Mercedes Schneider writes here about the plight of two experienced Black educators who were fired by District of Columbia officials for refusing to adopt a scripted “no excuses” program developed by the Relay “Graduate School of Education.” I put scare quotes around the last four words because Relay is not really a graduate school of any kinds. It was created by a group of charter chains to teach the methods favored by charter schools—strict discipline, no-excuses, and the pedagogical strategies to raise test scores. Unlike real graduate schools, it has no campus, no library, no faculty with earned doctorates, no programs in research and the social sciences.
The educators—one of them a veteran principal—objected to the Relay approach and thought it contributed to the school-to-prison pipeline. They were fired, and they are suing, all out of their own pockets. I will help them as best I can. Tom Ultican write about them here.
Schneider wrote:
Below are excerpts fron a lawsuit put forth by two former employees of DC’s Boone Elementary School, who took issue with DC Public Schools (DCPS) higher admin wishing to impose controversial scripted and harsh practices at the direction of the so-named Relay Graduate School of Education (“graduate school” as a brand name and worth as much as my legally changing my own name to “Mercedes Schneider, MD” to deceptively promote the idea that I practice medicine).
Former Boone principal, Carolyn Jackson-King, repeatedly voiced her concerns about DCPS pooling lower-income, predominately Black schools under the jurisdiction of Relay and the fact that the administrator overseeing this requirement was formerly with “no excuses” KIPP schools (as in highly-scripted conformity at the expense of developing critical thinking and self-value for low-income students). Jackson-King even collected data to support no need for this concocted “Relay remediation” plan for Boone students, to no avail. Within one year, she was brought from being a principal deemed worthy of mentoring others to one released from her duties as principal and given the lowest rating of her career.
Fellow Boone employee and director of strategy and logistics, Marlon Ray, was arguably singled out and punitively required to work in person throughout the pre-vaccination period of COVID and later terminated due to “reduction in force” after he filed a 2020 whistleblower suit with the Office of Inspector General (OIG) about Relay, including contracts and payments under two distinct codings and that did not line up.
Jackson-King and Ray are suing DCPS and requesting a jury trial “to remedy the effects of the illegal conduct described [in the suit]” and to “award damages for back pay and other monetary losses” incurred by DCPS “[having] violated the provisions of District of Columbia law recited [in the suit].”
The lawsuit itself is 35 pages long and is posted at the end of this piece. I wish I could post the entire document as I believe it is worth a full read for its value on many fronts, including how those in education reform are able to all-too-quickly position themselves in upper administration and through their connections promote other entites selling ill-informed ideas that are contrary to sound educational practice; how such education businesses are often particularly positioned to prey on lower income students and students of color; how genuinely concerned, career-invested stakeholders are often wrongfully punished for voicing their concerns and seeking remedy (including being told that the issue should be kept “in house,” a strategy also often employed by domestic abusers), and how the underdog often has to pay out of pocket to seek relief in the courts.
Please continue reading. The educators acted ethically. The district punished them for acting ethically.
This is so outrageous. Is there a single school that is predominately white that uses the “Relay” method? Is there a highly regarded private school for the most privileged students that uses these methods? Is there an affluent suburban school that does?
Even Success Academy had a “kind and gentle” version of no excuses in their schools that had disproportionately affluent and white students (when compared to their other schools with virtually no white students where Kindergarten and first graders were being given out of school suspensions at extraordinarily high rates.) One only has to read the articles that quoted the shocked and distressed parents of students who had been in Success Academy elementary schools for years when they suddenly got to a new Success Academy middle school with a principal who thought he was supposed to treat all students at this middle school in the same manner that the students in the middle schools in Harlem where he was trained at were treated. That principal was summarily replaced.
MLK or DESANTIS, ONE HAS TO GO! Said MLK: “We have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice. The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor – both black and white, here and abroad.”
SUBMITTED TO BE READ AT TODAY’S SPECIAL SCHOOL BOARD of Broward County, Florida MEETING WORKSHOP (399 words) May 3, 2022:
Florida’s new DOE czar, Manny Diaz, Jr., and governor Desantis define CRT indoctrination as;
“imposing or putting a student in a situation where they have to either accept or admit something they’re not responsible for,”
“pushing or imposing a specific view on a topic,”
teaching lessons that foster “hatred of the nation,”
or telling children they’re “inherently racist.”
Are each of us here today willing to die over CRT?
Trump, Desantis and Gaetz said “real” Americans must be willing to die over CRT!
Do you know who else was willing to die over CRT, and did?
MLK.
We must remove MLK’s writings, or that of Desantis, one must go:
MLK or Desantis?
Arguably, there’s MORE evidence of WOKENESS and potential to cause white shame in the writings and actions of MLK than any other.
The telling of MLK’s story and actions, his jailings, beatings, illegal wiretappings, and eventual killing must be banned.
No words are more deserving of being banned than MLK’s!
MLK is “WOKE,” like DISNEY.
MLK speaks directly of CRT, without naming it.
MLK sought to INDOCTRINATE all of America in his WOKENESS.
Said MLK:
“We have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice. The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor – both black and white, here and abroad.”
We also must stop teaching evolution to comply with this anti-CRT law.
Most persons think evolution is about –
Firstly, – “competition,”
Secondly – about “optimizing outcomes,” and,
Thirdly, about “survival of the fittest.”
Each of these three is scientifically untrue.
Period.
These BIG-3 Scientific UNTRUTHS were formulated in the 1860’s to try to scientifically justify chattel slavery and white supremacy.
These BIG-3 untruths were created by the first libertarians, Spencer and Galton, who coined the terms “survival of the fittest,” and “eugenics.”
Their rationalizing of inequity and racism led to a deep Western “eugenic bias” and the use of students as the modern equivalent of Smallpox Blankets.
Why must we be “willing to die over CRT?”
To keep historians from, inevitably, branding it eugenic elder genocide and a crime against humanity when our politicians kept schools open and banned mandatory masks, testing, and vaccinations to intentionally – in their own words – increase “natural herd immunity!”
In conclusion, postpone all book approvals!
#MLKoverDESANTIS
#MLKtrumpsDesantis
#MLKversusDesantis
#MLKvsDesantis
#MLKorDesantis
#MLKvDesantis
#martinlutherkingjr
#martinlutherking
#martinlutherkingday
#MartinLutherKingJrDay
#martinlutherkingjrmemorial
#EugenicBias #EugenicsBias
#SouthernARYANISM #momssupportingmoms #Moms4Liberty #desantisdestroysflorida #jailDesantis #Deathsantis #deadlyDesantis #FascistDesantis #DesantisCOVIDGenocide #DesantisCOVIDeugenics #COVIDeugenicGenocide #bannedbooks #browardcounty #STOPdesantis2022
#STOPdesantis2024 #STOPDesantis
#DesantisAryanism #LibertARYAN Libertarian #1stLibertarians “First Libertarians” #Libertarian #Federalist #FederalistSociety #Federalism Federalism #JohnBirchSociety “Scientific Racism” #GOPCOVIDGenocide
STOP #TrumpDesantis2024!
#survivalofthefittest #Galton
“Herbert Spencer” #evolution Galton #evolutionarypsychology #education #evolutionarybiology #HerbertSpencer #Eugenics Eugenics #ScientificRacism
#mentalhealth #March4OurLives #students #studentlife #studentmentalhealth
When is the Republican ‘Little Red Book’ due to be published?