Ending Suspensions Is a Team Effort

Cross-Sector Advocates Release Action Plan for Reducing Suspensions in NYC
Highlights Positive Discipline Strategies from Across the Nation
Cross-Sector Advocates Release Action Plan for Reducing Suspensions in NYC
Highlights Positive Discipline Strategies from Across the Nation
Charter schools get a lot of hype in our nation's education debate, yet proponents of charter expansion consistently overlook serious issues with how these schools can selectively shape their student enrollment.
Today is the 59th anniversary of the historic Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. Almost six decades later, students, parents, teachers and advocates across the country are still fighting against education policies that leave students of color and low-income students deprived of the resources and opportunities they need to succeed.
Thousands of students in Philadelphia are staging a massive, city-wide walkout today to protest the under-resourcing of their schools and school closures. A number of OTL allies are participating in the event, including the Philadelphia Student Union and Youth United for Change, two of the largest student organizing groups in the city.
The National Education Policy Center's new book "Closing the Opportunity Gap" offers a wide array of policy recommendations for closing the opportunity gap and ensuring all students have the resources they need to succeed. This policy guide distills the most important recommendations from the book at three different levels: at the level of students' individual needs, at the level of in-school opportunities and resources, and at the level of communities and neighborhoods.
In his second inaugural address, President Barack Obama returned repeatedly to the theme of "we the people" and the ever-more-inclusive nature of that "we" in our nation.
The National Center for Education Policy (NEPC), an OTL ally, has a new, must-read book about the change our nation needs to make from thinking about the achievement gap to trying to fix the opportunity gap that underlies it.
Mass school closings have become a hallmark of today's dominant education policy agenda. But rather than helping students, these closures disrupt whole communities. And as U.S. Department of Education data suggests, the most recent rounds of mass closings in Chicago, New York City and Philadelphia disproportionately hurt Black and low-income students.
Click here to learn about alternatives that support students rather than close school doors on them.
Mass school closings have become a hallmark of today's dominant education policy agenda. But rather than helping students, these closures disrupt whole communities. And as U.S. Department of Education data suggests, the most recent rounds of mass closings in Chicago, New York City and Philadelphia disproportionately hurt Black and low-income students.
Click here to learn about alternatives that support students rather than close school doors on them.
A new report from UCLA's Civil Right Project is a one stop shop for all the school discipline data advocates or organizers needto fight the overuse of out-of-school suspensions. Out of School & Off Track uses data from over 26,000 U.S. middle and high schools for the 2009-2010 academic year and breaks it down by district, race, gender, elementary/secondary school level, English language learners, and disability status.
This is an incredibly useful and powerful report – download it here!
Like most states, Pennsylvania's Constitution requires the state to provide students with access to a basic public education. And, like most states, there's a gap between what resources students need to get that promised basic education and what the state is actually funding. In a letter to Gov.