Public Education

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."

Let's Take Back the Conversation about our Public Schools during this 2012 Election Year

Quote of the Month: May 2012

"Ours is the land of opportunity—that phrase is a core part of our national story. But opportunity is determined by public attitudes and public policy... From large-scale initiatives and programs (the G.I. Bill or Head Start, for example) to the funding for a coach in a local park, opportunity is created through some form of specific and deliberate public action." --Mike Rose, Why School?

The story we hear in the media about public schools frequently does not reflect the reality in the public schools we know. Until quite recently, until the punitive consequences of the No Child Left Behind Act were well under way, the term "failing" schools had not even entered the lexicon. Now our talk about public schools is filled with blame and negativity. Surely we need to be strong advocates for improving public education, but the way we make the critique and the language we use matters.

Here is a new resource intended to challenge the way our elected officials and the candidates for public office talk about public policy around our schools. In Repairing the Breach: A Just Agenda for Public School Reform—Questions for Federal & State Candidates in this 2012 Election Year, the front page explores a little background on the issues. The back page is a series questions you can carry with you to a candidates' night or use as you write a letter to someone already serving in public office. The questions will require candidates and public officials to probe beneath the rhetoric and discuss their core values regarding our children and our public schools. If, however, you receive responses that present children as mere factors for a test-score bottom line or that scapegoat school teachers, we hope you will respond by asking those who seek to represent you to respect public education as part of the common good—publicly funded, universally available, and publicly accountable. We hope you will also ask those who seek to be our leaders to help society find a way to live into our responsibility to guide, nurture, and educate all children and secure their civil right to opportunity through public education.

Sign on New National Resolution Opposing Obsession with Standardized Testing

April 24, 2012: Sign on to a statement calling on federal and state policymakers to reduce standardized testing in public schools. The United Church of Christ Justice & Witness Ministries is one of this effort’s sponsors, that also include Advancement Project, Asian American Legal Defense and Education fund; FairTest; Forum for Education and Democracy; NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; National Education Association, and Parents Across America, along with a number of statewide organizations and educators Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier. Add your name as an individual signer. Your organization may also sign on.

Diane Ravitch covers this sign-on resolution in her April 24, Bridging Differences blog.

And here is our related Witness for Justice column, Too Much Test-and-Punish.

New Resources from the UCC Justice & Witness Ministries

NOW PLAYING in May 2012: Public Schools, Part of the Community or Marketplace? The National Council of Churches has released a series of four new short videos created with leadership by UCC Justice & Witness Ministries. The films are designed as discussion starters in congregational justice committees or adult education classes. Each six-seven minute film features a short introduction by Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, the NCC's General Secretary, 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.

The UCC Justice & Witness Ministries 2012 Message on Public Education, "Why the Conventional Wisdom on School Reform is Wrong and Why the Church Should Care," is intended to help members of our congregations explore pressing concerns for public education in the United States in the coming year. This year's resource explores the role of poverty to challenge school attainment.

In a December Town Hall in Washington, DC, religious and public education leaders spoke to public education opportunity as a moral imperative. The event 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.

Poverty and Public Education and The Situation of Children in this Recession are UCC web pages that explore how child poverty undermines academic success and how current federal school reform harms the schools that serve our poorest children.

An October 10, Witness for Justice column examines federal and state budget priorities as they affect children and public schools.

News and Key Articles ...

April 2012: New York City reading teacher writes about damage of testing obsession and test prep on literature classes in Teach the Books, Touch the Heart.

Interested in the history of public education? Retired UCC Pastor and Conference Minister Don Sevetson has published the history of Congregationalist missionary, George Henry Atkinson, who brought religion and public education to the Oregon Territory. You can find a copy of the book here.

Education historian and school reform advocate Diane Ravitch recently visited Cleveland, Ohio. Here is her speech at the Cleveland City Club and her recent blog post about the visit, Desperate Times in Cleveland and Ohio.

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.

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.

The Forum on Educational Accountability (FEA), a 154 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 important resources including a Pastoral Letter to President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

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.
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.
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

Witness for Justice Columns