Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson's For Our Children Column
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Back to School
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This week, like millions of parents, I sent my children bouncing back
to school with new backpacks for a new academic year. While many of us
caregivers are scrambling to make sure our students have the right
supplies (I forgot crayons!), clothes, and enough lunch money, we
can't lose focus of disturbing social challenges that no pencil,
pen, or notebook can prepare our students for. The progress
Children's Defense Fund and our partners have made to build
racial and social equity in America's schools is being erased at
an alarming rate.
As the Century Foundation reports that American schools are
underfunded by $150 billion, the Education Trust documents dramatic
funding inequities in districts educating Black and Brown students.
Meanwhile, state and federal lawmakers continue to introduce private
school voucher proposals that harm those very children.
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Discrimination in our classrooms is on the rise. The U.S. Department
of Education's Office for Civil Rights received nearly 19,000
complaints citing discrimination in U.S. schools last fiscal year
alone; a record, according to the New York Times.
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Receive CDF's new column: For Our Children every week!
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Lest we forget, for the first time in almost six decades, graduating
high school seniors will apply for college without consideration of
affirmative action to correct historic bias. As I said, in June, the
Supreme Court's decision to nullify affirmative action policies
in college admissions placed even more obstacles ahead of Black and
Brown young people pursuing their dreams.
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These developments may feel like an irreversible sea change in the
wrong direction. But together, we can achieve what may seem
impossible.
This is a Sankofa moment. We must remember just how far we've
come.
I was reminded of our progress as my sons and I joined thousands of
people in Washington, D.C., Saturday for the 60th Anniversary of the
March on Washington. On the same steps of the Lincoln Memorial where
A. Phillip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and
Dr. Dorothy Height gathered in 1963, the present-day crowd, including
hundreds of college students and children, was eager to fight for
justice and equity.
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This year let's take our passion into classrooms, school board
meetings, town halls and community forums. Serve and advocate for
positive change whenever you learn of an injustice impacting the
education of children and youth. Whether we are educators, caregivers,
family members, or neighbors, we each have a role in supporting the
learning and development of children.
As we find inspiration in history, we are challenged to make progress
for children in the present.
For our children,
Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson
President and CEO
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