Joshua Liebner, a National Board Certified Teacher in Los Angeles, has been fighting the destruction of public education in Los Angeles and across the nation. He was alarmed to learn that the 1% just became sponsors of education coverage in the Los Angeles Times. He now believes it is time for the Black Lives Matter movement to ally with those who are fighting the corporate assault on public education:
This is an urgent appeal to the leaders of Black Lives Matter:
It is not that far a distance from “I can’t learn” to “I can’t breathe”.
The objectives and consciousness raising of Black Lives Matter is inextricably linked to the education that all our kids are exposed to.
The Education Reform movement as being pushed by all the GOP candidates, but alas, is backed by many Neo-liberals in the Democratic Party including President Obama and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
The 1% of this country funds “philanthropic” foundations that support a disastrous public education policy that offers more testing, more computerized instruction, less field trip and enrichment opportunities, larger class sizes and more scripted instruction to the children in urban school systems.
It is the complete opposite kind of education that they desire for their own children.
The Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Wassermans and The United Way are just a few of the organizations that are dedicated to making the world MORE unequal and MORE unjust with their Orwellian perversion of Civil Rights language. They seek to create more disparity, more dysfunction in our communities.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was brilliantly capable of seeing how many factors were linked to his original cause of equality and justice. In the last years of his life, King was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and a champion of the War on Poverty for all people. All these issues were part and parcel with Civil Rights and by addressing them, King was advancing his original calling to the rights and dignity of black people in America (and ultimately the world over).
King was fearless in criticizing the power structure of this country who operated under different rules than the rest of its people. Even when they were on “his side” for some issues, he never compromised in “shutting up” on all the other causes they were still guilty of “shutting down” that affected black people.
There is nothing more glaring than the type of education that leaders of the wealthy Education Reform Movement desire for their own kids in contrast to what they prescribe for everyone else’s children.
I would hope for activism and a presence at Sidwell Friends where President Obama sends his kids.
I would hope for activism and a presence at the University of Chicago Lab School where Arne Duncan sends his kids.
Black Education Matters and if Eli Broad and the other plutocrats believe that Dr. King would be on their side in this struggle, it is time to mount a mighty offensive to disabuse this belief.
Consider where your kids go to school, how they are funded and their daily conditions and experiences. Imagine how different their future and opportunities would be if the priorities of the rich were the birthright of them as well.
We in the front lines of urban education are committed to social justice for all children and believe in the rights of parents, schools and communities to act in the best interest of their children. Not the Super PAC’s of the 1% who have vested interests in profiting off the system that is supposed to assist our children–not fatten their own stock portfolios.
I would hope our causes can be linked in the mutual interest of our children.
We want these kids to breathe and learn and go on to change the world.
Yours in solidarity,
–Joshua Leibner, NBCT
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I would suggest specifically inviting Jose Luis Vilson into this conversation. I know he has very strong thoughts on both pro-public education activism and Black Lives Matter activism and he has expressed some doubts that the two are completely compatible. I’m not exactly sure what his arguments are (and I wouldn’t presume to speak for him anyway) but, as you know, he was upset after the NPE conference. As with any such conversations, there’s a chance it could be unpleasant (I know that Jose and I aren’t exactly on the best of terms), but it could be valuable to have a chance to hash out those differences and see if each group can, perhaps, be better allies to the other.
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Two of the more visible activists associated with the Black Lives Matter movement are also associated with the education “reform” movement. Brittany Packnett is executive director of Teach for America St. Louis, and DeRay McKesson is a Teach For America alumnus who has also worked for the Harlem Children’s Zone.
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Related, more complicated, and surely more controversial questions include “Is it possible that folks from TFA Saint Louis like Brittany Packnett have done more to implement an agenda for culturally responsive teaching and restorative justice in Saint Louis schools than many school and district leaders?” … and “How is it that TFA Saint Louis might differ in its authentic commitments to equity and justice to the generalizations it’s easy to make about TFA National?” … and “Why is it that so many passionate, devoted, and highly proficient new teachers of color are drawn to and launched into the education field by TFA?” .. and “Why are so many TFA Saint Louis corps members and alums putting not only the words, like many of us, but their bodies, like few of us, on the line for racial justice?”
Exploring these questions this last year have helped start to move me from my own simplistic “us and them” camp mentality; to recognize the richness of the social justice commitments that many individuals are bringing to many sectors and orgs; to wonder what kind of systemic transformation ‘we’ actually envision; and to question who it is, exactly, that ‘we’ are really fighting for . . .
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Liebner’s post and a few of the comments leave me frustrated the same way some White progressives’ response to the #BlackLivesMatter disruption of Sanders’ speech left me frustrated. Notwithstanding the urgent need for solidarity between social justice activists of all stripes, I can’t help but wonder why this appeal implies the obligation of #BlackLivesMatter activists to demonstrate *their* solidarity with progressive resistance to neoliberal ed reform — while “anti reform” activists seem less visibly, consistently, or centrally to demonstrate their solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter.
There are black folks dying in the streets in the United States — but BLM activists need a lecture about the works and thoughts of MLK so ‘they’ understand why it’s important to join ‘our’ movement? Really — there is “nothing more glaring” than the choice of educrats to send their children to Sidwell or the Lab School? Or — more narrowly — Jose Vilson should have views about an *experience* he painstakingly represented reduced to ‘upset’ and ‘doubt’ — or the implied obligation to “hash out those differences”?
Indeed: as Jesse Hagopian has made the case in any number of (more) powerful ways: the fusion of #BlackLivesMatter and #OptOut activism could catalyze an unstoppable movement. For this to happen — in my opinion — White progressive ed reformers are going to need to check their Whiteness, their patriarchy, and more in setting the priorities and taking the risks for systemic transformation.
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We, the Black race, have so much work to do to save ourselves, that with or without the assistance of others, we must do everything possible to save our children. We are now only 14% of the U.S. population, and with all of the killings, that number continues to decline.
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The black American population is not declining, neither in sheer numbers not in population share.
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Bobbie, I have no conception of what “race” means except for “human race.” So, if you will, please help me understand what “Black race” means. Is “Black race” somehow different than “human race.” If so, how? Thanks a lot!
And, oh, this really made me sad…
http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/bernie-sanders-black-lives-matters/2015/08/08/id/669195/
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Is #BlackLivesMatter really so closely associated with Teach For America? Heartbreaking if that is true! I would like to hear a response from those in the organization. I posted a link to this discussion on their official facebook page.
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I wouldn’t go so far as to say BLM as a movement is associated with Teach for America of the education “reform” movement in general.
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#Blacklivesmatter in Los Angeles is not. In LA it is lead in part by professor Abdluah from CSULA. A proud union member and also a leader in the Ethnic Studies Now Movement.
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That is good news. Thank you for clarifying, Jose.
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Diane,
It’s been a while since I responded, but I truly believe if you were to partner with someone from the black community with your level of prestige, together you might be able to impact the thinking within the black community. I have been trying quietly here in South Carolina to no avail. As was mentioned previously there are people who have been bought off by the reform movement, and they are not allowing the truth to be heard. The media is absolutely no help because it appears that they too are in bed with the corporate gangsters from both parties. The rape and disintegration of public school is at hand, and only a complete change of leadership on both the federal and state level can stave off the demise and de-professionalization of the teaching profession. Teachers must vote everyone who has held office for more than two terms out of office, without concern for their party affiliation. Three million teachers united can wreak havoc on the election, with or without the union. Yes black lives matter, and equal education is a right, not a privilege.
Ian Kay
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Definitely, there is a commonality and more movements like this should join the battle to save public education.
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There are several issues involved in melding public school support and BLM. This is not an automatic fit. As with everything in the United States, race is an issue, even when one wants it to be the “human race.” Of course talk, for then you will see why TFA and Black Lives Matter might be compatible.
This was also an issue in the sixties during the NYC teachers’ strike. Labor and Black has been an issue forever. Everyone needs to understand the framework on which individuals are building ideas. I know Black educators who see the charter movement as essentially undermining Black power. And others who will have no truck with public schools for the same reason. To think that Black Lives Matter would not be a mix of both groups is not realistic.
I support BLM and public schools. That is enough. Everyone else on this site will make their own choices.
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P. S. I find it interesting that the writer of the letter is from CA. Living here I have found a rather interesting detachment from the racial intensity that existed in the Midwest, South, and East. Racial divides in thinking and outlook were the stuff of existence. Maybe it is because we were all more directly in contact. CA certainly has its own history, but I have to practically drag it out of people. Not so elsewhere.
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Has not the NAACP been accepting “donations” from Gates? Is it unreasonable to assume that the TFA leaders of BLM have also been taking money from Gates and other rich, white backers who support Clinton, Bush, etc.? Should we be surprised to see them play a hardball attack against Bernie Sanders and then lob softballs at Hillary? No. They’re sellouts.
Black lives matter. Black Lives Matter does not.
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Sadly, I don’t see the Black Lives Matter movement as an ally with those who are fighting the corporate assault on public education. The problem is the leaders of Black Lives Matter will not go against Obama. And with Obama pal Arne Duncan firmly in the corporate corner we know where Obama stands.
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It would be great if Black Lives Matter included the fight against corporate school reform in their platform. We have much common ground.
By the way, I don’t think two BLM members with Teach for America backgrounds taints the whole social justice movement. BLM is an autonomous organization. There are no marching orders sent from a central hub to each chapter. Even if two folks are TFA – even two prominent folks – that doesn’t mean the majority of activists support that position. Moreover, there are plenty of ex-TFA recruits who hate TFA now that they’re out.
The bottom line is that corporate education reform consistently targets and violates the civil rights of people of color. The media and policymakers would have you believe all civil rights organizations are on the side of the privatizers and standardizers. This is not correct. Ask those 11 brave folks in the Bronzeville area of Chicago going on a hunger strike to save their last community school. Ask those folks in Puerto Rico camping out in front of their schools to stop them from being torn down. Ask Journey for Justice, Seattle’s NAACP chapter or the majority of LULAC. We are born allies. Let’s help each other succeed.
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Joshua Liebner’s post was very well written & very accurate. We know that Obama, nor Arne Duncan have been supportive of public education, nor of public school teachers. We need to take back our profession, stop incessant testing, and start teaching again, the profession in which we were well trained to be a success.
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“There are black folks dying in the streets in the United States — but BLM activists need a lecture about the works and thoughts of MLK so ‘they’ understand why it’s important to join ‘our’ movement? Really[?]”
Yes, really. Why? Because, for example, more significant than “black folks dying in the streets in the United States,” is black children dying in their homes in the United States, dammit! But then a black adult or black juvenile killing a black child doesn’t rise to the level of inciting BLM to engage in confrontational activism to demand social justice?
http://abc7chicago.com/news/no-arrests-days-after-fatal-shooting-of-girl-9-in-ferguson-missouri/950720/
And be reminded there is an education equivalent to mostly black folks “killing” their own children, as the massive Atlanta test cheating scandal so clearly demonstrates.
Undeniably, King poured himself into advancing humanity, not a black racialism. Accordingly, black folk do not have some inalienable and exclusive lock on King. Black folk should be open to leaning about King from any people anywhere in the world. But sadly, frustratingly, far too many black folk behave as if the Civil Rights Movement was a competition to win social justice at white folk’s expense. They behave as if King lead a war in which black folk won and white folk lost.
In an earlier time it was, for example, Frederick Douglass who poured himself into advancing humanity and warned of setbacks toward that end black racialists would spawn. In spite of having been born into slavery, Douglass emerged from that inhumane institution with his humanity intact, and Lincoln and the whole country and parts of the world benefited. Just think what the outcome for humanity’s advancement might have been had Douglass had the black racialist mindset of, oh, say, a Jose Luis Vilson. Or if King had had the mindset of a Jose Luis Vilson.
More than most, black folk today should epitomize the wisdom for the benefit of people everywhere that 1) a social system, if pushed too hard or far, will push back; and 2) make a social system a loser, then the social system will invariably figure out how to win, thus inciting even worse vicious cycles. But puzzlingly, frustratingly, such wisdom appears totally lacking among black racialists.
So allow me to be clear: NPE mustn’t get entangled in promoting any BLM racialist agenda on account of intimidation or white guilt or other such other nonsense. Black racialists’ sankofa in one matter, obviously an important matter for those who keep themselves stuck in that particular orientation. But the far greater matter is advancing black children’s future and humanity, in spite of it being a matter upon which the first black President of the United States leads a frontal assault.
Note: I have here used the terms “black”, “black folk,” “white” and “white folk” for convenience in communicating. Again, I have no conception of what “race” means, if for no other reason my great niece, a recent arrival into the world, won’t let me. Somehow, in just three generations, The Universe arranged for her to descend from people of the world. So, dare slap a “race” tag on her, well, I’ll just have to come at ya.
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Hahaha! Mr. Johnson, so wait a minute, I’m being compared unfavorably to MLK Jr. and Frederick Douglass by someone who, after seven paragraphs of speaking on black matters, pretends not to see race?
What’s more, maybe you don’t want to invoke NPE in your messes. http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/2014/08/3812/
Be well.
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People accused King of being what you call a “racialist”, although they probably didn’t use that word. The white supremacist right had yet to establish it as a rhetorical buzzword. People also accused King of not focusing on “black on black” crime. I don’t doubt that you would have, too.
When Emmett Till was murdered, “black on black” homicide existed. Would you have told the people who protested his murder to shut up because of “black on black” homicides?
83% of white homicide victims were killed by other whites. What if I were to counter your protest of the killing of a white person by a black person by citing that number and telling you to shut up unless and until that percentage drops much, much below 83? How would you feel about that?
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Wow, Ed. Thanks for this bit that must have fallen to the cutting room floor of the old Colbert Show til you rescued it for these archives.
I’m not sure whether I’m more ashamed to think that folks of color might read your comments on this page and think they speak for ‘your’ movement, or more ashamed to wonder, even for a moment, if they might. I’m heartened, in any case, only to suspect that you do not speak for NPE.
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You got it, I do not speak for NPE. I speak for me, as Advocate for Quality in Public Education. Mine is an advocacy not predicated on promoting any manner of win-lose, us-vs-them racialism simply because, again, I have no conception of what “race” means.
For me, this resonates… http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm
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Thank you, Ed, for confirming that you do not represent NPE — a sense I’d gathered from a variety of signals including, but not limited to, a variety of position statements that dispute your view. I’ll venture with equivalent bravery that I don’t speak for NPE either.
I wonder, given that you “have no conception of what ‘race’ means,” if you might wish to look into it as an “Advocate for Quality in Public Education.” Interestingly, the statistical majority of American public school students and their families self-identify in ways you insist they must not — or, perhaps, concede you are unable to understand. It surely must be difficult to advocate for people you either will not or cannot see.
This makes me wonder how much more impactful your advocacy could be if your conception of “Quality” left some room for what many of us think of as “Justice.”
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Chris, I appreciate your comeback.
In my paradigm, justice is part and parcel to quality. Among other matters, if no justice, then no quality. The converse is also the case. I suspect yours is very narrow view of quality and justice and related other matters.
Now, I don’t get what you mean by “a variety of position statements that dispute [my] view.” However, I suspect it may relate to your misinterpreting what I said, perhaps filtered through what you subconsciously wish I had said.
I said I have no conception of what “race” means. I did not say I do not see “race.” Two very different matters. Fact is, if one wishes to self-identify as a particular “race,” to proclaim to The Universe that one is this or that “race,” then one should expect The Universe to say: “So, you want to be seem as something I did not create you to be? Do you not understand I created you from ‘star stuff’ (thanks, C. Sagan) to be a human being endowed with capacity to continually evolve and develop in relationships with other human beings by love, compassion, sex, justice and many other human qualities? But since you insist to be not that, to be not the human being I created, and instead be a ‘race,’ then, well, okay, but be forewarned: I, The Universe, will reflect back to you, and bring your way, with certainty, consequences of being the ‘race’ you proclaim to be.”
As I also say: Funny how The Universe seems to work.
Did you read this?… http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm. If not, I encourage you to do so.
Hopefully you will now also concede that your saying “American public school students and their families self-identify in ways [I] insist they must not” is a great, uninformed leap on your part, perhaps yet again filtered through what you subconsciously wish I had said.
In any case, when asked, how do I self-identify as to my “race?” Simple… “Human being.”
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Thanks, Ed. There’s no debate whether ‘race’ was socially constructed and informed; the debate is whether systemic inequities are racially determined and informed, whether they’re a lived reality for the majority of American public school students, whether you’re willing to acknowledge this dynamic in your conceptualization of education and activism, and whether you have the reason or the right to deny — or the capacity and conscience to concede — that these systemic inequities are embedded by precisely the ideology you espouse. For example, you speak — audaciously on behalf of ‘The Universe’ — these precise words:
“But since you insist to be not that, to be not the human being I created, and instead be a ‘race,’ then, well, okay, but be forewarned: I, The Universe, will reflect back to you, and bring your way, with certainty, consequences of being the ‘race’ you proclaim to be.”
I do not think that any other pretty words, or ugly words, will move you from your position. You cause great damage with your views to the possibility of support by the communities and the activists you condemn for those causes you are trying to advance. Best of luck to you, especially when your niece is old enough to explain to you that “That’s not what I meant. That’s not what I meant, at all…”
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Chris,
I expect Ed Johnson would not want me to say this, but he is African American. How he identifies himself is his choice.
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Diane, thanks for making my day; democracy matters. And there is a reason I was able to serve four years with the U.S. Army Security Agency during the Vietnam War Era without becoming a solder.
Chris, where you say “systemic inequities are racially determined and informed,” I say systemic inequities are competitively determined and informed. For me, the insidious form of competition commonly called “racism” is the root cause. It’s all about trying to make someone or some people a loser based on human differences.
I just now heard on the radio that a city council in FL has renamed “Dixie Highway” to “Barack Obama Highway.” Why, I ask? Why not rename the highway that would represent a win-win across the board? Besides, there is a reason Eli Broad gleefully pronounced his elation at Obama’s election as U.S. President. Broad knew those who are stuck in a black racialist ideology would merely follow alone, or at least not question, President Obama has lead the frontal assault on destroying public education of behalf of Broad, Gates, and similar others.
Wish I had time to say more but just now I must be off to contend with Atlanta’s mostly black Board of Education members and superintendent for being unwilling to stand in opposition to Georgia Governor Nathan Deal’s scheming to change the state constitution to allow the state to take over so-called failing schools and ultimately privatize them under the auspices of a New Orleans-style “Opportunity Schoold District” (OSD). A very real likely consequence if Deal succeeds is legalization of school-to-prison pipelines.
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Thanks, Diane, for the feedback. With deep respect in general, and agreement in particular that “how he chooses to identify is his choice,” I find it ironic that he hadn’t chosen to identify as African-American but you chose to do so for him. And I find it troubling to assume your choice to do so *seems* to be to imply the validity of his ideas.
Ed, I’m not challenging the way you choose to self-identify, or whether you choose to do so; if it seems otherwise, I regret that. I’m challenging your right to repudiate the choices others make, the marginalization of black activists you espouse, and your denial that racialized systemic inequities are embedded by precisely the ideology you promote. However you choose to identify.
Diane, I am sincerely and respectfully curious: do you agree with Ed’s *ideas* about race, and about social justice, and about the relationship between #BlackLivesMatter activists and the prevailing critique of neoliberal education reform, or not?
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Chris, I long for the day when race no longer matters. That day has not yet come. Race matters very much in our society.
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Chris,
I’m espousing marginalization of black activists? Yet another extrapolation to wishful thinking on your part, I fear.
I become more and more intrigued by your continued ascribing to me what you wish I had said – or espoused, if you prefer. You imply knowing something about my worldview that makes it right for you to tell me what I deny. Strange, but not entirely unexpected of the thinking that tries to impose a certain black racialist conformity. It seems your worldview is incapable to consider, let alone admit, the possibility that my worldview is not your worldview, that my worldview has come to be informed by human variety more so than by the social construct called “race,” that my worldview moved my seeing from the more surface-level “racialized systemic inequities” to the more root cause-level I see as “competitive systemic inequities” that encompass your “racialized system inequities” as well as, say, President Obama’s insidious Race to the Top Competition.
Then even more intriguing you say you “challenge” my “right to repudiate the choices others make.” Stranger, still. I truly am perplexed by why you would want to challenge anyone’s right to repudiate anything or anyone. Does democracy not hold a place in your worldview? In BLM’s worldview? Is “racialized systemic inequalities” all that matters? For me, however, you had better believe I choose to repudiate, for example, Obama’s insidious RTTT. And I choose to repudiate Georgia Governor Nathan Deal’s insidious “Opportunity School District” (OSD). And I choose to repudiate BLM’s activism when that activism rises to challenge anyone’s right to repudiate anyone or anything. Again, democracy matters.
That said – and this is quite the hope I leave with you to understand: In honor of holding to democratic principles, I will defend, say, the right of Vilson and BLM activists to get in Bernie Sanders’ face, and even NPE’s face. By the same token, I reserve to right to repudiate or not repudiate such activism in accordance with my worldview, not yours, not theirs.
Best wishes to you.
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