Please let us know if you attend the rally before the meeting. Seeing photos from Twitter; looks like a good crowd at the rally. The West Seattle Blog is there reporting. I am going to attempt to live blog so you will see abbreviations, spelling/grammar errors, etc. I will clean it up but I think it is worth trying to do. I will be refreshing the page as I go. I am sad to see that apparently President Liza Rankin is not even going to allow 10 people over the regular 20 to testify. Just five. Also, right at the beginning, the Board has stuck in, after Board comments, a Progress Monitoring presentation. They could have put it at the end but they didn't. They think - in 45 minutes - they can do Superintendent comments, Board comments and this presentation. I doubt that public testimony will start on-time. Tone-deaf doesn't even cover it with Board leadership. To note, apparently the district scheduled the NE community meeting on closures on Rosh Hashanah which is October 2. I
Comments
So tell me again that advanced learning was not in the crosshairs today.
open ears
If you feel comfortable with this request, can you please send photos of the APPartheid sticker to Melissa to post. I would like proof, so I can send a copy to the district and Board. This is clearly unacceptable.
- Enough
Unbelievable
Garfield High School teachers carrying "Students are More Important Than Scores" signs rallied on steps while students took the PSAT test inside. The test was interrupted 3 times with PA announcements reminding teachers to join the rally and some proctors left to join the rally. How are students/parents going to feel when Garfield's test is invalidated and none of the students are eligible to be National Merit Scholars? #PSATscoresmattertoo
*bleeping* mad
BTW Melissa, those are lovely photos you posted. -NP
Do Garfield teachers not have that as a goal?
I agree that few students of any persuasion will actually recieve a National Merit award.
And perhaps students would be better served having the students for whom it will make a difference take the test on a Saturday, instead of having all students take the test.
But then be clear beforehand so students, parents and teachers know what to expect.
Don't change horses in the middle of the stream.
Get a Grip
Elementary Teacher
Reports in our household are that 1) there were 2 announcements for teachers to come outside for photos if they chose and 2) there were no less than 6 proctors during the PSAT before, during and after the announcements.
Sounds like all the hullabaloo of potential outsider poop-stirring didn't happen. Maybe the day carried on like it was intended to: A day of introspection, conversations, and awareness.
"Take your white fragility and go somewhere else with it."
That certainly ended the discussion. How is it alright for a teacher to speak this way, ever?
-disheartened
White Fragility
Wed. Oct. 26, 2016 7:30 p.m.
Kane Hall 130, UW Campus
Robin DiAngelo, ’95, Ph.D. ’04
Director of Equity, Sound Generations, Seattle/King County
White people in the U.S. live in a racially insular environment. Because of this environment of rarely challenged racial perspectives, a stamina needed to tolerate racial stress is too often underdeveloped. Dr. Robin DiAngelo conceptualizes this lack of stamina as “White fragility.” White fragility triggers a range of defensive moves including: argumentation, invalidation, silence, withdrawal and claims of being “attacked” and “unsafe.” While these moves are effective at blocking the challenge and regaining our racial equilibrium, they are also damaging to people of color and prevent the development of skills we need to create a racially just society. Dr. DiAngelo will overview the socialization that leads to white fragility and provide the perspectives needed for more constructive cross-racial interactions.
DiAngelo has numerous publications and just released her second book, “What Does it Mean to be White? Developing White Racial Literacy.” Her previous book (with Özlem Sensoy), “Is Everyone Really Equal: An Introduction to Social Justice Education” received the Critics’ Choice Award by the American Educational Studies Association. Her work on White Fragility has appeared in Alternet, Salon.com, NPR, Colorlines, Huffington Post and The Good Men Project.
-NP
-NotBuyingIn
This is also the problem with discussions about race - people who are told they have done something racist often feel they are being attacked.
Perhaps this is a defense mechanism to avoid having to deal with hard stuff that challenges ones view of the world?
Whites are very sensitive about racism because they, collectively, benefit from and perpetuate it.
Blacks are so used to the ill effects of racial prejudice and suffer, collectively, from it.
MX
-disheartened
where were you "schooled" and when? you don't seem to know jack about critical race theory.
bay
MOM
Or is it about healing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDqmJEWOJRI&list=PLYGoPw4xULmkeFFiBAu0U4zt3MM1V2NIB
Nina Simone - I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free
-McClureWatcher
White people who engage on race with an open mind will be shocked to discover the damage that racism causes to people of color.
What "books" did you read about China that led you to equate racial discussions in the US to the Cultural Revolution?
return
WA Kids kindergarten readiness assessment data, for example, show that black students entering SPS are significantly less likely to be "ready" in each of the key domains. We don't do the other state testing until 3rd grade, but those results show a similar gap, with black children much less likely to score at level 4.
SPS does not create the opportunity gap, and is unlikely to be able to eliminate it without focusing substantial efforts on ensuring that all students enter K with equal preparation.
rb
MOM
Oldest attended private schools where we had the interesting experience of adding diversity, by our lack of education & income.
I realzed that our very dysfunctional, very challenged family would need all the help we could get, and the school district had made it crystal clear that we would not find help there.
However, the families & teachers in the private school were very welcoming and acted as much needed mentors for our family.
https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/education.aspx
The research has long been clear to support your point but that would involve having this crowd both shift from their neighborhood school mentality (while enjoying the benefits of a diverse urban experience) and stop pretending that the playing field is level. This city is too me-directed for those things to happen.
Seattle has proven itself to be strong in rhetoric and theatrics and woefully short in delivery. The analogy I always return to is the longstanding issue of inadequate public transportation in such a "environmentally-friendly" city.
Invoking BLM in a largely segregated city and district while ignoring the school assignment plan during SEA contracts, equity powerpoints and initiatives, and school board priority setting is another version of the eternal recurrence of the same. Hypocrisy and lip service at their finest...
A side note: Talking about WEB Dubois' talented tenth who got away to private schools in order to justify demographics in HCC is a combination of jealously and textbook rationalization. This city has over 30 percent in private schools and no one is using that excuse to argue for a less inflated HCC for the demographic that has a chokehold on identification and qualification.
--FWIW
FWIW
If you want to lower the qualification criteria for certain groups because they don't score as high, advocate for that. But be honest about it, please.
rb
I want to hear more about Robin Di Angelo, too.
Some how teachers talking about their students in terms of "white fragility" seems to bother me.
Frankly, the term "white fragility" is rather offensive. If leaders of this movement really want to make a difference, I recommend they shy away from this term and focus on educating.
Robin DiAngelo is a dynamic and provocative speaker addressing the highly charged topic of what it means to be white in a society that proclaims race meaningless, yet is deeply divided by race. Speaking as a white person, DiAngelo clearly and compellingly takes her audience through an analysis of white socialization — what she calls white racial illiteracy. She describes how race shapes the lives of white people, explains what makes racism so hard for whites to see, identifies common white racial patterns and speaks back to popular white narratives that work to deny racism. With remarkable skill she helps participants to see the “water” that obscures how racism works in our daily lives – the miseducation about what racism actually is: ideologies such as individualism and colorblindness, defensiveness and the tendency to protect (rather than expand) our worldviews.
DiAngelo’s scholarship and research in Whiteness Studies has been concerned with the challenges of an increasingly white teaching force and an increasingly diverse student population. A former associate professor of multicultural education, DiAngelo was twice honored with the Student’s Choice Award for Educator of the Year at the University of Washington. In addition to her academic work, DiAngelo has been a workplace diversity and racial justice consultant and trainer for over 20 years. In this capacity she was appointed to co-design, develop and deliver the Race and Social Justice Initiative anti-racism training for the City of Seattle.
DiAngelo has numerous publications and just released her second book, “What Does it Mean to be White? Developing White Racial Literacy.” Her previous book (with Özlem Sensoy), “Is Everyone Really Equal: An Introduction to Social Justice Education” received the Critics’ Choice Award by the American Educational Studies Association. Her work on White Fragility has appeared in Alternet, Salon.com, NPR, Colorlines, Huffington Post and The Good Men Project. -NP