eager to become teachers.

        * There would be no high-stakes testing as the
center of student advancement. Instead, there would be a
portfolio approach to student advancement... no matter what
educational technique is chosen. However, because the US
capitalist system of so-called merit is based on tests,
every school will have an afterschool program that focuses
solely on mastering these batteries of standardized tests.
This afterschool program will be run by parents, high
schoolers and college students trained in teaching the
mastery of standardized tests.

        * The Algebra Project would be institutionalized on
a citywide basis. It works as a complement to what is
already going on in the middle school math program.

        * Chisan-Bop will be reintroduced in K-4 grades.
(The Korean method of doing sophisticated calculation with
your fingers)

        * Every school will have music, shop and physical
education for every student.

        * Textbooks will be chosen by the local committees
in coordination with the five borough body. Emphasis will be
placed on ordering texts written by progressive people --
especially folk of color. The school System will not be
contracted into any exclusive deals with the
mega-publishers.

        * All high schools will be no larger than 500
students with a maximum student teacher ratio of 20 to 1.

        * All high school students will be encouraged to
complete high school calculus, chemistry and physics.

        * There will be a rejuvenation of the craft-centered
technical high schools with emphasis upon the relationship
between technical skills and the ever changing demands of
high technology. We would accept the notion that all
students are not interested in going to college, but are
interested in having fulfilling work. We will not teach
outdated crafts as an end result, but will use these crafts
to help the student understand the centrality of the worker
at the point of production AND innovation.

        * There would be an institutionalized structure that
links premed students into the Cuban Medical School program
of training 250 Black and Latino doctors/year to return as
general practitioners to their communities. NOTE: The Cuban
Medical Studies start right out of high school... so that
it's a six-year medical training program instead of eight
years.

        * Students from the 4th grade up will be encouraged
to do internships within the community and institutions of
higher learning.

        * A Study Elsewhere Program will be open to ALL high
school students. This program will allow a student to study
anywhere in the US or world for 3 months to one year. They
will work out their program of study with their advisors.
Their work will be part of their portfolio and,
subsequently, their evaluation for graduation.

        * There would be no security guards, metal
detectors, scanners in any of the schools. Security,
instead, will be created by a staff of students, parents and
teachers who will also create a conflict resolution center
in their respective schools and "peace" zones where a
student can immediately go to and not be bothered by anyone
-- not even staff or parents -- until they leave the "peace"
zone. These zones will give folk time to chill out and
reassess why they were arguing or involved in other negative
social behavior.

        * All schools will be open until at least 8pm, 6
days out of the week. Community meetings will be encouraged.
There would be a rearrangement of the custodial staff such
that even more folk in the community would be eligible for
school custodian work.


Greatly Increase Community Participation & Control

        * There would be a student/parent/teacher
corporation liaison committee established to find ways that
corporations would be able to play non-intrusive roles
within the education process.

        * All schools will create local science fairs and
will take part in the giant annual citywide science fair to
be held at the Javits Center. These local fairs will
include, but not be solely comprised of, rectifying
environmental problems [as their theme].

        * There would be a formal incorporation into every
school a community council of "wise" people. These "wise"
people would not only be our elders, but others who have
skills and crafts that can help students understand the
world about them and how the "abstract" stuff they are
learning make concrete sense in the "real" world. Also,
these folk would bring life and meaning to the history and
social studies.


The Vision of Quality Education for our youth... our future
cannot become a reality without you. Join Us in the struggle
to Free our Children's Hearts and Minds from racism, tyranny
and ignorance!



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NOTE: When responding or sending us feedback about
this statement, please indicate whether we have your
permission to share your comments publicly, as part
of a broader discussion and debate. Thank you.

Black Radical Congress
National Office
Columbia University Station
P.O. Box 250791
New York, NY 10025-1509
Phone: (212) 969-0348
Email: blackradicals@yahoo.com
Web: http://www.blackradicalcongress.org

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