Excerpts from my chapter in the Handbook of Research on Challenging Deficit Thinking for Exceptional Education Improvement (IGI Global )

Chapter 18 pages 380-404

Re-Mediating Narratives: Exceptional Children in Captivity

Page 380

ABSTRACT

This chapter draws from the experiences of a veteran educator teaching and learning with youths in a public high school located within a juvenile detention center between 2014-2018. Integrating the discourse of five young people who graduated from high school while in the juvenile detention center, the author demonstrates how the young people confront and re-mediate deficit-based narratives laden with the stereotypes that often surround students with exceptionalities in simultaneous, intersectional ways. Research specifically focused on young people who manage to graduate from high school while attending schools in JDCs (especially youth who identify as disabled or have been identified as having a disability) is significantly sparse. Furthermore, disability is often missing during analyses of incarceration and resistance. This chapter seeks to contribute to this understudied domain.     

Pages 381-382

“Remediation” has typically been associated with the labeling of those who are perceived as having deficiencies in the knowledge and/or skills deemed as necessary to complete schoolwork as defined by an institution (U.S. Department of Education [USDOE], 1996). Remediation is also described as a “process of identifying the need to take action to remedy a situation that, if left unresolved, will result in unfavorable outcomes” (Culleiton, 2009, p. 26). Narratives can function as tools for repositioning, re-mediating, resisting, and/or reconstituting associations of remediation with deficits into new discourses of re-mediation. A re-mediation is transformative and centers learners’ experiences in ways that are inclusive, robust, and critical. Although sense-making through narratives is a socially constructed and collaborative activity, our mediations of lived experiences also occur within ideological and dominant structures and systems (Cruz, 2019). Roland Barthes (1975) notes the ubiquitous presence of narratives stating that “narrative is present in every age, in every place, in every society… All classes, all human groups, have their narratives (p. 237). Thus, a re-mediating of narratives is an accessible and generative strategy for countering stigmatizing and damage-laden language or stories even within oppressive systems and structures.

Page 389

A Case Study

My aim is to incorporate youths’ narratives while contributing to this less-studied domain of exceptional youth who manage to graduate from high school despite being situated in multiple state-created and regulated enclosures. In order “to permit inquiry into and understanding of a phenomenon in-depth” (Patton, 2002, p. 46) young people who were ages 14-18 and were residing in a Midwestern city as well as artifacts from the years they were detained by the state (2014-2018), were purposefully selected for this case study. In the tradition of a case study, a non-random qualitative approach was embraced to “explore processes, activities, and events” (Creswell, 2018, p. 183) involving the educational experiences and survival strategies of youth gaining a high school diploma as they negotiate institutions and processes in a school-prison nexus and its interrelationships.

Page 391

DISABLING, DIS-LOCATING, DISPOSABLE

Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) found that experiencing detention before the age of 21 is “associated with even worse adult physical and mental health outcomes” (Barnert et al., 2019, p. 342). Previous studies have shown the negative psychological and educational effects when students such as those incarcerated are stressed, anxious, and uncertain about their futures (Picou & Marshall, 2007). Furthermore, interruptions to schooling potentially incur a greater negative effect on the learning of exceptional children with special educational needs (Cooper et al, 1996). In fact, citing Katsiyannis (1991) Cooper et al. (1996) note “Many states mandate extended-year programs for students with physical or learning disabilities because they recognize these children’s need for continuous instruction” (p. 229). Therefore, highly stressful uncertainty related to juvenile court proceedings for system-ensnared youths, interruptions to youths’ participation in local community schools, and a lack of attention or oversight by officials regarding the types of educational opportunities available to youth in juvenile detention centers, amalgamate to target certain young people for negative life circumstances and outcomes. Using discourse from the transcripts of the five youths interviewed, this section illuminates their critical awareness regarding the social and political violences they must navigate and lends to imagining the creativity and exhaustive persistence required for them to earn a high school diploma.

Removing “Management” from Classrooms and Schools

This essay appeared on the Forum of the American Journal of Education website on August 29, 2021.

The youngest of the five children in our family spent the end of his first year of high school and all of his second year of high school “attending” school each day by logging into virtual classroom spaces. Unlike his older brothers, the youngest has a strong dislike for schooling yet he has always appreciated the social and athletic opportunities schools can offer. I was significantly concerned about how he would adjust to online schooling without access to the regular socialization or athletics that usually assists him with tolerating compulsory school attendance.  

After vaccinations for the virus started being more widely available in April and new cases of people contracting the virus began to decline, the high school in the city where we live was able to offer a hybrid schedule option for school attendance. Students alternated attending in person during the week with some going to the school building while others were learning online on different days during the week. The high school basketball season was also modified but salvaged. I thought both the partial opening of school and a basketball season would be eagerly embraced by the high school student in our family. If there is a list of the times and ways that I have been wrong as an educator and parent, the perception I had about my son’s willingness to return to in-person schooling would be added to it. He opted to complete his 10th-grade school year all online. 

Essentially, my son may have missed the social aspects of schooling, but he does not miss having even his most basic needs managed. Maintaining an all-online school experience allows him to go to the bathroom when he needs to go. He can eat or drink when he’s hungry or thirsty. He often wears whatever he has on when he wakes up, and he sits in a comfortable and cushioned chair, or he sprawls out on the floor with pillows. Granted, he is benefitting from privileges that offer him access to technology, a home, food, potable water, utilities, and other necessities as well as comforts wherein he is able to attend high school classes virtually while many others are severely under-resourced. 

However, my argument’s focus in this essay is not the elucidation of well-documented and outrageous inequities throughout systems and institutions in the United States. Rather, my purpose is to illuminate specifically the widespread acceptance of “classroom management” as a normative joining of two words that create an accepted meaning. I am challenging “classroom management” as a legitimate concept and set of practices and proposing that it is an element of education that needs to be eradicated—not retaught or reproduced. It’s time to eliminate classroom management. 

Minimally, I am demanding a disconnection of corporate influences and the logics that accompany them from the policies and practices in public schools. The Brazilian educator and philosopher, Paulo Freire, “insists that methodological failings can always be traced to ideological errors” (Goulet, 1974/2013, p. x). “Classroom management” as a joinery of words, the conceptual imaginings it conjures, and the ways “classroom management” practices are operationalized are riddled with differentially dispensed violences which are often explicated in scholarship that integrates an intersectional analysis of how labels and categories are used to rank and sort students in schools (e.g. Artiles, 2013; Annamma, 2018; Shange, 2019; Varennes & McDermott, 1998). These violences surface even in definitions of “classroom management.” 

According to one university’s website, the primary goal of a management mindset “is to create the ideal classroom through teacher efforts and student training.” In this definition, managing replaces learning with training. A teaching wiki describes classroom management as “essentially the way in which a teacher creates a set of expectations that students must adhere to.” Another university notes on their “Classroom Management” website that “[a]n effective conduct management plan should also refer to teacher control and administration of consequences.” As a retired high school teacher, it is difficult to envision the implementation of classroom pedagogies designed to strengthen democracy under conditions that promote authoritarian practices with a fear of punishment as integral.  

Of course, other university websites offer less aggressive language than “adhere to” or “control.” Instead they make claims like classroom management “refers to all of the things that a teacher does to organize students, space, time and materials” or that it means “creating an atmosphere that minimizes the likelihood of [disruptive] behaviors and having strategies to obstruct them when they do occur.” Essentially, they all position learners and educators in oppositional binaries. The removal of management from classrooms to disrupt this antagonistic positioning urges further critical attention. 

At this stage, I am imagining learning spaces and atmospheres premised on promoting joy; education of and for justice; classrooms for cultivating care, collectivities, and solidarity; and schools grounded as resources with communities and for community and of equity. I do not have all of the steps towards the realization of my imaginings scripted, but I am scripting the urgent and crucial necessity of immediately abolishing the logics, mindsets, and practices that accompany a managing of classrooms rather than caring, critical and liberatory praxes aimed towards becoming in kindness (Weaver, 2021) alongside others in educational and all other endeavors. 

References

Annamma, S. (2018). The Pedagogy of Pathologization: Dis/abled girls of color in the school-prison nexus. Routledge.

Artiles, A. (2013). Untangling the Racialization of Disabilities: An intersectionality critique across disability models. Du Bois Review, 10(2), pp. 329–347.

Goulet, D. (2013). Introduction. In P. Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness. Bloomsbury, pp. vii-xiii.

Shange, S. (2019). Progressive Dystopia: Abolition, antiblackness, and schooling in San Francisco. Duke University Press. 

Varennes, H. and McDermott, R. (1998). Successful Failure: The School America Builds. Avalon Publishing. 

Weaver, H. (2021). Bad Dog: Pit Bull Politics and Multispecies Justice, University of Washington Press. 

 

Family Student Housing Costs across the UCs

The photo was taken from a balcony in UCSC Family Student Housing. It was submitted to the chancellor’s photo contest in November and a winner was never announced.

This data was compiled from the family student housing websites of each of the UCs in February of 2020. A basic summary chart is included at the end of the post. 

The wide range of rents charged by the University of California (UC) Regents (that is the name that goes on the check if you pay that way) across the UC system ($906-$2947 for a 2-bedroom/1-bathroom unit) for university family student housing (FSH) is just one glaring reason why graduate students across the UC system are demanding fairer pay for their labor. The UC system is fully participating in, benefiting from, and contributing to the cost of living inequity and unaffordability across the state and it is time they are held accountable. If you want more details about the range of rents and amenities among UC’s family student housing, the findings are described below. If you want more information about the graduate student wildcat strike that began at UC Santa Cruz go to the link https://payusmoreucsc.com/ .

UC San Francisco students are paying the highest rents among the UCs, but UCSF does not seem to have a designated student-family housing community.  UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley are paying the highest university family student housing rates across the UCs, but at least Berkeley’s rates include electricity. The lowest rates for two-bedroom/one-bathroom units are at UC Davis, Riverside, Irvine, and Merced. Although UCLA’s rental costs are comparable to UCSC, the amenities included at UCLA are well-beyond what is offered at UCSC FSH (i.e. microwave, dishwasher, air-conditioning, adult lap pool, children’s swimming pool). The family student housing options at UC San Diego are incredibly diverse and affordable compared to UCSC, including the option of a 2-bedroom, one-bathroom unit within walking distance to the beach for $1500/month which also includes utilities. Even some of the most luxurious family-allowed accommodations like those at UC San Diego’s La Jolla and Mesa Nueva are cheaper than UC Santa Cruz’s family student housing 2019-2020 rates and some include 2 bathrooms instead of one. Each of the UCs is bulleted in the list that follows. Rents listed are due monthly. #COLA4all

• UC Santa Cruz – rates include parking, cable and horribly unreliable and slow internet (verified by the author, her children, and personal acquaintances)

No dishwashers, no AC, electricity NOT included, no pool, no spa, not within walking distance to the beach 

2019-2020 rates for a 2-bedroom unit –  $1767 (2-bedroom units are the only units available)        2-bedroom units last year $1707 & 2 years ago $1647

Families who joined last year are still paying $1707

Families who joined two years ago are still paying $1647

• UC Santa Barbara – 2019-2020 rates * high-speed internet and parking included

West – 2 bedroom/1 bath units $1173.        Storke – 2 bedroom/1 bath $1443 

Leases are month-to-month

• UCLA – 2019-2020

*All units are rented unfurnished and contain a full kitchen (including stove, refrigerator, microwave, and dishwasher), wall-to-wall carpeting, blinds, and central heat and air-conditioning. Buildings have a key-controlled building access system and laundry facilities. 

Amenities include: State-of-the-art childcare center, Community centers, Central courtyards, Basic cable & high-speed internet connections, Adult lap pool, Children’s playground, Children’s swimming pool

2 bedrooms 1 bath $1684.  2 bedrooms 2 bath $1770  3 bedrooms 2 bath $1999

• UC Davis 2019-2020.          *UC Davis boasts five on-campus childcare centers.

Solano Park *Does not include a parking permit

Two-Bedroom Apartment           $906 per month

• UC Merced 2019-2020

*A furnished or unfurnished apartment (your choosing), water, sewer, electricity, trash, high-speed internet, free laundry, refrigerator, stove/oven, 1 assigned parking space included

Family Contracts (One student sharing a unit with non-UC-affiliated family members).

2 Bedroom/1 Bathroom $1,121 Per family of 3-4 for furnished or unfurnished apartments

2 Bedroom/2 Bathroom $1,121 Per family of 4 for a furnished or unfurnished apartment

• UC Irvine 2020-2021 *Utilities included

Verano Place 2 bedroom $1136-1668

Vista del Campo 2 bedroom $2320

Palo Verde 2 bedroom $1412-1780

• UC Riverside 2019-2020

*Interiors are smartly outfitted with stoves, refrigerators, dishwashers and central heating/cooling. Includes a swimming pool and spa!

2 bedroom/2 bath 904 sq. ft. $970 per month

Utilities & Parking Included!

• UC San Francisco *Includes utilities and internet, dishwashers, garbage disposals

2 bedroom, one bath $2662-2947/month

• UC Berkeley 2019-2020 *Rents include gas, electricity, water, garbage, recycling, one parking space, internet, and basic cable.

WEST                                                                                               Square Feet

1 bed, 1 bath *	$1,505	635
2 bed, 1 bath	$1,795	785-806
3 bed, 1.5 bath	$2,045	1002

EAST

2 bed, 1 bath	$1,945-2,045	987
2 bed, 2 bath	$2,045-2,215	987-1,197
3 bed, 1 bath	$2,215	1,085
3 bed, 2 bath	$2,315	1,085-1,103

 

• UC San Diego 2019-2020 *Rates include water, trash, gas, electricity, cable tv, internet, and parking. 

COAST – It is located within walking distance to campus and the beach.

2 BR: $1,500

MIRAMAR – 2 BR: $1,305

MESA.       Central: 2BR: $1,215, 3BR: $1,413      South: 2BR: $1,407

La Jolla del Sol 

La Jolla del Sol is a condominium-style community in a prime location just minutes from the UC San Diego campus. All apartments are un-furnished one-bedroom, two-bedroom/one-bath, and two-bedroom/two-bath walk-up apartments. All units feature full-size washer and dryer, refrigerator, dishwasher, range and dining room ceiling fan. Amenities include two pools and spas, tennis courts, and a fitness facility. Renters Insurance is required for residents.

2BR/1BA – 2nd Floor: $1815; 3rd Floor: $1851

2BR/2BA – 1st Floor: $2049; 2nd Floor: $2058; 3rd Floor: $2106

Mesa Nueva

This HDH Housing community features the very best in graduate and professional living including a social pool with spas and splash zones, a brewpub, outdoor lounge, and so much more! 

Our studios are furnished with a bed, side table, dresser, dining table with 2 stools, a desk & chair, a stove, and a refrigerator. Our 1, 2, and 3 bedroom apartments come equipped with in-unit dishwasher, side-by-side refrigerator/freezer, full-size washer & dryer, free parking, high-speed Internet, and premium cable package.

2BR/1 BA (non-master): $1665 — Room rate $819

2BR/2BA (master): $1665 — Room rate $846

3BR/2BA (non-master): $2469 — Room rate: $813

3BR/2BA (master): $2469 — Room rate: $843

Nuevo East and West

The certified LEED Gold community was intentionally designed to facilitate pedestrian flow and connect to other Mesa neighborhoods, encouraging residential interaction. 

Rates include electricity, water, trash, gas, high-speed Internet, premium cable package and parking.

Amenities include: Furnished Apartments, An on-site professional programming team, Community garden, Grass play areas, Interior and exterior bike storage options, All LED Lighting, Numerous BBQ grilling stations, Community kitchen, Laundry lounges featuring WiFi and comfortable seating, Study lounges and numerous furnished gathering spaces, Social pool and two spas, Game room, Music room, Fitness center, Onsite shuttle stop, EV charging stations, Zip Car facility

• 2BD/1BA Furnished: $1929 
• 4BD/2BA Furnished: $3756 
• 6BD/3BA Furnished: $5490

BASIC CHART BELOW

UC Family Student Housing	2019-2020 Monthly Rent for 2BDRM/1BATH (unless otherwise noted)	What’s Included? (Not a comprehensive list of amenities)
Santa Cruz	$1767	Parking Permit, Unreliable internet, Cable
Davis	$906	Does not include a parking permit
Riverside	$970 2bdrm/2bath	Parking, Utilities, Dishwasher, AC, Swimming pool, Spa
Merced	$1121 2bdrm/1 or 2bath	Utilities, Free laundry, Parking permit
Irvine	$1136-2320 2020-2021 rates	Utilities included
Santa Barbara	$1173-1443	Internet, Parking, Month-to-month leases
San Diego	$1215-2106 2bdr/2bath – $1665	Parking, Utilities, Pools, Spas, Beach proximity, Fitness centers, Game room
Los Angeles	$1684	Adult & children’s pool, Microwave, Dishwasher, Internet
Berkeley	$1795-2215	Includes parking & utilities
San Francisco	$2662-2947	Utilities, Dishwashers

Standardized Testing Opt-Out Letter California, 2019

Well friends/co-conspirators, unfortunately, it is that time of the school year again when we must show our solidarity for visions of educational justice and the schools all of our children deserve. Refuse to allow your children to participate in the spirit-killing test industry machine – opt your child out. Many more resources can be found online, but here is the template for the letter I used in California this year (2019). Previous letters used in Ohio can be found in my blog archives.

Peace to you, if you’re willing to fight for it. ~Fred Hampton 

April 25, 2019

School Name District Name School address (four lines)

Dear (school) Staff and (district) Administrators,

Please accept this letter as my submission, under California Education Code section 60615, which allows a parent or guardian to submit a written request to school officials to exclude his or her child from any or all parts of state-mandated assessments, to opt out my child, (child name), from all Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium tests administered this year.

Reimagining schools through an abolitionist framework, I am unequivocally opposed to standardized testing and the role it plays in perpetuating destructive and punitive practices in schools. Prepackaged state tests with stakes attached (whether high or low) undermine teachers’ autonomy, de-professionalize educators and are a mechanism for reproducing structural inequality. A FairTest fact sheet, “Racial Justice and Standardized Educational Testing,” states that young people of color, particularly those from low-income families, have suffered the most as the explosion of high-stakes standardized testing in U.S. public education has undermined equity and school quality. These tests provide no social or educational benefit, inflict harm on our most vulnerable young people, and contribute to corporate superpredators making billions through the testing industry, charter industry, and textbook industry.

In refusing standardized tests, I stand in solidarity with others pursuing a dream of educational justice in which schools are based on collective dignity, community, creativity, intersectional justice, healing, joy, radical love, and are spaces where every child feels safe and celebrated, and knows they matter.

Test scores from SBAC will not reveal anything to (child)’s teachers or other school staff members that they do not already know about (him/her), nor will standardized tests illuminate the many acts of kindness, compassion, and patience bestowed upon (child) by the staff at (school name) School.

In solidarity with abolitionists for educational freedom,

(Your Name)

(your phone number and/or email)

 

Is UC Santa Cruz selling infants and toddlers to a cesspool of injustice while claiming to fight injustice?

Is UC Santa Cruz selling infants and toddlers to a cesspool of injustice while claiming to fight injustice?

     One of the reasons I applied to graduate school at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) was because of the commitment to social justice that the university boldly proclaimed and embraced with slogans like the one on the side of the campus bike-bus: “UCSC, the original authority on questioning authority.” Knowing there was a shared vision of fighting for what is right and standing for the most vulnerable inspired and comforted me. How did this revolutionary spirit descend into voluntarily expanding the profits of the barbarians at Bain Capital? It’s perplexing.

     Bright Horizons, the daycare mega-company that UC Santa Cruz is contracting to take over childcare services once the new facility is built, is owned by Bain Capital.  In an attempt to justify the move, one UCSC spokesperson seemed to be utilizing an age-old whining child’s tactic – everyone else is doing it. “We continue to believe Bright Horizons will provide our campus — the faculty, staff, and students — with quality child care, based on its performance at several other University of California campuses,” was written in a statement by a UCSC representative. In 2013, The New York Times offered a brief history of the way Bright Horizons took care of Bain Capital over the decades and how “Bain’s profits on the deal have been anything but child’s play.”

     In a 2017 news story in New York City, the local CBS station reported on a protest by parents when they discovered what those caring for their children at the Bright Horizons childcare center were making. They revealed, “Bright Horizons has a market value of more than $4 billion.” A parent in the story reported paying $30,000/year for childcare services there but learned those caring for infants and toddlers were only making $11/hour. Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, 2012 presidential candidate and partial founder of Bain Capital (who also employed Bain Capital and Pioneer Institute members as part of his Massachusett’s executive branch staff), bragged about the low paying jobs created through Bright Horizons in response to criticism that Bain Capital was the private equity group of corporate vultures who destroy jobs. Meanwhile, as Executive Chairman, Chief Executive Officer at BRIGHT HORIZONS FAMILY SOLTN, David H. Lissy made $1,822,308 in total compensation in just 2017. Of this total $396,608 was received as a salary, $444,697 was received as a bonus, $967,960 was awarded as stock and $13,043 came from other types of compensation. This information is according to proxy statements filed for the 2017 fiscal year.

     Professors at Cornell raised alarms in 2012 as their university contracted with Bright Horizons. Here is a quote from their local city paper:

     Bright Horizons provides daycare services to Cornell’s Ithaca campus and Weill      Cornell Medical College. In 2010, faculty urged President David Skorton to cut ties with Bright Horizons for violating 56 state child care regulations, overworking its teachers and overcompensating its top management. Skorton, however, decided to renew the University’s contract with Bright Horizons — a decision that some professors say they remain unhappy with.

    Citing past problems with Bright Horizons, Prof. Sydney van Morgan, sociology, said she finds Bright Horizons’ relationship with Bain Capital — which took the company private for $1.3 billion in 2008 — problematic. The University should not use the services of a corporate company when there are several other childcare institutions in the Ithaca community, he said.

    “Is that really the kind of company that Cornell wants to be working with, as opposed to IC3, the local childcare center, which is public, not-for-profit and run by a board of parents?” van Morgan said. “Why not have that model?”

Yes. Why not have that model? Hopefully, Bright Horizons remedied their 56 state childcare violations in New York, but they certainly did not cut their ties with Bain Capital. In fact, two members of Bright Horizons Board of Directors, Joshua Bekenstein and Jordan Hitch, are the Managing Director and Senior Advisor at Bain Capital Partners, respectively.  

     Why should anyone care about Bain Capital?

     In recent times, the most powerful education policy-making players in the arena have been from businesses and their foundations. Dell, Gates, Waltons, Broad, and private equity firms like Bain Capital have pushed for model legislation that requires high stakes standardized testing, merit pay for teachers, teacher accountability systems that link pay to test scores, retaining students for not meeting benchmarks, vouchers, charters, and approaches that maintain a system of segrenomics. Essentially, legislation that applies the principles of capitalism to education (which is notably not part of the business college because teaching is a social science that involves humans – not products) is the type of legislation Bain Capital supports in complete opposition to what education researchers at all of the universities worth anything have found to be best practices.     

     Some of you may be recalling your social studies lessons right now. Don’t legislators in legislative branches make laws? Sure, and Bain Capital has supported right-wing pressure groups such as the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research who are major drivers of the model legislation that has come from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and have been passed into law across the United States. Bain Capital helps fund ALEC initiatives. According to ALEC Exposed, “ALEC’s education legislation diverts taxpayers’ money from American public school children to for-profit education corporations, strips away the rights of teachers and their ability to negotiate strongly for small class sizes and other practices that help children learn better, and gives more tax breaks to rich corporations and individuals to pay private school tuition.”

     ALEC has also introduced legislation such as the “Stand Your Ground” law that allowed for the murder of Trayvon Martin to go unpunished, anti-immigration legislation, tough-on-crime legislation that nourishes and expands the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) (the PIC that UCSC Distinguished Professor Emerita Angela Davis has been fighting to abolish for decades), and environmentally destructive legislation.

     Bright Horizons is part of and funds Bain Capital. Bain Capital supports and funds groups (like the Pioneer Institute) that support ALEC and ALEC legislation. UC Santa Cruz wants parents to give their money for childcare to Bright Horizons, which will enrich Bain Capital. Bain Capital will continue to monetarily contribute to all of the unjust initiatives many of us at UCSC will spend the majority our lives fighting.

     What. The. Actual. F***?!?!?!

 

  

 

Women’s March in Cleveland,Ohio,1-20-18

I made the following remarks at the Women’s March in Cleveland, Ohio, on January 20th, 2018. I was honored to be part of an amazing series of speakers. 

A video link to the speech is available on youtube thanks to Toni Jones.

Before I begin, I’d like to take a moment to honor the Erie Indians who lived on this land long before any of us arrived. They were an Iroquoian tribe of the northeastern woodlands, who spoke an Iroquoian language similar to Huron and Seneca. As we continue to confront those who oppress, may we never forget those who have been embroiled in a struggle to exist for centuries.

I am honored to have this time here with you today, and honored to be representing Ohio’s Badass Teachers Association (BATs), and thousands of educators who are fighting for the public schools ALL our children deserve.

When government officials and the business community attack teachers and the public schools that over 90% of school-age children attend, you can believe that it is an attack on women, who make up over 75% of the teaching profession. It is an attack on our children. It is an attack on our democracy.

As a mother, as an educator and as a woman, I recognize that it is this alliance among women and our friends that is the worst fear of those holding power in (what I like to refer to as) our system of “electile” dysfunction.

And how can those in power who oppress and disenfranchise maintain their power?

Part of their plan includes an attack on and the starvation of the foundation of our democracy: our public schools.

They defund education and steal tax dollars to promote a for-profit education system, particularly in the urban neighborhoods of our most vulnerable citizens.

Those governing Ohio are still out of compliance with a twenty-year-old state supreme court decision mandating that they fix the way we fund our public schools.

We must hold public officials accountable. Budget bills must equitably and fully fund education –  not mass incarceration or deportation.

As we gather here today, there are young people whose civil rights are being violated right now at our county jail, not too far from here. These young people have been identified as individuals with learning disabilities. And even though federal law demands that these young people be offered services for their specific educational needs, the county and city that detains them continues to violate federal law by not offering these already disadvantaged young people access to education.

Perhaps those in power restrict access to education because education is essential to human liberation. An uneducated or poorly educated populace is much easier to manipulate and control.

In the spirit of liberation, we must all continue to fight to dismantle oppressive practices like high stakes standardized testing in schools; practices placed upon us by legislators and corporate interests without any regard for what is best for our children.

Ohio is one of only 14 states in the country that still requires students to pass tests not created by their classroom teachers in order to graduate or be promoted.

We must continue to fight for curriculums and classroom practices that are culturally relevant to every child.

We must support local democratically elected school boards. Because if you can vote to have your taxes raised to support a school district, then you should be able to vote for the board controlling the money used in those schools.

We call for an end to harsh zero tolerance policies and the policing of our children, and instead call for the implementation of restorative practices that do not disproportionately put children of color on a school-to-prison pipeline.

You can’t say you’re a pro-lifer and then refuse to fight for every living human being to have an equitable opportunity to enjoy safe quality schools, safe communities, safe water, safe housing, safe neighborhoods, and to have police forces who protect and serve.

When I became pregnant with my eldest son at the age of 17, it was education that helped remove me from a life otherwise destined for dependence on public assistance. There probably isn’t anyone who understands and relates to my passion for justice and equity in education more than my sons. Thus, it is with tremendous pride that I am able to share with all of you that my oldest son here today, Cassimir Svigelj, is running for the 16th district house seat in the Ohio legislature, which includes Bay Village, Rocky River, Fairview Park, North Olmsted & Westlake, with my full support.

Not only do education activists take their power to the polls, but sometimes their kids are inspired to actually get their names on the ballot.

Before I go, I plead with all of you to remain vigilant and diligent in the fight for our public schools. Liberty and justice for all depend upon it. Thank you.

 

Twas the First Night of Break

‘Twas the first night of break, when all through the school

Not a creature was stirring, except a privatizing ghoul

A public school teacher was sleeping all snug in her bed

While visions of happy students appeared in her head

As the papers she graded slid off of her lap

She had just settled down for a long winter’s nap

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter

The teacher dragged herself from bed to see what was the matter

And what to her tired eyes did appear?

But a bunch of self-righteous folks who were

billionaires

“O’ Waltons, O’ Broad, O’ DeVos , O’ Gates

What are you doing here on my lawn so late?

Do I even want to know your latest plans to deceive?

Seriously, winter break is supposed to be a reprieve!”

Unfortunately, to her front porch the billionaires did dash

Wearing their contempt for public schools like an itchy red rash

Down the stairs she went to meet them, as if in a trance

She thought maybe she could reason with them, if given the chance

A backpack full of cash was flung on their backs

And they looked smug and condescending in their tailored slacks

The teacher presented research about what kids need to learn

But their only care was the money they could earn

“Students are children; not products,” she tried to explain

“Your lack of knowledge and meddling are causing great pain”

She added that teaching is a mix of science and art

“It’s a humanity,” she said “Not a business with no heart!”

The vacant look in their eyes and tilt of their heads

Soon gave her to know she had much to dread

They spoke not a word, disregarding her work

She feared inequity would continue to lurk

Then away they all flew in their extravagant jets

Forgetting to thank her for cleaning up their mess

But they heard her exclaim, as they drove out of sight

“This isn’t over! We’ll continue to fight!”

 

Happy winter break to all and peace to those willing to fight for it.

 

Figure Out My Color

This poem was a result of the collaborative effort of three of my students.

This is from The Urban Youth Collaborative’s Facebook post:

**POWERFUL** Yesterday, our young people in UYC participated in a National Day of Action with the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice calling for racial justice in our classrooms! Watch youth leader Estefany Valera, recite a poem written by 3 young men currently in the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Detention Center, in Cleveland. The poem was written to be read on Columbus Day, soon to be known as #IndigenousPeopleDay #NYC#Education4Liberation

The Video: The Urban Youth Collaborative Event

The poem:

Figure Out My Color

The police thought I had a gun one time and they asked me

“where’s the gun, where’s the gun?”

I didn’t have a shirt on

so it was obvious that I didn’t have a gun

in my waistband

and they checked my pockets

and they thought I had a gun

but I didn’t.

Now think for a minute…

What if it was you

Stopped for being brown

For being in a certain part of town

For being too poor

to afford

To be free?

Do we even know what we celebrate today for?

Is it just celebrating more

Of the punishing of the poor?

Enslavement, rape, disease, genocide

Are these sources of pride?

History lies

Mothers cry

For those who’ve died.

Living in a country

Where the flag waves

For the home of the brave

“Don’t flee!”

“Get on your knees!”

Police scream at me.

Does anyone hear my plea

To end painful legacies?

For people who will stand

For their fellow man?

~From students being held at the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Detention Center in Cleveland, Ohio, in Melissa Svigelj-Smith’s classroom. 

 

Hope Happens When Opportunities for Hope are Created

I was honored to be asked to write a blog post for Education First’s blog site, which I am also sharing here.

As an educator for 18-21 year-old boys at our county juvenile detention center, sorrow can often feel like a constant companion. There are days when the drenched weight of my students’ stories and struggles shrinks me to frustrated, unfeigned tears, but only when I’m alone at home much later into the day. It is my home and personal life that have shaped the educator and advocate/activist that I have become. Recently, when I was discussing with my 17 year-old son whether or not I thought it was a good idea for him to walk two blocks alone in downtown Cleveland, he provided me with a jarring reminder: “Mom, I look like the monster that other people are afraid of. Don’t worry about me,” he said, as if that was supposed to offer me a semblance of comfort. My thoughtful, polite, intellectual, kind, dedicated son is over six feet tall with keen brown eyes, beautiful brown skin and lovely tumbling dreadlocks. He could be mistaken for any number of the young men I greet in class at work each day, and none of them are monsters.

My son’s words still conjure a feeling of dread within me. They are foreboding and cause my stomach to contort and form a lump, which rises into my esophagus and threatens to appear as a burst of emotional moisture in my eyes. Yet, it also motivates me to keep working, because there is much work to be done on behalf of my son and all young men who may or may not look like him. Thanks to a generous grant as a  NoVo SEL Innovation Award recipient, this work that is so necessary has support and endurance.

Recognizing three years ago when I began teaching at the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Detention Center (CCJDC) that social and emotional learning (SEL) was going to continue to be an integral part of my practice, I immediately reached out to many of the community contacts I had previously collaborated with while teaching in other public high schools. I planned to continue to provide multifarious SEL learning moments in a variety of modalities for my students. In addition to a trauma-informed classroom approach to teaching, incorporated into our daily classroom routine are the practices and concepts of gratitude, mindfulness, breathing exercises, growth mindset, short term and long term goal setting, and reflection.  A community partnership with SPACES, supported by the NoVo grant, offers an exceptional additional opportunity for students to interact with a diverse array of artistic mediums, facilitated by international, national, and local artists, that are then used as a component of our classroom’s community service and outreach. Written reflections from the young men overwhelmingly cited these artistic experiences, and the opportunity to do something kind for someone else, as their favorite activity in class.

Not only is it crucial for my students to be exposed to the talents and resources that surround them in the community, but it is equally as important that those in the community change their proximity to the young men in my classroom. I strive to plant seeds of hope in the young men who arrive to me, but we must also vigorously attempt to change the narratives surrounding them in our community. As an educator, neutrality simply is not an option. I am pleased to share that two artists who interacted with my young men valued and enjoyed their time with them so much, that they refused the small stipend that SPACES was able to dispense as a result of the NoVo grant. Thus, we were able to offer additional activities we had not originally planned.

Art is a natural medium for social and emotional learning. It allows for the exploration of self, which was quite evident when one young man explained his painting as a representation of the voices he hears. It improves self-management because producing art naturally de-escalates stress levels. Many of the activities, like paper making, screen printing and audio recordings, required a collaborative effort, which improves relationship skills. Having their art valued and appreciated contributes to their confidence and sense of self-efficacy. The empathy expressed and perspectives taken by the young men as they created place mats and cards for ill children at the Cleveland Clinic and pen cases for staff members, or as they decorated cupcakes and cookies for younger students and flower pots to grow milkweed in to help save monarch butterflies, are moments that burst the reality bubbles many people previously resided in.

During a printing activity, some students could not resist the urge to mark their art with street or gang affiliated tags. Although it is their reality, displaying art with gang suggestions would violate school policies. Not willing to throw their creations aside, I cut out the letters and they remained in a large envelope for weeks.  After reflecting on my students’ life stories, I used the cut out letters to create a message on a large poster that could be representative of the essential way my students may differ slightly from my own sons, or kids any of us might know: they haven’t been given opportunities or circumstances that instill in them a hope for their futures. The message I created from their letters for their gallery exhibit at SPACES read “Hope happens when opportunities for hope are created.”

Hope cannot be taken for granted or neglected. It is the beginning of every movement, every struggle, and every idea. It is also the origin of the art collaboration between my classroom of 18-year-old boys at the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Detention Center, SPACES, and the generous NoVo Foundation.  I keep hoping that one day we will make sure every child feels they have a future to look forward to. I am profoundly grateful for all of those involved in supporting and accomplishing that goal.

May we all find more ways to create hope for others.

Melissa Marini Švigelj-Smith, July 2017

 

 

 

March for Impeachment July 2017

(2 minute limit) (video clip)

Thank you so much to all of you for being here today.

My name is Melissa Marini Svigelj-Smith, and I am here today representing hundreds of thousands of education activists and advocates across this nation who are fighting for the schools ALL our children deserve.

We are here today to march for impeachment, and it is a patriotic cause. However, this isn’t just about impeaching Donald Trump. An impeachment would just land Mike Pence in the Oval Office and no one here wants that either.

No. This is also about the impeachment of a system that manifested the successful election of Donald Trump.

There is no doubt that our country is in a state of what I like to refer to as “electile dysfunction.” And how can those in power who oppress and disenfranchise maintain their power?

Part of their plan includes an attack on and starvation of the foundation of our democracy: our public schools.

They de-fund education and steal tax dollars to promote a for-profit education system, particularly in the urban neighborhoods of our most vulnerable citizens.

They demonize teachers and allow for conditions in our public schools that they would never accept for their own children.

We know that education is essential to human liberation. An uneducated or poorly educated populace is much easier to manipulate and control.

In the spirit of liberation, we fight for the impeachment of anyone who promotes oppressive practices in schools; practices forced upon us by Trump and his cabinet, and by legislators and corporations, without any regard for what is best for our children or for our country.

We demand that curriculum and classroom practices be culturally relevant, comprehensive, engaging, challenging, and promote critical thinking,

We call for an end to harsh zero tolerance policies and the policing of our children, and instead call for the implementation of restorative practices that do NOT disproportionately put children of color on the school-to-prison pipeline.

We call for the impeachment of any public official who does not support bills or amendments that equitably and fully fund education –  NOT mass incarceration or deportation.

Yes, we are gathered here today to demand impeachment, but I plead with all of you to remain vigilant and diligent in the fight for our public schools. They are the keys to liberty and justice for all, and we cannot salvage our democracy without them.

Are our children being taught what democracy looks like?

THIS is what democracy looks like!

Are our children being taught what democracy looks like?

THIS is what democracy looks like!

Organize, educate, agitate, must be our war cry. (Susan B. Anthony)

The following is the speech I gave as a (very honored to be included) speaker at the International Women’s Day Rally & March in Cleveland, Ohio, on March 8th, 2017, on a very windy day at Willard Park. 

International Women’s Day March & Rally Cleveland, Ohio, 2017

Thank you so much to all of you for being here today.

My name is Melissa Marini Svigelj-Smith, and I am here today representing 100s of local education activists, 1000s of education advocates statewide, and hundreds of 1000s of education activists & advocates across this nation who are fighting for the schools ALL our children deserve.

When government officials and the business community attack teachers and public schools, you better believe that it is an attack on women, who make up over 75% of the teaching profession. It is an attack on our children. It is an attack on our democracy.

We know that education is essential to human liberation.

In this spirit of liberation, we fight to dismantle oppressive practices in schools; practices placed upon us by legislators and corporate interests without any regard for what is best for our children.

We demand that curriculum and classroom practice be culturally relevant, comprehensive, engaging, challenging, and promote critical thinking, and that these practices be based on research and the input of educators, not based on the whims of politicians or the profit margins of corporations.

We call for an end to harsh zero tolerance policies and the policing of our children, and instead call for the implementation of restorative practices that do not disproportionately put children of color on the school-to-prison pipeline.

We support local democratically elected school boards. Because if you can vote to have your taxes raised to support a school district, then you should be able to vote for who is on the district’s school board.

We demand an end to high stakes standardized testing, a system rooted in eugenics and racism that has done nothing to improve teaching and learning for our students, but has created a false narrative about “failing public schools” and “bad teachers.”

We want community schools that are provided with funding and resources to offer the wrap around services that families surrounding those schools need.

School reforms should meet the needs of children in classrooms, not corporations.

All children deserve prepared, experienced and fully licensed teachers.

And all children and all schools must have equitable access to resources and adequate funding.

I plead with all of you today to remain vigilant and diligent in the fight for our public schools.

Until the government ends the test and punish system, tell your child’s school that your student will not be participating in the state’s punitive system of  high stakes standardized testing. Refuse the tests!

No more of our tax dollars to millionaires and billion dollar corporations, so that they can sell our kids developmentally inappropriate tests and then call our kids failures.

Hold public officials accountable. Budget bills must equitably and fully fund education –  not mass incarceration.

We must fight this battle not because education is called a civil rights issue, but because education is an inalienable human right.

Our children need us too much to get tired of being in this battle.

They may have demolished and neglected the buildings we use for education, but they cannot decimate our desire to educate & be educated.

They will continue to wage this political and corporate war on educators: the Liberators.

But they cannot  liquidate our aspirations for liberation.

Education is liberation. Education. Liberation. Education. Liberation.

 

 

 

  

 

How Can I Make My Students Republicans?

    “I know a lot of guys here hold anger against their fathers. I don’t blame my dad for not being around,” the articulate and thoughtful young man asserted, “he wasn’t given the opportunities that other people have had.”

It is not always easy to smolder the swell of tears, that initiates in my gut and rises with a heat quickly to just below my nostrils, when I hear the compassion and maturity my students express. Working as an educator in our city’s juvenile detention center, the 16-17 year old young men in my classroom in Cleveland, Ohio, bring me on emotional roller coaster rides unintentionally and unknowingly almost daily. I smile and laugh when they reveal glimpses of the childhoods they could have, and should have had, as they earnestly work to earn a treat or certificate in class. I send silent screams of rage out into an unresponsive universe, proclaiming unfairness and injustice as the culprits that are too often the cause of my students’ circumstances. Although I never let my students see a tear fall from my usually sleep-deprived eyes, a persistent heavy sorrow weighs on my shoulders.

    Another student chimed in, explaining that an elder provided him with his gun because he thought it would help keep him safe in his neighborhood. “It’s either shoot or get shot,” he stated as a matter-of-fact. An uncertainty about their health and safety is a reality that our CHILDREN, who are often not even given a chance to grow up in our city, confront every day. Over two-thousand children are poisoned with elevated lead levels every year in Cleveland; a completely preventable toxic attack on their health and lives that we keep allowing to happen. The website Neighborhood Scout rates Cleveland as safer than only 2% of other cities in the United States. Would my students approach the police to protect them, or their rights in our city? Can my students rely on our city leaders to protect and serve them?  A 2015 Department of Justice report about the Cleveland Police Department and the Tamir Rice story are enough to understand why my kids feel like they are in occupied territory. They often feel contained and neglected, not protected.      

    As Cleveland celebrates its historic championship basketball team, Calder Cup winning hockey team, and currently winning baseball team, officials are also preparing to showcase the city to the 50,000 visitors expected for the Republican National Convention, which is less than a few weeks away. The fruits of successful collaborative efforts between government, business and nonprofit entities are evident as long-time residents travel throughout Cleveland’s neighborhoods. Colorful art murals have appeared on the sides of buildings, walls, highway bridge supports, and utility boxes. New hotels have opened in time for the convention. Additional gardens and greenery-filled planters have been placed around the city for added beauty, and extra lighting has been strategically placed to keep visitors safe and so that the city can shine. Sidewalks and roads have been repaired and paved, and new trees have been planted. A redesigned public square was recently revealed for a $50 million dollar price tag. Outside of the aesthetic appeal of the multiple improvements around the city, $50 million dollars of an NSSE grant was allocated for security in a 2015 fiscal appropriations bill “to ensure the safety of convention goers,” according to Senator Portman (R) from Ohio.

    Recently, Cleveland has been given accolades by media sources throughout the country as a “revitalized city” ready for the national stage when the potentially boisterous Republican National Convention arrives July 18th. While Cleveland is putting its best foot forward for the worldwide media attention it is likely to receive, there are questions that should be asked about the amount being spent on the downtown area to impress and keep the RNC visitors safe.

     Where is the money to keep Cleveland’s children safe? Where is the money to revitalize neighborhood centers with mentors for Cleveland’s children? Where is the money to create jobs and job training for our young people and their families? Where is the money to turn our city schools into community resource centers for students and their families? Where is the money to eradicate lead poisoning and to keep testing children for lead? Where is the money to get guns off of the city’s streets? Why aren’t our city’s children as valuable as the 50,000 visitors who will descend upon our city, then leave? Where are the children’s $50 million dollar grants and allocations?

    Some people may respond with lines about generating business, marketing Cleveland to the world, and income generated for the city. The promises of capitalist investment abound for the already affluent, in a city that has no qualms about leaving its most vulnerable citizens in segregated, impoverished, isolated neighborhoods. Others may assert that the convention hosting is about business and not about messy human issues embedded in systematic and historical racism. To both assertions I reply “Correct!” Capitalist principles should not be applied when we are discussing human beings. Capitalism shouldn’t be integrated into healthcare, education, unions, or the judicial system. Profits or marketing shouldn’t be considered when leaders are aware of children being poisoned by lead, or when children need saved from violence. If it helps though, consider what a significant investment in our city’s children right now would do for the future of Cleveland. There is a tremendous waste of human potential created by the purposeful neglect of other people’s children.

   Clearly, the safety of visitors during the RNC is important to city, state, and national leaders. How can we make the children of Cleveland as valuable as these 50,000 temporary residents to those same leaders? How can I make my students, who have tremendous insight, resilience, and brilliance, as important as the republicans?

 

    

 

    

      

 

     

Hillary, Politicians, Education Reformers, & Education Profiteers: You Are Cowards & Failures

You say my school is failing. You label my students as failing. You call me a failure. Then you shake hands with profiteers who wear fancy suits and promote edperialism and a testocracy. These profiteers and elitists you embrace send their kids to expensive private schools, so their children don’t have to endure the policies stuffed full of educational malpractice you collaborated to create. They sit cozy in offices and devise untested business theories for application to the humanity that is education. You let them steal our tax dollars, and you praise them as philanthropists for their astronomical failures in education. It’s time you change your narrative. It’s time you change your proximity.

Do you really want to know what it’s like to be a public school teacher in an economically devastated & segregated neighborhood in one of our nation’s cities? Neither you nor the profiteers and policy makers really want to know. People like you want to keep judging and labeling, but you don’t want to admit that you helped create the suffering and disadvantage. You don’t want to claim the role and responsibility that you bear for the disasters you’ve created for other people’s children. Come take a look at my joyful, sad, sweet, angry, helpless, and hopeful students and tell them they’re failures to their faces. Come see me and my colleagues in our classrooms working 10-12 hour days and look us in the eyes and tell us we’re failures. Tell the families who rely on the existing public neighborhood schools we have left that they’re failures raising failures.

Does that seem harsh? It should.

But you have no problem preaching about “failing schools” full of “failing students” while you’re perched in expensive offices in skyscrapers, or as you muse about education in affluent and gated neighborhoods. Change your proximity and see if your narrative still feels all cozy, warm and righteous. See if you still possess the courage or ignorance to make bold declarations about failure when you’re looking into the eyes of hungry six-year-olds who suffered through childhood traumas and lead-filled homes in one of our nation’s cities. Can you look into those sweet, helpless faces and tell a little girl that she’s a failure?

Yet, that is what you do every time you or your education reformer/deformer friends and contributors suggest competition and privatization or closures, instead of addressing the poverty, historic and systemic racism, and epic failure of our society to care about other people’s children.  The real failures among us fill boardrooms, legislatures, executive offices, non-profits, and cabinets all over this country. They aren’t in my classroom. They aren’t in my school. And they aren’t the families in my city.  They’re people like you.  And I have the courage to state that directly.  Now, I challenge you to stand in front of us and tell us we are failures while you are looking straight into the eyes of my children, my students, our school staff, and my colleagues. OR you can finally gain the courage to change your narrative, examine the research, and acknowledge the role that our nation has played in making sure that some people’s children start out with less than others, and to admit that we don’t do enough to change that, or do enough to help our fellow citizens catch up.  

Maybe once you have the courage to admit to policy and approach failures, you and those who believe that having money makes them authorities about EVERYTHING, will actually ASK educators, healthcare providers, social workers, mental health providers, safety and security providers, nutritionists, and the people we serve what is really needed to improve our cities and education.  I am pretty certain the response won’t be that we need more politicians and reformers threatening us and calling us failures. You won’t know though until you change your proximity, and then change your narrative. Meanwhile, I’ll keep working under your failed policies and egregious labels while making sure that my students, their families, and my colleagues remain reminded that YOU FAIL US then label us. Yet, until you make an initiative for change, it is YOU who should wear the label of failure and shame.

Not us.

*Changing proximity and changing the narrative were ideas presented by justice advocate and lawyer Bryan Stevenson at a Boston Community Conversation on December 9th, 2015 at Emerson University’s Paramount Theater in partnership with Facing History.    

Evaluate What?!?!

“I’m staying because I haven’t finished reminding our country that students are people not products, and that teachers are people too.”

You can tell Pat your story also! pat.bruns@education.ohio.gov

Hello,

I was told that you are gathering stories from Ohio teachers about their frustrations with legislation, certification, and how they are treated. Thanks for your interest. I’ve been asked more than once while I’m advocating or working for my students and the future of our city: “Are you just a teacher?”

Yep. I’m just a teacher.

If you’re willing to read on, I’m relieved to share what life is like for “just teachers” like me in one Ohio city.

I’ve been teaching in Cleveland for 18 years. I have an extensive resumé. I’ve only wanted to teach in urban schools. I hold an Ohio 5-year Senior Professional license. I am a Master Teacher, an OTES certified evaluator, a certified RE Mentor,  New Tech Certified,  and a certified Class Meetings Trainer. I hold a BA with a triple major and a double minor. I earned an MA in English Lit. I have 50+ hours towards an EdD. In addition to all of my training and education, I love working with kids, especially “those” kids, which is a label pregnant with all of the challenges, obstacles, and disadvantages that your imagination can conjure.

My passion and spirit started to dissipate when the state began to label schools and overwhelm us with testing and absurd mandates. It hurts your soul when you care deeply about kids, but are forced to become an accomplice to their ruin and part of a system that shames. Soon,the state and district threats “if the numbers don’t get higher” began menacingly hovering over our staff at the school I taught at for 13 years. The instability of many different administrators, constantly changing models, and repurposing everything, every year, was too head-spinning for me. So, I left that high school for another one in the same city that didn’t follow a traditional model. It had a consistent national model and innovative approach to education, although the staff and students moved buildings three times in five years. The experience reignited my passion, partly because I joined a staff that had been exclusively selected and were amazing to work alongside.

After completing two years at a New Tech school, the new collective bargaining agreement under The Cleveland Plan took effect. Voters had repealed the signing of Ohio Senate Bill 5, but that did not stop Governor Kasich or the legislature from continuing the attack on public schools. Even though decades of research has indicated that poverty and socioeconomic status far outweigh the impact of anything else on student success, the facts and truth do not stop ed-deformers, corporate profiteers, legislators, or edperialists from continuing to encourage legislation according to whatever whims they fancy. Amid a cluster of chaos and unknowns, the pseudo accountability of tying student test scores to educators and their compensation (salary) began with the year 2013-2014 in Cleveland for some teachers, and the rest would experience the turmoil eventually.

During the 2012-2013 school year, 80% of my students passed the social studies part of the Ohio Graduation Test. It is a test that covers ninth and tenth grade curriculum, but I only taught 10th grade. During the 2013-2014 school year, the new 10th grade class arrived, but they had a different 9th grade teacher than the students before them. There were also more challenging issues that the 2013-2014 10th grade students possessed that the prior year’s class had not. A little over 60% of my students passed the social studies OGT that school year, which was about ten percent higher than the district average. The district assigned predicted scores that my students were supposed to earn on the social studies OGT test, based on reading scores from NWEA tests that the students previously took. Apparently they had examined the numbers and there was a correlation between students’ reading and social studies scores. They didn’t consider other factors when creating predicted scores, such as the fact that some of my students were English Language Learners. There was no causal evidence of a link between reading and social studies scores, and the district only looked at scores from one year, so statistically speaking, the approach was completely flawed. I submitted this statistical analysis to the district as part of the grievance process: Statistical Analysis of the Validity of Using NWEA Reading Scores to Predict Social Studies OGT Results. My students’ scores didn’t match the district’s predictions, and were within a wide range above and below. I thought that the students’ OGT results would count towards half of my overall teacher rating as test scores are required by the state for 50% of teachers’ overall effectiveness ratings. I was incorrect.

Soon after students finished their week of March OGT testing in 2014, which drastically reduced instructional time not just during test week, but during weeks of test prep as well, the test coordinator and principal surprised me with another social studies test that students were to take by April 9th. The student results of this test were to be 35% of my evaluation, and students’ invalidly predicted performance scores on the OGT were the other 15% of my evaluation. The remaining 50% of my evaluation was based on my principal’s subjective placement of my performance on an extensive rubric.

When I was emailed the blueprint for the test chosen, I noted that it did not align with our district’s scope and sequence. I wrote the final version of the American History portion of the scope and sequence for the district that school year, so I was very aware of what was to be taught. There were also topics on the blueprint that we hadn’t been able to cover yet in class, because testing and test prep took up so much time that could have been used for instruction. Plus, the school year didn’t end until June, but the students had to take the test before April 9th, 2014. There was seven weeks of learning left, but they had to take a test on things that they were GOING to learn over the next seven weeks, and on content that was not even on our scope and sequence. I decided that I didn’t choose to be a teacher to make students feel stupid, and intended to resign. I started applying for non-teaching jobs.

In May, even though I had 29 “accomplished” and 13 “skilled” marks on my teacher evaluations throughout the school year, and was chosen as the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association Teacher of the Year, and earned Master Teacher status that year, and was interviewed by a national blog about a happiness project that February, and presented at national conferences, the principal stated at my composite conference that my students’ test scores just weren’t high enough for her to give me an overall “Accomplished” rating. That was the chalk that broke the teacher’s back. My salary is tied to my rating in Cleveland, which meant that I would not be getting a raise. Meanwhile, teachers of electives earned “Accomplished” ratings in the same building because not only are they “accomplished,” but they also did not have any tests tied to their composite ratings.

Neither I, nor my students, nor their families, have ever received the student performance results of the April 2014 test. Someone in our district mysteriously assigned me a “3” or “average” rating for the April 2014 student test scores. I have no idea how they concluded that I was average because I have never seen my students’ test results. This year, my former students from spring 2014 are high school seniors.

In May 2014, when discussing the torment that the students and I were experiencing because of test anxiety, a colleague mentioned a job opening for a teacher at the county juvenile detention center. Only state or federally mandated tests are required there, and current student test scores are not tied to educators’ evaluations (yet) because the population literally changes every day. I interviewed and accepted a position at our juvenile detention facility for significantly less pay than my previous position provided.

My first year at the county detention center (2014-2015) revived my teaching soul, and reminded me why I became a teacher: to facilitate and inspire learning. At the end of the year, my principal reviewed the 3 walk throughs that he completed, and the two formal observations (one announced and one unannounced) he conducted, as required by the teacher evaluation system. I earned an overwhelmingly “accomplished” composite rating. I felt vindicated. Then, in June 2015, I received an email from our Student Learning Outcome email account. It stated that my final rating for the 2014-2015 school year was going to be “skilled.” With shock and anger, I asked them how that was possible. The response has been that our legislature and collective bargaining agreement both allowed for the district to use those student test score results from the spring of 2014, from the school that I no longer taught at, from students that I no longer taught, from a test that I never received student results from, for three years. Regardless of how “accomplished” I am as an educator, scores that have nothing to do with my performance as a teacher, and scores that I never received results for, will hold me to a “skilled” rating for three years. This means that I will not receive an annual raise because an “accomplished” rating is what equals that raise. Educator ratings are also considered when reviewing applications for stipend positions that could supplement a teacher’s salary, so additional monetary losses accumulate.

If this sort of evaluation system is supposed to reward “great teachers,” then the system has epically failed. It certainly hasn’t made me feel appreciated, respected, or inspired either. I would give the teacher evaluation system an overall rating of “ineffective.” It is not even “developing.” (Those are two other ratings in the teacher evaluation system that can be assigned to educators.)

One may wonder…

Why then do I continue to stay late at work, continue to advocate, blog, network, and organize? Continue to monitor and communicate with my students and their families once they are released from me? Why do I continue to collaborate with staff, mentor other teachers, participate in national conferences, and attend additional professional development? Why do I plan engaging, meaningful lessons connected to students’ lives and provide them with effective feedback? And why do I differentiate, assess, and develop empathy and self advocacy in my students every day, if all I am ever going to be, according to the district and state, is “skilled?” If I know that I am not going to be paid more for doing more, then why am I always doing more?

I do what I do because I want what is best for my students. I treat my students the way I want my sons to be treated: with care, respect, compassion, confidence, and integrity. I didn’t decide to become a teacher because I wanted to be rich. However, it becomes increasingly difficult to not want to curse and attack the unfairness that surrounds public education, or to not be compelled to run away from it all. The string of teacher-resignation letters being published around the country is not without cause.

I’m not going anywhere, but obviously it isn’t the rewards I’ve received from the state or district for working hard that keep me around. I stay because I’m naive enough to hope that one day the oligarchy will wake up from their dreams of profiteering, deforming, and controlling, and restore control of public education to the professionals: educators. I’m staying because I know that money and greed have given rise to an opposition force of revolutionaries who want to reclaim the profession and our democracy. I want to bear witness as the resistance continues to swell. I want to remain in the fight until all public schools are equipped with the resources to provide equal access and opportunity to all citizens; because democracy is the people. The right to educational equity should also belong to the people. I’m staying because I haven’t finished reminding our country that students are people not products, and that teachers are people too.

If you’re reading this… thank a teacher.

Skilled I remain,

Melissa

Now is Always the Time to Do What is Right

    Recently, the Ohio Department of Education(ODE) held a phone propaganda conference to inform Ohioans about the state tests that they want students to take this school year (2015-2016). The new (but not really new) tests from AIR will replace the PARCC tests, but will still incorporate PARCC-like questions and possibly even the exact same questions used on tests that AIR created for purchasers in other states. AIR tests in the states of Utah and Florida this past year received less than positive accolades. Recruited for part of the ODE’s propaganda effort was Ohio’s 2015 Teacher of the Year, a high school teacher from Tallmadge, Ohio, and ODE Associate Superintendent, Lonny Rivera, who will soon be replacing retiring State Superintendent, Richard Ross. The following is my sincere plea to those educators who may not recognize the damage that high stakes standardized testing wreaks upon public education as a whole, but particularly on the schooling of underprivileged children.

Dear 2015 Teacher of the Year (and Any Other Educators Who Have Yet to Join The Force),

    I applaud the efforts and dedication that earned you the recognition bestowed upon you. Obviously, like the vast majority of educators I know, you care deeply about your subject, position and students. You have recognized and harnessed the power that teachers possess to impact lives. This ability, that only certain people can master, requires a combination of intellect, heart, endurance, passion, patience, dedication, and crafting. Knowing that, the entire profession should be held in high regard and well respected by politicians, leaders, and society in general. Being a “Teacher of the Year,” provides you with a potentially stronger voice to influence others. Listeners may even offer you a certain level of respect that they will not afford to the profession in general.

    With this great respect, comes great responsibility.

    When you convey to an audience of listeners that standardized high stakes testing is not punitive, or does not require you to teach to a test, you not only misinform that audience, but you forget that while you are lovingly nurturing and nourishing the minds of your students in a supportive community, with a democratically elected and locally controlled school board, there are other students and educators in the state who are enduring the dismantling of democracy, and the enforcement of harmful, non-researched based approaches designed to punish and label children and schools, even if those students and teachers are working just as hard, if not harder, than the staff and student body in Tallmadge.

Below is a comparison of Tallmadge, Ohio, to Cleveland, Ohio.

The cities are 37 miles apart.

2013	Tallmadge, Ohio	Cleveland, Ohio
Unemployment Rate	1.8%	15.2%
Median Household Income	$53,748	$26,096
Estimated Median House or Condo Value	$154,170	$66,600
Average Monthly Rent	$655	$631
Foreign Born Residents	2.7%	4.6%

http://www.city-data.com/

    The implications of the data should not need explanation, but it may be necessary to highlight that even when students are from families with a parent working full-time, year-round, they can still be living in a low-income household because wages are so low that many families cannot survive solely on what they earn.

     Growing up in poverty, or in a low-income household, can have significant effects on learning and brain development that have been known about for over a decade. According to the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Education, “Biological factors include toxin exposure (e.g., lead paint in older buildings), malnourishment, premature birth from prenatal drug and alcohol use, and vitamin deficiencies in the mother (e.g., folic acid). The NRC identified time between parents and their children to be the most important factor in early child development, and parents in low-income households often do not have the time to devote to their children. Less time with parents means less verbal discussion, less vocabulary development, and less social skill development — all contributing to a tougher time in school.”

    The organization  Zero to Three notes, “Research shows that major adversity, such as extreme poverty, can weaken  developing brain architecture and permanently set the body’s stress response system on  high alert.” Children from low-income families are  “at greater risk than middle‐ or  high‐income infants and toddlers for a variety of poorer outcomes and vulnerabilities, such as later school failure, learning disabilities, behavior problems, mental retardation, developmental delay, and health impairments.” None of this research reveals an actual deficit for the potential to learn, but it does reveal that standardization of learning is inappropriate and abusive to the mindsets of children who already have considerable odds to confront. Massive testing that has never been appropriately vetted to eliminate cultural biases, in addition to the dozens of other reasons high stakes testing lacks validity, has been punitive to our most vulnerable citizens, and has neglected the needs of our most gifted learners.

    Before even considering the disparities in access to resources and opportunities for students in Cleveland compared to those in Tallmadge, there is already an established pattern of risk for students that has nothing to do with the school systems, and everything to do with factors related to family backgrounds and socioeconomic status. Testing is not going to change that. An historical account of housing segregation and job discrimination in Cleveland, and other northern urban areas, reveals that the U.S. government contributed to segregated poverty when returning World War II white GI’s could get low-cost federal home loans to move to the suburbs, while black veterans could not. Then, there is the history of “sun-down towns”  and sun-down suburbs in Ohio and other northern parts of the U.S.  These areas still remain purposefully all white, or nearly all-white today, because they were intentionally designed to exclude other groups, particularly African Americans (3.4% of Tallmadge residents are African American). Testing does not promote integration or support equity. 

    There are adversities for Cleveland students that the majority of the population in Tallmadge and other suburbs may never encounter. Being a teacher anywhere means being a member of an important and necessary profession. We have the power to impact individuals and a collective future. However, when a teacher states from a perspective of privilege, that test scores are not punitive or that teachers do not have to teach to the test, then that someone is either lying or sorely lacks knowledge. If anyone believes that testing does not castigate, then they should go teach in one of the most economically devastated neighborhoods in a city, at a public school that cannot turn away students deemed as “less desirable,” and compare that experience to wherever they are coming from. Were the students retained because of a test, even when the professional educators who worked with the student all year saw growth?

     Take all of the teachers from a school rated “A” by the Ohio Department of Education in a suburb like Tallmadge, and swap them with the teachers at a school labeled “F” by the Ohio Department of Education for a year. Will the grades of the schools automatically be reversed the next school year after a year with new staffs? The odds are in strong favor of the state grades for both schools remaining the same, regardless of a staff swap. Does going to a school with despicable overhead labels hovering every day motivate students or teachers, or does that feel punitive? Teachers work hard wherever we are, but we can’t solve systemic poverty that was cast upon marginalized groups in our society, through generations of discriminatory and oppressive practices, all by ourselves. Educators need society to finally decide that rectifying past wrongs and caring for other people is worth the effort. We do not need another member of the profession touting false information to an audience of listeners or proclaiming that testing is not punitive. 

    We cannot change our country’s history or mistakes made in the past, and we should not regret wanting what is best for our children and working for that aim. Yet, we should also not be a society that continues to ignore the fact that the time to do what is right, is always NOW.

    NOW is the time to reject the high stakes test and punish system that has been discredited and exposed as producing little, but costing much. 

    NOW is the time to stand against punitive labels and inequities.

    NOW is the time to proclaim that our children are not products, and that they do not come standardized.

    NOW is the time to say that access to a quality education should not be a competition. It is a right.

    NOW is the time to decide that our children deserve much better.

    And to decide that other people’s children deserve better also.

    A better time than NOW will not arrive. The time to do what is right is always NOW.

Please join us.

Sincerely,

Just A Teacher

    

    

   

    

 

    

It’s Time to End the Age of Edperialism

It’s Time to End the Age of Edperialism

Melissa Marini Švigelj-Smith

Edperialism – when individuals with more resources and power invade a system that belongs to people who live in the system, exploit those people and their resources, and structure a system to benefit the eduperial power and their interests without regard for the inhabitants of the system.

    Not too long ago, Ohio Governor John Kasich stated that if he were king, he would abolish teachers’ lounges. His statement seemed outlandish not only because most educators do not even know what a teachers’ lounge looks like, but also because he seemed to be aspiring to a tyrannical empire that British colonists considered so unfavorable – they would rather die than surrender to it. However, his words are actually a revealing admission of the fragmentation and privatization of public schools, and of what some have referred to as the testocracy. The combination of attacks on public education from multiple political, wealthy, and privileged factions in our society, who perhaps wish they were an absolute monarchy, is akin to imperialism, or what I refer to as edperialism.

    An honest historical outrospection of any nation’s imperial past calls for contemporary global citizens to denounce imperialist policies as racist, classist, elitist, sexist, and yet still very profitable for the nations doing the exploiting. For the people who lived in the colonies, or for those who remain affected by the remnants of imperialism, the cultural and economic effects have been brutal. Similarly, eduperial powers also called “education reformers”—often people who are extremely wealthy billionaires, hedge fund managers, and bankers—have gazed upon the 99% in this country through their possibly racist, classist, sexist, and elitist telescopes, to totally reshape American education for their own interests. With the goal of controlling resources to scratch the nagging itch for wealth and power, dominant members of America’s elite project a facade of benevolence. Unfortunately, most often their motives have been anything except altruistic or beneficial for the masses. Instead, their obsession with forcing all students to learn a similar curriculum at a similar pace has ruined true learning, and has ignored the very basic notion that all students learn through different modalities at different paces. Just as imperial powers failed to value the cultures of those they wished to exploit, or to recognize the humanity of those they subjugated, ed-reformers fail to acknowledge the credible, substantial amount of research and data that proves not only the failure of their test-based, standardized reforms, but also the harmful negative consequences thrust upon our cities, schools, students, and teachers.

    Recently, it wasn’t King John Kasich who was anointed to rule over American edperialism, so he could finally abolish those pesky teachers’ lounges. Instead, John King Jr. was appointed by President Obama to be the acting Secretary of Education once the current U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, steps down from the post in December. Acting Secretary King may have learned something from the failed edperialism policies he began as Education Commissioner in the state of New York, and he may even  possess characteristics of empathy. Surely, not every general or governor appointed to rule over colonized people during the height of global imperialism lacked superficial empathy. However, true empathy goes beyond simply understanding someone else’s viewpoint, or another person’s perspective. True empathy produces heroes that none of us will ever know the names of. These empathic heroes not only understand other people’s perspectives, but they value them and care about them.  They are grassroots organizers, activists, and agitators, and they are part of the resistance. If Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Secretary Arne Duncan, or Deputy Secretary John King were truly empathic people, brave residents under eduperial rule in Chicago would not have to go on a hunger strike for 34 days to try to save and revitalize a neighborhood public high school. Gandhi only had to be on a hunger strike for six days to change the minds of the British.

    More of the same edperialist approaches or policies from (acting) Secretary King is unacceptable. Our children, our public schools, and the future of our country as a democracy, are at stake under eduperial rule supported by an oligarchy. In the spirit of resistance to unjust, inhumane, and incogitable ignorance, it is time for those with true empathy to demand “insistence on truth,” or Satyagraha. This truth-force, or “the force that is generated through adherence to Truth,” must compel all students, educators, families, and communities to refuse to cooperate with the eduperial powers. We must refuse to submit to the injustices and inequities in education that we are fighting. This means we must refuse high stakes standardized tests for our children and students, and demand that truth and true empathy guide education policy. Power is only held through obedience. We allow the tyranny that we consent to. Our children can’t wait for an eduperial king at the U.S. Department of education to develop true empathy. If Gandhi’s Satyagraha can profoundly shake a vast empire, then imagine what the power of mass-mobilization in our country could do to begin to address the injustices and inequities in public education. Step one of the resistance is deposing the test-and-punish system. It will take strength, persistence, courage, and action. Join the non-cooperation movement. Refuse the tests. Help end the Age of Edperialism. 

What if they gave a test and nobody came?

Let’s find out.

For more information visit http://unitedoptout.com/,

http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/,

http://www.badassteacher.org/, http://www.fairtest.org/, or

http://parentsacrossamerica.org/

In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, please visit http://refuseofcuyahogacounty.webstarts.com/

   

    

 

Visit My Classroom at CCJDC & See How Hope Happens

Dear Senator Portman, Senator Brown, and Congresswoman Fudge,

I spent this past school year teaching at the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Detention Center. I’m sure that you have preconceived notions about what the school and students are like. I can guarantee that your predictions and expectations would evolve after a visit to my classroom.

I work with 15-17 year old male students. Many of them have had childhoods filled with tragedy and have faced obstacles that have left them feeling as if there are no options for them except a life on the street. Most complain about school because it is not designed for students who like to learn with their hands, who can’t sit still for extended lengths of time and be quiet, who are intellectually gifted, or who don’t want to go to college. Instead of changing the system to meet the needs of these most vulnerable students, or providing resources and instituting funded policies that would assist these young men, they are faced with a system often endorsed by politicians that feeds a school-to-prison pipeline.

With all of the research we have about brain development throughout every stage of life, it is inexcusable that we treat these young men as if they have the capacity to make sound adult decisions, particularly when the majority haven’t been given strong social guidance during their crucial developmental years. Instead of endorsing a system of high stakes standardized testing that pushes these students out of schools and bores them into behavior problems that can result in criminal charges, our students need wrap around services such as access to mental health care, addiction treatment, social workers, mentors, nutrition and full healthcare access, and an opportunity to learn in an environment that doesn’t further punish them for poverty or instability in their homes. Families need this support from conception to graduation, not just K-12.

I have had students flourish in my class under the direction of our administrator. They have gone from being chronologically behind grade levels, to being caught up on their high school credits during the time they are incarcerated. These successes give them something that they are lacking in the segregated, impoverished neighborhoods from which most of them begin their academic careers: hope. These achievements can only occur because I have the freedom to design curriculum on an individual basis for my students, the opportunity to design instruction based on student interests and the most recent educational research, and because I am trusted by my administrator to try strategies that I believe may assist my students. Being confined by strict curriculum scripts, a narrow focus on passing high stakes standardized tests, and zero tolerance discipline policies that exist in traditional high schools would only cause further detriment to these students who need the best instruction the most. I am also trusted to adapt my instruction as needed, to collaborate with my partner who teaches the same age group, and to not only learn from successes, but from attempts that were not necessarily as successful as I had hoped.

One student I had this year began his time in my class unwilling to do a lot of work in school. After a little time with us, he began to realize that he was surrounded by people who care, people who have his best interest in mind and heart, and is in a facility that will support him, his education, and his teacher. Through his hard work and some incentives negotiated between myself and the detention officers, the student is now a senior instead of a sophomore, has passed 4/5 state tests, and will not leave our administrator alone about how many credits he has and still needs to graduate. Even in his challenging situation, he now has hope. He has experienced academic success and can now envision possibilities. What if our entire education system was structured to provide this same feeling for all of its stakeholders? What if not only students, but teachers, parents, and the communities that some of these most vulnerable, pushed-out students come from were in a culture of hope instead of one that seeks to marginalize, punish, and contain?

The resources, small classes, and wrap-around services provided to our young men should not be exclusive to a detention center. These supports must be provided to all schools that need them, so that some day my school does not have a detained juvenile population to serve any more. Politicians, policy makers, and wealthy elitists need to stop trying to further deform our education system with mandated testing and pseudo accountability, and instead focus on research based strategies in existence for decades that will adapt schools to fit students’ needs. The damage to students and failure of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top is evident when you walk into our school, or around the community in which we are located. I implore you to come visit my classroom, hear our stories, and meet the citizens that your legislative reforms, and needed reforms, impact every day.

Sincerely,

Melissa Marini Švigelj-Smith

Refuse of Cuyahoga County

Lessons “THAT kid” taught me in my classroom:

As a sequel to Why I Tell My Kid Not to Avoid “THAT Kid”

Lessons “THAT kid” taught me in my classroom:

• Just when I’m about to declare myself to be completely left without a shred of patience, I can close my eyes, take a deep breath, and open my heart up just a little bit more. There are always more patience.
• It is alright if some days I learn more from them about humanity, than I think I can ever teach them.
• Save tears of happiness or sorrow for when I’m alone. Seeing a teacher cry even scares the older students who think they are tough stuff.
• Always focus on the small victories. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and building children is far more important.
• Don’t allow the lies of education reformers (AKA deformers) to get me down. They have no idea that teaching is part love, part science, part craft, part knowledge, part social, part academic, part trust, part persistence, part determination, and part faith in “THAT kid” becoming an awesome adult one day
• Be grateful to fate for bringing “THAT kid” to my classroom. because maybe I can help “THAT kid” figure out that being “THAT kid” isn’t really all THAT bad. In fact, being “THAT kid” doesn’t have to be a bad thing at all.

My 3-Minute Plea to the Cleveland Board of Education 3-26-15

Good evening. My name is Melissa Marini Švigelj-Smith.

 

Thank you, once again, for this opportunity to speak.

 

This evening I stand before you as a parent advocate. As evidenced by the easy passage of the last school levy, this community and its parents support Cleveland schools, and that respect and support deserves consistent reciprocity. I don’t believe that I need to rehash recent media reports in order to justify bringing attention to this issue.

 

As I briefly share some reasons why families have refused to allow their children to participate in high stakes standardized tests, I hope that you will consider adopting a policy that is respectful and supportive of families who express the desire to direct their children’s education, as protected by the 14th amendment.

 

This is why we refuse…

 

Because children should not have to attend a school labeled “failing,” or labeled anything at all

 

School buildings shelter children with vast amounts of untapped potential. Not failures.

 

FAILURE should never be the name of a monster hovering over a school building making children afraid of how they will do on a test

 

Children shouldn’t have to be afraid of how their teacher will be hurt by their performance on a test

 

Or how their school or community or city will be labeled because of how they do on a test

 

What sort of sane society that supposedly cherishes its children puts that sort of pressure on a child?

 

We refuse because without the data, they can’t label our children or anyone else’s children

 

We refuse

 

Because we know that standardized test scores have only been good at proving one thing: childrens’ life experiences and backgrounds far outweigh the impact that a school or teacher has on their test performance

 

We refuse

 

Because we don’t want our children’s privacy violated & we don’t want test companies profiting  off of our children

 

Because we know that things like art, music, gym, and recess have been shown by research to increase academic success and shouldn’t be reduced or eliminated because kids need to take or prepare for more standardized tests

 

We refuse

 

Because we know that the emotional and social growth of children in school is not measured on a standardized test

 

Because the teacher who delivers groceries to a family in need, advocates for a student, or becomes a student’s confidant, counselor, or role model will never have that data show up in test results & we trust our children’s teachers to assess their progress

 

We refuse

 

Because struggling students should not be made to feel like less than the developing human beings that we ALL started out as because tests are used to label

 

We know that the long term consequences of labeling & retention are profound

 

NONE of our children are “limited,” “basic,” or “common”

 

Words that label can and do. Hurt and Divide.

 

We refuse

 

Because over 2000 education researchers, experts, and professionals signed a letter pleading with our President and Congress to stop relying on high stakes standardized testing to improve education – we have a decade of data proving that it doesn’t work

 

Because there are mountains of research that provide more effective and research proven methods to educate our children and to evaluate teachers and schools

 

We refuse

 

Because when we look at our children, we see their smiles, their talents, their goofiness, the crumbs around their mouths, the dirt on their skin, and the hope in their eyes

 

And when we look at our kids

 

We never see them as data or test scores

 

And neither should you

 

Thank you for your time and attention.

For additional information, please visit:

 

fairtest.org

 

parentsacrossamerica.org

 

teacher-advocate.com

 

http://unitedoptout.com/

 

Or take a look at recent articles and blog posts:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/people/valerie-strauss

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/

 

http://dianeravitch.net/

 

http://www.plunderbund.com/?s=ecot

 

http://www.plunderbund.com/2015/02/22/do-parcc-reading-passages-exceed-tested-grade-levels/

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/pearson-education-115026.html

msvigeljsmith.wordpress.com

Witnessing White Supremacy on the West Coast

An essay

Witnessing White Supremacy on the West Coast

An essay

INTRODUCTION & CONTEXT

I retired from my job in Ohio and uprooted my family to start a new phase of life in California almost four years ago. Only two of the five sons in our family were still living at home when we moved. Although now living in a state with more progressive politics than Ohio’s, the experiences of my Black sons while living on the West Coast reveal a dissonance between assumed widespread “liberal” ideologies and actual daily practices. In fact, in my experience, it seems as though perceptions of progressivism obstruct and prevent opportunities for honest and realistic introspection, self-reflection, and actual progress toward justice (i.e., We live in the Bay Area and our profile pics have #BlackLivesMatter across them so we don’t need to discuss racism or think about how our implicit biases perpetuate systemic injustices.). 

Using the term white supremacy to refer to a “socio-political-economic system of domination based on racial categories that benefit those defined and perceived as white” (Diangelo, 2017, para 6), I argue that many West Coasters need to honestly examine their everyday actions and ask if what they are doing in their daily lives is actually protecting and caring for the Black lives that they proclaim to matter on their bumper stickers and social media posts.  

There is no shortage of #BlackLivesMatter signs throughout the city we live in, along with other “progressive” sentiments like “no human is illegal.” I have noticed more signs supporting Black lives than actual Black people living here. It wasn’t until my sons moved to the West Coast that they were repeatedly confronted by angry adults and forced into entanglements with the police or other authority figures because white people, and sometimes people of color who invoke white supremacist practices, feel entitled to surveil and police them. Psychologists refer to the everyday slights or indignities experienced by Black people, Indigenous people, people of color (BIPOC), and people with identities in other categories who are discriminated against as “death by a thousand cuts” because of how discrimination and prejudice contribute to poorer mental and physical health along with other detrimental effects (Wing Sue, 2021). 

Although I am white, I am a single mother of Black sons. I witness cuts that arise from white supremacy and patriarchy and sometimes there are also slashes, gashes, incisions, and lacerations. Yet, I also have privileges that people of color and others similarly situated are not granted. I do not, as Derald Wing Sue (2021) describes, have to experience microaggressions like people of color “every day from the moment they awaken in the morning until they go to sleep at night and from the time they are born until they die” (para 8). Yet, because my sons are Black, I am given insights into how the cuts, slashes, and gashes that emerge from patriarchy and white supremacy are perpetrated by people in a “progressive” region where an abundance of window posters, flags, and yard signs proclaim that Black lives matter and that everyone is welcome here.    

In this essay, I illuminate experiences of living in a so-called “progressive” place with people who use trendy “liberal” hashtags, where public displays of trendy “progressive” words are abundant, and where daily perpetuations of patriarchy and white supremacy interlude beneath a veil of assumed “progressivism” and thus, reinforce status quos. I do this through anecdotal evidence in narratives from our family’s experiences during the past four years (2018-2022) while living on the West Coast. 

WITNESSING

These narratives recall incidents endowed by white supremacy and patriarchy that transpired or are transpiring while living with my Black sons and our dog in a presumed and self-proclaimed  “progressive” U.S. city.

• A son was at a business lunch in San Francisco shortly after we moved to the West Coast. We still had Ohio license plates on our car. Son left the lunch when it was over and discovered that our car was intentionally tightly blocked into the parking space. A white guy with his young children and a rainbow flag beside him on a balcony saw my son looking perplexed at our car tightly blocked. He shouted down to my son that he was sick of people blocking his driveway so he blocked my son into the parking spot with a motor scooter and another car. He told my son that he couldn’t leave until the parking enforcement authorities, whom balcony-guy had summoned, arrived to give my son a ticket. Balcony-guy may not have known the race or gender of my son when he blocked our car, but his behavior and actions after he learned are steeped in patriarchal and white supremacist ideologies. 

Son apologized to balcony-guy for the error and explained that he did not recognize that a driveway existed where he was parked because there was no curb on the city block to distinguish between driveways and sidewalks, nor were there noticeable car garage doors since many buildings use similar metal doors to cover their building façades when closed for business. Son pointed out the Ohio license plate on our car to balcony-guy and explained that we had just moved to the West Coast and were still figuring things out. Balcony-guy continued to berate my son. Son pleaded that he had to pick up his little brother from his soccer game. No one watching and listening at the outdoor cafe next door intervened. Balcony-guy’s final offer to my son was that if my son gave him $50 that balcony-guy could use to buy and donate children’s books, then balcony-guy would come down and move his scooter so that my son could pull our car out of the parking spot and leave. Being young-male-Black means you are punished and meant to pay for the offenses of others plus your own if you dare to err. This clever son used the lack of curb on the city block to tediously maneuver our car out of the parking spot. Son looked in the rearview mirror and saw the rainbow flag fluttering beside balcony-guy and the young children as they watched him drive away.   

• A son was at a dog park with our dog. A guy who could pass as white started screaming at my son and charged at him with his dog because his dog and our dog were involved in a minor injury-free skirmish. Our dog reacted to screaming-charging-guy by proactively protecting my son from the dog who was charging at him with screaming-charging-guy. Screaming-charging-guy called the police on my son and our dog. Authorities confirmed to us (my son beckoned me to the scene with hopes that my privilege would be a beneficial intervention) that neither my son nor dog were liable for any wrongdoing legally or morally. Laws and morals do not release my sons from white supremacy which always determines young-male-Black as liable and guilty and deserving of policing just for existing. Swollen with entitlement and anger, screaming-charging-guy instigated a violent incident with my son and our dog and then did not hesitate to call the police and potentially place the lives of my son and our dog in further peril. What might have happened to a son in a similar situation who does not have an educated white mother?  

• A son moves into a wing of an apartment building with four units in a neighborhood that is recognizable for its spirited Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. An elderly white man lives in one unit. An elderly Asian woman lives in another. Two young white women live in a third unit and my son lives in the fourth. Mass emails are sent to residents by the building manager to warn unknown perpetrators that the smell of marijuana is permeating the hallway in the wing of the apartment building where my son lives. The lease indicates that smoking is only allowed outside. My son smells the marijuana coming from the unit where the two young white women live. He would never report the truth but meanwhile, my son is getting extra glances from the building manager and he receives notices that access to his apartment is required for maintenance. Swathed in inconsiderate and carefree privilege, the two young white women continue their indoor marijuana smoking while my son, always assumed guilty by reason of existing as young-male-Black, struggles to fend off subtle accusations and investigations.  

• Some college students were partying in the woods near where we live on a weekend night just after dark. The muffled music and laughter heard indicate happiness—together again after quarantines and closures. Someone living in our “welcoming” community does not approve of the sounds of happiness and calls the police on the students. Meanwhile, one of my sons is returning home from a friend’s house and rushes inside our place. He tells me the police are outside “chasing a bunch of college students.” My tall Black teenage son might easily be mistaken as a college student by police. He could have been one of those chased if he had arrived home just seconds later. Some college students were chased. Whoever called the police because college students were enjoying themselves on a weekend night prior to 23:00 (11 pm) did not care that people of color, undocumented, diversely abled, or non-binary folx live in our community and are more likely to experience police violence and are also college students. Perhaps swaddled in cis living with documents and the entitlements of white supremacy, ableism, and patriarchy underpinning them, whoever called the police in this “liberal” and supposedly welcoming community chose their personal preferences for comfort that particular night over Black lives and others’ lives. 

• I emailed a teacher about a son’s final semester grade in a high school course. The teacher had never met me in person because of COVID-19 restrictions. In the email, I wondered why 40% of my son’s grades (which amounted to an A and B+) had been left out of the teacher’s overall grade calculations for the semester. What I thought was a miscalculation of my son’s final grade resulted in a lowering of that final grade in the course by two letters. The teacher replied in an email to me that he believed my son received the final grade he deserved and that “It’s disappointing that the only time any concern for his grade was displayed [is] well after the course has ended” (personal email, 11 January 2022). The school district’s website includes in its core values “treating people with dignity and respect” and “schools must provide access and equity.” After A LOT of time and effort on my part to not eviscerate this person who DOES NOT KNOW ME and who thinks he can lower my son’s grade by two letters because of his beliefs, I filed a grade-change petition with the high school’s guidance counselor. Eventually, my son’s grade was officially changed to the one he earned and deserves. Again, I recognize and acknowledge the privileges that accompany someone who knows how schooling operates and is aware of avenues for filing a grade-change petition. However, being young-male-Black means their families must DISPLAY concern for academic progress to be measured or assessed by those with authority in the system. In contrast to reality and evidence, a belief in the importance of education is not associated with all students and their families nor accepted as an inevitable fact. It must be audaciously displayed.  

• A son works in the tech industry. Part of his role is to connect with others in various businesses through an online platform. A task made more difficult by the systemic racism of professional networking which has “historical roots in overtly racist and sexist hiring practices” (Austin, 2022, para 2). Connections among professionals in online networks have a direct impact on professional opportunities. Social media algorithms along with individual choices to connect or not connect with other members reify the domination of lucrative employment positions and business-to-business sales being awarded to well-off white men with established elite networks (Austin, 2022). Being young-male-Black means working four times as hard and receiving many more rejections and dismissals when requesting to connect with those in a majority well-off white male industry. Despite pledges from tech companies to Black lives in 2020, there is little tangible evidence of progress (Somers, 2021). There are still many more Black Lives Matter posters and hashtags within tech companies than there are actual Black employees.  

• There are people who recently chose to reside in our community because (as they stated) of its  “commitment to social justice and sustainability” (on a public website I’m choosing not to reveal). These new residents do not include my sons, our dog, or myself in their social justice persuasions despite #blacklivesmatter on one of the individual’s social media profile pictures. They’ve also made it clear that we don’t belong in this community, even though we started living here three years before they arrived. If my sons happen to be walking by their unit when they open their door, they slam it shut or look at my sons with paralyzed voiceless terror and then close the door. My dog howled once and within thirty minutes I received a call from police dispatch services because they called the police to complain. My son left his bike against the building during some days of rain and they complained. I then received an official inquiry about “hazardous items” being left outside. Meanwhile, every building around us has bikes, wagons, scooters, and skateboards leaned up against them. If I happen to be outside sweeping the balcony or tending to my plants and the wild turkeys come by, they blame me for the turkeys’ appearance and complain. Then, someone with a radio on his hip knocks on our door to investigate. One afternoon I was told by a lieutenant that dispatch services were called to request that an officer be sent to our parking lot to issue a ticket because my son’s car was in an empty unit’s assigned parking spot while I was in our unit’s assigned parking spot unloading groceries from my car. They called the police on our dog while I was not home because he was howling. They neglected to tell the police during the call that they were banging on the ceiling with an object and agitating and distressing our dog which caused our dog to continue howling. The entitlement they float upon on their white supremacist and patriarchal watershed compels them to harass, surveil, and police the single mother with young Black sons and their lab-pitbull mixed dog because we dare to live in what they seemingly perceive to be their “committed-to-social-justice” community. 

That’s all I’m choosing to share. It isn’t everything but it’s enough. Two-thousand-five-hundred words cannot fully portray all of the cuts and slashes. It is also not possible for me to offer an all-encompassing narrative because I am and will always be on a privileged periphery of the relentless assaults inspired by white supremacy. These are limitations. I write as a witness to white supremacist logic and its effects. Intellectually, mentally, emotionally, viscerally, and materially this witnessing is anguish. 

THERE IS NO CONCLUSION TO THE DEMANDS

My overall demand to so-called “progressives” and self-proclaimed “social justice” subscribers is to chickity-check yourselves and the wreckage you often wreak (Ice Cube, 1992). We should all engage in honest and thorough self-inquiry. Perhaps you consider yourselves to be decent humans who don’t consciously approve of discrimination and prejudice. We all make mistakes. We are all in a perpetual process of becoming (Freire, 1970). 

Meanwhile, stop publicly affirming the most basic ideologies any conscious person should hold with your bumper stickers and memes—like do not harm other living beings or the planet we live on and Black Lives Matter—while simultaneously neglecting the notion of the word as bond. 

Interrogate and analyze your actions in the daylight. Are you protecting and caring for Black lives every day? Or are your daily actions continuing the cutting, slashing, gashing, and lacerating?  

Don’t tell with trendy hashtags while invoking disparately dispensed violence and reifying current injustices. 

Be about it. Show with intentional protection and care. Cease and prevent the cuts, slashes, gashes, and lacerations.   

Be about it for the people I love and because it’s the right thing to do. 

Acknowledgments

I continue to be amazed by the resilience of my sons and others. I am also galvanized by those of all backgrounds and with multiple intersecting identities who continue to survive, thrive, and individually or collectively conspire to resist white supremacy. A friend’s email signature that reminds everyone with the question “How have you protected Black life today?” is also an influence on this essay. 

*My choice to not reveal specific details of people and places does not emanate from fear or lack of credibility but rather from strategic caution. I do not want readers to submit to habitual thinking patterns that disconnect white supremacy from their own lives and actions and then displace its logic on other people in other places instead of on themselves. Discrimination and prejudice inform everyday interactions everywhere. 

REFERENCES

999, U. (2017). Ice Cube – Check Yo Self Remix (Clean). YouTube. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCx3vPMk6n0.

Bhuiyan, J., Hussain, S., & Dean, S. (2020, June 24). Black and brown tech workers share their experiences of racism on the job. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 3, 2022, from https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-06-24/diversity-in-tech-tech-workers-tell-their-story

DiAngelo, R. (2019, November 26). No, I won’t stop saying “White supremacy”. YES! Magazine. Retrieved May 3, 2022, from https://www.yesmagazine.org/democracy/2017/06/30/no-i-wont-stop-saying-white-supremacy 

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. (M. B. Ramos, Trans.). Seabury Press.

Howard*, A. (2020, April 4). Networking away the American dream: How reinterpreting Title VII can reduce employer reliance on exclusive networks in hiring and broaden access to professional opportunities. Cardozo Law Review. Retrieved May 3, 2022, from http://cardozolawreview.com/networking-away-the-american-dream/

Morin LCSW, A. (2020, September 17). 7 strategies to discover and eliminate racist tendencies in yourself. Verywell Mind. Retrieved May 3, 2022, from https://www.verywellmind.com/anti-racism-strategies-5069386

Somers, M. (2021, June 22). Tech companies lag behind their black lives matter pledges. MIT Sloan. Retrieved May 3, 2022, from https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/tech-companies-lag-behind-their-black-lives-matter-pledges

Wiggers, K. (2021, August 5). LinkedIn says it reduced bias in its connection suggestion algorithm. VentureBeat. Retrieved May 3, 2022, from https://venturebeat.com/2021/08/05/linkedin-says-it-reduced-bias-in-its-connection-suggestion-algorithm/

Wing Sue, D. (2021, March 30). Microaggressions: Death by a thousand cuts. Scientific American. Retrieved May 3, 2022, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/microaggressions-death-by-a-thousand-cuts/ 

Excerpts from my chapter in Radically Dreaming: Illuminating Freirean Praxis in Turbulent Times (DIO Press)

Coming soon!

From Chapter 26… pages 290-292

… When transitioning from the public area of the juvenile (in)justice center to
the secure detention area the visual contrast is stark and harsh. All hues of color are assaulted and consumed by a complete whitewashing of the floors, furnishings, walls, and ceilings. No natural lighting filters through the thick, solid block walls, which leaves only the intimidating and accusatory glare of fluorescent lights. The nine-story, cream-colored juvenile (in)justice center is on a reclaimed industrial site east of the city’s downtown. As it looms imposingly and noticeably over the neighborhoods nearby, it is not coincidental that its location blatantly invades some of the most impoverished areas of the city where multiple public housing complexes reside, penetrating this “cultural-historical situation and impos[ing] [a] system of values” (Freire, 2013, p. 100) ripe with conquest and manipulation.

The majority of youth who arrived at our classroom lived in the nearby neighborhoods (when they weren’t enduring forced removal by the state) that are plagued with the effects of social and state-sponsored discrimination and segregation. When I first arrived at the school, the need to escape the sterile and pallid drabness everywhere overwhelmed me. Soon, students’ artwork began creeping to walls beyond our classroom like vines on a trestle covering foot after foot until the whiteness was nearly consumed. Before the end of my first year there, other educators had embraced the idea of decorating with student creations beyond our self-contained classrooms or office walls. Although the students are organized into pods and kept mostly isolated from each other, their schoolwork and artwork seemingly yearned to meet as it was increasingly taped on the walls of the school by teachers. Even if it was only the students’ papers gathering together, the displays of student work served as a reminder that “true education incarnates the permanent search of people together with others for their becoming more fully human in the world in which they exist” (Freire,
2013, p. 86).

The school at the detention center became an oasis of color and celebration in an otherwise barren, bleached desert of imposed despair. Mounted cameras are encased in hemispheres attached to ceilings in every classroom and throughout the JDC facility. These cameras are linked to viewing screens in distant rooms where mysterious watchers in this digital panopticon are hired by the county to monitor every sight and sound. Anyone repeatedly encountering the routines, sounds, sights, and the numbing absence of scent or touch begins to conform most often unwittingly and unwillingly to the oppressive absurdities of the institution. It is an unhealthy and vacuous normalization in which to become immersed and it is designed to effectively infuse in those under the objectifying digital gaze an “internalization of the opinion the oppressors hold… that they are good for nothing, know nothing, and are incapable of learning anything” (Freire, 1999, p. 45).

The distrust expressed through this ceaseless surveillance frequently produces domesticated contempt and inflames self-doubt for those subjected to uninterrupted observation. Countless students expressed how they felt prior to joining our classroom community. They shared in notes or assignments statements such as “I did not care about school,” “I never thought I would graduate from high school,” and “[I] had thoughts about giving up on school and life” (Personal artifacts, 2014-2018). It is certainly not an atmosphere or existence that which children should be enclosed within if they are actually expected to robustly develop and grow.

Indeed, as the name of the institution suggests, children are not being held captive in a juvenile detention center under the auspices of rehabilitation or reparations on their behalf regardless of a mission statement that falsely claims court detention services exist to “Provide for the care, welfare, safety and security of all juveniles under the supervision of the Detention Services continuum with the support of community partnerships.”

Political apathy and social indifference are pervasive in the attitudes of local city and county officials that inequitably allow for certain childhoods to be spent in uncertainty and captivity does not go unnoticed by students. Applying an alternative meaning to the abbreviation “CCJDC” printed in block letters on the dark blue jumpsuits they wore each day, students declared the initials to mean “City/County Children Just Don’t Care.” I perceived their word substitutions as partly inculcated by the blatant inequities they collectively experienced, yet also indicative of the permanent struggle for hope that “becomes intensified when one realizes it is not a solitary struggle” (Freire, 2016, p. 59). Continuing a transformative praxis in our classroom to communally create space for hope and increase students’ pride and confidence are not practices I question. The most pressing question became whether or not that was enough to challenge massively overwhelming and entrenched inequities.

I had been teaching for sixteen years in high schools in the same school district where the juvenile detention center is located and I, perhaps conceitedly, considered myself to possess advanced forms of dialogical and transformative praxes when I began there. However, serving as the guidance counselor and educator in a self-contained classroom of constantly revolving and traumatized students at the detention center dislodged my previous personal perceptions of professional competence. This transition in my self-understanding required a revved-up radicalization which Freire describes as involving an “increased commitment to the position one has chosen [that] is predominantly critical, loving, humble, and communicative, and therefore a positive stance” (1974/2013, p. 9).

A classroom pedagogy that includes “taking into consideration the unfavorable material conditions that many students of schools in marginalized areas of the city experience” (Freire, 2005, p. 140) was already a familiar practice for me when I began as an educator at the JDC. Similarly, I was well aware of the hauntings associated with multiple acts of violence inflicted upon the youth in divested city neighborhoods. Thus, there was no shortage of personal persistence to implement a critical pedagogy nor a lack of problems to “re-present” to students for their critical analysis, which is “the task of the dialogical teacher” (Freire,1999, p. 90).

The Rick Smith Show for 3-14-2017

The approximately 15-minute interview with Melissa begins at 1:23:30 and ends at 1:37:00. 

March 14, 2017

David Yankovich, writers and political commentator joins Rick to talk about the growing threat to our national security by the Trump administration as they cut the budget of Coast Guard and make the world less safety and stable by having a climate denier as head of the EPA.

Luz Christina Ramirez Mooney, New York Teacher and Badass Teachers Association member joins Rick to talk about the March for Education Justice in New York state, what Governor Cuomo is peddling in the state as education reform, and teachers and advocates are doing to stand up for public education.

Melissa Marini Svigelj-Smith, Cleveland Teacher and Badass Teachers Association member joins Rick in light of US Department of Education Secretary Billionaire Betsy’s recent wise crack at CPAC to talk poverty and the high costs of “Free Lunches” on students in poverty that the Secretary doesn’t seem to understand.

By working people. For working people. Welcome to The Rick Smith Show. Working Americans are tired of listening to think tank approved corporate news and commentary. They want a direct, honest approach to the issues that matter, so this is what The Rick Smith Show provides. No puppets. No focus groups. No talking points.

Source: The Rick Smith Show

St Paddy’s Day, Starvation & Public Education

In case you missed it last year…

Perhaps you’ll be recovering this weekend, along with many others, from the celebrations on St. Patrick’s Day which are full of parades, green clothing, Irish whiskey, green beer, and corned beef. Setting all of the green fun aside, the history of Irish immigrants is dark and rich, and should prompt all of us to question why we continue to allow those in power to starve the poor.
During the first winter of famine in Ireland in the mid-1800s, hundreds of thousands of Irish peasants starved, while landlords and the British exported 17 million pounds sterling worth of food that could have prevented the starvation. As those Irish who were able to migrated to other countries for survival, the British government and Anglican church did nothing on behalf of the poor in Ireland to stop the starvation.
In America, Trump’s recent budget proposal could cut programs that feed poor children and the elderly, and his Secretary of Education mocks our national free lunch program. Are we any better today than the capitalist and colonial forces that sacrificed Ireland’s peasants over 150 years ago? Looking at the deprivation, violence, trauma, and toxins that are allowed to surround the students I serve in Cleveland, Ohio, I’m uncertain that we’ve learned anything from history.
According to Feeding America, in 2015, 42.2 million Americans lived in food insecure households, including 29.1 million adults and 13.1 million children. What does it mean to live in a country where over one-third of the adults are obese, and a country that exports $131 billion in foods, feeds, and beverages, yet fails to provide its most vulnerable citizens with access to adequate nutrition? Maybe it is time to examine what it means when food remains a commodity, instead of a human right.
What happens when the same destructive global system of profit that pervasively commodified food is applied to education? We’re left with segments of the population starved of adequate learning materials, resources, qualified instructors, enrichment activities, and the arts, and a citizenry devoid of the ability to think critically. We’re left with colonizers telling certain demographics that they aren’t worthy of democratically controlled school boards or neighborhood schools, but that they are still good enough to pay taxes. We allow for fallacious ideas like competition, charters, vouchers, and the generation of standardized products formerly known as children to invade our common schools and devour public funds. We become victims of profiteers and eduperialists who legally plunder millions (billions?) of public dollars to inflate their personal wealth at the expense of educating all children. We manifest a destiny that empathetic future historians will surely reflect upon with shock, dismay and horror.
As we recover and rejuvenate from St. Patrick’s Day shenanigans, we don’t have to let the dismal tragic details of Irish immigration get us down, but perhaps we can reflect upon our country’s obsession with capitalism and the commodification of things that everyone should have access to as human beings. Consider the words of Fintan O’Toole, a columnist for The Irish Times:
“We either wink at a racism that affords most of us the privilege of a white skin,” he wrote. “Or we honour the struggles of so many millions of Irish immigrants to be accepted as equal human beings.” … Will we stand “up for all of those who share the Irish experience of having to overcome poverty and prejudice in order to make decent lives for our children?”

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine. (Gaelic)

Under the shelter of each other, people survive.

Not My Inmates

     When he stood up to sharpen his pencil at the sharpener on the cart directly in front of my desk, he spoke unprompted softly and reflectively while he gazed blankly at the classroom wall. “I have never been to school in an actual high school. That’s a dang shame, isn’t it?” I looked down quickly to fight back any tears that might involuntarily form in my eyes. “Yes. It really is,” I replied.

     I knew this student’s case had just been adjudicated to the adult system, and it clearly weighed heavily on his sixteen-year-old shoulders. All of his high school credits prior to arriving at our classroom were from another detention facility in the state, and he seemed to accept he wouldn’t be exiting the system any time soon.

     As an educator at our county’s juvenile detention center, it is difficult to witness the effects of multiple moments of disappointment and neglect on our city’s most vulnerable children. My heart splinters for their lost childhoods and obstacle-laden futures, but also for those in the community whom they may have hurt because the interventions these kids desperately needed as they were growing up were never provided.

     Teaching is social. It is difficult to find more glaring examples of the need for connections once you have had the misfortune of being immersed in experiences at a juvenile jail. This necessity for a human nexus continues once kids leave my classroom for their next destination. Ideally, that next destination is in the community because the juvenile justice system in conjunction with other agencies has efficiently and effectively performed its established purpose. Tragically, however, I often maintain communication with my students through correspondence with them at another incarceration facility.

     I optimistically expect most citizens to agree with the assertion that the United States’ justice and mass incarceration systems require abolition. Yet, unless someone is directly entangled in the system, most of us are oblivious to the many costs people incarcerated and their loved ones must pay.

     In addition to having to purchase cheaply made and easily broken “j-players” in order for incarcerated people to electronically communicate with those outside of the prison system, each electronic message sent requires payment equivalent to or more than the cost of a U.S. postage stamp. Each picture attached to an electronic message sent through JPay also requires an additional “stamp” purchase in order to digitally send it.

     For example, a former student I maintain contact with asked me to send him a picture of his high school diploma because he was taken from our facility before his graduation could be certified. In order to send the picture, I paid .50 cents for the electronic message and an additional .50 for the digital picture attached, for a total of $1.00 for the one communication.

     Securus, the company which owns JPay, yields over one hundred million dollars per year in profits, with a gross profit margin of 51 percent, by exploiting already disadvantaged citizens. Although the profits generated as a result of people’s suffering are sufficiently abhorrent, the pit in my stomach the first time I became a JPay consumer was not initially spurred by the money I was spending. Rather, it is the way in which JPay and multiple other prison industries, in collaboration with various established institutions in our society, have successfully dehumanized people who are incarcerated.

     Going to JPay’s website, users can see how to do an “inmate search.” I am never looking for an “inmate.” I am searching for a young person who was a student in my class. They are sons. They may be brothers, uncles, nephews, or fathers. Whatever their worst deeds are, “inmate” should not be the summary of their existence.

     The over two million people incarcerated in the United States are human beings. Redacting their humanness and reducing them to their prodigious mistakes is a practice utilized by the inhumane to erase their humanity. Just as the revolting practice of referring to enslaved human beings as “slaves” was once embedded into our culture, attributing the term “inmate” to incarcerated human beings is similarly repulsive to my sensibilities.

     I often quote Desmond Tutu when I am concluding public presentations about my students and our classroom at the county’s juvenile detention center. He said, “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.” We must all remind each other of our innate worth as living beings on this planet, and seek the humanity that connects us. Discarding language that transforms people into negatively implicated nouns may enlighten our perceptions of the people many would rather not know or name.

     I may refer to the young people in my classroom as my students, but they are not my inmates.

Violence Against Women and the Oppression of Women is not a “Woman’s Problem”

The following are my remarks made at a rally and vigil for the 8th Anniversary of the women who were murdered on Imperial Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio. 

My name is Melissa Marini Svigelj-Smith. I am honored to have this time here with you today, and sickened by a society that allows for the repetitive horrific acts, like those of Anthony Sowell, to occur at all.

I am here today because as an educator and as a woman, I recognize that our need and desire to nurture each other is not a hindrance but a redemptive strength.

When we join together, our real power is rediscovered and bolstered. It is this alliance among women and our friends that is the worst fear of those in power in our system of electoral dysfunction.

Let us be clear. Violence against women and children, the oppression of women and children, is NOT a woman’s problem. It is the problem of a patriarchal capitalist system, which benefits from the oppression and exploitation of women, children, and people of color.

It is a patriarchal, colonial, racist, and imperialist system that profits off of treating others like they are less than human. It is not a “woman’s problem.”  

I am here today because interdependency between women, and collaboration with our male allies, is the path to dismantling a system that promotes or allows subjugation, violence, poverty, and oppression to exist.

Within our alliances and our interdependency of different strengths, acknowledged and equal, we can demolish houses like the one that used to stand here on Imperial Avenue. And we can disassemble a system that still allows for unaccountable police chiefs, mayors, prosecutors, and other elected officials… a system that allows for men like Anthony Sowell to exist and perform unspeakable acts.

Audre Lorde said “Difference is that raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged. As women, we have been taught either to ignore our differences, or to view them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for change…”

Well, women here today and the enlightened men who join us, know the strength and power among us. Education and the creation of community are the tools of liberation.

Systematic oppression is not an accident or illusion. It is a tangible design evident right here, right now. And now is always a time to do what is right.

So I stand here today calling out all of those not here. It is time for those enjoying the privileges of safe communities and safe water and safe housing and safe schools, and with police forces who protect and serve, to stand up and speak out.

We already know the instruments of justice. We’ve even named them: unity, empathy, equity, compassion, love, peace, and a dialectical ability to seek and discover the humanity in every person’s story. There is no excuse for apathy. Liberation and justice are too long overdue.

No justice. No peace. Know justice. Know peace.

*Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” 1984. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Ed. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press. 110- 114. 2007. Print.

Cleveland Truth Commission on Poverty

I was honored to have my son represent us at this event while I was at #NPEOAK17.

His presentation:

Hello.  My name is Angelo Svigelj-Smith, and I am here today representing my mother, Melissa Marini Svigelj-Smith, who is in her 20th year as a high school teacher in Cleveland Public high schools. Currently, she is teaching at our county’s juvenile detention center. She is also a community activist and advocate. It is her students’ voices that will be heard today from recordings made at the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Detention Center. Before those statements are read, my mom had a few things to share about poverty and education in Cleveland.  

From my mother, Melissa:

As a long time advocate for social justice, I became dismayed and disillusioned a few years ago as I was told by those in higher administrative positions to do things that I did not feel were beneficial for my students and were sometimes even harmful;  all so that students could pass high stakes standardized tests.

And so that later those tests could be used to call students, schools, or teachers “failing.” Then, those with a profit motive could come in and get a slice of the $800-900 billion dollar education spending pie.  

Instead of quitting the teaching profession entirely four years ago, I decided to take a position at our county juvenile detention center, and to fight the system from within. In my new position I have been privy to and witness to an egregious exploitation of our city’s children all in the name of education privatization and profits.

Each week I document the educational atrocities committed against our children because of a culture of profit and competition. Treatment and conditions my students must experience, policy makers and others with privilege would never accept for their own children but because the great majority of my students are from low-income households and black and brown they are subject to these episodes of educational malpractice.

My students have had art, music, physical education, library time, foreign languages, and vocational classes taken from them. They are often in buildings with extreme heat or extreme cold. They walk to school, or stand at RTA bus stops in neighborhoods filled with violence, crime and abandoned houses because of decades of racist policies and practices.

They have the latest education fads or trends tried out in their classrooms, even though there is no research to support these latest trends but someone is always making a profit off of them. They are more likely to have temporary teachers instead of career professionals. Their neighborhood’s public schools are too often demolished or sold to private real estate holders so that they can be used for profit-making charter schools.

I have students who were enrolled in ECOT, Regent, Bridgescape, and Lake Erie International (just to name a few) who arrive to me without making any progress towards graduation after months and years at these charter schools. Yet, those charter schools have been paid with state tax dollars just because my students’ names were on their rosters and no one is holding the charter schools accountable.

I have students who have never been in trouble before, but after one fight or encounter which was triggered by a traumatic event in their life due to the poverty and violence this city allows to surround them, they are expelled from school and given no other treatment or consideration for their true issues or the sources of their pain.

In the most extreme and sorrowful cases, I have attended wakes and vigils for my students and I’ve visited students in prisons across the state who are sometimes the cause of those wakes and vigils. It is a sick and vicious cycle that we would do everything in our power to stop if these kids had different zip codes, or if they were visitors at a republican convention, or associated with a local sports franchise.

For these reasons, I am part of the #WeChoose campaign. “It is a declaration from hundreds of thousands of parents and students in cities across the United States with a clear, yet profound message – we refute and resist corporate education policies that are inflicted upon our children without our voice.

The failure of previous administrations to respect the lives of all has set the tone for this perilous moment that we are in now.

We reject appointed school boards. We reject zero tolerance policies that criminalize our children. We reject mediocre corporate education interventions that are only accepted because of the race and socio-economic status of the children served.

We choose equity.”

I hope that you will consider joining us. You can find more information at https://www.j4jalliance.com/wechoose/ – the Journey for Justice website.

If you would like to read more about my work as an educator and advocate please read some of my blogs on msvigeljsmith.blog.

Thank you for this opportunity to have a voice for educators and students confronting the impact of poverty every day in their classrooms across America.

 

Address to Cleveland Mayoral Candidate Forum August 22nd, 2017

I meant to publish this in August, but didn’t get to it, and I had one for September also, which has turned into two for October and quite possibly even three or four for October. I’ll catch up! 

From Facebook: Thank you to Melissa Marini Švigelj-Smith of OH BATs for this Badass speech at a Cleveland Mayoral Forum: https://www.facebook.com/meryl.johnson.3/videos/10207704256283174/?fref=gc&hc_location=ufi

The words: Thank you to all of you for taking the time to be here today and for listening to our questions and concerns, and thank you to Kathy and the other organizers for planning and preparing for the event today.

My name is Melissa Marini Švigelj-Smith. I just began my 20th year of teaching in Cleveland Public High Schools, and my fourth year of teaching young men at our county’s juvenile detention center. Like most folks in this room, I stand here today as an activist; fighting for the education equity all our children deserve.  

There are so many issues surrounding education in our city, state and country that it is difficult to narrow the scope of the topic. For our purposes this evening, I have narrowed it down to three issues.

The first issue is poverty in our city. Over half of our city’s children are living in poverty. In February I published a blog titled “My Students Pay Every Day for Their Free Lunch.” In it, I shared the effects of poverty on students according to the  American Psychological Association. I listed things like inadequate nutrition and food insecurity, lack of access to health care, being at greater risk for poor academic achievement, dropping out of school, behavioral and socio-emotional problems, physical health problems, and developmental delays. Additionally, chronic stress associated with living in poverty has been shown to adversely affect children’s concentration and memory which may impact their ability to learn. Poverty also perpetrates a violence upon our young people that leaves educators like me spending weekends or breaks visiting students in state prisons and attending wakes. This pattern of violence should not be replicated in our schools with zero tolerance policies and the policing of our children, excessive testing, a dulling down of the curriculum, and the elimination of classes and activities that make schools a place kids want to be.   

Furthermore, our schools should not be blamed for the poverty that our society allows to continue to exist, nor should they be expected to treat society’s ills without the necessary resources and services needed.

The second issue is charter schools, whether they’re labeled “for profit” or “nonprofit.” The unregulated charter industry in this state is costing our most impoverished districts the most financially and academically. I deal with charter schools across our county as I search for student records and piece together student transcripts. As the charter schools siphon millions of dollars from taxpayers throughout the state, the great majority of the time they are NOT outperforming our public schools. In fact, they offer less academically, place profit over what is best for children, and are chronically negligent, unreliable and inconsistent with regard to my record requests. During our first week of school, Invictus School sent me a transcript for a bright and curious student who has been enrolled with them for over a year. He has only earned half a high school credit. This is just one example of the educational malfeasance that I document every week. Children deserve equity in education, not the illusion of choice.

Finally, I question takeovers and mayoral control of schools in largely urban and economically disadvantaged areas where there are concentrated areas of people of color. When democracy is stripped away from any citizen, all of us are more susceptible to tyranny and despotism. Soliciting citizens to vote for tax levies to support the schools they aren’t able to democratically participate in governing is just a supplementary insult.

With this information in mind, I humbly submit the following questions for your pondering and response:

1. How can we use our funds and resources to protect and nurture the most vulnerable children and families in our city just as well as we protect and provide for visitors to our downtown? Or our sports teams?
2. How can we protect our tax dollars and citizens from predatory charter schools and vulture education profiteers?
3. How can we halt corporate control that deletes democracy and treats our kids like products and numbers instead of the resilient and brilliant human beings that come to my class every day?

Thank you again for your time and attention.  

 

Do Your CTU Dues Benefit You, or Just A Lucky Few?

Do your CTU dues benefit you, or is your money going to a lucky few?

And Social Justice for All – CTU could be a union of social movement seeking social justice for all, but the current corporate model it espouses under AFT seems to be only benefiting a few.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. ~ Lord Acton

     Let me begin by stating that I am a strong supporter of unions as a movement to create greater equity and opportunity in our society. I believe in the collective power of the masses to initiate changes that will benefit the greatest number of members in our society. The way unions were organized amid dire threats and violence to improve the lives of workers as they fought for living wages, limits to the workday and workweek, and safer conditions in the workplace was heroic. I appreciate the sacrifices that teachers before me made to improve working conditions and student learning conditions. I also believe that hard work outside of contracted hours deserves fair payment. However, as I review the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 budget for the Cleveland Teachers Union (CTU), it isn’t pride or admiration that swells within me.

     While my net pay is less than it was before our recent two-percent increase, the latest budget proposal approved at the CTU May 2017 delegate assembly shows a 7.89% increase in the CTU President’s Salary from $38,000 to $41,000 (line item 70190). This is in addition to the President’s Second Salary and benefits reimbursement (line item 70195) that increased from $100,000 to $108,000. Those line items do not include the annual expense account for the president of $2500 (line item 70200), and the president’s automotive stipend of $3600 annually (line item 70201). Combined, being president of the Cleveland Teachers Union provides a benefits and salary package of $155,100. Plus, the president no longer has to teach in a classroom under the stressful and oppressive mandates that everyone else is subjected to (TDES, TBTs, SLOs, SGMs, etc.) because CTU work is a president’s full time job. I am not advocating for less for anyone, but I am questioning why all of us are not seeing a similar increase in benefits. I am questioning why the CTU president has an additional union salary that is higher than what our paraprofessionals make for an entire year of work. I am questioning why the Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s Chief Executive Officer, Eric Gordon, has declined an automotive stipend in his past two contracts, and has agreed to increases in his salary that are comparable to what teachers receive, yet the union president has a car stipend and a union salary increase that is almost four times what teachers received.

     Here are several other line items that members may ask about in the latest budget, since our dues have increased to almost $1000 per year:

• Why is there a 43.75% increase for the 5 trustees (line item 70235) from $3840 each to $6000 each?
• Why is the telephone bill $26,000/year (line item 70125)? Is that what it costs to provide all of the union executives union-provided iphones?
• Where are the receipts for the committee expenses? How do the two or three parties that the Social Committee (line item 70250) has each school year cost the same amount as workshops provided a few times per year by the Salary and Benefits Committee (line item 70255) or the Civil, Democratic and Human Rights Committee (70260)?
• How much money and how many resources could we save by providing online digital versions of publications instead of paying the full $9600/year (line item 70280)? Why are we paying a retired CTU member to run the Critique instead of hiring an active member?
• Why did the amount for AFT/TEACH conventions double from $15,000 to $30,000 (line item 70320)? Are we questioning why AFT is spending more on these conventions when membership is lower?
• Why did OFT go from 0 to $20,000 (line item 70325)? How does that one convention within our state cost 66% as much as the AFT/TEACH national convention? In a state in which teachers, public schools and unions have been under a barrage of attacks, will spending this much money on the convention produce results? Will attendees leave with more than OFT party favors? Will they leave with skills and strategies to fight the decimation of public education that they can share with members?
• How does sending union executives or other union members to professional development conferences for $29,500 benefit students or rank-and-file members? What do those who attend bring back from these professional development conventions that we do not already have or cannot already obtain from members in CTU? (line items 70335, 70336)
• Why are we paying so much for parking (from $16,000 to $18,000 line item 70217)? The residential rate is $150/month at the Halle Building. It costs $1800/person for 10 people to have monthly passes year round, so who gets monthly passes? Do our offices have to be downtown, or could they be in a less expensive neighborhood that needs some revitalization?
• Why are we paying so much for rent and electricity ($200,000/year line item 70120)? We could purchase a $750,000 dollar building for that amount in Cleveland over the course of five years, employ local union laborers for repairs and upkeep, and not have to spend money on rent or parking ever again.  Would a financial adviser recommend an upfront investment that could save money for members in the long term?  
• Why is there a 3% increase in Staff Salaries (line 70215)? How are there still union salary steps and levels when this sort of system has been destroyed for everyone still in the classroom full time?
• Does the financial incentive (line item 70215) of being a union executive (with allowable hours away from classroom assignments) contribute to a climate of corruption within our union? Remember when there was a suggestion by union executives to stop mailings to members’ homes, even though those mailings cost our union absolutely nothing? Luckily, the idea was defeated because the alleged complaints about receiving home mailings were not more fierce than the complaints by members concerning other AFT mailings (I’m really sick of AFT trying to sell me insurance and credit cards, but welcome alternative perspectives from rank-and-file-members in my mailbox).
• Why are CTU members paying more in dues than ever before, and paying higher salaries for union positions than ever before, yet our membership has dropped over the past 15 years by approximately 40%? Shouldn’t less membership mean less work to be done, less salaries to be paid, and less positions that need filled?

     Over a century of political and economic attacks on teachers, teacher unions and public education are also an attack on women, children, and the working class. Huge pay inequities between men and women and women’s suffrage were driving forces among early social movement unionists and activists like educator Margaret Haley, and social justice activist Susan B. Anthony in 1853. Those early activists recognized the connection between protecting teachers’ rights and students’ rights when it was time to negotiate contracts and working conditions. Currently, an evolution in large urban teachers unions, like Chicago and Milwaukee, has reclaimed the social justice roots of unions, aligning themselves with community groups and other unions to improve the communities in which they work, and the lives of their students as part of a comprehensive strategy to improve education for students. AFT President, Randi Weingarten’s, continued support of charter schools, which were formed to decimate unions and undermine public schools, is a strong indication that we cannot rely on top leadership to guide us in a shift back to social justice unionism. It must begin from within our local unions by rank-and-file members who recognize the union as a medium for democracy and social justice activism, not as an entity that suppresses dissent in order to maintain the power and benefits of a few.

Link to May CTU Approved Budget Documents