Hi John,

In the tradition of Black August, for the next 4 weeks we will be sharing resources to deepen our collective understanding of the many intersections of race and inequity in New York’s public schools. 

Each week we will focus on a theme related to a current battlefront in the fight for equity in public education. Our intent is to commemorate the struggle of those who have come before us, and to raise— in the words of Black August cofounder Mama Ayanna Mashama  —“revolutionary consciousness” that we can bring to our ongoing fight for equity for our children and communities.

New York’s laws and policies on school discipline have long favored harsh, exclusionary punishments that unfairly target students of color, students with disabilities, and LGBTQI students, limit academic achievement, and push students out of the classroom and into the web of the criminal justice system. This is often referred to as the school-to-prison pipeline.

On this episode of NPR’s Code Switch podcast, recorded in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting, the hosts interview author and sociologist Alex Vitale, who argues that our over-reliance on the police prevents us from properly investing in resources and programs that could make us safer in the long run.

Be sure to listen to the end to hear a poetry recitation by National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman.

Film:

Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (1 hour 30 minutes)

Video:

Abolitionist Teaching and the Future of Our Schools (1 hour 30 minutes)

Books: 

 Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, And The Pursuit Of Freedom By Derecka Purnell 

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching & The Pursuit of Educational Freedom By Bettina Love

Willful Defiance: The Movement to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline By Mark Warren

Share something new you learned from one of the resources above with your friends, family and co-workers.

Until next week,