We are old friends long vested in the struggle for equity in our public schools. His academic credentials have all the bells and whistles, articles, chapters and books to his credit. However it is his love for justice, children, teachers, and our public schools that drives his passion for teaching and learning. This is Dr. Hughes and I occupying the United States Department Department of Education at the Occupy the DOE in DC
On Tuesday night I was a Skype guest at Chapel Hill for his doctoral students. It is an honor and a privilege to call Sherick my brother and friend on the road to save our public schools. Our discussion focused on advocacy, activism, civil rights, and race. I say you can judge the health of our pubic schools by the things our education policy makers focus on. Today I am reflecting on the tragic news unfolding in Charleston South Carolina where 9 Black innocent souls engaged in prayer in the House of the Lord were taken in a rage of race hatred. Make no mistake about the fact that our Public School System and Civil Rights are linked. While our nation's Education Policy makers have chase test scores and standards they have failed to make Civil Rights the corner stone of our public school system. Testing, Common Core standards will not heal our nation. We need a deep conversation about Race in our nation, and the place for that conversation to begin is in our public schools.
Today's walk from New Haven to Bridgeport is for my brothers and sisters in higher education who reject silence and apathy.
Walking to DC,
Jesse
Today on my walk I was singing that old Civil Rights standard "We Shall Over Come" I sang it with my Grandfather in 63 at the March On Washington, I sang it in Selma many time with my fellow bridge crossers. I particularly love the version sang by the More Head College Glee performers in 2009 > https://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=aaplw&p=we+shall+over+come+utube <
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