Transcripts For CSPAN Brown V. Board Of Education History Of Decision 20170531

Good afternoon. It is really quiet in here. We will have to do something about this. Im johnny taylor. The president and ceo of the Thurgood Marshall college fund. Welcome to our headquarters. We share this with gallup. To our to welcome you home. I would like to start out before i tell you why we are here in turn it over to the panelists, is to introduce a very special person. There are a whole bunch of special people. But a very special person here is the founder of the Thurgood Marshall college fund. Please stand. I dont spend it a lot of time calling out people but at the end of the day we would not be here if it were not for her vision to create an organization that would really focus on the historical black. Ollege and educational we represent all of the community and our advocacy efforts, scholarship, programs, Capacity Building and the like. I cannot thank you enough for having the vision. It is wonderful that we can look to the person who founded the organization and they are alive and well. Came in on the back end of the trip and i said, god bless her. How is she doing that. Dr. Payne, thank you. To organizations we would like to recognize. This would not happen if it were not for the Charles Koch Foundation. I know there are representatives for Coke Industries here. Special moment for us. This is our first run at creating what will become, i the center for advancing opportunity. Who is over there, meredith, she hates to be called out at i dont typically call out people. She hates to be called up. But please stand. [applause] atedith was an executive koch industries. There, i time i went met her. She has been part of this event. She said, i really think we should explore. She wanted it on may 17. Weght to myself, always think 1954 but i had never really paid attention to the specific date. This was her brainchild. Our collective organizations, the Charles Koch Foundation, us, we are committed to this work. I will not forget my good friend here with the Charles Koch Foundation, brandon brown. Linden, please stand up. Again, what, happened without the three people i had the Great Fortune to work with. In of dr. Payne, for the last 10 years. Seven years has cc a. And with my dear friend from the Charles Koch Foundation or the last 2. 5 years. It feels like yesterday. We are here today to really answer the question through a group of specially selected panelists and an amazing keynote speaker. No pressure. To explore brown v. Board of education and whether or not the promise was fulfilled. It is a question. We intentionally divided up this program. The first center for dancing opportunity event, we intentionally wanted to get some historical context. That is one of the things we at the academy wanted to make sure we advanced good policy that will really make a difference. We need to understand and put context. Historical our first speakers will be people who themselves or their parents were part of the the like. Cases in they were part of the series of cases that ultimately dominated with brown v. Board of education, the decision we will talk about today. The second panel will be going forward. We will look forward with people from the academy who are practitioners in the Charter School space and other schools to determine space what really happened. We had a vision. We all had expectations back in 1954. Fastforward 63 years or so later, how did it work out. That is what today is about. We will do it with evidence and research. This is not an emotional discussion with opinions people cannot support. That is the hallmark for the center for advancing opportunity. All of our work will be researchbased, evidencebased. We have to make a point for any thing. This is a retreat. We hope this will serve as a model for discourse that should occur all over america where reale take real data, results and make it good policy. We can assess whether or not what we thought might work good work. That is what this real is aboute explore round versus board of education. Our first ever executive director. Around, jennifer joined our organization almost a decade ago where she had one point was cheap develop chief officer. Offer we worked on a concept. About two months ago we announced that jennifer was named the executive director. United Negro College fund, then at the Thurgood Marshall college fund. I have to give her credit. I wanted you all to meet jennifer. She will take it away from here. Our executive erector. Thank you. Jennifer thank you. I made it up onto the chair. I know, right . Great. Rate thank you you also much for being here today at our first ever symposium. Today we are asking the critical question, was the promise fulfilled. The promise of brown versus board of education. I am so delighted to have this distinguished panel. These individuals whose lives and journeys and careers have been impacted by the brown decision. Education before we get started, let me introduce our panelists. She has overright 20 years of experience and education. In 1998, she founded d. C. Parents for choice. She wrote about the importance of access to education. When it comes to residential real estate, it does not often relate to property values. Currently a history professor. [indiscernible] thank you for being here, dr. Smith. Following, he is the vp of advocacy and served on d. C. City council and d. C. State board of education. Over 20 years of experience in urban Public Education. Thank you you all for being here today. Begin, when a to make a note that at the end of the discussion we will open the floor to questions and there are microphones at either end so you can ask questions. I will let you know when your free time comes. Ok, we have multiple generations represented here today on the panel. That was important because we wanted to get different perspectives of their experience. The first question i would like to pros to each of the panelists what was the Educational Opportunity through your own educational experience or your parents experience or your communities before the brown v. Board of education decision . Arkansas. Up in i was in the second round of kids who went to central. Is myne of the stories dads. He was in North Carolina where black kids could only go to the eighth grade. He made his way somehow to institute. To my dad went to skillman at 13. I used to think, i would not let my 13yearold go anywhere. He just left him him went, worked his way through. Junior college and college. Ultimately, he became superintendent of the school district. Teachers. Were both so, the importance of education was talked about all the time in our family. I watched my families and teaching an allblack schools again, weent, graduated from Junior High School at the time, we expected to follow our older brothers and sisters to the black high school. We were told we had been picked to go to central to continue the desegregation process. Of course, we did not want to go. We wanted to follow our older brothers and sisters. Went to central. I guess this was after brown. When centralrsold was integrated. Years old, iix knew the importance of what was going on. I got it. Even as a little kid. So we understood this was the time when schools were becoming better educational environments. Thank you. That is it. I grew up in Columbia Heights in d. C. Here so my first couple years were at bruce munro. It was an allblack school. People look at me and are surprise. Onedropknow what the will was, right . We could see it from our front porch. I lived 10 blocks in the opposite direction. I went to bruce. The white school was under capacity. Recep that time, we had three shifts of students because it was so crowded. My mom was a member of a Organization Called the consolidated parent group which was headed by a man who had a barbershop. Several of them, the kids i grew a with, ones mother was member. A nether of a number of others. He was a barber, and women were faculty advisors. I remember hearing about this all the time. I did not know what was going on, really. At the time, i will be honest with you i really did not understand everything that was happening at the time except my mom was doing something to top us out and my dad was ok with it, that she was going to naacp meetings and she would say, dinner is on the stove. Go get your dinner. Yet, he was ok with that. These are some of my memories. I remember a couple of times, some of the community meetings. Were momentous things going on but i really did not wasrstand exactly what happening. I have to be honest, i was kind of a witness of history without understanding what is happening. That is my story, i guess. Thank you. I grew up in Columbia Heights also. Thatrents, we lived in neighborhood growing up. So mine is sort of the next iteration in knowing what the history was. Something you read about in books and learn in school and from your parents. The idea there were segregated schools. I grew up in washington, d. C. , and attended Public Schools. I started in foggy bottom, the first school for blacks in washington, d. C. Then wilson. Black, white,ed latino. Also integrated fairly deeply along income lines as well. In, what we knew was that brown had happened and had therefore changed the world around and how organized. As and washington, d. C. , the legacy was at times you sometimes had to separate School Systems operating. The time we had a lot of schools operating in very close proximity to each other which was very hard to understand. Why are they so closed together close together . And we learned it was because the black and white school was here and there and never should the to meet so we had those two systems operating. The story for us growing up was this was going to unleash great opportunity for everyone and it was a lot about changing some of the systemic imbalance in the way schools were funded and supported. That was the world i grew up in. Were going to talk a little bit more about what really happened. That is a great segue to our question. We will now move to brown v. Board of education, that decision happening. Some of us were aware. Some of us were aware and engaged in the Community Helping to drive this movement. So come up for you and your family what did that mean . What was the hope and expectation around brown versus board of education . What was going to change in your lives . We hoped we would have better opportunities to attend schools that had more resources for our kids. At least, that is what my parents hope was. To central, yes. We did have a lot more resources. An amazing library. I could not stay out of it. We had never seen a library like that. Mean, it did have the resources our parents wanted us to have but it was difficult. It was tough. I mean, we were invisible sort of. Is. Hers would not call one so, we had to rely on those resources because we were not being taught well. We had to we often times we would only have one black kid and a class. They ignored us. The kids made fun of us, talked about us. And, every cigar dave for three years i was called the n word. And every single day for three years, the black kids met at the corner of 18th and park to walk him together so we would not get the up. I was telling jim earlier, i went with my cousin. I called her to talk to her about my speaking on the panel and she said that they had the crowds. They had the federal escort. But they work invisible as well in class. She said to make sure we people understand because brown became law, you know, the decision was made that we would did notal education mean that is actually what we had. In, i mean i struggled through high school. I came from a Junior High School where people really cared what happened to us. Everybody was involved in our educational experience and we were the top students of that school. Reasons is one of the 130 of us who were picked to go to central. Our parents were teachers, preachers, civil rights activists. We failed at central because we were not taught. We had to figure out how to be a part of that school and how to be part of the educational experience. I think i counted down from 10th grade to graduation. It down. Ted i did not have a calendar but it might as well had one but all that said, we did have the Resources Available to us that we had not had at the black schools. Wered have the books that updated so we could selfteach and our parents who were teachers would help us. Big reputations of having graduated from central high school, which probably helped us when we were all applying for colleges. So, the benefits suddenly were there but the inside story was difficult for us. A followup question, how long did it take for things to students at that school . Well, you know, central is 99 lack now. So it has changed. Did the 40ththey anniversary, there was some conversation about the effect the central was no 90 black and how that was going to look in the media. So i think they highlighted white kids, which i think was just tacky. But, you note it took many years. I was talking to my sisters three yearsas behind us. I was saying, he had a rough time at central. And she said, we did, too. So we know for years it had not changed. One of the times i really got in trouble. My father was the first black superintendent of our school district. And i was a brown student with light skin so nobody would put us together. And, a teacher was me to me. Was mean to me. And i remember saying to her, dont you know who my father is . In my dad called me and told me not to do that. But that is the way we would have to survive, you know . We needed a book. We needed some way to get we a hook. Uck to 1975the class is up were suffering. At least until 1975. I do not know beyond that. Thank you. Dr. Smith, the same question to you. Again, i cannot give you a really clear answer about what i remember of my time because our family lived in pennsylvania. After i left bruce. Desegregatione again we lived in pennsylvania so i went to a School System that was very integrated. Touch withkeeping in my friends back here in washington, d. C. , some of whom went to wilson and other places and who were telling me about the racial tension. The incidents that happened in the schools. And this massive white flight that happened after the brown versus board of education decision. What i got from some of my friends, too, was that byhington, d c, was governed a House District committee on there were a number of congress members, most from the south, who really just inflated and exaggerated every racial that occurred, especially cardoza and some of the other schools where white students staged walkouts. So that the , you know, my impression, in again this is just an impression but that a lot of the racial tension that led to the white flight was also to a certain extent exacerbated by politics, political figures from congress who were interfering in d. C. Politics. So that is my sense of what was happening at the time. Thank you. Fastforward to the d. C. Where i grew up and went to school. In terms of opportunity we certainly had access to schools that blacks did not have access to a prior generations. I think from my experience we at great access to great schools. One that was very interesting was white flight. That was residents it also teaches. When people were told, this is the way it is now, there is a procedure who decided that is not the way they were going to work. Change came into the School System because i went to schools that also had predominately black teachers. And i think that made for a very different mix in the School System. Students, while there was a great amount of diversity in the school in terms of the students, even while i was growing up there was still white flight moving from the city. Changing the student body. It was interesting to have the City School District that was increasing percentage of american africanamerican at thes, leaders, schools. I think that in a lot of ways that sort of the types of schools that many black people before me had gone to school and when they had gone to school where teachers were black, leaders of the school or black, leaders of the School System or black, and students were mostly luck. In this case, you just had more and more student population but be leadership tended to predominately africanamerican and that made for a Different School district. The other thing i began to observe when i got older as a student was that was going on everywhere in d. C. There were some schools that were fairly you could draw the line you know across the city other places in the city that was not happening. I think there were questions around resources and accountability. I think there were issues in places that were not getting the amount of attention they needed to be getting as we at the School System was reconfiguring. Are some things, you saw access. For a lot, that was not happening. Lets fastforward to today. The things you talked about. White flight. Integration. The topics. Lot of forde, you were very involved around this whole discussion. Fastforward to today knowing those were some of the challenges you experienced. Where are we now in terms of those issues . What are you seeing today . The result of brown v. Board of education . In my experience, i do see a lot of changes. I see a lot of Movement Come about in the last 20 years but a also see where there needs to be more the simple fact that the high schools are predominately white surrounded by a neighborhood. It disturbs me, you know. Why the kids are not coming to this particular school. When you go to central, there is this one little group of kids who are predominantly white and then the rest of central. To schools. Like every time i go over there i get mad. Where are the black kids . Why are these white kids converging with the only things outside the school. If you go to one side of the school at the end of the day, black kids walking home and blankets. The other side, white kids being picked up. In a sense, we have not gotten any further than that. I think there are still problems around the country. I see a lot more kids getting into an environments that are diverse. More kids getting into schools that are serving them better. My granddaughter is the nature to school here in d. C. She is flourishing and in visual arts and those kind of things which are her interest. Looking to go to wilson next year. Traditional Public School. I like families having those kind of choices to be able to do that but i still see that there goingot of controversy on. I live in arkansas and they still have so far to go as far as what they are doing with kids, black kids, white kids. There are still busing kids to White Communities outside of the areas where they live. Kids are just really struggling. I live in the inner city. Those kids cannot read, at all. 40 of them, every single day, they come and we give them looks. We gave them little bibles and they ask us to read them to them. They cannot read. That just makes me angry. That is not the word i am going to use it just makes me angry. [laughter] i cant rain again. Those of the things i think that we really have to. Attention to. Is continuing . Did brown fix it at all . Schools that are equal . Are we just in Public Schools . I say for many years, are we just keeping our kids in fought tobecause we get in the buildings, you know . And that makes me angry. Lets all, you know, i think that we have to continue to go where we are going. I think in you to support changes in educational environments in the schools. I am hopeful. Am optimistic. I am, you know, probably the most positive person in the world. Once i get past going to central high school. I think we have a good chance to move forward am optimistic. Into, you know, to make focus at heart brown a reality in this country. I think we will do a play think we cannot stop. We cannot stop thinking about. We have to keep moving and we have to keep working with the children. Thank you. In terms of where we are, i still live in the area but now i live in rockwell, maryland. I guess you can say my wife and i have made an educational choice for our son living in rockville, maryland because he has large weighted from Richard Montgomery high school and gone to college. He has graduated from Richard Montgomery high school and gone to college. We have a strong School System in Montgomery County and so my students at Montgomery College are proud of that public School System. This is very strong. He read d. C. , of course, it is a different story. In d. C. , of course, it is a different story but i would venture to say the discussions we have about the state of education in this country are symptomatic of broader, deeper issues in our society as a whole. That have to do with the criminal Justice System. That have to do with our national priorities. About how much we spend on defense versus how much we spend on transportation and infrastructure and social programs. In so, until we can really grapple with some of those deeper problems, i fear were going to continue to have a lot of these discussions about what to do with our educational system because it has to do with our society as a whole. So i really have been i dont want to go on too much of a tangent very active with the peace movement. That deal with social transformation. I am not talking about bang bang, revolution like that. I am talking about what dr. King talked about. I suggest you all go back and read where do we go from here chaos or community . Where he talks about the beloved community. I think we all need to go back and read that very carefully. Hand thek on the one brown decision is certainly a significant step forward. To remove a set of legal barriers. Things people were legally allowed to do to each other that i think we can all agree were not good. Were about. I think what is harder is for people to the willingness to sort of do the daytoday grinding and work to make things better. Ok, you remove some barriers. In our daily lives, people are willing to do a lot of other horrible things to each other and we have not been willing to fight those daytoday fights. Now people have access, they can go to the same school. Well, it is a different fight to make sure all of the schools will allow children to go to our good. That is one we have not been and reallytake on in drive every single day. That is important. If you are going to make sure you can no longer bar children because of their color skin from attending a school but were not going to make sure that we insure the children who come to the school loans. One would argue you are not really winning if you say you you cant learn. That is a longer, daytoday thing to do which requires people paying attention, holding themselves, their elected officials and others accountable. I think especially for people in my generation, some of this is recognizing you have opportunities that other people did not. Now you have to make a choice. Do you utilize this opportunity to help another group of people have opportunities that props you did not or do you simply cash in and say, i am glad i have opportunities. People of tomato that personal decision and i think they reflect on the secretarys is a lot of people of made over the years to open the door of opportunity more and more for others. The question we must ask ourselves on a daily basis is are we still involved in that exercise or are we involved with every man for himself. I think that is sort of the challenge. There is a lot of promise with brown said i am not convinced everyday day i see enough people leaning into the wheel of, lets continue to push that further up there so that all kids at all schools are getting a great education. This is a difference between a good school and everyone having access to a good school but then is the school good for your child. That is where the question of choice comes in. Sometimes a skullcandy objectively good but it might not be the right and good school for your child. We are right now trying to make sure that the schools are simply good. I think there is a lot of work to be done. Lots of folks sacrifice a lot to get us to this point and i think we have to continue to put one foot in front of the other and do the hard work to make sure there are other opportunities and i think there will be new struggles to be maintained. You know, one of the things my dad said to me three or four days after i started central. The he got 14yearold me said i am not going back. My dad said to me, you have a responsibility to go to central, futureell, for generations. You have two younger sisters. What happens if you say you are not going to go. You know . What happens to them, youorder. That has guided me my entire life. Meanwhile, i really believe weve got to be involved. Youve got to be one of those persons that says i will do what i can to make a difference. I think thats what we have all tried to do, make a difference. And remember what my dad said. Conditions and , foronments in education the child, it can be overwhelming. You if you had to try to figure out a way to make some dynamic change around education or opportunity, where would you start . I served on board of education d. C. Where i would start is with people. We need to push ourselves and our friends, everybody we know. You ask people, do you think education is important . Everybody says yes. Nobody says, no comments not important. The next question, what are you doing to demonstrate that it is important or to make a better . This peopleden, dont have an answer for something we all say is important. I think we have to be pushing ourselves and our friends and our families and our colleagues to have an answer to the question and be acting on it. It. If it is in fact imported, know what you are doing to make it better and to demonstrate it demonstrate it is important to others. Otherwise, this is an individual exercise where people can say it is important, but i got other stuff to do. Then we are not making the kind of progress we need to have. It is less of we need to fix this policy or that one. Its more about doing get people involved . Are a lot of available solutions. Every single one of those things need lots of people to work very, very hard to make those opportunities to deliver real results for children. Dr. Smith . Dr. Smith my view on education is really kind of an outsider and a layman. In addition to teaching history, ive been most involved with criminal Justice Reform in maryland at the state level and in Montgomery County at the county level. This past session of the maryland assembly, i was in annapolis to testify for reform legislation that would give Greater Transparency to complaints in the police procedure. We are also working with having civilians on the Police Review boards, and also bail bond reform. True ina lot of what is the criminal Justice System is just as true in the educational system. Our criminal Justice System is broken. I think the same thing is true of our educational system. I think it is a broken system. I think you should go back and look at what earl warren said in his majority opinion in brownlie board of education about Public Schools brown v board of education about Public Schools. The heart and soul of a democratic society, Public Schools basically shaped the citizens of in a gala terry and democratic society. Of education is to bring Children Together and to bring people together. And its not doing that. It hasnt done that. The reason why we are having all of these discussions about what this kind of school is or what that kind of school is is that the Public Education system as a whole is not delivered properly. Just as the system of criminal Justice Reform has a schooltoprison pipeline, has over policing of schools, has this kind of coercive force mentality in education, in education and in the prisons, i think we have to start looking and how to do we and how do we start to transform the bulls minds and spirits . Thats how do we transform peoples minds and spirits . Part of it has to do with healing peoples spirits. Part of it has to do with reaching into peoples hearts. Those are the kinds of questions we need to ask about our schools, just as we ask about our prisons and our courts. Thank you. Ms. Schwartz i look around this room and i see [indiscernible] organizationshese. These organizations who have fought in the 20 years i have been involved to make sure that kids get the education. We need more. You need to stand with them. One of the things i did 20 years ago was decided to stand with them. These people care about kids and what happens to kids. We stand with if these organizations who have stood so much time over the years, supported families and supported children, then i think weve got part of the war won. Somebody told me a long time ago that we lost the battle in the legislature. And i was saying, oh, im through with this. Im mad because we lost. And i dont want to do this anymore because i dont like eating on the losing side. , if youbody said to me letting the are kids that you say you care so much about down. Then you are doing the same thing others have done. I was mad, but i had to go home and really think about setting my priority. It continues to be serving children and serving families and making sure that what is i want to know if so i can pass on to families. That is ultimately we are going to hear more about it but ultimately, that is what you have to do. You have to be involved. As we prepare to move into people will start heading to the microphones and lining up. It seems to me that one of the key components to having successful movement around Educational Opportunity, data goes back to the parents. The you believe that weve got found a good structure for informing parents about Educational Opportunity. Make good choices about education . What are the pieces that are of place or should be a place to help parents navigate this new world of education . Make good choices no. T to the point about the system parentsn, parts are in important part of the students formal education School System. Schools do a good job of recognizing the and leveraging the parent. Ultimately, you got to know what the spirits responsibility is, what the schools role and the childs role is. I taught Elementary School for a decade. People always find a way to blame it on the parents and have a long list of things that parents arent doing. We tend not to actually tell parents what it is we need them to do. Its hard for them to figure it out if we dont from the school side of things articulate that. What we are seeing in several schools that have been successful with families is they are really clear. They tell parents we need to do x, y, z. These are your responsibilities. Here are the things we are going to do. Until the child here are the things youre going to do, and hold each other accountable and tell the child here are the things youre going to do and hold each other accountable. It a lot of, we have not been invested in that. Sadly, some of that is a byproduct of people knowing, if you dont tell depends what you need from them, then you can always blame them and it can always be their fault. The moment you create that accountability the accountability door swings both ways. If you tell parents how to leverage accountability, when they show up to the score the school and start demanding of you what they need for their child, that is what they dont want to have happen. So we have created a system where schools are quite hostile to parents and send them a covert message they are not a wanted or needed partner in this. Are ndc parents for school choice, clearly, i believe that parents should be a partner in the educational process. I really am dedicated to bringing parents in and making them understand isotope d. C. Here in bc in i used to tell parents in d. C. That we are thousands and past. G the scholarship i used to tell them, if you dont speak for your child, who will . And they used to tell me, but they dont want to hear me. So i tell them then go make yourself heard. We taught them how to. Use their voices and how to speak up and make their voices heard and to make their problems known. That is something that i believe i really dont like it when parents are blamed, because there is a lot of effort oftentimes to bring parents involved in their childrens education. A parent told me recently i went to my child school and ask for the test scores, because she was moving out of the city. And the teacher actually said you dont need to know these. We will send them to the new school. And the parent said i want to know. This teacher just refuse to the point where she called and said [indiscernible] it was the most unreal moment raining everywhere in this country when talking to parents, that is how they feel. They are not a part of it and shouldnt have any involvement other than going on field trips or bringing Paper Supplies to the school. Where thehe area me. Age raised my teachers, my parents, the neighbors, the church, the me. School down the street, they raised me. And that is something we have to do more of. Thank you, panel. Lets move to questions. Just real quick following up on what you just said, back in the days of segregation, we had more of a sense of community between parents and teachers. Its been lost unfortunately. There are other things that have been gained, but we lost that. Thank you. So lets have our first question over here on the right. You for your amazing comments and for sharing your personal stories. My name is jennifer mizrahi, president of respectability. We advocate for young people with disabilities. We are concerned about young people of color and their failure to achieve high school diplomas. Even if you dont have the racial component, only 65 of students with disabilities complete high school. And only 7 complete college. I know that Charter Schools do not have the same requirements for protecting students with disabilities, but they are also offering some exciting promise with the mccabe scholarship in florida, for example. I wanted to ask each of you to please reflect on students of color with disabilities in this new era. What can be done to ensure that they dont enter the schooltoprison pipeline, given that today 750,000 people in America Today are people with disabilities. My sister is a special education teacher. She has been encouraging me to learn more about students with a disability. In arkansas, we have a brandnew Scholarship Program called success Scholarship Program for children with disabilities. One of the things i have been charged to do is to encourage africanamerican families to apply. They were not getting many applications from africanamerican families. So we went into the communities and met with them, actually took people over to apply and took applications with us. So there is a great need. Henrietta, my twin sister, has been teaching for 30 years. She is retiring this week. She has 10 kids graduating, all africanamericans, with high school diplomas. She stayed two extra years to make sure that they were graduate would graduate. Their graduation was an amazing highlight, not only for her, but for the school. They got awards. She made sure one of her kids got a twoyear scholarship to college. And these were kids she is a selfcontained teacher and these were kids who have been, before now, not considered let into the educational environment. I see a lot of states and its kind of backwards a lot trouble withe special needs kids so they, pass kids. Ecial needs they dont want to be identified as not being taken care of. But it works for us. Then our kids can get scholarships and attend the schools that they want to attend, which oftentimes lead to i dont know about other states, but arkansas is one of the few states where kids dont get a certificate of completion. Diploma. Ally get a and a have to have just as many credits as everybody else. But it takes an engaged, involved teacher to make sure that they have them. Something that is close in our hearts. All, we haverst of to push everyone who is involved in education, in any way, shape, or form, to think of all. Caught in this game of, the moment we allowed to be less than all children, we start leaving kids behind it various sorts. When we think about children with disabilities in general, that pushes us to the question of our schools designed or held accountable to meeting childrens needs . In our societies, we lose track of that. We think about schools are going to import or do a set of things for different children and thats what its going to do,. If you are fortunate to be among the kids were the school is doing enough, great. But if youre not, wish you the best of luck. In some cases, some children need more, some children need different, and there are a lot of elements. We were having this conversation last week over dinner at my parents house. My brotherinlaw cush a Softball Team for students with disabilities at his high school that is designed to give kids who otherwise wouldnt have the opportunity to purchase a paid index of curricula sports. I played sports in school. My kids played sports in school. That is a valuable experience. But we need to say children need a certain set of things and its our spas ability as adults to make sure they get those things. And it might look different. It might be harder. Than we want to work to get to them. Are really in this for all the children, then it is not negotiable, that we can give less to another group of kids for any reason. Into budgeting conversations oftentimes, where we are simply taking the Resource Pool we have an dividing it up among the kids we have and thats what everyone gets. Thats the wrong approach. We have to push hard on that because, oftentimes, the people that have the sternest advocates and of getting the strongest advocates and up to getting what they want and need and the others who are not as visible dont. We are in this for all children and then everybody will get what they need. That is how i approach it. You have to thinking of it in that way. If we are not thinking about childrens needs, then we are doing something that will help many, if not most kids, and unknowingly leave children behind. I can tell you from personal i mean,xperience, Montgomery County Public Schools, as advanced as they are, could do more to deal with special needs students in terms of disabilities. I would suggest that you take a deep look by Brian Stevenson called just mercy based on his experiences as a courtroom criminal justice lawyer, mostly in the south, but in california, too. A lot of his clients who got involved in the criminal justice gonem were people who had through abusive situations as children, who had gone through high School Situations where their needs were not being properly met, and then they got involved in this schooltwoprison pipeline. Schooltoprison pipeline. The Education System and the correctional system are really not that separate. They are part of a continuum for many young people. So again, rehabilitation rather than punishment, Development Rather than coercion, love rather than anger i think all of those are factors that we need to think about, not only in our children who are in school, but once they have their the misfortune to be in the system, think about when they get incarcerated. This is all part of the formation from human beings into individuals in a changing society. Thank you. Taylor thank you all for coming out today. Im struggling with something. I think this will get to the crux of some of the issues we are confronting. I grew up in fort lauderdale, florida. I was in high school. There was a desegregation effort about the time that i was coming where wele school, began busing africanamerican students into majority institutions or predominately white institutions for purposes of integrating. There was a big battle, years of litigation. We have all seen those in k12 systems. Iember asking it was was a pretty interesting high school students. I asked this caucasian american woman, who i admired quite a bit, why did she transfer her kids out of the school where people like me were coming to . Respect e still still sticks with me. I appreciate the grand vision, but my ultimate responsibility is to my children. On an individual level, my job is to ensure that my kids get the best education they can get. I only get one shot and thats what i owe them. And to the extent that they are shipping people into this school i love this, they are shipping people into this school and it is going to bring down the overall rigor and create behavioral problems. She went through this whole thing. Struck me as a very honest but it hurt me because she didnt realize she was saying that people like me were negative to the environment. 30 years forward, fastforward and this happened literally a myth ago a group of friends, africanamericans, successful, doctors and lawyers and india jeeves, we are all sitting around and talking about where our kids were in school. All of ourds kids were either in private schools or selective charters schools. And said,ked around god, we are doing the very thing that we have complained about people doing for years. I was shocked when one of the mothers said to me i asked her, what is it all about . And she almost verbatim repeated the words from the white woman 30 years prior who i judged who essentially said i have to do what is in the best interest of my child and the others have to figure out the best interest of theirs. How do we reconcile that when we talk about brown versus board of education . Thats a tough one, right, because ultimately, our duty and responsibility while i want to see the benefits of integration, but to your point, they are the better books, education, and children behave better. I had to look at myself in the mirror and say i am doing the very thing that i accused these horrible racist people of, educd children behave better. Doing. I am doing it amongst my people. Because i dont really want that, only one of my children went to private school. That is really difficult. Whoave grown into parents want to have some say how say so in how her kids are educated. I dont think you should look at it as a voice from racist past. You should look at it as a growth for what we are able to do now. One of the things i had trouble doing is convincing parents that they have a say so in their chair their childrens education. They can ask for certain things. They can send their children to certain schools. We all went into that were kids were pulled out of school because we went there, even as recently as my own children going to school. But i think we have to look at it a different way. I dont think we should look at duplicatinguing or what they say. Informed onre more what we are able to say now. Little kids in little rock in the country to go to these schools, i remember asking my father, you know, why people were moving further out of little rock, because these kids were coming to the schools. I remember asking my parents, you know, if we go to those schools and they take their kids out of those schools, what does that mean . Theye said, it just means are not being thoughtful and they are being racist. So they do understand. But nowadays, if we dont say i want my kids in the Better School and we dont go out and get those kids in a Better School, i think we are missing out on all the information we have been given to have access to Better Schools. My kids all went to Different Schools. Thats five Different Schools. People would say are you crazy . You leave about 6 00 in the morning. And i would say, yeah, but they need this and they need this. We pick schools based on the needs of the child versus how convenient it was going to be to take them. That is where i am now. You can forget about that and keep moving forward. Im going to take a slightly different people who know me know where i am going now. Especially my mom. [laughter] you alwayss is have to make the right choice for you and your child. And i had to tell anybody not to do that. I will always do that and i waste of people to do that. That said, we are supposed to be smart enough to challenge things that people put out in the universe. I think sometimes we take a pass on thinking harder and thinking smarter about things. I went to the schools my entire academic career. People were saying, if you dont get him out of cps out of third grade, he is not going to college. People are still saying the same thing today. Ent off and had a six foot a successful career, went to college, morehouse college, a pretty regarded place. My wife went to stanford. People were saying and then. It wasnt true. They are saying it now and it ain true either. Wese things stick because dont challenge them. We can have a reasonable discussion about why a school may be better for a particular child, but we cannot let go unchallenged the sometimes frankly racist notions that this school is not going to get your child ready. My kids are in the same school i went to. People in my friends and said, oh, we have to go to a private school. I said, look, you can do that, but nothing has changed in their experience going to that school. If it is a Better School for them, great, but the school they are in now is great. Im watching kids thrive every civil day. I also think about the listen my children learn when i put them in that school. Then i show up at that school to make sure the school is meeting heir needs and the other kids they are in class with. This stuff is hard. The school wasnt the school wasnt magically good. People work to make them better each year. We are in a same conversation with a parent at my sons high school where the principal wants to move ninth graders into more rigorous math and science courses, and parents are pushing back. Oh, if you do that, you are going to hold my kid back. No we are not. We are going to make sure everyone has the opportunity to pursue honors and ap. I think there are not enough of us willing to push back on some of these things people say that arent supported by the facts. That is part of this that bothers me. People say stuff overtime that just are supported by actual facts and we let it go. We have to push harder against that. We have to tell our truth. At the end of the day, if you are convinced for some objective reason that the school is truly better for your child, great. My children are now in middle and high school. My wife talked about this. The school is good for our kids and there are a lot of other children in each of those schools who are benefiting because we are there pushing the school to the better for everyone. I have had hard conversations with principles and teachers telling me what is holding them back arent in test scores are the low boundary against the school. The out of boundary low income kids perform two or three times better than anywhere else in the city. In fact, the school is good, so stop trying to sell that and convince parents to scare other parents out of the school. A lot more of us have to be willing to take on that daily fight. It is a fight. Sometimes people look up and go, we have to deal with that stuff again. That is just the way it is going to the. At least people have a sense around me, dont come with that Public School or this or that is going to get it done. I will keep it super real with you, because it is important for other parents to learn it. What we are unwilling doing is pushing that message to our kids, saying to the next generation, if you go to that Neighborhood School i dont know, you have to go here or here. That will not help anybody. We have to push back on that more than we are comfortably doing now. When i go back and read girl lauren earl warren opinion in brown v. Board of education, the heart of his argument is the role of Public Schools in a and i listenciety, to a lot of the debates going on right now. T sounds very idealistic its a very aspirational. And it isnk it aspirational. It describes a world that could a deep enough faith in Public Education. My suggestion would be that a lot of policymakers that are engaged in these debates about education in the country go back and read what earl warren wrote in 1954. Thank you. Please come on this side. Hello. Just want to thank you so much for your time. My name is Isabel Gonzalez and i am finishing my masters at Catholic University of america, an integral Economic Development policy. I came today because i took a class in developing world. The class touches on aspects in developing countries, why are they struggling in education. That can be applied to some of the School Districts in the United States. I really sympathize with your comments on family and how important it is for a childs education. At least for me. My parents sent me to private schools for the majority of my life. I know that it was their support and their patients with me that helped me their patience with me that helped me excel. Just knowing that if i failed a spelling test, i would not get punished, i would get sympathy and support. How can we help you succeed . Things like that. I am wondering, what is your experience with that . What are the incentives we can put in place to encourage more parental involvement in a childs education . Not just that, but to communicate with teachers and ensure that it is important to put your child first. I do think that. But as a society it is also important to see things in the form of the common good. How can my child benefit, but also, what can i do . Somebody mentioned it what can i do to contribute to society . How can i be involved . Basically, the incentive what have you seen that works . At his school, he and other parents are involved. Talking and meeting with parents, those of us who have those types of skills continue parents and make them feel like they can be a part of their childs education. In the programs i work with my we encourage parents to come along with the children. I have seen lots of parents over the years that want to be involved, but didnt know how to. Sometimes it is a matter of sitting down and talking to them so they can understand what their role could be. When my first child went to school, my mom said, the involved in your childs education. Be involved in your childs education. I sat in the back of the room and scared the heck out of the teacher. When i had a conversation with her i went back to my mother, be involved, do something that helps. Be innovative. What can you bring to this classroom . I learned from an international organization. We had lots of people from other countries. They would bring different food. We would have Great International days. I had to be taught. To beto be told, involved, you need to do this and this. I think you said that earlier we have to tell people what we need them to do. I think the schools and parents have to Work Together to make sure everyone is on the same page about what can be involved. It is a lot of pushback in schools. Generally parents dont feel as welcome. We on the education side have to find a way to make parents feel that they belong as part of their childs education. We have workshops that teach parents how to talk to teachers, do roleplaying. Sometimes we bring in actual tangibles and teachers to talk to our parents principals and teachers to talk to our parents and occasionally we would sit in with meetings between parents and administrators. I was convinced at some point that everyone was saying the same thing, just saying it differently. Understandingple that they are saying the same thing, the bottom line is that everybody wants to help the child. Instead of getting into an argument, we are going to intervene. Those people that are involved in education reform or in education period needed to be aware that they can play a role in helping parents involved. That is an important step in this next era, this next education journey, to make sure that we are again involving parents, like our parents were involved in our education. Doneed to consider parents always have the knowledge and skills . The same way we think about students. All parents are different. Sometimes parents need more or different information in order to play a role. I will shamelessly self promote. A couple years ago we did a checklist with the department of education on the things that as a parent, you can and should be asking your childs teacher or principal to track progress of your child. And that the school is doing things to improve. We are not here to send hey, a school is not doing well, you should abandon it. But you should be asking critical questions. I know some any things because i have been a teacher. I have been deep behind the curtain, which is always why i out myself to my childrens teachers. The reason i am asking hard questions is because i know how this all works. A lot of parents dont have that. I used to get a weekly homework sheet. I would tell parents, this is how it works. I will send this home every day and it has a place for you to sign. My expectation of you is that you sign that you have seen they have done these assignments. You have to check that it is right, just sign it. If i get this tomorrow and it is not signed, i am calling you. You agreed to do that. Hey, if i am calling, it is because they didnt do what they were supposed to do. We need to acknowledge their aspirations for their children are high. But we have to illuminate the path. For many parents, they are unaware. The schools are sending them feedback, things are going well, report card looks all right, you feel good how your child is doing. But they are missing benchmarks to reach where they want to be. By the time they find out they have missed all these things, it is too late. Schools laying out for parents, here are the things you need to know,cking in on so you if college is part of your childs plan, you need to be clear about algebra in eighth grade. If you dont take algebra in a great, you are off course. In 8th grade, you are of course. We had an issue when i was on the board where we contemplated, could your child take two math classes in one year, even though they were sequential, because if they couldnt take them both that year they wouldnt graduate. That is a byproduct of not having told parents this is what you need to be doing. We need to be mindful, are we giving them the tools to support children along the way . Many people do not know. Are beneficiaries of a parent that it no parent that did know. At least we are asking them the question. Times we dont tell them and act surprised when they dont know. Nonexpert, is a would suggest one of the things to look at is teacher dissatisfaction. I understand here in the district there has been a high number of people who have resigned not just at the end of the school year, but in the middle of the school year, in december and january, just walks off the job. To me that is incomprehensible. I talked to some of my colleagues. I know at least three people currently teaching at Montgomery College that were formally with Montgomery County Public Schools. Is a biologist, one one teaches chemistry. What led you to leave Public Schools and come to Montgomery College . One of the things consistently is administrative paperwork. They feel overwhelmed that they dont have time to devote to preparation, to devote to interacting with students because of regulations and paperwork, much of which comes from the federal government. All kinds of forms that have to. E filled out, we need to look at what kinds of environments teachers function in. That is a really good point. Thank you for your question. I feel i chair the board of a local Charter School. That is something i find to be pretty overwhelming in terms of the amount of paperwork. I understand metrics and tracking and Holding People accountable is critical, but what is the right balance so that students can get sufficient attention from teachers . Next question. I would like to echo my thank you as well. I am associate vice chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University System of maryland. You give thisto briefing on brown v. Board of i reflected back on a career that is coming to an end in 29 days. 52 years in this business. Starting out as a Public School lynwood art teacher in chicago. Language arts teacher in chicago. Having been a twotime president of two hbcus. By the manytrigued years i have heard discussions like this on the anniversary of brown v. Board of education. On they all seem to focus the same issues, except the point that mr. Smith made. And it is rare that the discussions delve into that. He talked about the criminal Justice System and socioeconomic and the political. All of you alluded to resources. I will single out one in Montgomery County. Mr. Smith mentioned a good public School System. Some of you may know that it is working on an Excellent Institution in Higher Education in the universities of shady grove, which 15 or 20 years ago, was one building. Cannot even really one building. Not even really one building. It was a warehouse shared. It is five buildings now. Montgomery county is committed theducation from pregame to phd. The question i have related to all of that is, if you could have one resource regardless of how you obtain it to bring about a change that you have articulated that is needed as it relates not just to k12 and prek. I think a lady asked a question about disability that is a mounting question. It is not just physical, it is mental is well. Witness what happened at college park earlier this week. What one resource, if you could get it, regardless of how you get it, would you say you would use to bring about the kinds of changes that you have articulated about education . Not just in washington dc, because several of you mentioned educational reform. To bring about the kind of change that was alluded to in the warren opinion, but also in the issues of education for the citizens of the United States of america who are called the founding fathers. What would that resource be . One resource. Thank you. Who would like to start . [laughter] is parents thing being able to pick the schools for the their children. I am a big scholarship proponent. Money,ve if i had the the resources, that i would make provisions for every child to go to any school that their parents chose. I believe strongly that we are our childrens first teachers. We know our children better than anyone else. That is what i would want to do. It would be such an incredible thing to be able to talk to parents and say, my child is at a school where he has thriving and i was able to send him there. Believe believe i do that it should be controlled by state and local municipalities. I really do believe that, but it would be something that would be incredible in education. One of the things that Brian Stephenson says in his book just mercy towards the end, he says we live in a broken criminal Justice System. But it is not just the kernel Justice System that is broken, it is society that is broken. This will sound perhaps impossible to achieve, or pie in the sky, or idealistic, but as we have these conversations, which we definitely need to do about how to improve and move forward in education, i think they should be part of more fundamental kinds of discussions about what happens in North Carolina when they have moral tuesdays, and what does that mean, and what are the roles of clergy people . If i were to say one essential resource in the Public Schools, i would say to pay a lot more attention on both spiritual and psychological resources. That has to do with getting kids to perhaps reach back into their communities. Society. N a secular we have a secular educational system. When i teach in community college, i say to my students, it doesnt matter what church or synagogue or temple that you go, you cant live without spiritual values. Said, those of you especially that go out into education i am not telling you to go to my church. I am not telling what church i go to, it is none of your business. But you need to look back into your families and into your roots into your cultural communities, whether they are buddhist or muslim or jewish or whatever, and reach back and get substance and strength from that. There is a lot there. You can get a good job, you can learn to be a police officer, you can learn to be a school counselor, you can go on to the university of maryland or howard and have a comfortable career. But you have to look at what is inside your heart. That is part of what some of our teachers may tend to forget sometimes. Those are the kinds of things that i think we need to bring back. That is what we had when we were system. Egregated we had teachers that have those oldfashioned values when we were part of an educational community. D, myember one lady who sai students are all brilliant. We used to make a joke about her. She was very proud of us. We have to try to bring that back. When teachers interact with students, especially when they , they haveth parents a special role to play. And the same is true whether the person is a psychological counselor on the parole system or the person is a teacher. Regulationsperwork, people looking over their shoulders. But there is that other dimension. If there was one thing that i would really like to see more of again, i said i had a personal experience. It has to do with one of my children in the schools, who had a special need. Very much inrned Montgomery County Public Schools. She is really moving forward now. She is sprouting wings and flying. There was a time when i really wanted to see the School System do a lot more than they did. We will wrap up in a second. I probably shouldnt have gone last. Wand for theic express purpose of putting everyone, everyone who talks about education, has kids in it, whatever the reason for being involved put them all on one boat until everyone understands we actually are in one boat. The harsh reality is that there are too many people under the mistaken belief, i am going to take care of myself over here, and you will figure it out. E, is going to be a long rid because some of us will not be easy enough to crack. For me that is the fundamental problem. There is too much of a believe that there are a bunch of escape hatches, and i can get out on my little boat here. We are doing all of this stuff to take care of our individual self, for a couple of our selves. It only works when it works for everyone. To his point about what is happening with criminal justice, this is our unwillingness to confront that we have to invest in the growth and development of young people until they are willing to be successful in the world. Logic,ed into this crazy if it doesnt work and we under invest, we will just lock them up. First of all, people are coming back. Second level, that is an insane way to approach this. We have to understand we are in one boat. I am an old classroom teacher. Perhaps the best way to communicate with everyone is to make us stay there until we finally get it through our heads and start acting that way. Right now that is not the way we are behaving with Public Education in this country. Thank you. With that we will wrap up the panel. Thank you to all of our panelists for being here today. [applause] [chatter]