Week Three

          My third week interning with the Mississippi Teachers Corps was equally as eventful as the first two.  I spent three days in Atlanta for the Southern Education Foundation's leadership initiative, saw B.B. King perform live in Indianola, MS, met Hank Aaron and continued my journey towards understanding the interconnectedness of race, education, and poverty in this country and their subsequent ramifications.

          The most valuable aspect of the SEF orientation, in my opinion, was the remarkable diversity of individuals both presenting and interning. Presentations were given by representatives of the ACLU, NAACP, MTC, UNC Civil Rights Legal group, KIPP Strive School, SEF, and many more (I apologize to those of you not into the whole brevity thing). Topics ranged from community organizing and non-profits to Brown v. Board and civil rights law. Paramount was the understanding that directionless passion is ineffective and a comprehensive understanding of the structures involved is necessary. Ironically, the more answers I received the more questions I had. The SEF orientation was a truly special opportunity to emerge myself in these topics and benefit from many intelligent and good-hearted people. Also, Billye Aaron spoke and I met her husband, so I've got that going for me.

          Seeing B.B. King's performance was a great time, although his age was clearly weighing on him. But blues music certainly is the music of hope and no one's story indicates that more than B.B.'s.

          One final note, while driving to Atlanta we stumbled across an entire neighborhood that had been utterly demolished by this spring's tornadoes. Entire houses were gone, leaving nothing but the foundation (if they had one) and a pile of rubble. I was reminded of how easily we dismiss the struggles of others. The nature of a tornado, much like education, is uniquely personal in that it touches down locally and with concentrated force, shattering the lives of a few at a time. Those whose property is left unscathed, along with those who have greater means to protect themselves against the destruction, might easily detach themselves from those suffering. But at the end of the day, wanton disregard for the safety, or education, of others will surely endanger us all, as tornadoes and a crumbling education system strike viciously and destroy lives.

Southern Education Foundation

          This past week the interns journeyed to Atlanta for the Southern Education Foundation’s leadership initiative conference. From Wednesday until Friday, we had the good fortune of hearing many interesting and informative panels discuss various topics related to education and race. We also had free run of the hotel buffet, which is always nice.

          Among the panels, one that I think merits further thought was “School Discipline, Push outs and Drop Outs: Dismantling Policies that Generate the School to Prison Pipeline.” This discussion, led by Damon Hewitt (Director of Education Practice, NAACP Legal Defense Fund), Dennis Parker (Director, Racial Justice Program, ACLU), and Marlyn Tillman (Co-Chair, Gwinnett Parent Coalition to Dismantle the School to Prison Pipeline), was a crucial window into the failures of the education system.

          The presence of police officers and school resource officers in public schools has dramatically increased in recent decades, criminalizing the classroom environments of our children and indicting them for crimes not yet committed. This evolving prison atmosphere, only worsened by political backlash after tragedies at Columbine, Virginia Tech, and elsewhere, has shifted from protecting the students to incarcerating them. Required to walk in single-file lines, constantly monitored, void of the freedom to speak, and utterly demonized, our students are literally trained to be repulsed by education and trust only themselves. After all, at any moment the SRO might arrest them, or worse.

         That is beyond unreasonable. If I had been in such an environment I surely would have been expelled for disobedience. Sure, our students are there to learn, but not at the cost of their basic freedoms to move freely, without fear, and display their full personalities. In the current environment, the ideal student never runs, rarely speaks, has little if any healthy self-esteem, and is woefully unprepared for any career aside from “paying their debt to society.”  

         So what can be done? Clearly, there is a connection between a school’s performance and security presence. In New York City, 73 percent of schools have libraries. But, of the schools with metal detectors, only 53 percent have libraries. Similar correlations are seen with county expenditures. Additionally, this trend is not simply a function of school performance or poverty, race matters. However, as Damon Hewitt pointed out, it is a “blue on black issue.” Simply put, blacks are suffering at the hands of the legal system and police force, whatever color its employers may be.  

          But taking security out of schools is not a solution; schools and administrators need that security buffer. Frankly put, they are complicit and cannot do anything about it. This infiltration of academic life (I refuse to call it an epidemic) speaks to larger, systemic injustices which breed at atmosphere in which such measures are either necessary, or more importantly, perceived to be necessary. Our indictment of children of color is indicative of larger abuses, a failure to support them as we support our own. More on this to come...