Brand New Reports on School (De)Segregation

The new issue of Teaching Tolerance magazine just came out and it's all about... you guessed it... looking back at the Brown v. Board decision and evaluating how far we have (or have not) come since then. Some articles you will definitely want to check out include:

• How We Live Our Lives: "The great promise of the 1954 landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education was that children would grow up together in integrated schools. They would prove the segregationists wrong. Black children and white children would learn to respect one another as equals and bring down the walls of racial separation. Through the efforts of our children, our nation would live up to the ideals of equality and justice for all... That’s just not what happened..." Read more.

• The Only One: "Where schools are still separate and unequal, parents often look beyond their local school for solutions. But when you’re the only person of color in your class, school can become a struggle between two worlds." Read more.
  

• Unmaking Brown: "America’s schools are more segregated now than they were in the late 1960s. More than 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education, we need to radically rethink the meaning of 'school choice.'” Read more.

• Homo High: "Some people argue “gay-friendly” schools offer needless segregation. Others say they’re the only chance some kids have to make it." Read more.
  
  
  

Segregation Data for New York City

Last week I went to a Facing History and Ourselves workshop about civil rights in America. We use a lot of Facing History tools in our classroom, especially as we studied school integration in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was a great workshop and it made me ask a lot of questions about the way we teach history. However, one of the most interesting parts of the workshop was a session in the afternoon on segregation in New York City. If you are interested, take a look at the website below and play with the census maps to see just how segregated (or integrated) New York is. You can also compare this to other parts of the country.

• Is New York City segregated? Take a look at this interactive map at the Anti-Discrimination Center website.
• Go to "2000 Congress. Districts"
• Then click on "race"
• Then play with the different %
• Lastly, zoom in on New York City. What do you notice? Zoom in on other cities to make comparisons.
  

Grammar Quick Fixes...

Bloggers, as you work on your posts this week, here's a checklist of grammar issues that everyone needs to watch out for.

1. Capitalize "i"! You are important!

2. Make sure you use punctuation to separate sentences.

3. Make sure you have a space after punctuation marks.For example,always have a space after a period and comma (notice I made a mistake in this sentence).

4. I know there is no spell check, so re-read your blogs VERY SLOWLY to find spelling errors.

5. "Would of" should be "would have"/ "could of" should be "could have"

Responding to Haiti

Sometimes a major event happens that we need to address in class no matter what else we are doing. This is the case with the devastating earthquake that crushed the country of Haiti this week. You are not required to post about this, but you may want to. If you're not sure exactly what is going on or you want to learn more and find out what you can do about this tragedy, the New York Times has created a page for students and teachers to respond together here.

Resources for Civil Rights Blogs

Here are some news articles and other sources that you may want to use to extend and deepen your reflections about modern civil rights issues in America:

• New York Times: A Prom Divided (from May 2009)
• Teaching Tolerance: Crossing the Gap (from Spring 2009)
• Teaching Tolerance: Interview with Minnijean Brown (from Fall 2007)
• Teaching Tolerance: We Must Persevere (Segregation and the Supreme Court today) (from Fall 2007)
• Teach For America: What one organization is doing to try to close the achievement gap. Check out their site. Did you know that Ms. Giusto and Ms. P. both came up through TFA?
• Facing History: Justice of the Peace Won't Marry Interracial Couple (from Oct. 2009)
• Facing History: School Prom Integration In 2008 (from May 2009)