My BIG announcement—

I have recently accepted the offer to join the New York University Metropolitan Center for Urban Education as a member of the Technical Assistance Center for Disproportionality (TACD) beginning this September. I have appreciated the opportunities I've had at Teachers College, and I know that I am better for the time I've spent working with the talented and dedicated professionals there. Thank you, and good luck to all my colleagues at the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching.

At this point in my career, I'm excited to take on a new challenge which will allow my continued growth in the study of Education and also, I believe, places my daily efforts squarely in the tradition of the Modern Civil Rights Movement. Let me explain:

Those of us with an interest in promoting social justice—and specifically, in promoting an educational system that is designed to more equitably distribute opportunities regardless of class or race—know that we are living in the era of the "Joshua Generation." We have made great advances in many regards over the past 30 years, and now, it is time to take the victories of previous generations and re-double our efforts so that we can bring the realization of equity into measureable change in current Education policy and practice. I don't believe that we have to put off our hopes for a better future for American Education any longer; I believe we have the capacity to make today the better future our fore-bearers long anticipated.

Access to quality education has become a pre-requisite for social opportunity. Educational opportunity equals social and economic opportunity in the 21^st century. The brave freedom fighters of the 1950s and 60s took their battles for equality to the places where people were feeling the dearth of opportunity most egregiously. Where people were denied the opportunity to vote, or where housing discrimination was actively enforced, or where schools refused to enroll black and brown children, there was an organized effort to create more equitable conditions that served the best interest of fairness and democracy. These efforts were always pointed and deliberate and coordinated around specific policy issues—and yet the leaders of the movement eloquently articulated the importance of the specific issues that were being fought within the broader, grander goals of the movement. And so, to register a poor sharecropper in rural Mississippi was a victory for freedom riders, but it was also a victory for our democratic form of government because it meant that we all had taken one step closer to fulfilling the vision set before us by the architects of the American experiment.

Today, that same struggle continues….

Yes, Education is the civil rights issue of our time (Secretary Duncan and I agree on that much, for sure), and as such, the effort for equity should be fought on both broad and specific fronts. In broad terms, I am interested in fairness, in defining fairness and extolling those who can affect fairness to do so according to the democratic principles on which this country of ours was founded. In specific terms, my work at the New York University Metropolitan Center for Urban Education will engage the issue of disproportionality. Disproportionality concerns the overrepresentation of cultural minority students in special education programs. In many urban schools, referring students to special education programs has become a means for shirking what I believe are the responsibilities of the institution of American public education. That is, schools, in order to be considered effective, must be structured to meet the needs of ALL the children they serve and NOT disadvantage low-income and cultural minority students by pre-disposing the interpretation of their developmental and intellectual expressions as oppositional, inappropriate, or inferior.

The work of the TACD team is applied research in the truest form. We bring scholarship to practitioners and policy makers and help them to plan strategies for the effective implementation of improvement measures. Real reform for real impediments to educational opportunity. Part of my responsibilities will entail working with and challenging schools to reconsider exactly how the need for SPED services is conceptualized. We will endeavor to investigate if three specific categories of SPED—learning disabled (LD), emotionally disturbed (ED), and mildly mentally retarded (MMR)—are identified fairly and objectively in schools. Further, I will be able to engage with school leaders to think more carefully about the relationship between poverty and disproportionality. We will ask the tough questions like: Could it be school culture, and not inherent deficiencies of economically poor children, that place low-income students at risk of over-identification for SPED services by privileging the developmental expressions more likely to be nurtured among White middle-class children. This is, in my view, among the most important practical application of educational scholarship imaginable. I am pleased to be taking on the task.

The Moses generation has led us out of captivity, but the Joshua generation has to conquer the promised territory. I am both excited and honored to be joining a group that is proven to be talented, dynamic, forward-thinking, provocative, and diverse. My thanks to all who have continued to support me in my journey. Let's dutifully continue our efforts to change the world for the better.

All the best,

AS

Source: http://fairnessineducation.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-big-announcement.html

Xem bài viết trên phiên bản di động