F.A.C.E. to FACE
F.A.C.E. BULLETIN
04/03/07
April 3, 2007
Thousands of New Scholarships Available for Low-Income K-12 Students
(More scholarships available! See bottom of Newsletter!)
In Baltimore, one school performs miracles, Miami Herald. This is a story of a school that is like many schools we work with…
Special school programs for blacks: racist or essential?, St. Petersburg Times. This is a captivating state of affairs on at least two grounds. Firstly, this lawsuit is almost indistinguishable to the lawsuit in New Jersey, except in Florida the parties involved are not demanding a remedy. In New Jersey the remedy is school/parental choice.
The other remarkable thing about this lawsuit is that it is based on the "uniformity" clause in the state's constitution that was used by the state Supreme Court to throw out the Opportunity Scholarship Program. It reads, "Florida will provide a system of free, uniform, high quality public schools." The plaintiffs argue that the needs of black students are unique and must be given special attention; the OSP ruling says that all schools must be the same...
Harvard University announces Free Tuition..........
Thank you for Stepping Up For Students,
Michael A. Benjamin
Executive Director, F.A.C.E.
Florida Alliance for Choices in Education
Article published Apr 2, 2007
In Baltimore, one school performs miracles
By Leonard Pitts
MIAMI HERALDConsider the neighborhood. Words tumble to mind by way of description. Words like desolate. Words like tough. Words like hard and mean and grim and sad. Words like dead. Bail bonds and liquor stores are what passes for industry in Baltimore. Ragged row houses, many boarded and abandoned, crowd one another like strangers in a bus shelter.
Now consider the girl who goes to school here. Danielle Branche, 16, is tiny, has a pretty smile, and speaks with self-possession about her dreams. "When I graduate, I want to go to either Antioch College in Ohio or Point Park University in Pittsburgh and I want to get my bachelor's in both dance and business management so I'll be able to open my own dance company."
Consider the neighborhood. Consider the child. If they seem not to fit one another, well, that's the point. Welcome to St. Frances Academy. Welcome to What Works.
The latter is my series of columns highlighting that which is helping to improve the lives of black children. The former is a sterling example thereof.
St. Frances (www.sfacademy.org) was founded in 1828 by Mother Mary Lange, a Haitian-born nun who eventually moved to Baltimore, where she used her own money to educate free children of color, which was then illegal.
Nearly 180 years later, the order (Oblate Sisters of Providence) and the school she founded serve more that 300 students. More than 70 percent of them qualify for free or subsidized lunches. More than 90 percent of them go to college.
What makes this miracle? David Owens, a teacher of theology and, like a number of his colleagues, an alumnus, ticks off a few factors: small class sizes, uniforms, discipline, rigorous academics, high expectations. "And then lastly, love. When I scold you - yell at you, they say - it's not because I don't like you. It's because I love you."
In some form or another, every student or teacher says that. "The teachers look out for the students" . . . "It's like family." That sense that teachers are invested in them seems to go a long way toward lifting students who have been taught from birth that they are not and cannot.
"What makes us different," says Sister John Francis, the school's president, "is we're independent. We can do whatever we want, pretty much."
In public schools, she says, "the principals' hands are tied, the teachers' hands are tied" and no one has the freedom to simply do what works. But at St. Frances, they do. For example, the school provides counseling to mend the emotional wounds of kids who have seen mom on drugs, dad in jail, brother murdered. A third of her students, says Sister John, are in weekly therapy.
"My belief is that you can take the smartest kid in the world, but if they've got all these issues, they're not going to be able to focus on their academics until they at least start dealing with the issues."
Across the street from the school is a prison. High stone walls topped by concertina wire. Squatting there massive, ugly and cold. Squatting there like a warning. Squatting there like a threat.
Deonte Tuggle, 17, goes to school in the literal shadow of that threat. Yet he is a young man of offhand confidence. He speaks with punctilious precision, his words not just grammatical, but delivered with a studiously correct enunciation reminiscent of Data from "Star Trek." A way of saying without saying, "See me. I'm not the usual. I'm not what you expect."
"I'm not like most boys my age that live in the neighborhood," he says. "I'm not out there smoking, drinking and getting high and all that kind of stuff. I don't let people dictate my life and tell me who I am as a person. Only I know who I am as a person."
Consider the child. Consider the neighborhood.
Now, consider the possibilities.
Special school programs for blacks: racist or essential?
The Pinellas board's depositions for an upcoming trial turn on the question of access vs. outcome.
By THOMAS C. TOBIN, St. Petersburg Times
Published March 25, 2007
________________________________
For decades, school districts have organized around a simple idea: Whatever you give to white students, give it to black students, too.
Put both groups of students in the same schools. Expose them to the same teaching. If they struggle, give them the same help.
In the Tampa Bay area and across the nation, this was how educators atoned for the long-ago sin of relegating black children to inferior schools.
Now, in a class-action lawsuit that has Pinellas County's top educators on the defensive, the plaintiffs say the policy of equal access has failed the school district's 20,000 black students.
Black kids, they contend, will need uniquely tailored programs if the district ever hopes to erase an education gap that has them lagging behind every other ethnic group in school performance.
The case of William Crowley vs. the Pinellas County School Board - seven years old and finally headed for trial - may be the only one of its kind in the nation.
"What's unique about it is the unadorned claim that if you have an achievement gap, you are violating the law," said Michael Kirk, a Washington, D.C., lawyer hired to help defend the district. If that were true, he argued, then every district with a significant number of minority students would be liable.
The call for a unique set of programs to help black students has been a central theme in recent days as lawyers prepare for a two-week jury trial starting July 9. The plaintiffs' attorney, Guy Burns of Tampa, has summoned the entire Pinellas School Board for depositions, as well as superintendent Clayton Wilcox and his top deputies.
In the four depositions to date, Wilcox and three board members have stayed on message: The district provides equal opportunity for all students to learn, they said. What students make of that opportunity is up to them.
If the district does any tailoring, they said, it's with an eye toward individual student needs, not race. They said the causes of the gap are too varied and complex to be solved by a single program or set of programs for black students.
At one point as he appeared to choke back emotion, Wilcox argued that giving black students something special would imply they are, by nature, less able than their peers.
"I know a lot of people want to ascribe things to us, but I will tell you I think we go out of our way to look at kids as kids in this district," he said. "I know we do at the highest levels. I know we do."
He added: "We don't just go into a school and say, 'You know what? We got a bunch of black kids here so we've got to teach (a different way).' I think that would be racist behavior. I absolutely won't do that. You can't make me do that."
The lawsuit was filed in August 2000 by William Crowley on behalf of his son, Akwete Osoka, then a 7-year-old student at Sawgrass Elementary School in St. Petersburg.
The boy, who is black, had faced academic problems that were "typical of those difficulties commonly faced by students of African descent," the lawsuit said. It alleged Pinellas failed to provide an adequate education to black students, in violation of Florida law and the state Constitution.
The case has since become a class action, meaning the plaintiffs include all black children who attend or will later attend Pinellas public schools.
Initially supported by the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, an activist group in St. Petersburg, the challenge has come to be embraced by a broader segment of the black population, Burns said.
It is a case grounded in numbers, none of them flattering.
Last year, 67 percent of black public school students in Pinellas scored below their grade level on the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test - nearly twice the percentage of low-scoring whites.
The graduation rate for black students was a dismal 46 percent in 2005, and black students perennially are more than twice as likely as nonblacks to be suspended.
In a three-hour deposition this month, Burns asked School Board member Nancy Bostock if the district had addressed the gap with any programs designed for black students.
"Our programs are designed to address a student's academic needs, not their skin color," she answered.
Did she think the numbers warranted special programs?
"No, I don't."
Did she think Pinellas black students received a high-quality education?
"I believe many black students in Pinellas County do receive a high-quality education."
What did she think of a system that failed to graduate more than half its black students?
"I think it would depend on what those students availed themselves of while they were in the system," said Bostock, whose black son is officially considered a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
In other questions, Burns suggested that the district's current methods weren't working with the 19 percent of its students who are black. He also played off the district's contention that it is legally obligated to provide every student an opportunity for a good education, not a good outcome.
He asked board member Linda Lerner whether there was some flaw in the way the
opportunity was being presented to black kids.
"No," she answered.
Everyone agrees the gap is large and troublesome, Burns said in an interview. They differ on who is responsible for it and how far a school district should go in trying to fix it.
"There's a big philosophical rift," Burns said.
Part of the difference is in how the two sides interpret the numbers.
While Burns has pointed to aggregate numbers that show the gap in stark relief, Wilcox points to subsets of numbers that show smaller groups of black kids making modest gains.
While Burns points to the graduation rate, Wilcox says the statistic "is not a fair measure of all that goes on in a system."
Another example: Last year, 13,105 black students took the reading FCAT. Burns focuses on the 8,780 who scored below grade level and sees a huge problem. District officials see the problem, too, but point to the 4,325 black students who did well in reading.
How can that be, they ask, if the district is systematically discriminating against black students?
For district officials, the debate is nothing new. They've had many of the same arguments among themselves.
At a retreat with the School Board in January, Wilcox found himself in the minority when he argued that the district should be making a special effort to improve the performance of black students. He wanted it stated prominently as a goal in the district's strategic plan.
Several board members said they did not see why black students should be highlighted over other kids.
"That is the one group right now that we really have to be publicly focused on," Wilcox responded. "It's 20 percent. That's one out of every five kids in this district."
But the superintendent found himself making the opposite case in the deposition with Burns.
"I don't look at kids based on their race; I look at individual kids based on their needs," he said. "Eighty percent of my kids are some other race."
Kirk, the district's lawyer, explained that the district and Wilcox find themselves caught between two positions.
Legally, they are "only responsible for putting a good education out there," he said. But as educators they want to do more.
He said of Wilcox: "He feels like they need to do everything in their power to get good results."
VALUE ADDED
Harvard University has announced that from now on undergraduate students from low-income families will pay no tuition.
In making the announcement, Harvard's president Lawrence H. Summers said, "When only 10 percent of the students in Elite higher education come from families in lower half of the income distribution, we are not doing enough. We are not doing enough in bringing elite higher education to the lower half of the income distribution."If you know of a family earning less than $60,000 a year with an honor student graduating from high school soon, Harvard University wants to pay the tuition. The prestigious university recently announced that from now on undergraduate students from low-income families can go to Harvard for free ... no tuition and no student loans!
In addition, Harvard announces reduced fees for students from families with incomes between $60,000 and $80,000.
To find out more about Harvard offering free tuition for families making less than $60,000 a year visit Harvard's financial aid website at:
Harvard University Gazette: Harvard expands financial aid for low- and middle- <javascript:dl('http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/daily/2006/03/30-finaid.html
or call the school's financial aid office at (617) 495-1581.
6,000 New Scholarships Available for Low-Income K-12 Students
Florida P.R.I.D.E. and Children First Florida, Florida Corporate Tax Credit scholarship funding organizations, will award approximately 8,000 new scholarships for the 2006-2007 school year to Kindergarten through 12th grade students who qualify for the Federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program. Applicants must be currently enrolled in a public school, unless they are entering kindergarten or first grade. Those who qualify may receive up to a $3,750 scholarship for tuition at an eligible private school of their choice or a scholarship for up to $500 for travel expenses to an out-of-district public school. The scholarships provide a fresh start for students who are not succeeding in their current school setting.
This year, $70 million in scholarships will be awarded to qualifying Florida students until funding is exhausted so applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. Income limits for scholarship recipients are determined by household size. For example, a family of four can earn no more than $37,000 to qualify. To apply, log on to www.floridapride.org or call (813) 258-2700 for Florida Pride and www.scholarshipfunding.org or call (904) 247-6033 or (407) 702-2607 for a Children First Florida application.
The Florida Corporate Income Tax Credit scholarship program provides K-12 scholarships that currently allow over 14,000 low-income Florida students to attend an eligible private school or out-of-district public school. One hundred percent of corporate contributions go directly to funding scholarships – not a single penny can be used for administrative costs.
Children First Florida - Serving Orlando, Central Florida, Jacksonville and Panhandle
P.O. Box 49099
Jacksonville Beach, Florida 32240
(904) 247-6033 or (407) 702-2607
cforster@scholarshipfunding.org
Florida P.R.I.D.E. - Serving Tampa Bay, South Florida and Marion County
P.O. Box 1670
Tampa, Florida 33606
(800) 782-9140
info@floridapride.org
School Year 06 - 07 Income Eligibility Guidelines
Persons in Household
Annual Household Income
2
$24,420
3
$30,710
4
$37,000
5
$43,290
6
$49,580
7
$55,870
8
$62,160
9
$68,450
10
$74,740
11
$81,030
12
$87,320
13
$93,610
For each additional person, add
$6,290
Effective from June 1, 2006 to June 30, 2007
Florida Alliance for Choices in Education (F.A.C.E)
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