LULAC Education Leaders Share Their Vision With Education Secretary Cardona

Friends:

LULAC is getting a HUGE response to this press release. 

Please share widely.

Note at the bottom the suggestion where we call for a moratorium on high-stakes testing and call for a system based on authentic, performance-based assessment. ☺

-AngelaValenzuela

LULAC Education Leaders Share Their Vision With Education Secretary Cardona

Nation’s Oldest and Largest Latino Civil Rights Organization Welcomes a New Approach to Advance Learning in America

Washington, DC - Education leaders of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) today issued a combined statement highlighting their objectives and goals which they are forwarding to newly confirmed Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona.

Caroline Sanchez Crozier - LULAC National Education Chair

“On behalf of the LULAC National Education Committee, we extend our sincere felicidades on his appointment as Education Secretary. We live in an amazing time of change and opportunity, and we take great pride in your leadership and look forward to advancing with you the equitable success of all Latino students. Dr. Miguel Cardona represents an opportunity to rewrite the history of English-language learners’ underachievement as one of systemic oversights and failures inaugurating a fresh vision together with fundamental changes that his appointment will bring to vulnerable and marginalized communities across the country.

Also, there is the promise of a new narrative of success for native language students and the encouragement of preserving their foundational language and culture that should be valued in a country of multilingual and multicultural populations. With this appointment, LULAC sees an opportunity to address and work on persistent challenges that have plagued our educational systems and students. The National Education Committee stands with Commissioner Dr. Cardona in moving forward an agenda of equity, leadership, and innovation for Latinos.”

Dr. Angela Valenzuela - LULAC Higher Education Task Force Co-Chair

“This is an opportunity to reinstate the Title VII Graduate Fellowship program to prepare masters and doctoral students’ preparation for careers in bilingual and dual language education programs and the profession. As importantly, we must affirm the need for Ethnic Studies by providing support and funding to LEAs and IHEs for both the development of curriculum, undergraduate and graduate teacher preparation and teacher professional development. My final ask of Secretary Cardona as a major priority is to incentivize the establishment of Grow-Your-Own Latina/o educator pathways into the teaching profession.”

Dr. Theresa Montaño - LULAC Higher Education Task Force Co-Chair

“We look forward to working with Secretary Cardona on important education-related initiatives. These include safe, sane and healthy reopening of schools, colleges, and universities. Latinx students, teachers, and faculty should be assured socially distanced classrooms and offices, access to vaccines and continued technological support.

Also, we call for reducing and/or eradicating student debt, freezing tuition hikes, securing affordable housing, and ending student food insecurity as core components of a quality higher educational experience for Latinos. Equally vital and long overdue is increased funding for Hispanic Serving Institutions, particularly for Latinx faculty hiring, retention, and salary equity. Finally, we urge Secretary Cardona to place a moratorium on high-stakes testing for Latinx students PK-university and instead, substitute this with authentic, performance-based models for assessing student learning. This is a far more culturally-equitable approach that treats Latinx students fairly and affirms their life experiences.”

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About LULAC

The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights volunteer-based organization that empowers Hispanic Americans and builds strong Latino communities. Headquartered in Washington, DC, with 1,000 councils around the United States and Puerto Rico, LULAC’s programs, services and advocacy address the most important issues for Latinos, meeting critical needs of today and the future. For more information, visit www.LULAC.org.

Statement Regarding the NAACP’s Resolution on a Moratorium on Charter Schools

Glad to see this.  Long overdue. Now National LULAC needs to do the same—that is, draft and support a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools—particularly since Latin@s are not only massively targeted by charter school operators, but also because the siphoning off of taxpayer dollars into this sector are threatening the very viability of our public schools to function adequately which is where most school-age Latin@ children may still be found anyway. Let us all strengthen our public schools, not by ending, but by mending, them.

Both LULAC and the NAACP could support the funding of partnerships (not charter schools) that connect universities, K12, and our community-based institutions to work together in order to BOTH strengthen schools AND communities. This is what our national NLERAP effort consists of that is captured in our book, Growing Critically Conscious Teachers.

AngelaValenzuela

c/s

Breaking News: Charter Resolution Ratified by @NAACP National Board

Posted on October 15, 2016 by Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig in Charter Schools // 1 Comment

Statement Regarding the NAACP’s Resolution on a Moratorium on Charter Schools

CINCINNATI – Members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Board of Directors ratified a resolution Saturday adopted by delegates at its 2016 107th National Convention calling for a moratorium on charter school expansion and for the strengthening of oversight in governance and practice.
“The NAACP has been in the forefront of the struggle for and a staunch advocate of free, high-quality, fully and equitably-funded public education for all children,” said Roslyn M. Brock, Chairman of the National NAACP Board of Directors. “We are dedicated to eliminating the severe racial inequities that continue to plague the education system.”
The National Board’s decision to ratify this resolution reaffirms prior resolutions regarding charter schools and the importance of public education, and is one of 47 resolutions adopted today by the Board of Directors. The National Board’s decision to ratify supports its 2014 Resolution, ‘School Privatization Threat to Public Education’, in which the NAACP opposes privatization of public schools and public subsidizing or funding of for-profit or charter schools. Additionally, in 1998 the Association adopted a resolution which unequivocally opposed the establishment and granting of charter schools which are not subject to the same accountability and standardization of qualifications/certification of teachers as public schools and divert already-limited funds from public schools.
We are calling for a moratorium on the expansion of the charter schools at least until such time as:

(1) Charter schools are subject to the same transparency and accountability standards as public schools
(2) Public funds are not diverted to charter schools at the expense of the public school system
(3) Charter schools cease expelling students that public schools have a duty to educate and
(4) Cease to perpetuate de facto segregation of the highest performing children from those whose aspirations may be high but whose talents are not yet as obvious.

Historically the NAACP has been in strong support of public education and has denounced movements toward privatization that divert public funds to support non-public school choices. “We are moving forward to require that charter schools receive the same level of oversight, civil rights protections and provide the same level of transparency, and we require the same of traditional public schools,” Chairman Brock said. “Our decision today is driven by a long held principle and policy of the NAACP that high quality, free, public education should be afforded to all children.”
While we have reservations about charter schools, we recognize that many children attend traditional public schools that are inadequately and inequitably equipped to prepare them for the innovative and competitive environment they will face as adults. Underfunded and under-supported, these traditional public schools have much work to do to transform curriculum, prepare teachers, and give students the resources they need to have thriving careers in a technologically advanced society that is changing every year. There is no time to wait. Our children immediately deserve the best education we can provide.
“Our ultimate goal is that all children receive a quality public education that prepares them to be a contributing and productive citizen,” said Adora Obi Nweze, Chair of the National NAACP Education Committee, President of the Florida State Conference of the NAACP and a former educator whose committee guides educational policy for the Association.
“The NAACP’s resolution is not inspired by ideological opposition to charter schools but by our historical support of public schools – as well as today’s data and the present experience of NAACP branches in nearly every school district in the nation,” said Cornell William Brooks, President and CEO of the NAACP. “Our NAACP members, who as citizen advocates, not professional lobbyists, are those who attend school board meetings, engage with state legislatures and support both parents and teachers.”
“The vote taken by the NAACP is a declaratory statement by this Association that the proliferation of charter schools should be halted as we address the concerns raised in our resolution,” said Chairman Brock.

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Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities. You can read more about the NAACP’s work and our six “Game Changer” issue areas here.