Fair and Just School Climate

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), passed in 2015, was a marked shift away from its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind Act. Under ESSA, much of the decision-making, accountability, and oversight passed from the Federal government to the states. In this transfer of policymaking to the state level, ESSA includes some important opportunities for students, parents, educators and communities to have their voices heard both in state capitols and in their local districts.

On Saturday, March 4th, New Yorkers took to the streets to march for equity in public education. The People’s March for Education Justice was held in 8 cities across the state. The marchers’ demands are:

• fully resourced public education, starting with early childhood and including higher education.
• to end the privatization of public schools and to end high stakes testing.
• to end the school-to-prison pipeline.
• to Raise the Age and decriminalize our youth.

Less than 0.3% of philanthropic dollars go to Native groups. This fact was pointed out at Philanthropy New York’s event, “Invisible No More: Native Realities in a Post-Election Era”, by Schott Foundation Vice President of Programs and Advocacy Edgar Villanueva. Alongside Edgar were Native Americans in Philanthropy CEO Sarah Eagle Heart, American Indian Law Alliance President and Executive Director Betty Lyons, and moderator Patricia Eng, who is Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at The New York Women’s Foundation. The panelists discussed concerns of and hopes for philanthropy’s engagement with Native partners. Each panelist identified gaps in support for Indigenous communities but emphasized that these issues affect us all: the planet that the Native community is fighting to protect is a shared responsibility for all of us, and we must collaborate with others to save it.  

In our webinar earlier this month, “How to Stop the School-to-Prison Pipeline for Girls of Color,” we were joined by Dr. Monique W. Morris, author of Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, and Aishatu Yusuf, who is currently working on participatory research aimed at interrupting school-to-confinement pathways for girls. You have probably heard of the school-to-prison pipeline, but Dr. Morris prefers to use the term school-to-confinement pathways to better describe the relationships that lead girls of color into contact with the juvenile legal system. As explained in our infographic, the U.S. Department of Education reported that black girls were suspended six times more than white girls, nationally. Dr. Morris and Aishatu unpack the issue in our webinar, providing possible solutions.