A Day focused on Education

Yesterday, Tuesday June 19 was a great day. Education of African American children as well as brown and poor children reigned.

Reporting Back to Community.  All who know me or read my blog and other writings know that I believe that those who use public funds, or represent a community on any issue, owe it to us to prepare and deliver in some way a report to community. Two Rainier Beach Students and their teacher Ms. Wong were our presenters at Rotary this week. We meet every Tuesday morning at 7:30 - 8:30 and hear from a variety of people who are doing something important to Rainier Valley.  The students thanked us for our support and reported on their trip to the Elwa River in the Olympic Peninsula. Two hydroelectric dams are being removed.  I found it quite refreshing that students not only come to us for funding but understand the need to report back on their learning. 

Another Seattle Public Teacher joined us as a visitor and the topic of Public Charter Schools Initiative 1240 came up in our discussion. The issue of public charters has been a topic several times. It looks as if Initiative 1240 as written just might get on the ballot November 6, and pass this time. It is important that African American parents and community understand all elements of what a public charter school is and how it can enhance or diminish the education of their children.  My personal position is that if black, brown and parents and their communities are not informed and included beyond the token few in the conversations there is a danger that if and when they come into being, others continue to maintain control of our children's education. Those who have information should share it widely and deeply.  

Later in the evening Rep. Eric Pettigrew responded to an invitation to meet with a parent who has been traumatized by the lack of services and responses for services needed for her son who is diagnosed with Down Syndrome, extreme Autism, Behavioral disabilities and is non verbal. Any clear thinking person would think that this child and mother is being supported by our state and other funded systems and services. Our systems are complex and too often do not get to those who need them most. This mother is Ethiopian American and her son African American as he was born right here in Swedish Hospital.  She has done everything any would expect her to do. Her story is sad but more usual than any who is not engaged with our parents would think.  She is not unintelligent, she owns her own successful business and her other child entered University of Oregon at age 16.
In advocating for families of the most difficult students, I have learned many things. One thing I know is that privilege is what makes the difference. Privilege comes in many forms sometimes it is money, sometimes it is education, and sometimes is relationships.  Just wanting a good education for your child is not a guarantee that the child will be educated. She had the resources to get her daughter into private schools, but it take great wealth to care for an extremely disabled child outside of our public education, health and social service systems.

I visited Community Center for Education Results but this requires its own Dawn Seattle the Retired One Blog entry. I have to think about the conversation I had and who I had it with.  

Report on Charter School Site Visit

Report back to the Community on Charter Site Visit to Los Angeles

On Jan 17, 18 and 19 I visited Los Angeles with a team assembled by Partnerships for Learning. 

WA State Rep. Eric Pettigrew (D-37th)  has sponsored legislation that would allow communities to be engaged in creative teaching that has the potential to bring about better outcomes for poor, brown and black children. Public Charter Schools are funded by public education funds. They exist primarily to bring excellence to the education of children living in urban areas the success of these schools require curriculum and methodologies geared to to elevated learning outcomes more hours on task of teaching and learning, data driven adjustments and the engagement of parents makes public charters successful. 


Los Angeles is not Seattle, so it is difficult to compare what is possible there and what is needed here. I have spent considerable time in Seattle school rooms located in SE Seattle. I have seen the best of teaching and some that is lacking. Of all the things that struck me as needed in our traditional schools is:


1. Consistency in excellent instruction
2. Data driven decisions for educating a diverse student body
3. A stated and highly publicized message that the purpose of educating is to prepare all students to meet the requirements and possess the ability to enroll in and complete a four year college education. (Even if they chose not to.)  


Students know that the career of their teachers is linked to their school success and this links them as a team. Nice!


Green Dot Locke High School is a converted from one of the lowest performing in LA Unified School District and created into 7 academies. This is a NY Times Article  about Locke a school that was a prototype of LA school violence,  a safe haven for ineffective teaching to one that is now almost violence free and filled with students who know they are learning for the purpose of going on to college. One young lady in the AP Calculus class said prior to her enrollment in this school, she did not know the existence of college entrance exams such as ACT, PSAT, SAT, she did not know there were such courses as Advanced Placement. No one had ever told they were not part of discussions with her peers. Now she is doing well in AP Calculus and like the other 20 students in the class she knows with an assuredness she is going to do well on her college entrance exams, her AP exams and attend UCLA and graduate.  Nice!  If you read the article about the cost be sure to read the closing paragraph. Is it worth spending two times the average cost to turn around a school that has created blight for an entire neighborhood? I say yes, the people deserve to be rewarded for years of failure dumped upon them by an non caring ineffective drop out factory. 


We visited the highly touted Knowledge is Power (KIPP) charter it was not my favorite, and I am not sure why. There was a stated formula for learning and applying data to what is taught and how it is taught. The students and teachers seemed less relaxed than the other three we visited. Can not quite put my finger on what it was. 


I really liked Aspire College Prep Academy it was much more relaxed and learning seemed more natural, like it was really part of the DNA of the teachers and students. There was a healthy and informed conversation with Dr. Roberta Benjamin, the LA Area Administrator. She and the Ms. Jennifer Garcia the Principal were comfortable in discussing the differences in learning and teaching to Latino and African American students. They knew the differences and were comfortable in the conversation.  Very Nice!


LA Charters do not reflect the kinds of diversity that we have in SE Seattle and Hilltop Tacoma Schools.  I especially wanted to visit a 2nd grade classroom because my reference to Seattle Schools is through curriculum and methods in the primary grades.  I could not perceive a major difference in the curriculum for reading and language arts, or the methods.  The charters we visited were pretty much one race schools, with more than 97% Latino. South Shore K-8 school in SE Seattle has several races and cultures to educate. As a traditional public school is doing as well or better than those visited in Los Angeles. I believe if they became an innovative campus they would perform better than the charters visited.


Yet we have schools in SE Seattle that would benefit from a conversion to a fully funded public charter school an innovative school with creative leadership and teaching team.   


Unlike the schools visited in LA with large majority Latino students,  SE Seattle has major diversity of non white students. Black, Latino and Asian Pacific Island immigrant and refugee populations learn together in one school. Not so easy to teach to this kind of diversity unless you see all the children worthy of an excellent education and differences are integrated into creative teaching. Mercer Middle School and  South Shore K-8 are proving this can be done in our current environment. Very Nice!


All communities must be engaged in the conversation if we are to have charter schools, innovative schools or what ever brings about the kind of radical changes we need to bring equity.  


Synergy Charter School is a co-located school that brings together Latino and African American students at the elementary level. It was started by two former traditional school teachers. This school was started by a husband and wife teacher team and grew out from within an engaged community. 


There are several articles written by anti-charter school thinkers that point to cherry picking for admission. Each of the four distinct public charter schools visited showed us their applications and spoke of their admission policies were to admit all who applied with the capacity of their school. There was no place on the application that would distinguish academic ability.  I was not sure why there were so few African Americans enrolled in these areas that have large African American populations; Compton, South Central L.A.   tWe were assure that every child had to be accepted including special education students had to be provided for.  


The students at Locke said they did experience many suspensions.  At Aspire, we were shown a Reflection Center where students having a bad time in a classroom was sent to another classroom to sit at the Reflection Center where they could write out their feelings, look at pictures or just sit and reflect.  


The Schools had panels of students,  eager and well able to answer our questions with enthusiasm and candor.  In general the students presented themselves as self assured, confident and they knew education was their road to a four year degree. 


WEA will not support Charter schools for Washington, and the Democrats are not going to support what WEA does not want. 


Poor, Brown and Black students are much more school dependent learners than their white and privileged peer group. They need longer school days and a longer school year. They need consistency without the intermittent short weeks, and half days that the SEA has built into the school year.  They need a teacher union that allows its members to experience the creativity and joy of educating the students they want badly to prove they can teach. Charter Schools in L.A. can form a collective bargaining unit with 51% of teachers in a school voting for this.  Green Dot was a union school (Charters teachers have formed their own union.)   SEA teacher union has historically been successful in blocking what is needed to move our schools to higher ground for non white, non middle class children.  No to charter schools. No to Teach for America. No to outcome based evaluations that does not encumber huge amounts of time taken away from a principal's ability to support the entire school.


No, no no!  Organized labor with such a high disregard for their members need and desire for pride of product is unusual.  Teacher support consistency in learning for their students. An effective teacher has great angst about sending their children they have elevated to a teacher they know will create a loss of ground for the very same student.  

The Teamsters, Autoworkers and Machinists are tough unions yet, planes are not falling out of the sky on a regular basis, an improperly made car is recalled and fixed, and a driver who has any accident,  is automatically taken from behind the wheel and grieves their way back into the cab.  Imagine the education of every child being as important as the safety of every car, plane or truck on the road.   What if not being able to teach to each child in your class was an automatic with a need for a negotiated return to this place of trust. What if the state provided  a pay rate that would support high levels of teaching and classroom management? That would be very nice!

The SE Seattle Community is well engaged with many initiatives to make our schools more adaptive to student excellence. These initiatives are attracting community involvement. Rainier Beach is on a course to become an International Baccalaureate School. This is a difficult and worthwhile undertaking.  There is though riff between those who should be working together. School reformers can not deliver charter schools without a buy in of non white communities understanding what they are and clamoring for them. Their is a neutrality about charter schools within the African American community.  The African American community is much more cohesive than what appears to the majority population and they are much more capable of knowing what is in their best interest and who is in their best interest than it might appear.  There have been many mistakes made by those who propose to speak for communities of color, to know the best solutions. It is so much easier to gain trust than to recoup it once lost.  

Charter Schools are not the be and end all of solving the education mess that Washington public education presents for our diverse student population. A recent MIT study tells us that Charter Schools have their best outcomes in urban areas and not so good in school districts outside of urban areas.  Since the majority of our parents have children in private schools or areas that are not part of the urban core, what would be their interest in charter schools?  How are they convinced that what is good for students of color is likewise good for their children. There are no images coming across the media of charter schools with large numbers of white students. This translates to them not serving the needs of poor children, just non white children.  Washingtonians can not engage in conversations or race based solutions to any of its problems. The reformers will need to have that conversation with those they need to vote for charter schools. 


Charters schools will not pass a Democratic controlled legislature if the reformists fail to put into place effective strategies for community education, outreach and organizing. They must get beyond the few people of color they feel most comfortable with and expand their knowledge of the people they propose to help. The questions posed by Trish Millines Dziko have not yet been answered. There will be no movement within communities of color until they are answered because she is trusted and heard on issues of education institution building.  



Unfortunately,  some of the best and most respected community and parent organizers are found lacking by those who want charter schools the most. This difference between what make the school reformers comfortable and who is respected and heard in communities they want to address is a major set back for many reform measures. 


It is in the hard and consistent work on real problems,  best solutions, and parent and community engagement that comes from with the community that attracts the bulk of my attention and energy.  I owe this to those who are doing the heavy lifting from the ground up. They have accepted the baton that has been passed from generation to generation for as long as there has been oppression and inequity present among us.  


Rest in Peace Charles Rolland, Anthony Matlock, and Trayvon Martin.  

The Village Movement is Evolving

In the Puget Sound region, along the I-5 Corridor from Seattle to Tacoma there is a movement afoot African Americans are evolving from being externally defined as a community to self defined existence as A Village. The Village as we know it,  is based on human development, needs and contributions. A community is a  concept externally and politically defined with determinations about the people without regard to culture, or the people's ability to self diagnose problems and create solutions.

The Village that has emerged along the I-5 corridor is a vibrant emergence of talent and accomplishments with many generations coming together to sustain longevity.  In a recent gathering with Village Elder Dr. Maxine Mimms, she eschewed the word legacy and has replaced it with longevity. We liked that open ended view of what we bring to human development. A legacy sort of has a beginning and end where longevity just keeps on going without end.

What determines our Village is how we are as a people together. How we determine the outcomes of what we do and what occurs for us. An example, a report came out from Seattle Public Schools and is recorded by the WA Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction on their website. The report is data that would have any who read it  assuming that where there are majority populations of non white children who live in the margins of material prosperity, then these children can not learn math and science or how to read and write.  The Village looked at this and went into action, there is a crisis among those who are teaching our children, they do not know how to teach them. We must then make arrangements to teach them our selves. We start with math, and intellectual expression. We call on the parents to step into this thing they call an achievement gap. We bring in the best and brightest among us to create learning labs.

Fear No Number Math Academy
  is created at the Zion Preparatory Academy campus on Saturday to enrich African American children, and other children who will benefit from learning to have no fear of any number. The parents have to see this as important in their vision of an accomplished child able to compete in a global society.  The children learn to calculate using an abacus and go back to the basics of how to count. They have not been taught how to count, nor how to calculate up to the nth degree, they have been taught fear and failure; these the ancestors of those who built great pyramids and just now toppled a despot within a month without funding or too much bloodshed. The teacher is Mr. Norman Alston, the parents are managing the Academy with Yvette Diaubate guiding parents to see the worth of excellence.

Parents for Student Success has existed for a quarter of a century, it is a conceptual and methodical way of having parents see their worth in getting children through the rigors and challenges of Pre-12th grade education. It is a method that says to a parent; "Your are the constant adult figure in your child's life, you are the one who determines if your child will be a successful adult. Your are the Coach, it is your team."  Co-founded by former WA State Representative Dawn Mason, the author of this blog.  She sees too many organizations funded based on the failure of African American children and other children and their parents who face many levels of trauma associated with failed learning and the inability to think and reason.  Organizations that have been in our midst for decades even not more than a century have led us to this level of failure in our children, yet too many parents allow their children to be used to the tune of billions of dollars granted to organizations, agencies, organized religious institutions, without evaluations that include us.
When this concept of giving money to people to fix other people's problems started African American children were learning and performing socially better than they are today. We did not have huge numbers of children in juvenile justice systems, we did not have children not knowing how to read and write or of all things, killing their grandmothers and brothers and using lewd language in the presence of elders or their little brothers and sisters.  The village did not tolerate any of this. Now others are getting money and creating employment for themselves and their friends saying we will fix this for them.

The Village movement once fully established will question this use of our our children's failed intellectual and social development, teach parents the ways of the ancestors in child development and learning and reclaim our children.  It is already occurring.

The Koinonia/Maxine Mimms Learning Center is a testimony of  what can occur when adults are clear about the vision and the intent. Dr. Emma Jones has been without doubt that any child can learn and she does not believe that ADD exists or any other thing that keeps a child from being a good person, a smart person. There are no large grants coming her way, she does not write them, may not know how. She just makes a determination that with or without funds the village will assure the education of any child. When the public school says they are unteachable and tosses them out, she and Dr. Mimms reclaims them if only to prove the point that yes, they can be taught. So on February 18th Black History Month program two of the MMHS students stood in front of parents and community and recited some of the most difficult classical poetry written; The Creation and Judgement Day without paper, props or teleprompter.  These girls attended public schools where tax payers are spending $8,000 per student and having them returned to us untaught. Dr. Jewell Hollaway, stood with her students and cried as they took their applause. I surmised from her comments, it was not difficult for them to learn these poems and deliver them perfectly, what was most challenging is to teach them that that yes, my children you are brilliant.

The Village throughout has placed as the most important element of reclaiming our people is letting them know at whatever age they are that yes, you are brilliant, and worthy of being all that you can be and even more than your ancestors who despite being robbed and pillaged and used as slaves to build this great nation, left for us longevity.

The Stolen Ones and How They Were Missed by Marcia Tate Arunga places us in a place different than we were taught. We were not traded - nothing was given for us of any value, we were stolen; kidnapped. The villages where the children were stolen from put out alerts - the Amber Alert was not the first time entire nations looked for their children.

Marcia is important to the Village Movement, it is what I have learned from and with her along with what we both and so many who we work with have learned at the feet of Dr. Maxine Mimms and what we bring from our own parents and ancestors and that make the re-energizing and re-establishing of the Village possible. It is intricate yet easy because it is intuitive. People who survived what people born of African blood have survived  are graced with longevity, with genetic memories of how to create something from nothing, they are close to God because they have not had in modern times the privilege of use of even their own resources. The minerals and natural and resources of Africa have been used by Europeans for centuries in ways that establish them as some superior people, when they are not. So Marcia is telling the story to children and their parents and teachers not to make a bundle of money with a gimmick tale, but to bring truth where it is missing. She says "Had I known that I was not sold or traded, from the motherland, and that I was missed. My back as a child would have been a little straighter, I would has stood a little taller..."  It is this message to the children an allegory that tells them they are a missing generation and we are looking for and finding them.  We have an Amber Alert fully functioning.


Black Girls Rock is inspired by the need to say to each black girl that "You Rock" you are awesome in who you are, how you look and the gifts and talents you bring to the Village. During African American History Month, the Village of Hope a precursor the the Village Movement showcased Black Girls Rock in a packed SRO gathering hall at White Center Heights Elementary School. Sherrell Shell pulled it together and Monica rocked the house as she showcased the many talents of young girls and their role models. Dressed creatively in outfits made for black bodies, bodies. They did precision drill routines in a multi aged performance with the youngest at the front learning from the older girls the way that the Village around the globe has children learn the best of who they are.  And they praised god silently with only movement; the young female Mt. Zion Praise Dancers who despite the turmoil in that part of the Village, God can use a child to show faith and belief. They accepted with grace their shout out "Mt.Zion Youth Praise Dancers Rock!!"  The mantra of Black Girls Rock, because in the Village to "rock" is to be caught being your best self, to be a contributor of talent and energy and to be part of the vision and walking along the path of longevity. 

South Shore K-12 Public School where Keisha Scarlett is Principal and many of the classrooms have some of the regions best teachers with our children, the Village has determined that South Shore is a Village school and will be excellent. To that end on February 14, for the entire morning and into the afternoon, African American parents assembled to receive inspired messages. This was organized by Lisa Robbins, Anita Mwamba and Sabrena Burr with the support of many others. It takes alot to inpire parents who lost inspiration by having to sign one bad report card after another and in ways be co-conspirators in the failure of schools to teach their children.  So they need constant messages that their children were born with a gift, they have within them God given gifts that are buried by concepts and words and methods developed by adults to bring forth that which challenges them. We know that if we showcase the gifts that humans possess, their challenges which we also are born with, will be diminished.  So at South Shore once we have parents knowing the gifts and supporting intellectual skill building in their children, we will bring them out of South Shore ready to walk across the street to Rainier Beach and declare it a place of excellence. The students and parents will let them know that we reclaim our schools as primarily centers of learning for students, over being primarily employment centers for adults. We will bring balance where teachers who teach and elevated learning get to stay, where students who accept instruction rightly given have to practice and apply to life what is taught. Students are respected and respectful because parents are raising them to be successful with full intent that they will maintain longevity of the Village.


The Successful Young Women Program is the brainchild of Danna Johnston. She grew up in SE Seattle and lived a life of many lessons and learned the most important of them all contribute back what was given.  She along with my own daughter who is a produce to SE Seattle and now a Registered Nurse, and Gwen Dupree a retired public School administrator are putting in place model of how in the midst of failed instruction that has rendered Rainier Beach H. S. the lowest performing in the Seattle School District and among the lowest in the state. This is a school that produces championship Basketball teams.  The young women as they are known because they do not fight in the halls, or curse on the public transportation, or give their most precious possession away because they need to feel loved. They have a goal and a vision, they are going to a four year college.  Last year this goal was met by their graduating seniors. This is a model program for the Village, it is self financed by the Danna K. Johnston Foundation. The Seattle Foundation rejected their request for funding. So as we do in the Village we do not let the decisions of others determine the worth or work of the people of the Village.

There are so many others individuals and organized efforts occurring as we re-claim our selves and our future and longevity. We got off the path for a moment, we allowed others to define our worth and our vision, we allowed others to determine our problems and the solutions and to gather money in the name of our children without respect or regard for any but their own determination of our children as lesser beings, incapable of learning at high levels. A visit to any of the learning centers mentioned will prove differently. The ways that funds are granted make it difficult for those who are doing effective work with our children to get these funds which really belong to us. Those who determine who gets what, do not always give to those who will strengthen the Village or the people. They seem to like those ways that enable and require nothing much of anyone involved in the equation.

The Urban Academy of Life Long Learning exists through Dr. Maxine Mimms and the thousands of human lives she has touched in some direct way since the mid 1950's. She is our Chief Elder, a recognized Elder of Distinction and a model and mentor of excellence.   Life Enrichment Books, owned by Vickie Willams and Aaliya Messiah,  has become the campus for university learning; many seminars are held here.  Dr. Mimms on the third Fridays, sits and listens and applauds the greatness of African American effort and excellence. She guides our way of thinking to see the greatness within and among us as African Americans. On the occasions when others of ancestry not African join the conversations she reminds them that they are at their best when they are not invoking the privilege they have acquired, they must learn to follow, because their leadership has created what we are now experiencing in the world.  They listen but seldom return, it is hard to go from being the reference group the determining factor in all that occurs to living with true equity. So they go back and use their money to fund what often does not work.  It is an interesting concept that has existed too long. There is more than one village for African Americans in the Puget Sound region. The Village that is emerging as one of collective action, and shared dialogue, and excellence, has gained the favor of the people and respect of other clear thinking people.

The Institute for Cultural Reconnection comes from the philosophy that people of African ancestry must visit the motherland and reclaim our rightful place in the universe if we are to maintain our worth and continue as a creative people in the world. There is a privilege that Africans in America possess and that is freedom of travel around the globe that no other people of color possess. It is this gathering to travel home to Africa and centering ourselves in Kenya that has created the Institute for Cultural Reconnection. The Institute as we know it, is based on four principles that guide the reclaiming of a good and supportive culture; a natural and peaceful way of being, a way that is respectful of human dignity. The research is based on participation in the reconnection to a culture that makes natural sense, and respects the rites and rituals of that culture and knows that gender specificity brings balance and that ongoing dialogue solves problems and grows the village in dynamic ways.  The Institute is a creation for the longevity of learning and I am proud to have had bestowed upon me by the Institute of Cultural Reconnection an honorary Doctorate of Philosophy Degree.

Being a Cultural Custodian requires a respect for human dignity a way of being that assures success and the well being of the elders, and the intellectual development of our young people.  As functioning adults we bring energy and balance to who we are. We operate within the protection of the Village,  we are expected to give the best of who we are and to maintain our longevity by creating sustainable solutions to problems that naturally occur along the continuum of human development.

There will be more to report and document on the re-emergence of what has always been in place, but dormant. The Village is a natural way of being for people of African Ancestry and for the good of all humanity. The European way of being evolved out of a lack of many things which created fear and then greed. Now as we are facing a time of limited fiscal resources, many things must be re-ordered. Within the Village there is no lack of anything, because the abundance that ceases to be was never shared with us in the first place. We we are the Stolen Ones who for more than three centuries toiled to build a nation on a land stolen from the indigenous people of what is now North, South and Central America.  The history having been revised, re-written, or not taught at all, does not erase the facts nor the genetic memories and the culture passed on by the millions of mothers who gave birth to millions of humans who have been denied equity in the Americas.

Any who have been denied equity have this phenomenal way of rising up spontaneously and recreating justice in the face of injustice.  The life of J.T. Williams the ancestor of the indigenous people, a man who sustained culture through his art, was taken by one whose mother passed to him a culture of human privilege. He believed he could take a life without retribution.  But this life was taken at a time when the people are looking to themselves in the collective around the world as capable of regaining human dignity in the face of greed.

So we are part of a world movement to reclaim for our children what was stolen.  And we will continue in this vein until our purpose is restored. I thank God and three people who sustain me in my purpose; My husband, Deacon Joseph Mason who God has raised up to be a man able of supporting this woman. Dr. Maxine Mimms who I love and who loves me in ways that I can not enumerate, and Marcia Tate Arunga who challenges my thinking, and pushes me forward, so I am out of the way and she can grow and expand. Each generation must do this for the next grow out of the way.We are so pleased at the way that the Village is growing in an organic and spirit filled way. How there is room for the many and material desire diminished so that the people can flourish based on non material greed and need.