The Other Eye

Tomboy: Review of the Exhibit

2012-01-21T12:48:00.000-08:00

Tomboy
The power and ambiguity of queer visibility
Glass Curtain Gallery, Columbia College Chicago, Nov. 8 – Jan. 7, 2011

Reviewed by Therese Quinn and Erica R. Meiners

A tomboy is brash and fresh and in-between: Not quite adolescent; not yet adult. Both girl and boy, or neither one. “That way” or growing out of it. There is something queerishly unfixed about tomboys, something green and tempting.

Curator Betsy Odom’s succinct exhibit showcases six “queer women artists” exploring “the idea of the tomboy.” Odom’s crucial curatorial statement acknowledges the political power of visibility, but clarifies that these artists “employ identity in intentionally ambiguous, mercurial, and peripheral ways.” They may be lesbians, but this exhibit won’t tell the viewer what that means.

What shines in Tomboy is pleasure and play. In Mary George’s fine The Cult of the Endorphin, the setting is a workshop in which cult leader and members appear to be happily reinventing the wheel, and more, in wood. The shop-slash-natural gym is littered with projects in medias res—clock, speakers, disco ball, and barbells made from tree trunks, along with safety gear, pop bottles and other detritus of delirious labor. A looping video offers infomercials of dancing, jogging and cart-wheeling women exhorting family, friends, and viewers to join; they aim to recruit with the promise that action leads to natural highs.

George’s themes resonate in Daphne Fitzpatrick’s sculptural installation: a growing mound of the artist’s worn out athletic shoes. This witty work, titled Tomboy, conjures sexual and gendered fairy tales (some shoes will never fit) and a butch’s boasts (nobody can fit these shoes). But Fitzpatrick may also be signaling the isolation of identity; only her shoes can make that pile grow. And, like a reversal of Felix Gonzales-Torres’ installations that shrink as viewers take away candy and prints, this sculpture suggests loss: physicality and a youth—her tomboy—that is sliding past.

Nearby, Alison Halter’s What’s so funny? softly grainy video reinforces and challenges the theme of bliss—it captures women laughing; one after another throws her head back, slides into tears, rolls on the floor, covers her mouth and clutches her belly or her face —offering sequential snapshots that name the soft edges between pleasure and pain, and the awkwardness of affect, or how emotions are worn, and “read” by others. Does one woman have a black eye? Is her laughter a lie or is she just toughing it out?

Kelli Connell’s luminescent staged photographs also confound simple readings. Each features a female couple, but every body belongs to the same woman. Is Connell playing with feminist fantasies of easy loving between ladies or encouraging the queer question: Who is tomboy—the woman on top or the one wearing lipstick?

One answer offered to the question—Who is tomboy?—may be unintended: The near-total absence, paired with some uncomfortable presences, of women of color in the exhibit indicate that Tomboy is probably white..

For example, Leeza Meksin’s tactile interactive piece, replete with gendered neoprene bags and mysterious toys is a play party on a wall. A “black mammy” statue in the midst of these sexy utensils, linked by a pulley to an ironing board and a spatula, is a freighted presence. The exhibit insists that identity is performed; the inclusion of the caricature may be an attempted nod in this direction, but it misses the mark.

Irony, play and race also surface in another video by Halter. In Please, Please, Please, a young apparently white woman paints teardrops on her face until it is nearly covered with the marks. Is Halter, as the curator’s statement asserts, “poking fun at the sadness of the [Smith’s] song” someone is singing in the background? Or, is she commenting on our national fascination with black masculine forms—in this case, “gangsta” (teardrop tattoos, see Lil Wayne) and the soul singer (via James Brown‘s 1956 hit, Please, Please, Please)? Perhaps she’s doing both, along with some tomboyish appropriation of her own.

Dana DeGiulio adroitly claims another kind of gendered power: her thick black wall splashes one-up Jackson Pollack. He’s canonical, but she exceeds the canvas and other parameters with painted ejaculations that shout anger, pleasure, and the power of performing artist. This is serious play, and messy.

Vexing and thrilling, Tomboy is worth the bite.

Participating Artists:  Kelli Connell, Dana DeGiulio, Daphne Fitzpatrick, Mary George, Allison Halter and Leeza Meksin.

Therese Quinn worked as an exhibit researcher, developer, and evaluator for a decade, and is currently Chair and Associate Professor of Art Education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Erica R. Meiners Professor at Northeastern Illinois University, teaches, organizes and writes about LGBTQ lives, justice movements, and prison abolition.

Making Safer Schools: Demilitarizing Public Education

2011-01-18T09:09:00.000-08:00

January 15, 2010 Chicago Public Schools
FACT Sheet
Making Safer Schools: Demilitarizing Public Education
Researched and written by: Brian Galaviz, Jesus Palafox, Erica Meiners, Therese Quinn

On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The United States voted in favor of the Declaration and agreed, with other signatories, to recognize and observe the rights it describes.

One section of the Declaration claims for children the rights to education directed at supporting the maintenance of peace:

Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 26. (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Convention on the Rights of the Child
Article 2 of Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the U.S. signed but, with only one other country, has not ratified, addresses the involvement of children in armed conflict:
States Parties shall ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 18 years are not compulsorily recruited into their armed forces.

Chicago’s system of public education has moved far from these global commitments to offering children a safe, civilian and non-coercive learning environment.

1) Chicago is the most militarized public school system in the nation and approximately 10,670 students, 95% students of color, are enrolled in:
- 6 Military high schools, one representing each branch of the military—Air Force, Navy, Marines, and two Army schools.
- 45 Junior Reserve Training Officer Corps Programs within high schools
- 20 Cadet Programs in middle schools

2) JROTC has replaced content courses and counts for PE credit in grades 9, 10.

3) Taxpayers subsidize the militarization of schools.
CPS total expenditures on ROTC programs for the school year 2007-08 was $12,885,966.60. Out of this $12,885,966.60 CPS received $3,810,924.45 from the department of defense, leaving Chicago taxes payers an invoice of $9,075,042.15.

4) The JROTC program has smaller class sizes, lower standards for teacher qualifications and instructors receive higher levels of compensation As of November 2, 2010 no JROTC instructor is identified as a certified teacher on the Illinois State Board of Education website.. The 2009-2010 median salary for a JROTC instructor was $75,823.24. In addition to pay inequalities, JROTC instructors are also given preferential treatment regarding class size. CPS schools are mandated to subsidize at least two JROTC instructors, no matter how many students they have and one additional instructor for every 50 students. Legally, JROTC programs must have a minimum enrollment of 100 students or 10% of the student population, whichever is lower. However, this law is not always enforced. For example, there are eleven JROTC programs in CPS that do not meet this threshold. Of those eleven schools, six of them have three JROTC instructors. That means three instructors teach less than 100 students. CPS would be the best school district in the nation if all of our teachers were given this type of preferential treatment.

5) Youth and their parents support military programs because they view these programs as opportunities to provide discipline, safety, academic and leadership opportunities. These same opportunities can be delivered through arts, sports, drama, martial arts, music – programs that have been largely cut from urban schools. Only one restrictive enrollment school in Chicago has a military program, Whitney Jones High School, and this program does not meet JROTC enrollment requirements.

6) Military programs offer false pathways to college and other post secondary benefits.
Only 43% of Military Personnel has received their GI benefits and the Average Net Payout to Veterans is less than $2200

7) Military programs in schools actively recruit young people.
a) “In recognition of the growing importance of the JROTC program to recruiting for the military services, the conferees increased the requested funding for this program by $13.5 million. The increased funding will facilitate the expansion of the program undertaken by the Secretary of Defense." (emphasis ours)
b) Field trips and guest speakers center military life:
The cadets in Rickover Naval Academy, have taken a school-sponsored field trip to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD
two years ago, RNA hosted Admiral Michael Mullen, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mullen told the cadets that the "Navy was a great career choice."
c) A military, not civilian, culture permeates military schools.
Young people dressed in military uniform are introduced to the military hierarchy and way of life. This cultivation of a militarized mind is the best explanation for why “40-60% of all NJROTC [Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps] graduates enter military service.” This statistic is especially telling considering that less than 1% of the population has served in the military at any given moment since 1975.

8) Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is still military policy, though it is legislated to be phased out by an unspecified date. The U.S. military is a persistent site of gendered and sexual violence.
2007 research identified that no Chicago public military high school supported lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students through the presence of a targeted student group, such as a Gay, Straight Alliance, although these clubs are common in many Chicago high schools.

We ask the CTU to:

Phase out JROTC programs and support the development of alternative programs to help foster discipline, leadership and college pathways for all students.

Until the phase-out is complete, The CTU should call for an immediate:

• Moratorium on the establishment of any new public military high schools, and JROTC and Cadet programs within schools.

• Cessation of public educational funding allocated to public military schools and programs targeted to discipline, leadership and safety development.

• End to JROTC as a Physical Education (PE) substitute.

• Halt to preferential treatment for JROTC instructors regarding class size and pay.

• Enforcement of JROTC laws, including shutting down under-enrolled programs.

• Development of visible support for LGBTQ teachers and students at public military schools.

In addition, we call on the CTU to:

• Implement a taskforce to investigate the working conditions at military schools and JROTC programs.

• Support the AFSC request to have the opt-out section included on the emergency forms
___

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CCcQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usa-federal-forms.com%2Fusa-fedforms-dod-da%2Fdod-da-3126-nonfillable.pdf&rct=j&q=DA%20form%203126&ei=-pDQTKq9GeSInAejlLmNBg&usg=AFQjCNFWdT7Um0aLEKJB3BUiaevgEkzZzA&sig2=-PUUrv-50CKmbQYHKHMHDw&cad=rja
http://www.cps.edu/Schools/Find_a_school/Pages/Schoolsearchresults.aspx?Type=4&Filter=CPSSchoolGrade=High school;CPSSchoolType=Military%20academy
http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/pwork/0506/050607.htm
“House Armed Service Committee Press Release: Conferees Reach Agreement on Fiscal Year 2001 Defense Bill.” October 6, 2000. http://www.hqda.army.mil/rio/hconfpress.pdf
http://www.truth-out.org/062909T
http://chicagojrotc.com/navy/navy_basic_facts.jsp?rn=3548084. 11/9/07
Segal, David R. Segal, Mady Wechsler. “America’s Military Population.” The Population Reference Bureau. http://www.prb.org/Source/ACF1396.pdf

Getting that desire to flee again?

2010-11-23T13:49:00.000-08:00

It seems like a lot of folks are, these days, and it’s showing up in all the usual US ways—hipster fantasies of “living off the grid” and lefty dreams of “moving to Canada” and artist rants about the new hot place they have to be (is it Joshua Tree or Berlin, these days?) and newbie grads planning their exits via extended study abroad (MBAs in St. Petersburg!), the Peace Corps (mosquito nets in Belize!), and fellowships (anywhere away from here!).

I get the vibe, I’m not immune. School closings, teacher firings, fees at every public museums, and on and on—I see why getting out is a seduction for those who have options.

Education is hard ground to work right now. It’s painful to care about these days, if what you really love is the public part of it, all the places and structures—schools, museums, libraries, art, archives—that we have created and cared for and benefited from in the US. And then there’re the people who work in those places—I mean, I’m a geek for librarians who can find anything about everything; I love teachers who crazy-love what they are teaching; I am thankful that someone hired every WPA muralist who ever painted something sublime in a post office for me to look at…for a very long time…while I wait…to buy stamps.

Because I love public education, public art, and public cultural institutions, and think that public dollars should support all this, I am not interested in the recent re-drifting toward “un” and “open” schooling. To clarify—of course I am in favor of self-education, but that’s like saying I’m in favor of breathing. People just learn; we are all engaged in self-educating, whether we think we are or not. What I find irritating isn’t this constant, albeit often haphazard exploring that we do, but the opting out of public education structure-work by the privileged. Re-warmed 1970s impulses seem to be resurfacing: leave “the system” and make your own! It’s a “private ideas as salvation” agenda, which is a lot like what the neo-liberal right has been offering up—I’m thinking of the impact of Bill Gates and the Walton family on public education policy, presto-change-o, privatization all around!—so why does the left seem to like it so much? I don’t want to spend much time thinking about making a new private university or elementary school with all the families and intellectuals that think pretty much like me, even if our schools are going to be hipper and cooler than the old ones down the block.

I get that making your own everything might make it all feel more controllable and thus, better—though I’d also dispute that in control is always better. And when it comes to education, I think that surprise, proximity and accident is how we learn the most.

An Open Letter to Harvard Graduate School of Education

2010-01-06T07:21:00.000-08:00

Pasted below is a powerful letter by teachers to Harvard's Graduate School of Education (reposted with permission). As they point out, the assaults on teachers and public education now are intense, and must be countered with reminders like this one. The writers' contact information is at the end of the letter, but why not contact Harvard or, even better, your own College of Education with a similar demand.
__

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ADMINISTRATION & FACULTY OF THE HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

JANUARY 4, 2010

THREE CLASSROOM TEACHERS ASK YOU TO SPEAK OUT

The Harvard Graduate School of Education pursues the goal of training leaders in the field, and will soon offer a new degree in educational leadership. The school’s website mission statement reads as follows:

*Mission*

To prepare leaders in education and to generate knowledge to improve student opportunity, achievement, and success.

*Overview*

Education touches every aspect of human activity. At the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), we believe studying and improving the enterprise of education are central to the health and future of society. Since its founding in 1920, the Ed School has been training leaders to transform education in the United States and around the globe. Today, our faculty, students, and alumni are studying and solving the most critical challenges facing education: student assessment, the achievement gap, urban education, and teacher shortages, to name just a few. Our work is shaping how people teach, learn, and lead in schools and colleges as well as in after-school programs, high-tech companies, and international organizations. The HGSE community is pushing the frontiers of education, and the effects of our entrepreneurship are improving the world.

*

As veteran public school teachers, we are disappointed that the HGSE has not shown the leadership it professes by speaking out against the unprecedented attack on public education. To be sure, there have been courageous voices on your faculty who have defended public schools and the endangered idea of educating the whole child. We know that a thoughtful faculty does not think with one mind, and that there will always be differences about what constitutes the most effective pedagogies or curricula. But we have not heard the HGSE as an institution speak out on issues fundamental to the educational well-being of children and their schools.

These issues include:

• The over-testing of students, beginning as early as 3rd grade, and the misuse of single, imperfect high- stakes standardized assessment instruments like MCAS;

• The expansion of charters through funding formulas that divert resources from those urban and rural public schools charged with educating our most challenged children;

• The stripping away of art, music, critical thinking, creativity, experiential learning, trips, and play periods—of joy itself–from schools so that they might become more effective test preparation centers;

• The use of state curriculum frameworks–and soon, possibly, national standards–to narrow and standardize our schools, an effort that only encourages increasing numbers of affluent middle class parents to seek out for their children the same private schools that so many “reformers” have already chosen for theirs;

• The cynical insistence that all schools be equal in a society whose social and economic policies make us increasingly unequal;

• Merit pay proposals that deny and undermine the essentially collaborative nature of teaching;

• And finally, the sustained media vilification of hard-working, dedicated public school teachers.

These depressing developments have intensified over the past fifteen years. They violate the first principles of humane and progressive education, as we understand them.

We are proud to have served as teachers in the commonwealth where public education began a century before the country itself was founded and where Horace Mann reinvented it a century and a half ago. We have many wonderful public schools in Massachusetts that can serve as models for all schools. No child in our state deserves any less. Certainly all deserve more than a parched vision of standardization and incessant testing. A global economy demands more than multiple-choice thinking. Most importantly, human beings require more.

HGSE administration and faculty, we need you to speak out in defense of our public system of education and against abuses that have been allowed to pass silently as reforms. We need you to remind our leaders, administrators, parents and students–all of us–what it means to be educated.

As young teachers, we were inspired by the words of John Holt, Herbert Kohl, Joseph Featherstone, A.S. Neill, and Paulo Freire. Later, we would read the works of Deborah Meier, Diane Ravitch, Ted Sizer, and Jonathan Kozol. These were powerful voices to encounter. Now we need to hear your voice.

The time for *Veritas* is now.

Thank you.

Larry Aaronson, Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, 37 years (retired)
Teacher of the Year (Class of 2007)
Recipient, Key to the City of Cambridge for “Outstanding Service” (Mayor)
Recipient, Special Cambridge City Council Citation
Mentor, Student teachers from the HGSE, 1985-2005

Ann O’Halloran, Boston & Newton Public Schools, 30 years (retired)
Massachusetts History Teacher of the Year, 2007 (DOE)
Finalist, National History Teacher of Year, 2007
Honorable Mention, Massachusetts History Teacher of the Year, 2006 (DOE)
Friend of Education, 2009 (Newton Teachers Association)

Bill Schechter, Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, 35 years (retired)
METCO Recognition Awards, 2001-2005 (L-S METCO Program)
“Outstanding Educator” Award, 2002 (Cornell University)
Faculty Recognition Award (Class of 1992)
Finalist, Lucretia Mott Award, 1986 (DOE)
Horace Mann Grant, 1984 (DOE)

larindge@aol.com
ohalloran.ann@verizon.net
schech@rcn.com

Chicago Weather Pixie

2010-01-03T07:57:00.000-08:00

Back in beautiful Chicago, where it's just as cold as Helsinki.

Corruption in Chicago Schools?

2009-07-28T12:33:00.000-07:00

It certainly shouldn't surprise any Chicagoan that the admissions process for our city's selective admission schools might be tainted.

For one thing, Marj Halperin, a long-time resident, former journalist (and much more), and parent of two who attended schools in the CPS system, broke this story about, oh...20 years ago? Her investigative report, published in Chicago Magazine (download scan here), detailed the ruses—from creating fake older siblings so the actual children could qualify for the sibling lottery and "principal choice" categories, to giving sizable donations to their school of choice—of many of her (and my) acquaintances, friends and neighbors. Some of Chicago's so-called "best" magnet schools were implicated—Hawthorne comes to mind—and the parents involved were everyday folks, a slice of the city, albeit well-resourced.

For another, this is Chicago, in Illinois, where our politicians from the highest levels on down, set the tone and model the behavior. Where there's a trough, they are grubbing. Is it surprising when we follow their lead? And isn't the toxic combination of access and entitlement ("I know how to get want I want, therefore I deserve to!"), salted with a dash of desperation ("Where will my children go to school?"), likely to foster sorry behavior?

If we care about each other we will push to make the circumstances—too few wonderful schools for all our children—and the kind of debates I hope these parents had with themselves before they made the choice to step over others and around the democratic process of the lottery system, obsolete.

CHiaRtS is On the Scene

2009-07-20T19:41:00.000-07:00

For all those who have been asking, CHiaRts (not sure what the upper-and-lower variations signify) is scheduled to open this fall, 2009, with an incoming class of 150.

The school's website is lush and slick, loads 'o visuals. Its newly hired department heads, Lisa Johnson-Willingham (LinkedIn, Facebook, and curiously, the school left her hyphen off its hiring announcement), Betsy Ko, Rob Chambers (Facebook, LinkedIn...), and Diana Stezalski, all seem like accomplished artists but none are certified teachers, though Ko is studying education at DePaul. In fact, on its FAQ page, in answer to the probably often-posed question, "Who will teach at CHiaRts?" the school glides past the question of education and credentials and describes a faculty of "full-time academic educators and artist-teachers" (huh?) and "part-time artists-teachers" (sounds like...saving money?).

Too bad. There is actually quite a lot to learn about education, through education. Places that value what education offers hire the most highly educated people they can. I wish the school would acknowledge that, as a model for its students and as a nod to and appreciation of the work of teachers who study pedagogy as well as poetry, performance and painting. My students have fully engaged themselves in both; who's hiring out there?

Also oddly, the CHiaRts website notes an anti-discrimination policy that is out-dated—“handicap” anyone?—and incomplete—where is sexual orientation? I guess this is what happens when folk who aren’t actually all that concerned about the details of education set up schools. Yet, language matters, policy matters, laws and history matters—get it right; it’s important.

Majority of Illinois Colleges and Universities Flunk LGBTQ Equity

2009-01-16T09:14:00.000-08:00

Chicago - The Illinois Safe Schools Alliance (the Alliance) just released Visibility Matters, the first statewide report card on LGBTQ presence in higher education and teacher preparation in Illinois. This landmark report examines the inclusion of sexual orientation (SO) and gender identity (GI) in university policies related to anti-discrimination and in student codes of conduct, and for SO and GI specifically in teacher education programs. Seventy-two percent, or forty-one out the state’s fifty-seven teacher education preparation programs, received a failing grade of F.

“Our taskforce is composed of researchers and scholars from Illinois universities,” states Associate Professor Erica Meiners, Professor of Education and Women’s Studies at Northeastern Illinois University and member of the Pre-Professional Project of the Alliance that authored the report. “We evaluated these programs based on the web because prospective teacher education students research potential programs via the internet and want to know how programs include and address LGBTQ communities.”

The report will be sent to university and college presidents across the state, and to the heads of teacher preparation programs.

“This project,” states Therese Quinn, Associate Professor of Education at the School of the Art Institute and member of the Pre-Professional Project, “aims to educate universities and colleges across Illinois that LGBTQ visibility and policies matter. We welcome amendments to this report. We are not interested in failing grades as an end-point; instead, this report shows where institutions can improve.”

The report offers a number of recommendations to improve grades, to strengthen policies and to increase LGBTQ visibility. Stacey Horn, Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the sole institution to receive an A, acknowledges that, “We expect teacher education programs to address all components of diversity – race, gender, ethnicity – and that sexual orientation and gender identity are also important aspects of the diversity picture.”

The full report, Visibility Matters: Higher Education and Teacher Preparation in Illinois: A Web-based Assessment of LGBTQ Presence, is available online here.

Gallery 37 and Censorship of Student Art

2008-12-20T09:13:00.000-08:00

Tomi Mick, a home-schooled high school-age student was taking AP photo classes at Gallery 37, called a protest for Dec. 19, when her photos, a series exploring female bodies at different ages, was censored from the final exhibition. The protest was organized by Females United for Action (FUFA), a Chicago-wide social change organization for people who identify as young women and gender-queer/ gender-neutral youth, with the leadership of youth of color at the center of their organizing. FUFA is a sister group of Women and Girls Collective Action Network. Here, Tomi shows her censored art in front of Gallery 37. Students going and going from classes in the building were overwhelmingly supportive of Tomi and FUFA’s requests that Gallery 37:

Educate students and parents about the need for freedom of artistic expression;
Clearly outline its art-making boundaries;
Meet with youth from FUFA to discuss setting a policy welcoming thought-provoking art and young feminist visibility.

These seem like reasonable, even fairly mild, requests.

Here is Tomi’s statement about what happened to her:

Gallery 37 in downtown Chicago, Illinois has a very prestigious AP art program for high school juniors and seniors looking to advance in their art career and prepare AP portfolios. They advertise their students as "the best of the best," and once inside, they force us through tons of college prep workshops and encourage us to apply to at least 10 art schools each.

I auditioned for and was admitted to the AP Photographic Explorations program. As a photography student of two years (this being my third), I was ready to explore my ideas and find my artistic concentration. Recently I've been working on images that portray women in un-conventional ways in order to challenge common ideas about the female body. I created an unfinished piece of my little sister, me, and my mother, neck to belly-button, nude. The photos are created to sit next to each other in chronological order. They are supposed to demonstrate the differences in our bodies due to age, development, shape, body-type, etc. I was hoping to post the series in this Friday's end of the semester's art show. My teacher, Mr. Cinoman, was with me all the way. He supported me when my idea was just an idea, and he supported me once it was executed. Monday, 4 days before the show, Mr. Cinoman tells me that he decided that my piece was too controversial to display, and that I would not be able to put them in the show. He also refused to give me my prints until the end of the two-hour period, after I said that I was leaving and not coming back.

There were never any written or verbal rules explaining what the boundaries were at Gallery 37, and as I said before, my teacher supported me until he had time to think about "the conservative Hispanic parents" that would be attending the show (Yes, he really said that).

Art is supposed to be controversial. We can't stand for this type of censorship of arts, especially the body-positive feminist kind. :) Who knows how many young artists have lost the desire to make art after encountering programs like this?

There’s a lot packed into Tomi’s analysis, but the bottom line is that a young woman lost a chance to show her art and get real feedback from an audience. But Tomi and FUFA turned this into a “teachable moment” anyway. Good for them. But too bad for all the rest of Gallery 37’s students that the organization, or perhaps just one teacher, couldn’t figure out how to educate by showing this work.

Making Chicago’s Schools Safer for All: Gardens, Solidarity and Social Justice

2008-12-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

Before it went belly-up, Chicago’s nascent gay-and-allies high school was known as Social Justice Pride Campus, then, in an apparent attempt to gain broader support, it took on the name Social Justice Solidarity Campus. The former name—Pride—was the inaugural version; the planners switched to the latter—Solidarity—after encountering opposition, notably by evangelical ministers. The shift in nomenclature is telling; the school’s planners always seemed stuck somewhere between missions—were they about fostering gay pride or developing between-group solidarity? And, as seems likely, were they trying to mollify the wrong folks? After all, these ministers think queers are doing “the work of the devil.” Why try to reason with that?

Queer youth suffer in many schools, that’s for sure. But I still have questions: Will the goal of safety for gender and sexual minority youth be best achieved through the establishment of one school or the enforcement of the city’s already strong anti-discrimination policies? What about providing education toward justice for queer youth across city schools? Remember when Billie Jean King donated $10,000 to provide copies of the film It’s Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School to every school in Chicago? What would happen if Duncan and Daley required these schools to show the film and discuss the “issues”? Can schools be made safer across the board, say, by repairing every broken window, boiler, and plaster wall, filling classrooms with art, plants, books, and computers, inviting neighbors to visit classes and plant school gardens, and strongly representing love and respect for every person in the building and community, so that all kids flourish? Bigger vision, bigger results.

Let’s refuse to let Daley spend a penny on the Olympics before every child is safe in every Chicago school.

And every school has a garden.

Jihad for Love at Senn High School

2008-11-05T08:52:00.000-08:00

Gay Muslim filmmaker Parvez Sharma visited Nicholas Senn High School and showed his film, Jihad for Love. In this picture, Senn LSC member, student Umme Rubab, listens to a student’s comment. Over 70 IB, GSA and other Senn students attended, along with some community members, teachers and others. We loved the talk and film; Sharma is funny and generous—he stayed after the screening for over an hour to answer every question students asked, and gave us all a tutorial in Islamic precepts. He also invited students to continue the dialogue about Islamophobia and homophobia at the film’s blog.

Another great event at a school that everyone should know about.

Statement of Support for Professor William Ayers

2008-10-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

October 14, 2008

We, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) College of Education Alumni Board, write to champion our colleague Professor William Ayers। A purpose of our Alumni Association is to “support the College’s mission of ensuring that all children and youth in America’s urban schools receive a quality education।” This charge describes Dr. Ayers’ contributions in our field and to Chicago; his work toward that end has been unceasing.

Dr। Ayers is a Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a nationally known scholar, member of the Faculty Senate at UIC, Vice President-elect of the American Educational Research Association, and a sought after speaker and visiting scholar at other universities. Throughout his twenty years as a valued faculty member at UIC, Dr. Ayers has taught, advised, mentored, and supported hundreds of undergraduate, Masters and Ph.D. students. Helping educators develop the capacity and ethical commitment to promote critical inquiry, dialogue, and debate; to encourage questioning and independent thinking; and to value the full humanity of every person and to work for access and equity are Professor Ayers’ essential commitments. His unflagging dedication to these goals is an inspiration to College of Education students and alumni.

We reject the recent and ongoing derogations of his character in the media and blogosphere, and by politicians, and stand beside Professor William Ayers, an advocate for education devoted to human enlightenment and liberation. That goal is also ours.

The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) College of Education Alumni Board

Contacts:
Patrick O’Reilly, Vice President of UIC COE Alumni Board
Therese Quinn, Ph. D., Member of UIC COE Alumni Board

The Bill Ayers I Know

2008-10-13T07:03:00.000-07:00

Teaching for Social Justice, or Passing the Gift Along

Bill Ayers, in all of his life’s work, within and outside of the field of education—for he is active much more broadly—has embraced what Maxine Greene describes as the “difficult matter of moral choice.” Bill includes this quote in one of his finest books—To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher—a teaching memoir and guide, which is widely used in teacher education courses and certification programs, including my own at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In it, Bill writes that students must be fully seen by their teachers, of the power of observation, of teachers as detectives. He speaks of teaching as being fundamentally about love.

Lewis Hyde, the author of The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, too, speaks of love, or more precisely, of eros, and its relation to gifts and to art. Gift exchange is, he says, an erotic commerce. Eros is the principle of attraction, union, involvement which binds together, while logos, reason and logic, and differentiation, is exemplified by the market economy. And he claims that, in his words, “a work of art is a gift, not a commodity. Or, to state the modern case with more precision, works of art exist simultaneously in two “economies”, a market economy and a gift economy. Only one of these is essential: a work of art can survive without the market, but where there is no gift, there is no art.” And to that I’ll add this spin—it is the quality of gift that makes the teacher.

This is, I think, what Bill Ayers offers the field, and the world, a committed, activist, love-infused and hopeful vision of teaching, that is grounded, against the grain of governmental push and current trend, not-at-all in the interests of the market, but rather, in the specific lives of particular children, and is all about, as he has written, teaching in “the hope of making the world a better place.” These considerations are evident in all his writings, which emphasize the importance of listening to those who have witnessed and experienced—hence his interest in autobiography and children’s voices, and work on student lore and teacher lore, projects developed with another wonderful Bill, William Schubert.

Here, I’m following Bill’s lead once again, by turning to an autobiographical reflection on access and “moral choice.” My real educational journey began in libraries and bookstores—places that were simply open, and let me wander through, grazing the fantasy shelf in the children’s room, as well as cruising the adult stacks. I foundered in school; junior high was difficult and high school was even worse, especially after I “came out” as a lesbian. But a high school history teacher’s kind decision to count as a class project an extracurricular poetry reading I participated in allowed me to graduate. He made what must have been a complicated decision—a moral choice of the sort Bill Ayers describes, and commends.

Graduation allowed me to continue. And I eventually enrolled in a city college where I began to study art. I still loved libraries (I scoured them for queer authors, looking for family; I found Walt Whitman, Gertrude Stein, Allen Ginsberg, and Sappho) but was critical of and estranged from formal education and its narrow priorities (I primarily used school as a way to survive—financial aid and work study jobs).

Eventually I completed an AA degree. Because I was living in California I was then able to enter a state university without passing through the grinder of SATS. I finally completed my undergraduate degree in Fine Arts at age 29 or 30, and started working in museums with so many other artists. It was during that time that I met Bill Ayers, when I was invited, with a selection of other city-and-culture engaged folks, to speak to one of his classes of pre-service teachers. I urged them to use and also to critique museums; Bill urged me to come back to school for a Ph.D. The idea surprised me into seeing myself differently, and a decade later, in 2001, I completed that degree.

I gave a talk recently that I titled, “Growing Marigolds by Moonlight, or, Why Aren’t Museums Libraries?” That wasn’t what I titled my dissertation, but that’s basically what it considers—why museums aren’t accessible and how they could open up. Growing Marigolds By Moonlight is the title of a book written by an old woman in San Francisco that was accessioned into a very public library in that city, one dreamed up and described by writer Richard Brautigan in his novel, The Abortion: An Historical Romance, 1966. The library welcomed books written by everyone—any person could leave their stories on its shelves. Any people could read them. It was a library even better than the ones that supported my curiosities as a child and helped me survive as a gay teen. That’s the kind of museum-as-library I imagine these days, an institution fractured open. Even an old woman living in a small apartment in the Tenderloin, or Uptown, should be able to display her insights there, for us all to appreciate. That’s my specific vision, shaped by my experiences and abiding passions. But its undergirding, its girdle, I want to say, what surrounds it and supports it, in a kind of firmly erotic way, is the gift passed to me by Bill. Enter the conversation, he said, just enter. And I did.

References
Ayers, W. (1993). To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher. New York: Teachers College Press.

Brautigan, R. (1971). The Abortion: An Historical Romance, 1966. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Hyde, L. (1983, 1980, 1979). The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. New York: Vintage Books.

Pinar, W., Reynolds, W., Slattery, P. & Taubman, P. (1995). Understanding Curriculum. New York: Peter Lang.

Queers, Safety, and Schools

2008-09-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

A proposal for Pride Campus, an open admission public high school that will implement a college prep curriculum in all subject areas, was approved by the CPS Office of New Schools last week. The school will serve LGBTQA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, questioning and allied, according to the school’s planners) students from all over the city.

The Greater Lawndale Little Village School for Social Justice submitted the proposal to the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Office of New Schools for the Social Justice High School-Pride Campus.

A CPS community hearing about Pride Campus will be held Thursday, Sept. 18, 6-8 PM, 2008 at the Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted. If, after the hearing, CPS gives the school its final approval, Pride Campus will open in 2010. No location has been selected for Pride Campus yet.

I have to admit I have mixed feelings about the school. I understand that schools can be lethal and are often dangerous and scary for queer and queerish kids; all the stats support that. And as a girl who liked to hold hands with other girls, hung out with drama-kids, and dressed like a freak in high school, I was called dyke and other lesbian-baiting names, shoved into lockers, and had bottles thrown at me; I hated most of my time at high school (I always loved drama club), barely graduated, and would have gladly escaped to another, safer, place if one had been available.

I became an educator, in part, to create schools that are not just healthy and safe places for all students, but joyous, art-rich, and vibrant zones where all kinds of people encounter and learn about and from each other. I know this is possible, and it is public education at its best. From this perspective, the idea of a Pride Campus prompts questions:

With the advent of Pride, what happens to the queer and otherwise non-conforming kids left behind in all the other schools? Shame?
Will Pride Campus let CPS continue to avoid really making sure all schools respect and care for all students?
Will schools push their trannies, fags, and dykes out to Pride Campus, rather than work with their teachers, parents and students to develop an inclusive educational culture?
Is the school a retreat, really, an admission of systemic failure to love our queer youth?

It seems to me that Pride Campus is still a “choice” school, one that plays to the fantasy that we can all just choose our ways into better situations, and those left behind, who just didn’t choose as well as we, aren’t our concern. It’s exclusionary, in this case, not because it requires high SATs or signed contracts for admission, but because it asks for a declaration of identity/affiliation that many youth just can’t make.

If we have given up on the big job of building a society, or even a city school system, that actively recognizes everyone’s rights, why settle for a queer day campus? Maybe we should demand a Pride Boarding School, a 24 hour safe zone, a home for all the LGBTQ kids thrown out by parents, forced to attend “ex-gay” Christian camps, afflicted by abstinence programs that ignore their existence, subjected to “marriage is for a man and a woman” speeches by politicians and preachers. Let’s make it big, let’s take over city hall, hey, how about declaring the whole city a Pride Campus?

Art Education for the Exclusive Few

2008-09-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

The exclusive, albeit nominally public Chicago High School for the Arts is scheduled to open in fall 2009, according to a recent Chicago Reader article.

It will be a “contract" school as part of Chicago’s Renaissance 2010 program, and highly selective—students will be chosen on the basis of audition, academic record, and “potential” (whatever that means). The school will also be able to hire uncertified, nonunion teachers, and will not have a Local School Council (LSC). In other words, it’s business as usual for Chicago’s unelected CPS CEO Arne Duncan, and more to the point, Mayor Daley, who apparently likes keeping the city’s good stuff for a rarified few, even when it’s funded publicly.

Rev. Meeks has it right—all Chicago’s children deserve a top quality education, and this long-awaited public school for the arts should be open to all, regardless of prior opportunities. How about this for a plan?

Next year, a roaring river of Chicago’s young artists and creative youth should show up at the school’s doors and demand a seat, an instrument, a palette and paints, and the stage—this school should be for you, all of you, so take it!

Politicians, Free Speech, and Generosity

2008-07-12T12:44:00.000-07:00

After months of invitations from the Senn Strategic Planning Committee, Alderwoman Mary Ann Smith finally came to Senn High School to talk about the school’s future. The meeting was “brokered” by State Rep. Harry Osterman. Unfortunately, of the nine members of Senn’s Strategic Planning Committee, including three amazing Senn students, Christine, Bagi, and Umme, who rearranged their lives to be able to attend the Friday meeting at 3:00 PM, only four were allowed into the meeting room. The rest, including all three students, were sent to the hallway, where we waited for nearly two hours.

At the close of the meeting, we were invited in, at the insistence of Linda England, Senn’s LSC Chair, to introduce ourselves to David Pickens (CPS), Nancy Myerson and Mary Ann Smith (Alderwoman’s office), and others. Bagi took the opportunity to express his “sadness” about being excluded and Smith’s plan to close Senn as a general admission school. He came here a year ago (his mother country is Mongolia), he said, and “thought America believes in freedom of speech.” Smith jumped in to explain her view that, “Whether truth or lies, it’s all free speech.” Although only loosely related to what Bagi was expressing, that actually explains a lot about Smith, who dissembles rather frequently—she’s a just good public servant, upholding and enacting our Constitutional rights, even when truth-challenged.

In a very little nutshell, the word at meeting’s end was that Smith’s office will commit to providing funding for an “educational consultant” which Senn doesn’t need (it has highly qualified teachers, administrators, and Strategic Planning Committee members, including several with advanced education and content area degrees). And we will all work together to craft a plan we “can all sign off on” by January 2009. It seems, for new, that Senn will stay one school, open to all, with a wide range “differentiated learning opportunities” inside the building, including International Baccalaureate, AVID, and more.

Now if only the school could get someone to provide funds for lost positions and needed equipment—how about a few LCD projectors (Smith’s office promised some more than a year ago, but they never showed up); reviving the band (the instruments are gathering dust in a closet, waiting for the instructor position to be funded); service learning (which may be cut this year, though the program was award-winning); a Freshman counselor; equipment for the one up-to-date science lab, and even another science lab? Isn’t that what all students deserve?

I have a proposal: The parents of Northside Prep and Walter Payton students, who raise funds by assessing fees from families, holding auctions, and asking for contributions for their own children—maybe they could share, and send a little of that money over to Senn and the many other Chicago schools with largely low income, English-as-a-Second-Language, immigrant student and family populations. I’d like Bagi to know that America might tolerate lies, but we also support generosity.

Undocumented Dreams

2008-07-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

A guest editorial by Christina Gómez & Erica Meiners, and the 8 Project
Chicago, Illinois

José, a charismatic 18 year old, wrote his personal essay for his college application about crossing the border and avoiding la migra. His classmates, a wiry seventeen year old, Ana, made a YouTube video before the 2006 immigration marches that documents the violence she endured while crossing the border and Jorge, with a level gaze, calmly states that since he and his mother pay taxes, why shouldn’t he have equal access to higher education?

In a nation where the landscape of K-12 education is increasingly dominated by privatization, militarization and the proliferation of tightly competitive selective enrollment “boutique” schools, a vibrant open Chicago enrollment high school like Senn High School is almost a dying breed. José, Ana, and Jorge are a few of the approximately 42 out of the 210 graduates of the Senn class of 2008 that are undocumented. And this number, as Alicia states with her eyes set on a future as a nurse, does not include the ones that dropped out to work in 11th or 10th grade, convinced that a high school diploma offered no real routes to a future.

Despite skyrocketing tuition costs at “wealth hoarding” elite private (and public) colleges and universities, 2008 was a record setting year for college applications because of the demographic bulge (an increase in number of 18-year olds), the ease of on-line applications, and, in the face of an economic downturn, the awareness of the sheer necessity of college for future living-wage job opportunities. Yet, invisible in the mainstream media reports that celebrate “hard-working” high school students and their paths to elite post-secondary institutions are the estimated 65,000 undocumented students graduating from high school across the U.S. this June. Like José, Ana, Alicia, Jorge and the many other undocumented students we have talked too, they are all too aware of the pathways awaiting them in the U.S.A. – physically demanding low-wage work or acquisition (and deportation) by one of our nation’s well endowed public entities: the Orwellian-titled Department of Homeland Security.

Yet, with supportive teachers, counselors, families, and peers, they are resisting these state sanctioned deadening futures. They are working to become some of only 7,000 – 13,000 undocumented immigrants enrolled in colleges across the country. In Chicago, available research suggests that approximately 20,000 undocumented high school students live in our city, and approximately 6.1 percent of all undocumented students are enrolled in a post-secondary institution. Even if accepted at other public or private four-year institutions, most of those undocumented at Senn will attend the overflowing public community colleges in Chicago, because they are not eligible to receive any federal or state financial aid. Although Illinois (as well as nine other states including Texas, California, Utah, Washington, New York, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, and Nebraska) is a supportive state in terms of access to post-secondary education - undocumented students pay in-state tuition as long as they meet the required admission criteria by the institution of higher education they applied to as stated by Illinois House Bill 60. With the price-tag for 2007-2008 undergraduate in-state tuition at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) topping $15,036 for the 2007-2008 school year, many students, including those ineligible for most financial aid, simply cannot afford higher education.

The increasingly prohibitive fees for higher education, even when the consequences of under-education are much more costly, is just one of many public policies that disproportionately hurts communities of color and poor people। Immigration, and criminal justice policies, frequently senselessly punitive, do nothing to make our communities “safer” and bear no relationship to the daily lives of those most impacted। The undocumented students at Senn High School know this. José can’t get a driver’s license but the limitations of public transit in Chicago and the exigencies of his employment, make driving without a license a reality. (Currently only eight states allow undocumented immigrants to receive their drivers’ licenses or permits.) Ana can’t get legal employment, but needs to support her mother and siblings, therefore she works in a restaurant that doesn’t ask any questions. Jorge also works at a restaurant. Every weekday he arrives at work 4PM and leaves after midnight. Most youth that we talk to to, work on a fake social security number or under the table in dehumanizing and often dangerous contexts in jobs that sustain our cities and economy. No fancy non-profit internships or skill and network building “summer jobs” for these youth. A day without an undocumented Mexican youth in Chicago, to riff on the title of Sergio Arau’s 2004 mockumentary, would shut down many a restaurant.

With the looming presence of the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids (like the April 24, 2007 raid in the predominantly Mexican Little Village neighborhood in Chicago), fear for oneself and for family, is a constant. Without legal routes to employment, their lives are, like increasing number of residents in the United States, criminalized. At over two million in prisons and jails and counting, the U.S. is the global savant on incarceration. The U.S. government currently has more than 300 publicly and privately run jails, “detention centers,” where the undocumented are held, some for years, until decisions are reached on deportation; about 30,000 people are awaiting trial or deportation. With the Sentencing Project estimates of approximately 5.3 million people disenfranchised in 2007 due to felony convictions, and the Pew Hispanic Center documenting upwards of 10 million undocumented adults, this expanding disenfranchisement of millions, signals the resurgence of Juan and Jim Crow.

As immigrants ourselves, we count ourselves honored to have the opportunity to work and learn alongside many of these students and their families. Their belief in higher education and tenacity is impressive and their contributions in classrooms, as in our communities, are invaluable. Without legislation like the DREAM ACT (the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act), a bill that would have granted legal status to these students, the future of many of our students and their families, looks bleak. We deeply question the de facto economic and racial draft implicit in the DREAM Act, and we challenge the narrowness of the population selected to “benefit” from a complicated potential access to legalization, because “hard work” or “innocence” should never be used to justify the allocation of rights. Yet, along with many across the nation, we mourned last October when the bill failed to pass in the Senate by a vote of 52 to 44. The dreams of many students were crushed across this country. In 2009, there will be approximately 2.9 million high school graduates, and more undocumented youth, seeking futures with their families and loved ones, in the U.S.A.

The silence of presidential candidates on meaningful and systemic immigration reform grows more deafening. We know our nation can do better. We must.

A Vigil for One School’s Survival

2008-06-04T12:46:00.000-07:00

It’s nearly beyond belief, that a community would have to beg its local public official to keep its neighborhood high school alive. It’s shocking that she—Alderwoman Mary Ann Smith—can hold up the plans for school improvement that over 2,000 local folks have weighed in on, and that others, including teachers, parents, administrators, and residents, have been meeting nearly weekly (after work, and on Saturdays) to research, consult, brainstorm, develop, and write. So much labor, good will, energy, and hope held hostage by…what exactly?

So here’s how it’s playing out: Senn’s Strategic Planning Committee has developed a plan to strengthen the community school over a five-year period. But Alderwoman Smith wants to close Senn down and install in its place several selective small high schools; this news reached Senn via a leaked document after a year’s work on the strategic plan, with one of Smith’s aides in weekly attendance. Then Senn was turned down for some grant renewals—the word was that they didn’t want to fund a school with an “uncertain future.” Senn’s principal heard from a colleague that Board of Education documents related to Senn were red-flagged—take no action. Chicago Public Schools says it can’t promise to work with the Senn Strategic Planning Committee to improve the school unless Senn is working with Smith, but Smith won’t set a date to meet.

The Organization of the Northeast (ONE) tried to move the issue by making Senn’s future the center of its yearly convention on June 2. Smith was invited but didn’t show. So we took the meeting to her home, and asked her to support Senn. But really, it’s maddening—why should a public school have to plead for survival? Especially, why should it have to get permission to exist from one local official? Except, of course, that’s not what’s really going on—Daley has his plans and Duncan (CPS CEO), Smith, and the unelected Board of Education simply do his bidding. Smith does it by refusing to answer her door, as you see here.

ONE should take the next vigil to Daley’s doorstep.

A Public School Give-away—Bids Accepted Now!

2008-04-29T15:14:00.000-07:00

Alderwoman Mary Ann Smith (48th ward) was the main show at a recent Edgewater block club meeting. I “crashed” the meeting after seeing flyers posted in the neighborhood that said Smith would be talking about “her plans for Senn High School.” I’m on Senn’s Local School Council (a Community rep). Since Senn’s Strategic Planning Committee has been asking to meet with Smith for months about a “plan for Senn” someone leaked from her office to Senn’s principal (she just refuses), I figured I better find out what she had to say.

After telling the room (about 40 people, including at least 5 reps from her office) about great things she’s responsible for, Smith announced big news—in June work will start on a 2 million dollar re-do of Senn’s auditorium, to accommodate an in-house theater company. The idea was brought to Smith by an Uptown theater, she said, which brought her a curriculum for Senn (why didn’t they come to the school?), something to help prepare students for jobs (because there are so many jobs looking for theater people!).

Then the bomb dropped—in September 2009, Smith said, four new schools will open in Senn’s building, forming a “four-part school”—one, the current military school, one a theater arts school, the third a language and diplomacy school, and the fourth a college prep school.

Smith and State Rep. Harry Osterman are working together on this plan, “showing leadership,” she said. "Children attending Senn now won't be thrown out, though they may choose to leave.” And, “There will be no tests to get in,” she assured us, except, oh, “there will be a test for the college prep school,” she responded to a question. And “a contract may be required” of students and parents. Other than those things, the new schools will be open to all (who manage to figure out how to apply, get the contracts signed, score well on the tests).

Senn, in contrast, is open to all students in its attendance boundaries.

A member of the audience asked another clarifying question. The question addressed Smith's description of Senn, with enrollment of around 1,200, as underenrolled and her assertions that the community wanted to send their children to a good local high school (not Senn, with all those low income, non-English speaking, immigrant students), so more spaces were needed, and that all of Senn's current students could stay at Senn.

“How many students will attend each of the four high schools?” Smith said 400. The audience member pointed out that one of the four schools would be selective, so its 400 wouldn't be part of the count. That left 1,200 spaces for the current Senn students (all 1,200 of them), and all the other people who would want to go to the school—not an increase, in other words.

Smith began to look very angry, and back-tracked. “The building can accommodate 3,000, so we’ll divide that number by the number of schools.” Things blew up then.

Smith pointed her finger at the audience member, shaking it, and raised
her voice. "I know you,” she said, “You’re with Senn, and I won't talk to you. I’m through talking to you people." Smith continued ranting. The room burst into applause several times. I asked why she was yelling at a community member who asked a question. Nobody else said anything. The meeting went on and then ended. The berated audience member burst into tears. “Why was she yelling at me?”

Smith’s tactics—self-praise, unstable "facts," and yelling down opposing views seems to be the common and unpleasant ruse of her office. I've seen two of her aides use the same methods in other meetings. Even worse is Smith’s direct giveaway of Senn High School to outside entities—a military that needs recruits, a theater that needs space. Indirectly, Smith has “given” Senn up to real estate developers that need a local high status school to boost property values.

Can someone please run against Smith next time?

Green Schools without Green

2008-04-16T10:04:00.000-07:00

Maybe it’s just Illinois, where aiming-for-green schools can't seem to get growing. We are at the bottom now, in school funding by the state—49 of 49 (Nevada is out—its school funding comes largely from casinos). So when Senn sets out to recast its curriculum and programs as green initiatives, who will fund the shift? Our alderwoman, Mary Ann Smith, seems set on parlaying her office’s funding into high visibility projects—an auditorium overhaul is the latest plan.

Nothing wrong with visibility—Senn is hoping its new green and global sustainability projects get some of that, too. But the school’s plans were all developed openly, with plenty of discussion, even debate. The alderwoman simply announced hers—planning by decree!

In any case, Senn’s auditorium is in great shape and doesn’t need a redo, but the rest of the school is another matter. It needs everything from science labs and plaster wall repair, to class book and lap-top sets. It lacks enough social workers. It could use funding to make up for the over $300,000 in state funding cuts this year, that resulted in the loss of eight teachers and a security person. And then some.

Public schools are all about the environment these days, and they should be. Big plans are fantastic. But to get the work done, schools also need enough green.

Green Global Senn

2008-03-20T12:30:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Senn High School is launching a bold new Green Arts and Design initiative; global education and environmental sustainability concepts and projects will be implemented across subject areas. Senn’s Green and Global initiative will have three main strands—Arts and design for sustainability; green jobs and technologies; and global environmental awareness.

First—Arts and design for sustainability. Creative attention to global environmental issues is increasingly important--check out this image by Chicago artist and forager, Nance Klehm. Senn’s students, working with local and international artists and designers, will learn ways that the arts and design can pose questions about and offer solutions to the problems of our environment.

Next—Green jobs and technologies. Senn’s focus on green collar jobs will prepare interested students to enter a growing field. For example, there is a greater demand for solar panel installation, than there are installers. Students doing this work will earn a living while also helping to heal our earth.

And last—Global environmental awareness. Senn is a diverse school, with students and families from every part of the world. In other words, Senn is already global. At the same time, we know more clearly now than ever before, that the earth is one place—what we eat, drive, and wear in Chicago affects the lives of families everywhere else. Senn’s Green and Global focus will ground its celebration of diversity within an emphasis on interrelatedness and our responsibilities to each other as world citizens.

Here are a few specific proposals (the school’s Curriculum Committee will consider these and others before selecting inaugural projects):

1). Starting a corps of international Green Senn Friends to serve as advisors. Possible Friends include Wangari Maathai, Vandana Shiva, Oakland’s Ella Baker Center and Ken Dunn, founder of Chicago’s Resource Center.

2). Founding an independent International Center for Green Art and Design Education within Senn to serve as hub for green-related activities, including visual and performing arts events and exhibits, and a Green Artists and Designers in Residence program.

3). Initiate an international Open Call for Proposals for the Green Re-design of Senn’s Campus and Building. The visual and written plans will be exhibited at Senn.

4). Developing Green Corp Career business and culture partners who will provide internships and resources for Senn’s innovative green programming.

5) And of course…rooftop gardens and beehives (this isn’t a new idea for CPS—there are already beekeeping programs at Marshall High, Roosevelt High and the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences.

More ideas? Send them to me at tquinn@saic.edu.

Teachers Against Militarized Education—TAME the Beast!

2008-02-23T17:44:00.000-08:00

Decommission Public Military Academies

A National Call to Action

As military recruiters across the nation fall short of their enlistment goals and the number of African Americans enlistees continue to decline, the Department of the Defense (DOD) has partnered with the Department of Education and city governments to sell its “brand” to young people.

Today, Chicago has the most military-branded public school system in the nation. When an Air Force high school opens in 2009 it will be the only city in the United States to have public academies representing all branches of the military.

This recruitment tactic is effective: Nearly half of the students participating in public military schools and JROTC programs, according to the DOD’s own reports, enlist after graduation.

Six reasons all citizens should oppose public military schools and programs.

1. Public education is a civilian, not a military, system.
Public education in a democracy aims to broadly prepare youth for full participation in civil society so that they can make informed decisions about their lives and become full and active participants in civil society. The DOD has a dramatically more constrained goal in our schools: influencing students to “choose” a military career.

2. Military programs and schools offer a substandard education.
Instead of receiving a well-rounded education, students study subjects like “Military Science” and “Army Customs and Courtesies.” With that kind of preparation, it is no surprise that at Chicago’s Carver Military Academy only 49% of its seniors graduated in 2007.

3. Military programs and schools target low-income youth of color.
The Chicago Board of Education targets low-income, primarily African American, communities for military-themed high schools, while upper-income white communities are offered gifted, magnet, and college prep schools and programs. This reinforces a negative and unfortunately familiar message: poor youth of color merit second-class education.

4. Military schools and programs promote obedience and conformity.
Confusing obedience with self-direction, and conformity with independence, Mayor Daley has claimed that military programs promote discipline and leadership. An authentic commitment to youth development would start by offering all students what the most privileged youngsters receive: art education, dance and music instruction, theater and performance, sports and physical education, clubs and games, after-school opportunities, science and math labs, lower teacher-student ratios, smaller schools, curriculum that promotes critical thinking, and more.

5. Military schools are a last resort, not a real choice.
The rhetoric of “choice” absolves CPS officials and politicians of leadership responsibilities. Because most CPS students have been denied a first-rate public school education, they are not able to test into the best public high schools. Instead, they are urged to “choose” from among the high schools that will accept them. Better-funded military schools or decaying neighborhood schools—which would you choose?

6. Military schools and programs practice double standards and discrimination.
Although the Chicago Board of Education, City of Chicago, Cook County, and the State of Illinois all prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, the United States Military condones discrimination against lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men. Military schools and programs willfully ignore the fact that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) students can’t access military college benefits or employment possibilities, and that LGBT teachers can’t be hired to serve as JROTC instructors in these schools. This double standard should not be tolerated.

Call to Action
Let’s bring our schools home! Join TAME in this call for a moratorium on any new military-themed public schools or programs.

Email me your name at tquinn@saic.edu to add to this Call to Action.
Email Mayor Daley at MayorDaley@cityofchicago.org and tell him to keep our public schools military-free.

It’s Not the End of Senn High School

2008-02-03T16:16:00.000-08:00

Fifteen members of the Senn High School Strategic Planning Committee, including students and school staff members, met with Alderwoman Mary Ann Smith last week. They talked for over an hour and a half, but Smith refused to endorse either Senn’s Plan or process, which are both impressive. To date, the Committee has surveyed, focus grouped, interviewed, brainstormed, been “expert” advised and more, to come up with a Plan that can keep Senn as a single school serving the needs of all its students. Smith, on the other hand, is promoting her own “plan” for the school, created by…who knows? All that’s clear is that Smith wants to close Senn and open in its place four small schools in the building, three with selective admission policies, meaning they won’t accept all kids in Senn’s attendance boundaries, within which 70% of its students currently live, and one voc tech school. Senn’s plan calls for keeping the school united and open to all students, with programs to serve the different needs in the building.

Arne Duncan, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, has said that Senn will take in a freshman class in Fall 2008. That’s good news, but the work to keep Senn open isn’t over.

The next Strategic planning Committee Meeting will take place on Feb. 9 at Senn, in Room 115, 9:00 AM. Everyone is invited to show up and be part of the important community work of improving public education. You’ll meet parents, students, teachers, local residents and a host of others who care about what happens in our local schools. It’s good work. Please do it.

Senn High School and a Vision for Public Education

2008-01-12T17:04:00.000-08:00

The Alderwoman of the 48th Ward, Mary Ann Smith, has been floating around the community, via email and visits to sympathetic block clubs, what looks on first glance like a vision for the future of Senn High School, but when examined more closely turns out to be evidence of some pretty nasty local back-stabbing by the politician and her aide, Nancy Myerson.

After the rough period at Senn, during which Smith had her will with the school by imposing on it, against the expressed wishes of the school and local community, a military academy (which was given one wing of Senn’s building), the school rebounded by forming a Strategic Planning Committee and beginning to draft a vision for the school’s next five years. The committee was open to the public and comprised of representatives from the school (students, teachers, parents, LSC members, and administrators), community members, and local politicians and their representatives (State Rep. Harry Osterman and Nancy Myerson from Smith’s office attended).

The group met bi-weekly for a year and a half, held focus groups, collected survey data, talked to many residents, and were just getting ready to unveil the Senn Strategic Plan when someone from Smith’s office leaked a suspiciously similar but also crucially different plan to the LSC. This one had Smith’s name on it, and included some apparently plagiarized bits from the Senn Strategic Plan, but also the stunning information that Smith wanted to close down Senn and open, in its building, four small schools with new names, new programs, and most importantly, new students. Of the four planned schools, three would be selective, admitting students based on test scores. Senn, on the other hand, is an open enrollment school, open to all students living in its boundaries. Right now, Senn is one of the most diverse schools in the city, with students from at least 60 countries, according the its website. Closing it to all but the few students who can test in would do a disservice to its current students, to its community, and to all citizens of Chicago, who must begin to demand that all our schools be well-funded, excellent, and open to every child.

The Senn Strategic Planning Committee is moving ahead with its plan, that has created a vision of just such a school, developed in open and with the benefit of community residents’ insights, rather than behind closed doors. I’ll post it soon.

Removals, Returns, Resignations, and the Queer Connections Between Them

2007-09-13T13:32:00.000-07:00

In April 2007, education activists protested against the removal of social justice and sexual orientation from professional standards created by the National Association for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and used to guide the accreditation of teacher education programs. This protest took place at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association and the story was covered in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and in an article published in Rethinking Schools.

In May 2007, NCATE added this phrase to the standards:

Candidates are helped to understand the potential impact of discrimination based on race, class, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and language on students and their learning.

On September 4, 2007, the President of NCATE, Art Wise, announced his resignation from the organization.

I think we—all who spoke out—should take credit for the return of sexual orientation and the exit of Art Wise. The work’s not over, but these are both moves in the right direction.

What Anti Military-in-Public Schools Activists Look Like

2007-08-22T20:31:00.000-07:00

Sheena Gibbs (American Friends Service Committee), Neal Resnikoff (Save Senn) and Jesus Palafox (grad of Curie High School), from left, talking to a reporter after the August 22, 2007 Chicago Board of Education public meeting.

Keeping it Real at the Board of Education

2007-08-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

Something about working for the Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS) “Central Office” must bring out the worst in people. First, the beefy guys checking IDs were rude—“Yeah, well, I wasn’t here when you checked in” one said when I explained that I had already shown my ID to another guy, who recorded it, “Right there”…(he pretended not to see)—when I had to come back downstairs to get the “hall pass” they forgot to give me after they wrote down my driver’s license number. Then, the guards were rude when a group of us came downstairs from the holding pen on the 19th floor to back up our speakers in the 5th floor meeting room—“I didn’t call upstairs, so why did you come down here?” one crabby woman said, as we tried to explain that our group was up next. “They don’t always go in order,” she interrupted, even though this time they did. We missed the first part of Sheena Gibb’s (American Friends Service Committee) two minutes, haggling for admittance.

Really, everyone in Chicago should take this trip at least once. Head down to 125 S. Clark, CPS headquarters, to attend the monthly public Board meeting (every fourth Wednesday, 10:30 to about 12:30). This was only my 2nd time and afterwards I resolved to be at as many of these meetings as I can—they are packed and pungent, by which I mean sharp and strong and spicy. Folks at this month’s meeting raised issues from African values and better software, to military recruitment in schools and derelict CPS buildings. Fascinating.

A flock of yellow-shirted Chicagoans were clustered around the building’s entrance as I raced to the meeting. I saw a friend, Diom Miller Perez, and his family, Susan Mullen and Diego Miller (see them in the picture above), and stopped to talk about the group and its issue. Dion told me that residents of Little Village were calling on CPS to take care of two empty buildings—former schools, present fire hazards, at best—in the ward.

Everyone entering the building gets the full CPS treatment—metal detectors! and the aforementioned mean guards—before making their way to the public meeting. Get there earlier than the meeting start time of 10:30, if you want to speak. And only two people can speak about the same issue, and everyone gets a tight two minutes to sum it all up. I arrived ten minutes late and the schedules were already completed and copied. Of course, you won’t find this info on the CPS website—you’d almost suspect they really don’t want any dialogue with us, “the public.”

The main area was packed, I guess, so I was sent to what could be called the nether realm of the building, except that it was up—19th floor!—not down. But in another way, the whole thing was down, a back-door simulation of democracy. The room was smallish, filled with hard chairs and two (why two? twice the pretence of participation?) big monitors on which Rufus Williams, Board President, opened the meeting with a warning that everyone better be polite. Next up were two of the Little Village residents, who testified in Spanish. They described the decaying buildings and their attempts to get CPS to deal with the ruins. They asked for action, “Ahora!” My room hooted when their translator changed the call for action, “Now!” to “As soon as possible...” Duncan and Williams fluffed about how the issue was complicated, as it involved several agencies, but resolved to look at the issue again. Again, the room hooted—“They said the same thing last year!”

This is about when I followed Neal Resnikoff to the 5th floor to stand in support of our speakers. Both he and I were at the meeting as representatives of a citywide coalition (including Academics for Civilian Education, Southsiders for Peace, Save Senn, Gay Liberation Network, American Friends Service Committee and more) working to remove the military presence from our city’s public schools. This is when the guard showed her cranky stuff and we got delayed before getting in to hear Sheena Gibbs, who was on point.

Sheena spoke for the coalition, calling for three things—an end to the open access that military recruiters currently seem to have (illegally) to students in CPS—following them around the halls and even calling them out of class to “pitch their product”; equal access by counter-recruiters to the schools when military recruiters were present; and the distribution of opt out forms (NCLB requires that names of students be given to the military (these forms would allow students to remove their names from those lists) to all high school students during the first week of school, those names registered and removed during that week, and accurate records kept.

After Sheena spoke a recent graduate of Curie High School, Jesus Palafox, gave a short personal account of recruiters run amuck. They (we) got a blah blah response from the Board’s legal counsel and Prez Williams (they’d comply, they thought they were complying, nobody said there were problems with their compliance, they want to meet with reps of the group to discuss, blah blah). Arne Duncan said nothing. When Sheena and later, Jackson Potter, a teacher at Englewood High for five years, tried to ask clarifying questions the Board folks clipped them off—“Can I finish?" snapped the Board's legal guy.

A weird subtext—authenticity. Williams asked our speakers where they went to school. I kind of get it—experience counts. But it’s not everything; imagination, empathy, and yes—education—count for a lot, too. Still, Williams’ focus on realness made me wonder—what’s more real to him—Northside College Prep or Englewood? Robeson or Payton? Does he apply his standard across-the-board (so to speak)? Where did CPS CEO Duncan go to school? [the University of Chicago Laboratory School, it turns out]

Media reps from Ch. 7, Sun-times, and Chicago Tribune clustered around Sheena and Jesus as our group left the room, catching points and asking follow-ups. They seemed to listen. Will the Board?

Social Justice, Sexual Orientation, and Teacher Education: Organizing AERA to Stand Up to NCATE

2007-07-10T11:47:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder what it would be like to organize against two of the most powerful educational organizations in the U.S? Read on!

In September 2006 Erica Meiners and I sent a letter with over 300 signatures from colleagues across the U.S. and Canada to the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), requesting that sexual orientation and social justice be kept and strengthened, and gender identity be added, to NCATE’s accreditation standards. This letter was a response to an open call by NCATE for feedback on proposed changes to the standards posted on its website, revisions that erased the phrase “social justice” and facilitated the de facto elimination of sexual orientation through the addition of various phrases and qualifiers.

Through listserv circulations, several SIGs and Committees within AERA expressed interest in signing onto the letter, but, in an email dated Sept. 27, 2006, the President of AERA, Dr. Eva Baker, asked us to not include these groups as signatories because it would be “inappropriate” for “entities such as committees, divisions, and special interest groups” to attempt to speak as “subparts of AERA.” We were asked to submit a request to Dr. Baker, for discussion by the executive board. We did this, sending the letter to Baker and the Social Justice Director, Dr. George Wimberly, requesting that the organization take a stand opposing NCATE’s proposed revisions.

We received no acknowledgement of our feedback from NCATE and Dr. Wimberly’s only response was an e-mail informing us that the organization was “aware” of the issue.

There was no response from AERA, either, until the January/February 2007 issue of Educational Researcher, which featured a column by Baker and a statement titled "Key Policy Documents on Position Taking and Policymaking and Social Justice." The column revealed that AERA’s board had voted unanimously against opposing NCATE’s deletions of social justice and sexual orientation. The statement laid out a “position-taking” rationale: AERA failed to offer feedback to NCATE regarding sexual orientation and gender identity because these issues lacked "compelling significance," “legitimacy,” and "adequate research." We think that most teacher educators are aware of the importance of addressing sexual and gender identities in school, but include here a sampling of the research we cited in our letter:

The population of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth is large.
In a 2003 survey conducted by the Chicago Public Schools and the Center for Disease Control (the Youth Risk Behavior Survey) 6.3 percent of high school students attending Chicago Public Schools identified their sexual orientation as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.

Schools are unsafe for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth.
According to the 2005 School Climate Report conducted by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN):
--64.3% reported feeling unsafe in their school because of their sexual orientation.
--45.5% reported being verbally harassed and 26.1% had experienced physical harassment in school because of their gender expression.
--40.5% reported that teachers never intervened when hearing homophobic remarks.

Negative school climates affect LGBT youths’ well-being and academic success.
According to the 2001 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey, LGBT students are more likely than the general student population to:
--attempt suicide (32.7% vs. 8.7%),
--skip school because they feel unsafe (17.7% vs. 7.8%).

Teachers are ill-equipped to confront issues that contribute to anti-LGBT hostility.
--81.7% of LGBT students reported that they had never learned about LGBT people, history, or events in any of their school classes (2005, School Climate Report, GLSEN).
--In a study of pre-service teachers, 57% indicated that they needed more training or education to work effectively with LGBT youth and 65% reported that they needed more specific education to address homosexuality in their teaching (Koch, 2000).

If the hostile schools, physical and emotional danger, and poorly prepared teachers and administrators experienced by LGBT students and documented in this research fail to offer a “compelling” and “powerful moral reason” for AERA to offer feedback to NCATE to retain and strengthen sexual orientation and include gender identity in the professional standards, what would?

Furthermore, Baker’s column stated that it is "inappropriate, except in the rarest of circumstances, for AERA to comment on the procedures of processes of any other non-profit or private-sector organization." This response is disingenuous: While NCATE is a private organization, it directly shapes public policy. Since the 1990s, NCATE has replaced the accreditation functions that used to be the province of state departments of education. Quite bluntly, NCATE functions as a sub-contractor for state departments of education. Also, NCATE solicited open feedback on its proposed “standards” changes. So, how would AERA’s feedback on these revisions be “inappropriate”? How could it be “inappropriate” to comment on the decisions of a quasi-public organization—NCATE—that shapes the work-life of the majority of its members and all children attending public schools?

In response to Baker's column and the revelation of the "down" vote, we wrote an open letter to Dr. Baker, which we also sent to Educational Researcher, inquiring about the process and expressing our dissatisfaction with the contents of her column. Silence. Next, we issued a Call to Action: A RED Campaign for Social Justice and Queer Lives (noted in previous posts), to take place at the 2007 Annual Meeting in Chicago. We asked all meeting participants to wear red throughout the conference as a sign of anger at AERA's decision to remain silent on LGBTQ issues and of our passion for justice. This generated a response from the organization: a mass email send out by the current, former and future presidents of AERA, announcing the organization’s commitment to diversity and a panel discussion to air what it described as "both sides" of the NCATE issue at a business meeting on the last day of the conference.

We asked Bill Ayers represent the goals of the RED Campaign at the meeting: the inclusion of social justice, sexual orientation, and gender identity in NCATE’s standards. He spoke first, reminding the roomful of attendees, many wearing red, of the context of NCATE's deletions: endless war, scapegoating, increasing poverty, weakened rights. He called on AERA to push beyond bureaucratic constraints to act: "Whatever procedures are in place," he said, "we expect leaders to lead."

After Ayers, the designated AERA representative, Adrienne Dixson, elected not to speak. That left the podium to NCATE's representative, Donna Gollnick, who stated that social justice had been removed because it was a "lightning rod" and potential trigger for lawsuits. She denied the removal of sexual orientation, but agreed with us, after the meeting, that revisions directing readers to use census categories might make it seem that way. She closed her talk by inviting feedback from AERA and its members. Many in the room added their strong statements to the public record, including the president of Div. B, David Flinders, who described his vote for inaction as a mistake that he would do everything he could to correct. Baker refused to state that AERA would act. Incoming President Tate said that he “always thought AERA was a research organization,” a position we heard many times from organization functionaries. Then, echoing a strand of related excuses offered by AERA for why it could not act—we didn’t follow correct procedures; our request wasn’t submitted properly; the organization had no process to address these kinds of issues—he committed himself to work on organizational procedures and transparency during his yearlong presidency.

Nearly three months have passed, and the primary issue--AERA members' wish to speak back, organizationally, against NCATE's removals of social justice and sexual orientation from its Professional Standards--remains unaddressed by AERA's "leadership." We hoped that statements from the meeting—Ayers, AERA’s, and NCATE’s—would be published, perhaps in Educational Researcher, but there are no minutes, according to Felice Levine, and AERA’s journals only print research. We think it is important to note and discuss these events, decisions, and positions, and thus offer this record. Still, archives and testimonies are not enough.

Unlike our AERA colleagues who urged us toward policy, not protest, we think the time for action is now. In the spirit of pushing back against all who want to keep queer lives invisible and tone down social justice agendas because they are too threatening, we contend that the “professional standard” for all educators should be to speak against injustice, exclusion, and silencing, wherever they occur. Please ask Arthur Wise (art@ncate.org) and the new president of AERA, William Tate (wtate@wustl.edu), to respond to the letter signed by over 300 educators. Tell them that you support the inclusion of social justice, sexual orientation, and gender identity in NCATE's standards. Speaking and acting for social justice; it’s what education and real leadership is all about.

Stickers for Justice in Education

2007-04-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

These are the stickers we used for the RED Campaign at AERA--maybe now you can use them to continue the fight for representation in the NCATE Professional Standards, and real representation by AERA.

The stickers were designed by William (Keith) Brown (wbrown1@saic.edu).

NCLB, Arts Education, and 21st Century Skills

2007-04-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

The dreadful federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has turned its devouring eyes to the arts. If you artist-teachers, in your art classrooms or pushing your art-carts, felt safe from NCLB before, well, that time is just about over. Reports are that in early 2007 the State Assessment and Curriculum Officers convened a “mega-conference” on assessment and student standards in K-12 art education. While the arts are considered a “core” subject area under NCLB, to date, they have not been subjected to the kind of “performance-based” assessments that other subject areas have. While this is surely a good thing, some art educators fear that without this federally mandated attention, funds for the arts will continue to dwindle. Right now, the push is for arts instructors to use their subject to enhance learning across-the-board, or augment other subjects through “integration.” There’s nothing wrong with art everywhere, of course, but as Eliot Eisner pointed out, neither should the arts be seen as “handmaidens” to the “real” learning in schools.

A meeting at this mega-conference focused on what is being described as a new core subject area—21st Century Skills. The Gates Foundation is supporting this through an organization (of which Microsoft is a member) called Partnership for 21st Century Skills. The goal? To create the new workers he and other corporate leaders want. "This unique partnership of education, government, and business leaders seeks to help schools adapt their curricula and classroom environments to align more closely with the skills that students need to succeed in the 21st-century economy, such as communication and problem-solving skills," Gates said. But what does "succeeding" in this new economy mean today? For Gates, it doesn't include participating in a union job, or job security; for example, his foundation supports the development of largely non-unionized charter schools staffed by teachers with year-to-year contracts. Maybe rather than succeeding in this economy, we all need a new one.

There's nothing wrong with communication and problem-solving, but why stop there. I can think of a few skills we are certainly in need of as we move deeper into the 21st century, and aligning what happens in art and other classrooms with the goals of business leaders isn’t going to help us develop them. How about: peace-keeping; cooperation; generosity; ecological caring; justice-seeking; compassion; dreaming. And I can think of many artists/collectives (inspiring arts projects) that could support these skills. I’ll just name three here: Riva Lehrer; Marianne Midelburg; and Red 76. Check out their wonderful work, then teach it to counter the flattening effects of standardized testing and corporate-model "21st Century Skills."

As Louis Sullivan said, "Remember the seed-germ."
Avoid the rest.

RED Campaign for Social Justice and Queer Lives at AERA 2007

2007-04-20T06:18:00.000-07:00

People in red, and seeing red, made up the majority of attendees at AERA’s Social Justice Awards, Presidential Address and Open Business Meetings this year. People got creative and insistent with the color—crimson handbags, scarlet scarves, flame red wigs and lips, lots of red t’s and coats, ruby patent leather shoes, a red umbrella, a red paper-clip as lapel pin, even this red “rooster” mask.

Then there were all the seemingly-likely folks who chose not to wear red. What was that about?

AERA hired extra security and dimmed the lights for the Presidential event. Executive Director Felice Levine actually patrolled the aisles. Looking for trouble? The room was a sea of red; the whole conference was a red zone. I guess that was just too alarming. Still, it was a paranoid response to what was essentially a position backed up by a fashion event and a letter campaign.

The “Open” meeting was called by AERA leadership (at our suggestion, after they first suggested a private sit-down). There were three presentations listed on the agenda. After interminable committee reports, Bill Ayers was to go first, then Adrienne Dixson, the chair of AERA's Scholars and Advocates for Gender and Equity (SAGE), then an NCATE rep named Donna Gollnick. Bill gave a good speech exhorting us to not get distracted by procedural details, or what is "impossible," or litanies of mistakes made, but rather, to keep our attention on the moment we are living in and how the move by NCATE to exclude social justice and sexual orientation from the Professional Standards that shape teacher education is not accidental or isolated. The right is fighting for education, because education is powerful.

Mistakes were made, he said. It was a mistake for AERA's leadership to condone NCATE's excisions. But, he pointed out, we could all still do the right thing; AERA’s leadership could, too. He reminded the room that NCATE's deletions aren't just language games--they affect lives. Then five people stood, one at a time, and read youth testimony from the report, Hatred in the Hallways. Bill closed his speech by asking AERA to call on NCATE to return social justice and sexual orientation, and add gender identity, to the standards, and invited everyone in the room in support of that position to stand. There was a roar of applause and a wave of movement as people jumped to their feet (all except for a tiny number of AERA bureaucrats, who fidgeted, but stayed glued into their front-row seats).

Then it was Dixson's turn. There was a buzz at the front of the room; AERA officials conferred. President Eva Baker took the mic and said that she and Felice Levine were supposed to have prepared a statement for Dixson to read, but they hadn't, so Dixson wasn't going to speak. Wise choice—standing in support of AERA’s unanimous vote against asking NCATE to include social justice, sexual orientation and gender identity in the standards (especially after Bill’s powerful speech) would have looked like (and been) a defense of injustice.

Then Donna Gollnick talked. Yes, she said, NCATE had taken out social justice: It had become "a lightening rod" and a trigger for lawsuits. She suggested that the new “fairness” disposition was a good replacement. NCATE wouldn’t reinstate social justice, she said, though she invited us to offer recommendations about what should be part of the standards. Donna denied that they'd removed sexual orientation, but when we asked her about this after the meeting she agreed that an addition about using census categories could make it seem that way. Indeed.

Bill pointed out that NCATE's deletions and evasions are also a lightening rod, and reveal who calls the shots for NCATE—it cares more about some kinds of pressure that other kinds.

During Q&A, one after another, people stood and asked AERA to make a public statement in support of NCATE including social justice, sexual orientation and gender identity. Chair of Division B: Curriculum, David Flinders stood, on crutches, and said he had made a mistake when he voted with the rest of the Executive Board to refrain from making a statement to NCATE. He would now, he said, do "everything in my power" to remedy this bad decision.

Next, Eva Baker, the out-going president, took the mic and rambled for a while. She said she couldn't make a public statement on behalf of AERA, but really, she is so in support personally. She looked like she was close to tears.

Then Bill Tate, in-coming president, spoke. He seemed to be playing the role of tough daddy. We had to understand that we hadn't followed the right procedures, he said. He was now clear that the real problem is lack of procedures and transparency. He would make it his mission to work on those things. But “some people" act like organizations should change, instead of doing their homework and finding out what those organizations' missions are. He always considered AERA a "research organization." The implication being that “this”--the RED Campaign, lobbying AERA to lobby NCATE, protesting insults to humanity--isn't research. Then he said he was supposed to talk about next year in NY but he wouldn't now, and the meeting was officially over.

But before the room cleared we were shown a handwritten statement calling on NCATE to put back social justice and sexual orientation. It was signed by a majority of the Executive Council. So what now, AERA and NCATE?

The Chronicle of Higher Education covered the Campaign and events at AERA. Read the story, by David Glenn, "Academics Protest Education-Research Group's Silence on 'Social Justice'" online at this address:

http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/04/2007041603n.htm

Offer some suggestions about what should be included in the Standards; write to Donna Gollnick at donna@ncate.org.

Fine and Performing Arts High School Coming Soon to Chicago—But Probably Not for You

2007-02-27T10:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I attended a meeting about a new, still-in-the-works, fine and performing arts high school for Chicago. The meeting was held at the Chicago Community Trust. The school founders want to be part of Renaissance 2010 but aren’t sure yet if the new high school will be a “performance” or a “contract” school. They’d like the flexibility to hire non-certified teachers, but want the school to be “highly selective” (don’t they see the irony in that?). Auditions, portfolios, high scores, the whole screen-out process—that’s what they are aiming for. They only want “talented” students. But what looks like talent is usually just privilege.

Oddly, the school planners said several times that this school would be Chicago’s first and only fine and performing arts public high school. But I work with another one, which my employer, the School of the Art Institute, partners with—the two-year-old Multicultural Arts High School, in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. Maybe this school doesn’t count to the planners because it isn’t selective. Any youth living in the school’s boundaries can enroll, and everyone enrolled makes art and learns to see themselves as artists. In other words, it’s really a public school. A city school. A school for everyone, not just the children of the wealthier, whiter, and more connected than average city families, which are the students who attend Chicago’s selective admission schools.

Maybe it’s a new Oprah syndrome—what DOESN’T she influence? Start a school! Give it your name! Claim its successes—and to make sure you have some, only let in the already successful! It’s a tried and true strategy; read The Chosen by Jerome Karabel to see how well it’s worked for the Big Three—Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Those schools thrived for decades by screening out Jews, women, and “pansies,” while admitting wealthy, white, Protestant men. Did I say wealthy? That was the primary criteria.

And actually, wealth will be the primary criteria at the new fine and performing arts high school, too, if, in the end, it is a selective admissions school. Why not just make it a private school, like the Ivy League joints? Then, use our public funds to fully and equitably fund art education for all of Chicago’s public school students, not just for the “talented” few.

Radical Education Work at Jane Addam’s “Hull of a House” Museum

2007-02-21T10:54:00.000-08:00

Last night’s forum, Anti-Gay Pledges and Teacher Education: A Dialogue About the Tensions Between Private Beliefs and the Public Good, was beautiful to behold. About 25 people participated in the event, which took place at the Jane Addams (pictured here with her life partner, Mary Rozet Smith) Hull House Museum on the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago, but no “official” Wheaton reps showed up. They sent a letter that arrived four days before the forum, to say they wouldn’t be there since they hadn’t helped plan the forum. But that is exactly what they were invited to do, two months earlier; they just didn’t ever contact us. Too bad for them, though, because we aimed to “speak with the expectation that we would be heard, and listen with the possibility that we could change” and the chat was wide-ranging and lively.

A queer teacher who grew up in Wheaton (or, as she said they affectionately call it there, “the 9th circle of hell”) talked about the distance of Wheaton College faculty and administrators from the lives of the school’s students and grads; a Chicago public school teacher described how changes in employment structures and the ongoing weakening of the Chicago Teacher’s Union contract have made queer teachers even more vulnerable; an administrator reminded us that we have to press the state and professional organizations to change, because they shape what happens in our public schools—if they ignore sexual orientation and gender identity, you can bet most schools will, too. After hearing why people came to the forum and what they wanted to talk about, we broke into small groups and talked about these and other questions:

Private Practices, Public Educators
What are the consequences when a private agency (NCATE) sets standards for public education?

Should private colleges with discriminatory “covenants” be supported (accredited) by the state to produce teachers for public schools?

Why are non-normative sexual and gender identities considered “private” and not worth public protections?

The Profession
What is the responsibility of the education profession--teachers, teacher educators, professional organizations, administrators—to challenge discriminatory practices, even when these are embedded in private institutions?

If “multiculturalism” can’t be or at least, isn’t consistently used to include sexual and gender identity in schools, what frameworks can be?

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?
How is resistance to challenging and changing these policies connected to other movements for justice and equity for all, including LGBTQ, people?

What are the consequences of the distinction Wheaton makes between “acts” and “beliefs”—“love the sinner, hate the sin”?

Youth, Schools, Teachers
How do discriminatory policies—like Wheaton’s— contribute to the dehumanization of LGBTQ bodies in schools?

What effect could knowing their teachers believe they are condemned have on LGBT youth—would this knowledge be damaging emotionally, academically, or in other ways?

The forum ended with plans—we are only just starting this project, so join us. You can hear the large-group parts of our discussion online:

http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Program_AMP_Segment.aspx?segmentID=10199

I mourn Matthew Shepard’s actual death, caused by the unimpeachably civil ‘we hate the sin, not the sinner’ hypocrisy of the religious right, much more than I mourn the lost chance to be civil with someone who does not consider me fully a citizen, nor fully human.

Tony Kushner, 1998

$0 - $10,000: Art Education Budgets in Chicago Public Schools

2007-02-08T17:22:00.000-08:00

No joking. That’s the range that I’ve heard about from my student and cooperating teachers in Chicago’s public schools.

Zero to ten thousand.

At one extreme are teachers who are given no funds to run their programs; they have to scrounge for the money and supplies to teach their classes. These teachers write grants, ask parents to donate what they can (like the bars of soap in this picture, for a carving project), dumpster dive, and solicit donations from local shops, in addition to teaching, curriculum planning, professionally developing and living.
From crayons and paper, to tempera and brushes—they get the money or the materials donated or they end up buying the stuff their students need themselves.

At the other extreme are teachers who have $10,000 to spend for class supplies. Supplies for their own classes, not a whole school's or department’s.
In between are teachers at schools that ask parents to pay fees for art and teachers who have fluctuating budgets (one year $400 split with another teacher at a school with 500 students; the next year $800 per teacher at the same school).

This is all in Chicago, all in public schools. This is what shapes the art educational experiences of our children. There’s no parity. No equity.

No kidding.

What’s the range that will inspire change? I think 0 to 10,000 should do it.

Who Would Jesus Tattle On?

2007-01-06T09:50:00.000-08:00

After our visit to Wheaton College for the big Illinois teacher education conference (see below for story and picture), Erica and I were "censured" by the school. What follows is their letter to us, followed by our response. Inspired by Starhawk's wonderful SF novel, The Fifth Sacred Thing, we've invited the teacher educators of Wheaton to join us "at the table." We hope they will.
--
November 21, 2006

Dear Dr. Quinn,

It was quite distressing to learn that several weeks ago during the IACTE meeting held on our campus, fliers vilifying the Wheaton College Teacher Education Program were distributed with your contact information at the bottom. The title of this flyer, Accredit Love Not Condemnation, and its contents allege that our teacher preparation program and its candidates condemn individuals who choose to practice homosexual behavior. That information is both inflammatory, patently inaccurate, and appears to be based on a cursory reading of our Community Covenant and an ignoring of our Conceptual Framework. It seems that if the author of this flyer had a significant concern regarding our teacher preparation program, the appropriate action would have been to speak with us directly. The surreptitious distribution of the flyer was an unprofessional act that reflects poorly on the author of this flyer, you as signatory, your institution, and IACTE.

First, the Community Covenant is a statement of beliefs and behaviors to which participants in this voluntary community agree to adhere. As a Christian community, we do have moral standards that are entailed by our commitment to the historic Christian faith. Some of these are broadly shared (e.g., viewing theft, murder, and rape as immoral), while others, such as our stance on sexual morality, are not as widely shared. Our stance on sexual morality is to affirm “chastity among the unmarried and the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman,” and to recognize that scripture condemns “sexual immorality, such as the use of pornography, premarital sex, adultery, homosexual behavior and all other sexual relations outside the bounds of marriage between a man and a woman.” Individuals who choose to become a part of this community are expected to comply with this covenant. Those who do not agree with its tenets should have the integrity and fortitude to choose to affiliate themselves with another of the many fine universities and colleges available to them.

Second, the Community Covenant in no way condemns any individuals. Condemnation is a decision that only God can make, and any human being who is so presumptuous as to condemn another individual is not practicing true Christian humility. Our Community Covenant, among its other affirmations, calls on members of the Wheaton Community to manifest “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and supremely, love,” to “seek righteousness, mercy, and justice, particularly for the helpless and oppressed,” to “uphold the God-given worth of human beings,” and to “be people of integrity whose word can be fully trusted.” The Wheaton College Teacher Education Program, in its Conceptual Framework, clearly states, “that candidates learn to work effectively with all children and their families regardless of race, creed, religion, national origin, sexual preference (emphasis added), disabling condition, or capabilities.” Our commitment to the inherent worth of every individual is emphasized throughout our programs; and for the author of this flyer and you, as signatory, to imply otherwise, is a blatant misrepresentation of our principles.

Interestingly, the author of the flyer seems to hold precisely the biased behavior of which we are accused. By asserting that Christians who hold traditional Christian views should not be certified and that religious institutions that hold moral views should not be accredited, the author has shown a clear bias against traditional Christians and/or other religious organizations that hold views different than that of the author. By extension, the flyer then seems to imply that anyone who holds a belief different from that of a child he/she is teaching is not qualified to teach that child. For example, should only Muslim teachers be allowed to teach Muslim children; only atheistic teachers to teach atheistic children; only Christian teachers to teach Christian children; only GLBT teachers to teach GLBT children? Such a system would be both discriminatory and ridiculous.

We gladly affirm that “teachers need to be well prepared to teach all students.” We affirm with sadness that GLBT students and adults have been and are at time subject to reprehensible treatment. We affirm that all teachers, including our candidates, should respect GLBT students and GLBT family members. Our Christian belief that all individuals are created in the image and likeness of God requires no less. We also affirm that in our country, individuals, including Christians, have the right to hold and express religious views freely. We understand fully and support the fact that the public school classroom is not a forum for religious proselytization or religious instruction. The public school classroom should be a place of learning, safe for all individuals, and affirming of the worth of each and every child. That is how we prepare our teacher candidates.

In accordance with Biblical principles, we are first contacting you without notice to your respective superiors. We at Wheaton College would be more than willing to discuss this issue with your further. However, the clandestine distribution of inaccurate information is an act that cannot be ignored. We believe that you, as signatory, owe Wheaton College, IACTE, and your institution a written apology for this reckless behavior. We anxiously await your response.

On behalf of the Education Department and Wheaton College,

Andrew R. Brulle, Ed.D. Jillian N. Lederhouse, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair Associate Professor and Chair-Select
--
December 21, 2006

Dear Drs. Brulle and Lederhouse:

We received your letter, dated November 21, 2006, and while we appreciate your communication, we disagree with your interpretations. Here, we respond to the points outlined in your letter and invite you and your students to an event where we propose to continue this dialogue.

For us, and the queer youth, teachers, parents, colleagues and allies we work alongside, the Accredit Love Not Condemnation action at the Illinois Association for Colleges with Teacher Education (IACTE) was a great success. We distributed love-centered flyers and pink teacher-power buttons. These, along with our positive queer presence, countered Wheaton College’s gay-excluding policies. As importantly, we raised questions about the appropriateness of Wheaton as a meeting place for the professional organization of teacher educators in Illinois, and the importance of sexual orientation and gender identity as key aspects of diversity. We believe that IACTE should not legitimize with its presence any institution that dehumanizes and devalues lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people.

Wheaton’s “Community Covenant,” which is part of the application for admission to the college, equates “theft, murder, and rape” with “homosexual behavior.” As lesbians, educators and as citizens, we find this an insulting and dangerous comparison, and the kind of assertion that lays the ground for violence against LGBTQ people. In addition, for queer youth, families and educators, the distinction you attempt to make between identities and acts is false and cruel. Sexuality is not divisible from other aspects of our lives as workers, parents, and students; no person should have to agree to forgo loving relationships in order to be safe from hateful characterizations.

It is hard for us to understand why you think the Accredit Love Not Condemnation project shows a “clear bias against traditional Christians.” It is inspired by and grounded in the traditions of critique and resistance exemplified by many Christians at the forefront of the profession of education including Margaret Haley, organizer of the first American teacher’s union in Chicago; Myles Horton, co-founder of the Highlander Folk School who played an integral role in the labor and civil rights movements; and Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Outside this field, Christians have been central to worldwide movements against oppression. The list is nearly endless, but includes Harriet Tubman, John Brown, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jane Addams, Desmond Tutu, James Baldwin, Óscar A. Romero, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bayard Rustin, Cornel West, and Mel White. We claim their engaged faith traditions as our guides.

We disagree with your letter’s claim that our distribution of the Accredit Love flyers was “surreptitious.” In addition to writing our email addresses on the flyers, as your letter notes, we walked from table to table during the meeting breakfast, passing out and explaining the flyers; wore t-shirts with the same slogan; introduced ourselves to the conference and individuals; and passed out business cards. However, secrecy is a strategic tactic that is respectable and sometimes necessary—the Underground Railroad is a clear example of this—and one that should be familiar and acceptable to Wheaton, which highlights a rich history at the forefront of the abolitionist movement on its website. But, we didn’t choose secrecy for this campaign; we chose visibility to counter the shame and silencing that institutions like yours seem to prefer for queers.

We also reject your characterization of our distribution of the Accredit Love flyer as “unprofessional.” Sexual and gender minority youth are unremittingly subject to violence and hostility in public schools, and we believe it is our professional obligation to raise this issue and seek solutions with our colleagues in teacher education, despite the desire of some to suppress that dialogue. It is the responsibility of the profession of teacher education to affirm and advocate for all students, parents and teachers, including those who are queer. Advocacy requires that problems are made visible. And that is what we have attempted to do.

We regret that you found the Accredit Love Not Condemnation flyers and pledge “quite distressing.” However, imagine how we felt to discover that our profession held a meeting on a campus where every person has sworn that the expressed sexualities of LGBTQ people, including youth and teachers, are the moral equivalent of “rape and murder”? Distressed is the mildest way to describe our reactions: pain, fear, anger are more accurate. Public meetings should not be held at institutions that degrade and exclude entire classes of people.

Finally, we appreciate and accept your invitation to talk further and propose co-hosting a discussion about this topic—Tensions Between Private Beliefs and the Public Good in Teacher Education—in a public venue, with fellow teacher educators and students of education and members of LGBTQ communities. We’ve secured a site [on the campus of a public university] and a tentative date and time. We suggest that we work out other details together—who to invite, how to organize the dialogue, food or not—if you choose to participate. If not, we plan to hold the discussion anyway, and hope you will announce the event to your students and staff. In particular, we would like to invite your LGBTQ students, staff and faculty to attend.

Sincerely,

Erica Meiners Therese Quinn

Bible Bath

2006-12-16T15:41:00.000-08:00

A clean critique.

Miss Amy performs in the bathtub, with wine, grapes, and a David and Goliath coloring book.

Miss Amy's Bible Bath lives
on youtube.com

Chicago Schools—Military In; San Francisco Schools—Military Out

2006-11-22T09:50:00.000-08:00

On Nov. 6, 2006, Arne Duncan announced his support for 19 new schools for Chicago’s students. Twelve of the 19 will be charter schools; another three will be “contract” schools. In other words, 15 of the 19 schools will operate outside the Chicago Teachers Union and outside the community guidance of Local School Councils.

One of the planned schools is the Marine Military Academy, scheduled to open in 2007, at 145 S. Campbell. The press release announcing Duncan’s plans describes the school as “the first public Marine Junior Reserved Officer Training Corps (JROTC) high school in the nation.” In contrast, on Nov. 14, San Francisco’s Board of Education voted to eliminate JROTC programs from its schools, through a two-year phase-out. Board member Dan Kelly, who voted to remove JROTC, described it as, "basically a branding program, or a recruiting program for the military.”

The military’s discrimination against LGBT people was also a factor in the decision to ditch the program. In an opinion piece in the Chronicle, board members Kelly and Mark Sanchez explain, “The U.S. military's ‘don't ask, don't tell’ policy toward gays and lesbians prevents JROTC from employing openly gay instructors and bars openly gay students from the preferential enlistment opportunities that are among JROTC's touted benefits.”

Supporters have claimed that JROTC is popular is San Francisco. Kelly and Sanchez point out that popularity shouldn’t be the only or even primary factor in deciding what programs schools offer—the bigger pictures—equity, fairness, justice—also have to be considered. Popular doesn’t equal appropriate, they say.

The claim of popularity may be more hyperbole than truth—San Francisco students formed an independent movement to oust JROTC from their high schools this year, and gathered more than 800 signatures on a petition supporting their position.

What do JROTC programs offer students? Spiffy uniforms, structure, a group, and the promise of help getting through college (if you aren’t queer). San Francisco plans to develop and pilot new programs next year, to address what the city’s families and students will miss when JROTC is gone.

I encourage the city to consider these ideas for its schools:

--Have students design their own uniforms, after exploring the forms and functions of uniforms from the past and present (this idea from fabulous SAIC art educator Maya Escobar; look at uniforms by artist Andrea Zittel and the exhibit RN by Mark Dion and J. Morgan Puett).

--Develop some “secret” clubs that are, conversely, open to all. These should have handshakes, special names (the blue-birds? the spiders?), marching bands and songs, drill teams with pink batons (this idea from every gay pride parade I’ve attended), and weekly meetings with games and snacks.

--Stock every school with art supplies, from kilns and clay and easels and paint, to design software and computers, and keep all the art rooms open and staffed until 9:00 PM.

--Offer scholarships to all students who want post-secondary education.

That would probably end any remaining JROTC-lust in our schools.

Now the question is—can Chicagoans follow the lead of San Franciscans and excise the military from our public schools? Our students need a chance to develop their creativity and critical thinking, not their obedience. And they need to know they can go on to college.

The Chicagoland Coalition Opposing Militarization of Youth has formed a working group to begin exploring the possibilities for opposing the planned Marine Academy. If you are interested in helping with this, contact Neal at NealBetty@aol.com.

Public Military Schools or Jazz in Every Auditorium

2006-11-03T14:00:00.000-08:00

Last year this letter objecting to the imposition of a naval academy on a public high school, signed by more than 50 area faculty of education, was sent to Arne Duncan (CEO of CPS), Daley (Mayor of Chicago), and the Chicago Board of Education. No answer to date.

Chicago already has the most militarized public school system in the nation, perhaps the world--10,000 students from middle school through high school participate in some form of military-focused education. And the city is planning more links between the military and the Chicago Public Schools. Daley and Duncan use "choice" as a mantra when talking about military schools, but what meaning does choice have in a school system built around "good" selective admission schools that accept only the smallest % of applicants and military schools that market themselves, and are marketed by CPS, as options for those rejected by their first choice schools.

As to the "military schools provide discipline" pitch--so would true engagement in the visual arts, literature, music and the sciences. And the kind of discipline developed through the humanities, arts and sciences is a different kind than the military develops or wants. Writers and other artists grow toward self-discipline and self-motivation; they learn to be inspired by their own curiosities, intuition, and observations. Ditto scientists. In contrast, what the military aims to foster is obedience.

When Daley offers military schools and uniforms, let's ask for arts academies and sewing machines (the students can design and sew their own uniforms!). The best schools in the world are Finnish, according to The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Finnish elementary school students learn to sew and knit in their art classes.

When Duncan says our children need the routine and order of JROTC drills, let's ask for trumpets, drums, flutes, clarinets, and pianos, and a jazz band for every school. School band practice is at least as disciplinary as military marching, and less damaging world-wide.

February 4, 2005

Dear Arne Duncan, Mayor Daley, and Members of the Chicago Board of Education:

On December 15th 2004 Chicago’s Board of Education voted to approve the establishment of a “Naval Academy” in Senn High School located in Chicago’s Edgewater community. One of Chicago’s most diverse schools, Senn is home to 1,700 students from more than 65 countries. Good things have been happening at this neighborhood institution—Senn has a successful International Baccalaureate Diploma Program, was recently awarded a five-year $1.2 million grant from the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation to provide development and support services to freshmen and sophomores, and was selected as one of only 16 National Service-Learning Leader Schools.

Despite these and other successes, against the wishes of many Senn teachers, students, and parents, and without a process for community consultation, you decided to install a Naval Academy at Senn High School in fall 2005.

There are many reasons to oppose this decision. The lack of neighborhood involvement is one: It is simply wrong to remake this school without considering community voices and vision. The apparent hypocrisy of city leaders is another: How can the city endorse the military for Chicago Public School students when the Chicago City Council has declared the city a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone and voted to reject the invasion of Iraq and the U.S. Patriot Act? And, as educators, we oppose the proposed Naval Academy, because it and other military academies offer:

--Bad education
The evidence is overwhelming that urban military-themed schools fail to provide a high quality education that prepares youth to graduate high school and enter college. Instead of receiving a well-rounded education, students study subjects like “Military Science” and “Army Customs and Courtesies.” With that kind of preparation, is it a surprise that at Chicago’s Carver Military Academy, similar in structure to the proposed Naval Academy, only 54% of students graduate high school, and only 34% of graduating seniors enter college?

--Racial targeting
The pattern is clear: The Chicago Board of Education targets low-income, primarily African American, communities for military-themed high schools. Schools for the elite, such as Northside College Prep, are not forced to house military programs. Instead, these schools and their upper-income white communities are offered gifted, magnet, and college prep schools and programs. Imposing a Naval Academy at Senn will reinforce this negative and unfortunately familiar message: poor youth of color merit substandard education.

--Sanctioned discrimination
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” is not acceptable for Chicago’s gay, lesbian. bisexual and transgendered youth. Although the Chicago Board of Education, City of Chicago, Cook County, and the State of Illinois all prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, the United States Military condones discrimination against sexual minorities. Military schools are partnerships between the United States Armed Services and Chicago Public Schools; like San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, Chicago should refuse to allow the military to recruit in its public schools, and refuse to do business with organizations that discriminate against its citizens.

Chicago must provide high quality education equally to all its youth and communities. The racially targeted establishment of military-themed schools is wrong in every case. But in a time of seemingly boundless budgets for endless war it is especially fraught to tell poor kids, “The best education we can offer you is one linked to combat.” This is not a “choice,” as Arne Duncan has referred to the proposed Naval Academy, it is a tragedy.

As faculty in colleges and programs of education across Chicago, we know this city can do better. And it must.

Sincerely,

1. Ken Addison, Northeastern Illinois University; 2. William Ayers, University of Illinois at Chicago; 3. Megan Bangs, Northwestern University; 4. Paula Baron, Northeastern Illinois University; 5. Amy Blumenthal, Oakton Community College; 6. Bonnie Chauncey, Northeastern Illinois University; 7. Pauline Clardy, National-Louis University; 8. Nell Cobb, DePaul University; 9. Jennifer Cohen, DePaul University; 10. Chuck Cole, University of Illinois at Chicago; 11. Dionne Danns, University of Illinois at Chicago; 12. Steve Dundis, Northeastern Illinois University; 13. Sarah Efron, National-Louis University; 14. Michael Fagen, Northeastern Illinois University; 15. Susan Gabel, National-Louis University; 16. Joby Gardner, DePaul University; 17. Artin Göncü, University of Illinois at Chicagol 18. Eric (Rico) Gutstein, University of Illinois at Chicago; 19. Lisa Hochtritt, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; 20. Stacey Horn, University of Illinois at Chicago; 21. Ed Hunt, Northeastern Illinois University; 22. Sue Jungck, National-Louis University; 23. Sy Karlin, National-Louis University; 24. Jeffrey Kuzmic, DePaul University; 25. Eva Lam, Northwestern University; 26. Pauline Lipman, DePaul University; 27. Norma Lopez-Reyna, University of Illinois at Chicago; 28. Sharon McNeely, Northeastern Illinois University; 29. Erica Meiners, Northeastern Illinois University; 30. Gregory Michie, National-Louis University; 31. Karen Monkman, DePaul University; 32. Christopher Murray, DePaul University; 33. April Nauman, Northeastern Illinois University; 34. Irma Olmedo, University of Illinois at Chicago; 35. Roger Passman, Northeastern Illinois University; 36. Patricia Pelletier, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; 37. Jan Perney, National-Louis University; 38. John Ploof, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; 39. Todd Price, National-Louis University; 40. Therese Quinn, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; 41. Patrick Roberts, National-Louis University; 42. tammy ko robinson, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; 43. Kenneth Saltman, DePaul University; 44. Bill Schubert, University of Illinois at Chicago; 45. Brian Schultz, National-Louis University; 46. Katherine Schuster, Oakton Community College; 47. Katy Smith, Northeastern Illinois University; 48. Terry Stirling, Northeastern Illinois University; 49. David Stovall, University of Illinois at Chicago; 50. Joaquim Villegas, Northeastern Illinois University; 51. Pat Walsh, Northeastern Illinois University; 52. Steve Wolk, Northeastern Illinois University; 53. Christopher Worthman, DePaul University

Accredit Love Not Condemnation

2006-11-02T12:17:00.000-08:00

My colleague, Erica Meiners, and I attended the Illinois Association for Colleges for Teacher Education on Friday the 13th of October. The conference was held at Wheaton College (apropos the date?), and its conveners opened the event with a prayer (it was a public event, so why the coercive calls to Jesus?--a moment of silence would have been more respectful of the diverse attendees' views). We hoped that many of the folks attending would accept a hot pink button (fist in apple--power to the teachers!), and that even more would sign the Accredit Love Not Condemnation Pledge (we are asking that only teacher education programs that promote love and respect for lesbian and gay students, families, and community members, be accredited; see previous post for more about the pledge and to read about teacher education programs that endorse condemnation, rather than love). The buttons were more popular than the pledge, though. We collected three of these (thanks, friends). The best part of the conference--meeting our fellow queer educators (yes, Wheaton--there were many of us "condemned" ones on your campus that day). Worst? That's a toss-up--maybe that so many people wouldn't make eye contact with me (making it so damn hard to cruise...oh!...that's what they were afraid of!); maybe that there's a building named after Billy ("this [Jewish] stranglehold has got to be broken") Graham; maybe that we saw a car in the parking lot with "disabled person" plates and a bumper sticker proclaiming "No Civil Rights Without Citizenship"; maybe that a sister passed her signed pledge to Erica in the women's bathroom (but again, thank you); maybe that Sharon Robinson, the President (and CEO--odd?) of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, and a featured speaker, wouldn't say that sexual orientation should be an aspect of diversity that is addressed in all teacher education programs. With love, of course, not condemnation! Well, we plan to attend the spring meeting of the group in greater numbers and with more and better props (but please...not at Wheaton). Care to join us?

The Alchemy of Wheaton College

2006-10-10T08:54:00.000-07:00

It turns freshmen into bigots.

Bigot:
A person who regards his own faith and views in matters of religion as unquestionably right, and any belief or opinion opposed to or differing from them as unreasonable or wicked. Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary.

A few young people might enter college with their “faith and views” fully formed, but it’s probably safe to say most do not—they come to school with some history and plenty of room to learn. College is for that.

Higher education invites us to stretch, to experience new things and to look at familiar things in new ways. We get a chance to expand and grow.

But Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, is different. It, like a number of other private religious colleges, requires students to demonstrate, even before they enter the school, that they are bigots. Wheaton does this by requiring applicants to sign a “Community Covenant” in agreement with a statement that condemns “homosexual behavior.” They may be trying to sidestep the implication that they are condemning any actual people (love the sinner, hate the sin!), but that’s crap—we are our sexualities, just as we are our genders and our ethnicities. We are more than those, of course; we can never be reduced to just those qualities, but we are also fully ALL those qualities.

Download an application to read the condemning statement yourself at:

http://www.wheaton.edu/admissions/UndGrad/applying/forms.php4#cas

It’s a shame that any college demands professions of bigotry from young people. A “dirty shame,” John Waters might say. It’s awful that a college requires students to prove their prejudice as a prerequisite to admission. Alchemists aimed to produce gold from base metal. Higher education should, too. But Wheaton engages in reverse alchemy—it produces condemnation, not kindness.

Most citizens could just ignore this situation, if Wheaton weren’t also in the business of producing teachers for our public schools. That’s right, the teachers Wheaton graduates—who have sworn that they condemn lesbian, gay, and bisexual children and families—can teach in public schools. Wheaton’s teacher education programs are accredited—legitimated—by the Illinois State Board of Education, which says teachers should be able to “help all students learn.” But how can teachers educate those they condemn?

If you read my last post you know that the population of gay students is large—as one example, in 2003, 6.3 % of high school students attending Chicago Public Schools identified their sexual orientation as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Schools are uncomfortable, even dangerous, for these students—64.3% of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students in 2005 reported feeling unsafe in their school because of their sexual orientation. And many teachers are part of the problem—40.5% of LGBT students in 2005 reported that teachers never intervened when hearing homophobic remarks. Schools are hard on LGBT young people. Colleges like Wheaton make the situation worse.

Wheaton is responsible for the suffering of LGBT youth in schools, and so is the Illinois State Board of Education, which accredits the College’s teacher education programs and certifies Wheaton’s teacher candidates, indicating that they are fit to teach in public schools. But they are not. Teachers who condemn their own students, or their students’ families, on the basis of sexual identity do not belong in public education.

The Illinois State Board of Education should stop accrediting the teacher education programs of colleges that require students to be bigots, and should stop certifying teachers who have agreed to condemn people they will inevitably teach. This isn’t a small problem; in Illinois alone there are several such schools. Greenville College is another example. Download its application and read the “Lifestyle Statement” which condemns homosexuals and dancing at:

http://www.greenville.edu/admissions/application/application.shtml

It’s a grim “lifestyle” outlined here, steeped in fear and privation. Yet, Greenville is accredited and its teachers are certified by the State. But these teachers are not fit for public schools. Wheaton and Greenville’s graduates can teach in private schools—they don’t need certification for that. Our public schools deserve teachers who pledge and demonstrate love and respect for all youth.

To that end, I’m offering every teacher educator and teacher candidate at Wheaton and Greenville (and any similar colleges, including Olivet Nazarene and Judson—you know who you are) a chance, here and now, to retract your vows of condemnation and offer a positive pledge of respect and responsibility, thereby “fitting” yourself for public school teaching. In fact, I invite everyone to take this pledge:

Teachers need to be well prepared to teach all students. Teacher education programs should support candidates by preparing them with the information and experiences they will need to teach and work with LGBT youth and family members. All teachers are responsible for gaining the education they need to teach and advocate for the well-being of LGBT students. All teachers should respect LGBT students, LGBT family members, and the identities and histories of LGBT people in classrooms and elsewhere. I pledge to do so myself. This retracts any earlier statements to the contrary. Sincerely,_____________

Email the signed retraction to the Chair of your Department or Program (at Wheaton, it’s Andrew Brulle at andrew.brulle@wheaton.edu; at Greenville it’s Edwin Blue at edblue@greenville.edu) and cc: it to me at tquinn@saic.edu.

Missing Schools: Riis, 2006

2006-10-07T15:22:00.000-07:00

This near west-side Chicago school--Jacob A. Riis Elementary, named after the photojournalist of tenements--was recently shut down.

Discussion about this and other school closings wasn't encouraged by Chicago Public School officials, but citizens speak, anyway.

Riis was a casualty of the city's "Renaissance 2010" plan to close 100 public community schools (CT union) and open 100 performance (CT union), charter (non-CT union), and contract schools (non-CT union). While remaking neighborhoods (Ren 2010 boosts real estate profits--it's a gentrification project), the city is also re-making the labor of education; the good middle-class teaching job, once something to hold onto, is morphing into a temp-job model. Today teachers hop from school to school; charters have high turnover rates and often burnt-out staffs (without a union, the work-day is as long as the principal--or CEO--says it is). It's a sad condition for what was once a strong union town, where workers fought and died to gain the eight hour day.

Social Justice is Always In

2006-09-29T16:46:00.000-07:00

Why is a teacher education accrediting organization trying to push it out?

In June 2006 the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) backed away from “social justice.” The organization sets the standards for teacher education programs nationwide. Social justice had been included as an example in the Program Standards glossary definition of “Disposition” (as in, what kind of dispositions should a teacher have?). But this must have ruffled some feathers—Arthur Wise, NCATE President, wrote in his obfuscating “Statement from NCATE on Professional Dispositions,” posted June 16 on the NCATE website (http://www.ncate.org/public/0616_MessageAWise.asp?ch=150) “Critics incorrectly alleged that NCATE has a ‘social justice’ requirement. It does not.”

But it should. All teachers, indeed all citizens, should be disposed towards justice.

The rest of Wise’s statement blah blahs around the heart of the issue—NCATE has revised its definition of “Dispositions” (now called “Professional Dispositions”) and removed the offending phrase. Social justice—fairness, equity, access—is out. You won’t hear this directly from Wise, though; you can only find it out by burrowing into the website until you locate a link to download the proposed revisions, where you read the new, presumably less threatening definition, which doesn’t offer any specifics at all. What kind of teachers do we need today? This “leadership” organization doesn’t offer any ideas.

Something else is missing from the main text of the newly revised Professional Standards—any mention of sexual orientation. As with social justice, “sexual orientation” had been, and still will be present in the Glossary, this time as part of the definition of “Diversity.” But the proposed revisions now direct readers to look at the rubrics for each standard to see which types of diversity to consider when planning or assessing teacher education programs. Turn to Standard Four: Diversity, and there are listed many important groups to which students and families are linked, including: English language learners, gender, ethnic and racial, students with exceptionalities, and more. Absent? Sexual orientation. Also absent, as it always has been from any part of NCATE’s Standards is gender identity.

On September 29, 2006 a letter signed by 193 individuals working in the field of teacher education was sent to NCATE. It called on the organization to establish social justice, sexual orientation, and gender identity within the main text of Standard Four: Diversity. If you agree, send a note saying so to Art@ncate.org.

The letter, as sent to NCATE, is pasted below (minus the 16 pages of signatures). To sign on, send me your name, title, and affiliation at tquinn@saic.edu:

September 29, 2006

Dear Arthur Wise, National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE):

We call for the language “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to be included in the main text of Standard Four: Diversity in the Professional Standards for the Accreditation of Schools, Colleges, and Departments of Education, 2006. As NCATE already acknowledges, teachers must be prepared for diversity in education, in their students, in their students’ parents and families, among their teaching colleagues, as well as in class materials and discussions. Sexual orientation is a key part of diversity, as understood by our institutions and communities and as represented in the NCATE definition of diversity . But the absence of sexual orientation and gender identity in the body of the standards, where other aspects of diversity are listed, sends the message that the needs and identities of LGBT students, families, and teachers are not important.

The following statistics indicate that addressing sexual orientation (a person’s emotional, romantic, and sexual attraction) and gender identity (a person’s sense of being male or female, feminine or masculine) in our schools is urgent :

The population of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth is large.
In a 2003 survey conducted by the Chicago Public Schools and the Center for Disease Control (the Youth Risk Behavior Survey) 6.3 % of high school students attending Chicago Public Schools identified their sexual orientation as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.

Schools are unsafe for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth.
According to the 2005 School Climate Report conducted by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN):
--75.4% of LGBT students reported hearing remarks such as "faggot" or "dyke" frequently or often.
--89.2% reported hearing the expressions, “that’s so gay” or “you’re so gay” often or frequently at school, and 67.1% reported that hearing “gay” or “queer” used in a derogatory manner caused them to feel bothered or distressed.
--64.3% reported feeling unsafe in their school because of their sexual orientation.
--45.5% reported being verbally harassed and 26.1% had experienced physical harassment in school because of their gender expression.
--40.5% reported that teachers never intervened when hearing homophobic remarks.
--18.6% reported hearing homophobic remarks from faculty or school staff frequently or often.

Negative school climates affect LGBT youths’ well-being and academic success.
According to the 2001 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey, LGBT students are more likely than the general student population to:
--attempt suicide (32.7% vs. 8.7%),
--skip school because they feel unsafe (17.7% vs. 7.8%).

Teachers are ill-equipped to confront issues that contribute to anti-LGBT hostility.
--81.7% of LGBT students reported that they had never learned about LGBT people, history, or events in any of their school classes (2005, School Climate Report, GLSEN).
--In a study of pre-service teachers, 57% indicated that they needed more training or education to work effectively with LGBT youth and 65% reported that they needed more specific education to address homosexuality in their teaching (Koch, 2000).
--In a study of high school health teachers, two-thirds indicated that they had inadequate education about LGBT issues (Telljohann, Price, Poureslami, Easton, 1995).

Hostile schools and poorly informed, prejudiced educators clearly harm LGBT youth, but all students are hurt by homophobia and heterosexism in schools, including those with LGBT family members and those identified by others as acting outside traditional gender norms. Teachers must be able to create learning environments in which all children can be successful. All teachers must learn to:

--Create safe learning spaces
--Address anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in the classroom and school
--Communicate with all parents, including LGBT parents
--Teach students to respect the rights of others and coexist in a diverse world

Sexual orientation has never been part of the main text of NCATE’s Professional Standards, but its inclusion in the glossary has encouraged educators to use NCATE’s definition of diversity when planning how best to create and assess educational programs for teacher candidates. The proposed revisions direct readers to look at each standard for the elements of “diversity” to consider when creating and assessing teacher education programs. But sexual orientation is not included in any of the rubrics for any of the standards. This decreases the possibility that teacher education programs will include sexual orientation. Gender identity is similarly absent. Sexual orientation and gender identity should be stated explicitly in the main text of the Standard Four: Diversity, along with other categories like race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Absence sends a message of non-importance.

Social justice, when used as a guiding principle, encourages recognition and inclusion; it seeks the presence of all community members. NCATE discredited its commitment to “help all students learn,” when it removed social justice from the glossary of the Professional Standards. The elimination of social justice makes it even easier to marginalize sexual orientation and gender identity. And the elimination of the words “social justice”prompts the question: Who will be excluded next?

Luckily, examples of organizations that have taken ethical positions abound. Ontario’s teacher accrediting organization vows that its members will “model respect for…social justice.” The accrediting bodies of other professions, including the National Association of Social Workers, the American Psychological Association, and the American Bar Association, have explicit commitments to social justice and queer rights in their accrediting requirements. NCATE should, also.

Educators of conscience call on NCATE to establish and prioritize sexual orientation, gender identity and social justice within our Standards.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned