Taubman Center for State & Local Government’s Post

Supporting Urban Prep is crucial. Why, you may ask? Urban Prep is transforming lives, guiding young Black boys towards higher education. When Mrs. Ebony Muhammad Mitchell and Mr. Juwaun Cooper-Muhammad first entrusted their sons to Urban Prep, they could only dream of a college education for them. At Urban Prep, dreams became reality. Like and save if you believe in supporting organizations like Urban Prep that are making college dreams come true for young Black men. #UrbanPrep #EducationForAll #CollegeAdmissions #SupportBlackYouth #MinoritiesInEducation #UrbanPrepSuccessStories

Last month, we discussed in depth about Brown v. Board of Education's multi-community impact in the first of our webinar series, "What Now: The After Effects of the Brown v. Board of Education Ruling." Pheng Thao, Executive Director, ManForward, speaks to the importance of knowing the issues affecting your community — at the federal, state, and municipal levels. Civic engagement is one way we can show care for each other. Follow us to be notified when we release the past webinar recordings and register for the last live webinar on August 15 at the link in our bio! #BrownVBoard #RacialJustice #EducationEquity #Education #PolicyChange #Webinar #SocialJustice #YPOC

4 out of 10 Southern states rank in the bottom 10 states for per-student expenditures. 4 out of 10 Southern states rank in the bottom 10 states for average teacher salaries. 6 out of 10 Southern states have the highest child poverty rates in the country. While the South grows and transforms, our systems of education remain locked in historic patterns of disinvestment and inequality. In some of these states, like Tennessee, the money is already there. It's a matter of deciding to invest in all the children of the South.

Advance's new report, "Protecting Educational Freedom: Why School Choice Must Be Placed in the Colorado Constitution" is live! Discover how school choice policies can empower parents and enhance educational opportunities for all students. #copolitics Dive into the full report now: https://lnkd.in/g4-eQvhr

When I (Erin O. Crosby, Ed.D.) worked in West Dallas, residential gentrification was a daily reality with real consequences for residents. But what happens when school choice policies lead to campus gentrification in neighborhood public schools? Too often economically-constrained Black and Brown families lose an already fragile level of agency, voice, and belonging. They can lose their schools. That’s a problem we can and should change. This research brief (written by yours truly, Erin O. Crosby, Ed.D., at SMU Simmons School of Education & Human Development) tells the story of one gentrifying school navigating the consequences of choice policies. I hope contextualizing school gentrification alongside the stories of Black and Brown mothers and school leaders challenges each of us to learn more, and that the policy recommendations lead to equitable change. #schoolgentrification #radicalbelonging #schoolchoice

💭 Why is equity important in Atlanta’s school system? 💬 Equity in education goes beyond equal distribution; it involves providing each student with the resources and support they need to thrive, regardless of their background, socio-economic status, or zip code. In the context of Atlanta’s public school systems, ensuring equity means addressing historical disparities and creating an inclusive environment where every student has an equal opportunity to succeed. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eievBxx7

One of the school rules at Sudbury is that, "If you cannot physically climb into/on a structure by yourself with no help from others, you may not climb into/on that structure at all." ✅ We were reminded about this rule at the park one day because some of the younger Sudbury students kept asking one of the teenage students to help them get up and down from a tall structure. Staff asked the teenage student if he wanted to write the students up for breaking that rule but he said no. He added, "I don't really mind helping them get up and down. I like feeling like I can help. Isn't that what Sudbury is about anyway? Helping people?" A brief conversation followed with what the purpose behind the rule might be, how it might be viewed in different ways, and if it should be changed. School rules are written, amended, and passed in School Meeting by students and staff. Each person gets a vote, regardless of age. #selfdirectededucation #agemixing #learningiseverywhere

This month marks the 70th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision that made it illegal to turn a child away from a public school because of their race. It’s a cause for celebration, but there also needs to be a reckoning with this undeniable truth: Linda Brown could still be turned away from coveted public schools in every state. Within our current system, it’s all perfectly legal. Tim DeRoche, President of Available for All explores how that’s tragically possible in a new op-ed featured in USA Today: This is a failure of the law. In the years after Brown, the courts got tangled up in the very real and urgent problem of eradicating explicit #racial #segregation, especially in the Southern states. But they never came back around to provide #substantive and #procedural #protections that would have fulfilled the original promise of the ruling. Chief Justice Earl Warren, writing for a unanimous Supreme Court, had promised that henceforth the public schools would be “available to all on equal terms.” The vast majority of public schools still use #exclusionary maps to determine who is or isn’t eligible to enroll. These maps are reminiscent of the redlining era in the decades prior to Brown, when the federal government drew maps that determined who was or wasn’t eligible for housing assistance. Certain neighborhoods were labeled “hazardous” because they had high concentrations of minorities or immigrants. Shading these areas red, the government marked those families as ineligible for valuable government services. https://lnkd.in/eTa57ni3

So far dozens of Marylanders, from the Lower Eastern Shore to western Frederick County and from the Baltimore-area to the DMV, have taken action using the advocacy tool below to tell our state legislators the millions in proposed budget cuts to community colleges are absolutely unacceptable. If you care about quality, accessible, affordable higher education, take action now. There's no more prudent budget allocation the Maryland General Assembly can make than toward community colleges. We know how to put those dollars to work for students and stakeholders, and we serve our local communities with commitment and excellence. https://lnkd.in/e5iU5iX4

Interesting read and statistics given the declining enrollment we are facing in our own county schools! it's real and we need to recognize that while closing a school is never easy.. We need to recognize that there are sound reasons for doing so. The school’s size will also be its demise, Sara Randazzo and Matt Barnum write. Los Angeles Unified School District is closing Solis this summer, citing declining enrollment that has severely limited the school’s offerings. As birthrates have dipped, families have moved elsewhere, and public school alternatives have grown, many urban districts have hemorrhaged students. That has left officials with the difficult choice of keeping open shrinking schools with resources spread thin or shutting them down, a move that inevitably garners fierce community backlash. How school leaders navigate this challenge could define urban school systems for the next several years. But if schools get too small they face a paradoxical problem: Costs per student tend to rise, but programming tends to shrink. “When schools get below a certain size threshold, they start facing these unique challenges that make it hard to deliver a high-quality education,”.