Other People’s Children – a case for saving public education
By Allison Mahaley, MSA
We have a lot of heavy lifting to do as a progressive, moral community to stop hate from becoming normalized and letting our government and governmental agencies be demonized to the point we lose our democracy. In fact, we have to find solidarity.
As an activist, I wear many hats in various roles. Currently, I am about to complete my two-year term as the president of Orange-Durham Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. It is through this role that I learned about both sides of the coin of Christianity. On the one-side Christians have warred for centuries literally creating hell on earth through their proselytizing and geo-political dominance –these are the ones I was the most familiar with. You know as well as I do the anti-abortion, Christian Nation, Donald Trump anointing, dominion-ist I refer to. Well – what I have learned is that the proverbial THEY – that is Christians – are not all like that. There is another side to the coin. Through my work at AU, it has been my honor and privilege to be guided, provoked, inspired, encouraged and sometimes reigned in by some extremely smart and capable mostly Christian religious leaders. I have learned about religion and religious tolerance through my work with AU, and I have found comfort in this.
My role in AU has also afforded me the opportunity to study deeply the role the religious right (often referred to as the Evangelicals and now the Radical Right) has played and continues to play in purposefully dismantling public education. My passion and devotion to the sacred institution of public education is how I got involved with AU when I first became an activist. I was a teacher. And I am also a devout Humanist Unitarian Universalist – a religious minority.
Right after Charlottesville, I helped organize a panel discussion regarding the removal of a Confederate Memorial outside of a courthouse one county over in Alamance. The memorial stands about 100 yards from the school where I last taught. Through my research and work, I understand deeply the direct connection between white supremacy, the religious right, and public education.
I reached out to the National AU office to ask them to send out a notice that this panel discussion was happening and to encourage folks to attend. They did it. A notice went to all NC members of AU that Alamance County was holding this event. Almost immediately, one of our local chapter members fired back – copying me. “I followed the link in order to find out who is actually hosting the event in Graham – a group which doesn’t have an apparent mission connection to AU or separation. I say this because I’m receiving these anti-hate appeals from every interest group I follow, and I wonder if the mission of each group is being muddied. My own passion is church/state separation, and I like thinking that AU has laser-like focus on that.”
In my analysis of this response – here is a comfortably wealthy, white man failing to see the connection between two issues: white supremacy and the separation of church and state. He came to Americans United as a gay person who has lived the full effect of the religious right demonizing him for decades, but what does the religious right have to do with symbols of systemic racism?
The panel occurred and overall, it was a highly successful event, except, it was Christo-chauvinist. I learned that word from a Jewish social justice organizer. It’s a good one. Christo-chauvinist -only Christian faith leaders present. I guess I still find it amazing how the assumption that a deep and abiding faith in Christ will make every thing better and that Christianity is the only religion safe to publically lift up. Personally, I really had to stretch past feeling marginalized religiously to hold onto my hope for solidarity if they were going to be all Jesus-y. I heard from several gay people who turned out for the event who felt the same way.
So how do we find solidarity? How do we get to a place where we can build power across diverse groups of people for the greater good?
Lisa Delpit is a Harvard educated teacher and theorist whose groundbreaking book , Other People’s Children, laid the foundation for cultural competency in classroom teaching. Cultural competency simply means understanding what assets and deficits children, ALL CHILDREN -bring into a classroom when their teacher does not look like them. It is the idea that awareness can break down barriers and in an atmosphere of acceptance, we can move forward together.
Delpit writes, “Acquiring the ability to function in a dominate discourse need not mean that one must reject one’s home identity and values, for discourses are not static, but shaped, however reluctantly by those who participate within them and the form of their participation. Many who have played significant roles in fighting for the liberation of people of color have done so through the language of dominant discourses, from Frederick Douglas to Ida B Wells, to Mary McCloud Bethune, to Martin Luther King Junior to Malcolm X. “ This is at its core – process theology, personal growth theory, whatever you want to call it – it is the idea that people can change and be changed by experiences.
So, let us start with this idea that both teaching and learning are liberating experiences. Teaching in a secular setting (ie all public schools) demands promoting both critical thinking and collaborative exercises. Critical thinking and collaboration were mandated by what is known as the Common Core Curriculum. Secular public schools used to hold the promise of creating an informed citizenry for our American society.
But believe me when I tell you – schools are institutions where racism flourishes -whether you are in North Carolina or North Central LA. So schools are places activists for social change know they can get leverage. And that is what has been happening. Activist for both liberal and conservative causes have been tearing at the fabric of public schools.
I was officially employed as a public school educator from 1999 – 2014. It was during this tenure in the trenches of public schools that I had my eyes pried open to systemic racism, the effects of it on learning, and how it played out everyday in every way depending on school leadership. I saw the anger and resentment in the hearts of white fathers and mothers who had to share resources with poor and minority children long before Trump unleashed the alt-right. It opened my heart and my mind to the deep work that had to be done on behalf of other people’s children.
Schools are also very top down institutions – there is not much about working in a school system that is democratic except electing a school board. Everything else that has to do with power is either officially codified in top down structures, or is part of an unseen culture that is dangerous to even acknowledge – especially in states with no unions. Regardless, I am not a person who likes to bump up against seen or unseen power structures.
So these power structures also have a lot to do with why I left public education to become an activist, but these unseen and unspoken power structures are what Lisa Deplit’s work is about, and why understanding cultural competency is a great place to start with dismantling racism and building a better world that is #NeverTrump.
Public schools could be the embodiment of that -except they are not. Let me walk you back to just post Brown v Board of Education – when America decided to integrate schools, but didn’t. Then we were forced to integrate schools and did it brutally and mean-spiritedly. Then there was a moment that finally created space for black, brown and white kids and families to be together – but that hasn’t gone so well – so now we are back to neighborhood schools, and magnet schools, charter schools and the absolute worst – we are even sending money to religious schools. The effect of all this is back to segregation.
I ask, how has this narrative that schools are failing been so successfully perpetuated that now – schools are literally failing.
This big ole convoluted mess is what actually brought me into activism.
Why are we, the people of the United State of America unable to guarantee a free and appropriate public education to other people’s children? I am going to suggest that one reason is that as parents – we have a laser-like focus on our own children and in so doing, we have pushed aside the ideal of the “greater good.”
I know I did. I know I felt the crushing weight of being forced to send my kids to rural schools because we couldn’t afford any thing else. The fear that school was actually damaging my child, that he was emotionally unsafe there, and that his teacher was clearly minimally trained, gripped my heart every single day and it was crazy-making.
And so, I used my own white privilege to get him out. I got him better because it was my duty to have him taken care of. My laser-like focus was on my single issue – my precious son who deserved a great education. I got him into a better school. I got him identified as gifted and talented. I got him all he needed. At the time, I did not know the words “white privilege,” and I had no idea that was what I was doing – but it was absolutely just that.
My son is 27, so by the time he got to high school and college, I had a deep understanding of institutional racism and how it works. That is the funny thing about being “woke” – once you start seeing how institutional racism works – you can’t stop seeing it. It is every where! And that too is crazy-making because no one person, no one personal choice or sacrifice or policy change can fix this.
Yet, my argument is this: guaranteeing the best possible educational opportunities and outcomes for Other People’s Children is the best assurance for the safety, the freedom, and ultimately the pursuit of happiness for ALL our children – because eventually children vote, they pay taxes, they will either take up arms or refuse to take up arms to either defend or attack this country. Ensuring the best possible outcomes for all children should be our number one social issue because the loss of access to quality, secular education in classrooms that nurture collaboration with diverse groups of students is our best hope for preserving our democracy.
I repeat for emphasis – public schools which are governmental institutions, are places activists work for social change because they know they can get leverage there. And that is what has been happening.
One reason we are here politically is because the radical right hatched a plan about 60 years ago to dismantle public schools – they started simply because they were against co-mingling races and refused to concede the evolution argument, but they have upped their game, changed their strategy a bit and have snookered us all into participating in what is now widely known as the privatization movement. This is the idea that schools be taken out of the hands of locally, democratically elected school boards and funding given directly to parents to “shop around.”
It is a complicated scheme that is being executed in my home state of North Carolina straight out of the ALEC playbook. The name of their game is school choice.
Former Governor Jeb Bush said this about school choice just a few weeks ago, Everywhere in our lives, we get the chance to choose. Go down any supermarket aisle – you’ll find an incredible selection of milk. You can get whole milk, 2 percent milk, low-fat milk or skim milk. Organic milk and milk with extra Vitamin D. There’s flavored milk — chocolate, strawberry or vanilla — and it doesn’t even taste like milk. They even make milk for people who can’t drink milk. Shouldn’t parents have that kind of choice in schools?
Sounds great doesn’t it? Let’ s give everyone the opportunity to choose.
When this first happened in NC, back in 1996 it was considered a nice little experiment where innovation could thrive. It quickly became apparent that NC’s model was terribly flawed because funding for charters comes directly from local school budgets but they are not governed by local school boards. In the beginning, NC said no more than one per county – and of course, they reversed that shortly thereafter. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools ranks NC at a score of 157 out of a possible 244 point-scale and put us at 14th in the nation for Charter school policy. This ranking keeps climbing because of our unstoppable NC GOP Legislature that keeps diverting funding for traditional schools and sending it toward charters and vouchers.
NC Charters get both state and local tax dollars but how they are governed varies wildly – some are for profit, others non-profit, some are owned or financed by millionaires, others run by parent boards, some have been shuttered because of embezzlement and corruption, others have been recognized for educational excellence – so there is a huge variety, making it hard to generalize because of it. The proponents of charters have sold parents on both sides of the political aisle on this idea that in order to have a voice in their child’s education, they have to abandon traditional public schools and go elsewhere. Choice over voice.
So please, let me reiterate – there has been and continues to be a movement to end secular public education pushed for and endorsed by the religious right since integration started and our current administration in Washington, DC and in North Carolina continues to advance that agenda by changing policy around charters and school vouchers. And if we are not careful, it will happen. There will be no more public school as we know it. There will be no place for our children to be around a diverse cross-section of our community on a regular basis.
But not yet – this week most kids went back to school. As of this moment – about 88% of North Carolina children attend a traditional public school. Last year it was 93% so it is safe to say that families are leaving traditional schools. Still, school funding makes up the majority of both state and local budgets.
Given the recent event in Charlottesville, I would like to offer this: The religious right has fought to keep men at the top of the heap since religion was invented. Many, though not all, Christians embraced and participated in Jim Crow segregation even refusing to allow blacks to cross the threshold of their churches. The anger and fear of white men loosing their place at the top is what we saw in Charlottesville and is what all attempts to promote equality have been met with since slavery was started. Even Thomas Jefferson’s own children were kept in slavery by the “one-drop” rule. One drop of black blood was meant to keep all interracial children in bondage and to murder any black man who even looked at a white woman.
Timothy Tyson is a Duke University professor at the Center for Documentary Studies, and the Secretary of the North Carolina NAACP Education committee. His most recent book The Blood of Emmitt Till caused me to have sleepless nights -to literally wake up with a start and have to catch my breath. His book is the true story of tracking down and interviewing the woman who falsely accused Emmitt Till of assaulting her. The mere accusation resulted in the 14-year-old child being lynched and his attackers going free. It is chilling. The subsequent public viewing of young Till’s body, face beaten beyond recognition, throat cut with wire, chunk missing from his head, called a nation to action during the civil rights movement.
This overt deep racism is fairly easy to get your head around – it is as despicable and as repulsive as White Nationalists marching with tiki torches in Charlottesville, Virginia. However, current manifestations of white supremacy, recognizing institutional racism, and the manifestations of it in our daily lives and committing to changing that is much more difficult and frightening and risky – it makes us vulnerable.
It makes us feel fragile and worried as we learn how much we have to unlearn and admit that as white people we have benefited from this system. Even if we weren’t rich, at least we weren’t black. People of color have born the brunt of this world order for long enough. And understanding it, shining a light on it, and resisting the temptation to keep it in place– this is our work – not the work of the black community.
As you consider that this is the work of the white community, please think about the sordid story of the Texas textbook monopoly. Texas has always had an undue amount of influence over what gets included in textbooks – one that includes fighting over evolution, The perspective of the Westward expansion, and American exceptional-ism – most of this is a topic for another day. But thanks to Texas textbook contracts – funded and propelled by deep lobbying efforts of the religious right for decades, so many of us have had it hammered into our heads that slavery was perpetrated as blacks selling other black Africans who were war prisoners into slavery – that those taken out of Africa (as Ben Carson referred to as migrants) were done a favor because of our superior culture and Christianity could save their souls, and oh – Christianity is what gave white men dominion over this entire continent. Dominion theology is a political movement to make America a Christian Nation – it is used to justify not worrying about climate change or science. Many powerful politicians are Dominionist.
This idea that a few should reign superior over the rest is so deeply contrary to the America I know and love. It seems the radical right are intent on not only tearing down the wall of separation between church and state, but also running rough shod over the country by taking away voting rights, inviting corruption, and so much more. We can longer afford to only have a laser-like focus on just separation issues because the right has cunningly made the stakes much higher. They have successfully divided communities about public education and how to even have a conversation regarding that.
This is no longer about just religious freedom – it is about the way America does business. In order to understand it, in order to resist, we have to find solidarity and build power. We should have been doing just that all along.
Ex-teacher on a Crusade 