tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10004193.post398725228474110182..comments2024-03-27T20:39:56.082-05:00Comments on Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas: In the Fallout of the Pandemic, Community Schools Show a Way Forward for EducationAngela Valenzuelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16377527828841110131noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10004193.post-35707639289659402672020-07-17T22:37:33.623-05:002020-07-17T22:37:33.623-05:00I was a supporter of the idea for many years, and ...I was a supporter of the idea for many years, and even brought it to Albuquerque when I was on the school board. While I still think the basic concept is good, in too many instances it has simply provided the means for the non-profit industrial complex to take over the management of poverty through public schools with public funds. This privatization puts too many public policy decisions in private hands with the driving force being contractual and budgetary rather than the elimination of poverty. Maintaining and increasing funding means little if any advocacy or critique in the face of problematic practices or policies within the schools. I have seen abusive principals and teachers go unchallenged by service providers. Communities become even more dependent rather than building their own capacity for self organizing and advocacy. As schools have been closed down, as in Chicago, or regionalized for the sake of efficiency, they become less and less "community" and more and more institutional, full service factory villages. Parent engagement is measured by how well they deliver the child to the service providers, and fill out all the “needs” surveys used for funding. When school buildings closed down due to the pandemic, entire communities found themselves cut off from essential services, food, health care and learning. What we need is neighborhood schools that work in partnership with their neighborhoods, that have leadership and staff from their neighborhoods, where supports, services, recreation and sustenance are neighborhood owned and run, where the neighborhood and families are the context and content of curriculum, where building socially just, economically viable and healthy neighborhoods is the shared goal. These are the community schools we need. Miguel Acostahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13828353891541387629noreply@blogger.com