You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." - Matthew 22: 35-39

The Church Speaks to Public Education Justice

As we think about whether American society embodies Jesus' teaching that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, we need to be concerned about public schools, the primary institution where we have agreed to nurture and shape God's precious children. Public schools are our largest public institution, serving nearly fifty million children.

In the national conversation about public education, our role in the church is special. We are concerned about our schools as an ethical and public policy matter. How do they embody attitudes about race and poverty, power and privilege, and cultural dominance and marginalization, and how do disparities in public investment reflect these attitudes?

The United Church of Christ has spoken prophetically to name poverty and racism as among the primary causes of injustice in our nation's schools.  General Synod 15 warned: "While children from many areas have comfortable schools with all the educational trimmings, poor and ethnic minority children often face overcrowded and deteriorated facilities, and a lack of enrichment programs or modern technology." General Synod 18 cautioned: "Because the poor and their children are disproportionately people of color, the educational inequities in our public schools reinforce the racial/ethnic injustices of our society." General Synod 23 proclaimed public school support - and advocacy for the same - as one of the "foremost civil rights issues in the twenty-first century." General Synod 25 called all settings of the UCC to do justice and promote the common good by strengthening support for public institutions and providing "opportunity for every child in well-funded, high quality public schools."  

 New Resources from the UCC Justice & Witness Ministries

 The National Council of Churches has released a series of new short video pieces,  An Alternative Vision for Public Education, created with leadership by UCC Justice & Witness Ministries, as discussion starters in congregations. Embedded here today we feature Public Schools, Part of the Community or Marketplace? 

Each six-seven minute film features a short introduction by Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, the Council's General Minister, followed by a focused conversation by education historian, Diane Ravitch—education historian, and Dr. John Jackson—civil rights attorney and equal opportunity advocate. Here they are posted together along with a study guide. The films are:  Educational Opportunity for All, Public Schools and the Common Good, Public Schools, Part of the Community or Marketplace?, and Supporting Our Teachers.

• In a December Town Hall in Washington, DC, religious and public education leaders spoke to public education opportunity as a moral imperative. The United Church of Christ Justice & Witness Ministries was one of the sponsors of this event that featured our own Rev. Bernice Powell Jackson, Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon from the National Council of Churches, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.  Read about this event in a recent Witness for Justice column, Educational Justice: The Heart of a Good Society.
  

• The UCC Justice & Witness Ministries 2012 Message on Public Education is now posted on-line.  Titled, "Why the Conventional Wisdom on School Reform is Wrong and Why the Church Should Care," this annual beginning-of-school resource is intended to help members of our congregations explore pressing concerns for public education in the United States in the coming year. Although in the past we have printed copies and mailed them to all UCC congregations, this year's resource is available only on-line due to fiscal constraints.

• Here are concise but comprehensive talking points from the UCC Justice & Witness Ministries on what Congress and the Obama Administration ought to do to correct injustices in federal programs like the No Child Left Behind Act and the Race to the Top Competition.  

• June 2011: Economic challenges are overwhelming for many children today. Two UCC web pages explore the issue... Poverty and Public Education explains how child poverty undermines academic success and how our current technocratic-entrepreneurial philosophy of education harms the schools that serve our poorest children.  Here also is a special page,  The Situation of Children in this Recession. An October 10, Witness for Justice column examines federal and state budget priorities as they affect children and public schools.
  

 News and Key Articles ...

• January 8, 2012 was the tenth anniversary of the signing of No Child Left Behind. Many important reflections on the ramifications of the law have appeared in the news.  Here are some especially interesting commentaries:

• FairTest: NCLB's Lost Decade for Educational Progress: What Can We Learn from this Policy Failure?
• Diane Ravitch: "NCLB: The Death Star of American Education," Bridging Differences blog, January 10, 2012.
• National Council of Churches Committee on Public Education and Literacy,  Ten Moral Concerns in the No Child Left Behind Act . This piece, written in 2005 and slightly updated in 2009, remains absolutely timely.

• Here is Helen Ladd's important piece from November, 2011:  Education and Poverty: Confronting the Evidence.  Ladd is a professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University and one of the co-conveners of the Broader, BOLDER Approach to Education. 

• The education historian, Diane Ravitch, presented a very moving keynote address at the National Opportunity to Learn Education Summit in Washington, DC, on December , 2011.  You can read the text here.

• November 2011: Education sociologist Pedro Noguera explains how poverty and school achievement are woven together and how society can break through in A Broader and Bolder Approach Uses Education to Break the Cycle of Poverty.  
  

• UCC Justice and Witness Ministries marched in the July 30 Save Our Schools Rally in Washington, DC.  Here is a report of the day and the article published in United Church News.

 From Our Partners

• The National Opportunity to Learn Campaign is a group of civil rights partners advocating for justice when Congress reauthorizes the federal education law. Please to sign onto the OTL Campaign's Declaration of Opportunity, an effort launched at the December, 2011 National Opportunity to Learn Education Summit. Here is our own up to date information about about Opportunity to Learn, and a short, excellent resource, Opportunity Gaps in Public Education Must Be Closed.

• February 22, 2011: The Forum on Educational Accountability (FEA), a 153 member alliance of which the UCC's Justice & Witness Ministries is a member, released this statement, All Children Deserve the Opportunity to Learn.  The statement calls on Congress to work with states to remedy pervasive disparities in school conditions and resources when it addresses the long overdue reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.  FEA calls on  Congress to recognize that closing opportunity gaps is key to closing achievement gaps.

• The United Church of Christ Justice & Witness Ministries is an active partner with the National Council of Churches Committee on Public Education and Literacy, which has created and posted on its site important resources such as a 2010 Pastoral Letter to President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and   Ten Moral Concerns in the No Child Left Behind Act.

• On July 26, 2010, seven prominent civil rights organizations released a powerful critique of the Administration's public education policy proposals. They are the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law, the NAACP, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Council for Educating Black Children, the National Urban League, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and the Schott Foundation for Public Education.  Called the Framework for Providing All Students an Opportunity to Learn through Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the piece "offer(s) critiques of federal efforts that would: distribute resources by competition in the midst of a severe recession; advance experimental proposals dwarfed by the scope of the challenges in low-income communities; and promote ineffective approaches for turning around low-performing schools and education systems.”   For more information, check out the new Opportunity to Learn Campaign website, and read this summary by Jan Resseger, the UCC's Minister for Public Education and Witness.

•  UCC's United Black Christians releases A Public Education Manifesto at General Synod 28... The United Black Christians' manifesto calls on all congregations of the UCC to redouble efforts to promote safe spaces for learning and community engagement, assure sufficient and equitable financial resources for public schools, and develop leadership and parental involvement.  A series of speakers in the plenary on the final afternoon of General Synod 28 in Tampa proclaimed the goals being lifted up by UBC, and in a moving moment, called on all educators to stand and receive the applause of the delegates and visitors present. 

• May 2011: Here are new talking points, The Inconvenient Truths About Turning Around Schools, from the Broader, BOLDER Approach to Education campaign. Two pages... short and sweet. Here is just a taste: "Strategies that misidentify the causes of poor educational performance will continue to alienate good teachers, discourage students and parents, narrow the curriculum, and encourage gaming of test results. Sound policy... addresses the factors that influence learning both in and outside of school walls. This short, attractive resource frames the conversation simply and clearly.

Key Resources on Specific Issues of Public Education Justice

• Federal policy to reauthorize federal education law follows Race to the Top philosophy.  Check out our page that traces the direction of today's federal school reform policy.

• Looking for materials on the importance of passing the DREAM Act?  Check out our page on Immigration and Public Education.

• Summer 2011:  Economic challenges are overwhelming for many children today.  Poverty and Public Education is a UCC web page that explains how child poverty undermines academic success and how our current technocratic philosophy of education reform harme the schools that serve our poorest children.  Here is also a special page, The Situation of Children in this Recession.

• Suddenly collective bargaining rights of public employees are under attack in several states including Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Tennessee. These include attacks on state affiliates of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.  Learn more about attacks on teachers and teachers' collective bargaining rights, and check out our new web page, Public Sector Workers.

• The film, Waiting for Superman, has been hyped due to its creation by Davis Guggenheim, who also made the climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth.  Waiting for Superman also won an Audience Award at Sundance.  If you plan to see the film and/or to discuss it with a group in your congregation, you might also want to take a look at some of the resources we have posted about the film, Waiting for Superman. 

UCC Resource Archive 

 Annual Messages on Public Education

• The UCC Justice & Witness Ministries 2012 Message on Public Education is now posted on-line.  Titled, "Why the Conventional Wisdom on School Reform is Wrong and Why the Church Should Care," this annual beginning-of-school resource is intended to help members of our congregations explore pressing concerns for public education in the United States in the coming year. Although in the past we have printed copies and mailed them to all UCC congregations, this year's resource is available only on-line due to fiscal constraints.

• Here is the Justice and Witness Ministries 2011 Message on Public Education.  If you are wondering how public schools are being affected by programs like Race to the Top and the other huge competitive federal stimulus programs, or if you are wondering about what we still need to do to protest the test and punish impact of the lingering No Child Left Behind Act, the reflection, "New Federal Public Education Policies Undermine Justice, Eliminate Democracy, and Shatter Community," is written to address your questions and connect the dots. 

• UCC Resource explores immigration and public schools ... Justice & Witness Ministries 2010 Message on Public Education explores the politically charged issue of immigration as it affects public schools and children who are new to our country, their communities, and their schools.  As primary civic institutions, public schools reproduce the strengths and also the injustices in our society.  It is important for us as faithful citizens to reflect on ways we can work to make public schools more equitably serve all children.
• Justice and Witness Ministries' annual resource, the 2009 Message on Public Education, lifts up the importance of schools to form each whole child, created in the image of God, in contrast to the test-and-punish philosophy of the federal education law, No Child Left Behind, that has dangerously narrowed the curriculum in schools serving America's poorest children.  A second key article challenges us to evaluate justice in charter schools according to values of access, equity, and public purpose.  If you would like additional printed copies for discussion in your congregation, please contact Jan Resseger (216-736-3711) or ressegerj@ucc.org.
• Here is our   2008 Message on Public Education that explores several important concerns in public education through the lens of the common good.

Occasional Pieces 

• Witness for Justice: January 16, 2012, Educational Opportunity: The Heart of a Good Society.
  
• Witness for Justice: October 10, 2011, Wondering About Our Priorities.
• Witness for Justice: February 7, 2011,  Sad, Sad School Reform debunks the myth that private contractors manage schools more effectively than public school districts.
• Witness for Justice, October 11, 2010, Not Waiting for Superman.
• Witness for Justice, March 8, 2010, Research Rejects School Reforms Being Pushed by Obama Administration.
• Witness for Justice, October 26, 2009, "They Stole our Public Schools and They stole our Democracy..."
• Witness for Justice, May 18, 2009, Please Don't Leave Your Children's Educaton to Us Alone.
• Witness for Justice, December 15, 2008,  Supporting Good Public Schools.