Transcripts For CSPAN2 Urban Superintendents Academy Conference Part 2 20170825

Agenda, dwight jones, my counterpart with mcgraw hill education, who is not here as he is currently serving on his Civic Responsibility of jury duty. I mentioned who is not here but in my brief introduction i would like to share with you how i, we, mcgraw hill education, got here. At the third annual urban Superintendent Academy with asa, and with the opportunity to introduce our next keynote speaker, dr. Mark fidel. You see the role that dwight jones and i work is identify Strategic Partnerships with National Alliances that also align to the core values and mission of our company. For example, as we began four years ago, our transformation from a 125yearold Publishing Company to a learning science company, we identified with one of our longtime partners, aasa, with their work on Digital Learning and transformation and as a result of this alignment we took a lead role, an active partial with their digital and personalized learning symposiums. So our partnership continued and quite honestly maybe that part of me being a proud an honored son of two cuban orphans that instilled in me the need of always wanting to do more and to do good. We continued our conversations with asa and our partnered districts and recognize the significance and issue and addressing needs of equity and access within our districts. So three years ago the concept of urban Superintendent Academy with asa was launched and we, mcgraw hill education, immediately said, yes, count us in. We want to work with you. I personally had the pleasure of attending the year two cohort module for the first time. While i was sitting in the back with a table of elders and for those that do not know what i mean, my cohort three, i turn and i look at mort, i say, and i ask, did you feel that . And come to think of it, that was an awkward question with me just asking that to a table of the elders at that moment but i look at him and say, did you feel that . I said, that was a fire burning inside after one of the sessions. That ignite, that spark, that enlightenment of the purpose of why we are here. As we continued our conversation and planning for this weekend event, reviewing amazing list of speakers we had the opportunity to identify someone else. Dwight jones and i looked at each other, immediately said and thought someone who thought at its core vision and passion of what we do to ignite that fire. That someone is dr. Mark fidel from Kansas City Public Schools. I dont want to go into too much specifics or take away from dr. Bidels presentation the amazing work he and his team are doing but i ask if you havent done so already, look him up. Take a look. Look at current event. See his recent Strategic Plan released a month ago. It is shortest, yet the most honest 36page Strategic Plan i ever red across. But more important it did not lose sight of why . Because at its focus was Student Learning and people focused. Again going back to the shared commitments of mcgraw hill education and sas. Before i hand it over to our next speaker i would like to close with a quote from dr. Martin luther king, jr. It says, for our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter. Rain, it is my honor to introduce our next speaker, dr. Mark fidel, who is clearly someone who will not be silent. Thank you. [applause] thank you, michael. Well get right into it. Listen, i stand up here hine this podium, and usually im not the type of person that get nervous. But i think as part of it is because im humbled and i think about how far ive come, having the opportunity to listen to our last presenter, and seeing those things play out over and over and over as a student, seeing it happen to my siblings, experiencing it as a teacher. Im thankful that im here today, that i get to talk to you all about what youre getting ready to go into. Oftentimes i come up to the podium and i will start to talk about the journey that i took to get here. But today isnt about the journey that i took to get here. Everybody learned a lot about that last year, and as michael said, there is a lot of Information Online regarding my journey, regarding my life story but what today is about, today is about preparing you all for what i have just walked through and i think some people would say, well you have only been a superintendent one year. What is it that you can possibly offer me . Well, what i can tell you is i know that one year of experience in going into my second year that im much more comfortable doing this job. I want everybody here to know that its a doable job and often times when people come up and they speak, they often approach it from a deficit lens and it is sometimes scares people off because i know people that i currently work with, who were telling me after going through some of the experiences of what they have heard, theyre not interested in becoming a superintendent. That is actually okay too. But if you want to last in this profession, i just simply think there are just some common sense things that you just have to be able to do and so what this presentation will do today is to really help take you through the journey of what weve experienced in my first year in the Kansas City Public School district, but i want to just give you just a brief history. This is a school distribute, in its 150th year, of existence. Its a School District that has been through a lot of suffering, a lot of pain. The community is traumatized. Students are traumatized. Race plays out in a way unlike any other city that i have lived in and lived in a lot of cities, right . Were not afraid to talk about it because the reality is, we have to address that elephant in the room. If we dont, i dont see how you can continue to advance and heal a city. But, what we said we would do differently, and when i say we im talking about my team and i, we were going to make a commitment that we were going to be here. That we were going to give this district the care and the compassion that it needs. And that we were going to be relentless in that. Everybody that i have recruited or, that i have hired, i clearly said to them, there are no safety nets when you get into an executive position. There arent any. If youre going to be a superintendent youre an assistant superintendent, deputy, many of you are executives right now, there is no safety net. If youre taking this job because you are worried about a safety net you wont last, right . At the end of the day i tell people, my safety net is just doing right with the product that i have right now, with the kid that i have right now. And if i can educate these kids properly, develop them in three areas, socially, emotionally, and academically, then the safety net takes care of itself but at the end of the day i told my people you have to be willing to be a martyr. You have to be willing to be a martyr for kids. What does that mean . Now to come into the politics, and politics is a very big part of this job, not succumbing to an adultcentered agenda. That very well may mean you have tough negotiations with your union because we want everything to be focused on students. And at the end of the day the bullseye as michael said, is simply around student achievement. That is what weve done. So, let me see if we can move in here. Slow down. I will share this with you. Last year i remember when i was announced and they called me and said, we have unanimously voted you as the next superintendent of the Kansas City School distribute and in my mind i was just sitting here and i was thinking about all the things that i needed to do. How i was going to come into this distribute, one year, basically turn district. Basically turn everything around. I was working with a superintendent, a prominent superintendent in this country. I want to say he has roughly 65 to 70 superintendents nationally right now, dr. Terry grier. And terry grier taught us that that you are to plant seeds in the morning and cut grass in the afternoon, right . I talk about that a lot. And ultimately i came in with that same approach. But every school districk is different. You have to make a decision how fast or slow you are going to go. Michael talks about how slow or fast. Sometimes you have to do that. If you go too fast, not only are you not moving the School District, youre working on moving yourself out in a very fast way. I learned over this first year that i needed to slow down. And that is the first thing im going to tell you. Slow down, when you get this job. Some of you are in here now, and i know a couple of you are first year superintendents. This is like going from the ncaa to the nba. Thats what this position is. And the pace of being a superintendent, depending on your market, can be overbearing. So you have to be able to slow that down because you have a lot of control. But i also talk about reminiscing on the days of being a teacher. We often take control of our classes and when we do, and i saw myself doing this with the community, a couple of weeks ago, had to have everybody clap. If you can hear my hands, can hear me, if you can hear my voice, clap. [laughter]. Just messing all up, but if you can hear my voice clap one, if you hear my voice, clap twice. What we do then, we slowed things down in order to regain focus, because it becomes chaotic. Youre allowed to do that. Youre allowed to take full control. And so i want to share this video with you. And this talks about at the very beginning what happens as you go into this role. [inaudible] great day for me. Can not sleep last night. Im ecstatic about this opportunity. There is so much that needs to be done for our children and im simply up to the task and i i wt to thank our board. I want to thank the you for giving me this opportunity to serve [inaudible] breaking down mistrust and frustration you have had with [inaudible] so. That was my first day, everybody. I had a press conference. It was regarding providing Early Childhood education, tuitionfree, to roughly 1100 students. It also was a day full of just getting around, finding the opportunity to meet with people but one of the things that i did that was different, we have this area called the jazz district and it is on 18th and vine, right . Yeah, many of you, those of you who have been to kansas city understand that area. So immediately after the press conference, took off my jacket, rolled up my sleeves and we went just hung out on 18th and vine. It gave me an opportunity to get to know the community better. It gave me the opportunity to show the community im just a regular guy, right . Because often times as superintendent, many people who are here that are superintendents will tell you, you tend to be viewed as bigger than life. They see you on the news. They hear you on the radio stations. They see you online. There is a lot of things that people just, they think youre bigger than life. I want people to know that im just a regular guy, right . Im no bigger or better than anybody else, right . And so what i did, was i remember someone told me, they said one of the things you did dr. Bedell you came in initially, you went and shook hands of every single custodian, every single cafeteria, you made them feel like they were going to be a part of the team. This year, we rolled out our Strategic Plan and i have trained everybody in my system on the Strategic Plan. We had a cafeteria worker who told me, dr. Bedell, weve been in this School System for 33 years. This is the first time anybody has invited us to come and to understand what direction the district is going in. This is the first time that i have been able to sit in front of a superintendent and feel like im an actually a part of the plan. And so ultimately everybody, it is all of us in this together, right . And you have to make sure thaw maintain that perspective. I think that is very, very critical. In addition, people are going to make a lot of demand on your time. And, this job will eat you alive if you dont know how to manage your time. And so you need to have a strong executive assistant who can help organize, who knows how to say no to people, right . Because there are people, you dont know what their motives are. Some people it is just, hey, i want to spend time with the superintendent, i can say, hey, i have been in front of the superintendent, and it is not the work that needs to be done. Youre focusing on the wrong things. You have to be able to have somebody who will not allow for you to be moved off of the path of really focusing on students. All we have is time. We dont, i mean it is resource, only resource we have time. How do we utilize it correctly. Often cases for superintendents, its a short period of time. So on my website you can go to our website. Everything weve done is posted. I actually had the opportunity to borrow an entry plan from self people. I went through a cohort like this in chicago several years ago. I was able to learn a lot about entry plans, about leadership stories, about a postentry plan. It is great to learn about it, but when you actually have to be in the position of being a person to execute it, it is a lot different, right . Because ultimately this is your product and ultimately when people take a look at that they will make a judgement on you. Is it a polished document . Does it make sense . Does it speak to what the people in the community are asking for . The entry plan was a simple entry plan. It gave me an opportunity over the first 100 days to get into every facet of my community. Including listening and learning towards and things of that nature. That is on the website, everybody. If you need a copy, we are free, we are open, we are willing to send you whatever we have. I have a peer that works in hickman mill. She is in her first year. I didnt share this with yolanda, i told yo land today, youre a next door neighbor of mine. Everybody that i have you have, because i know how hard it is. I remember how hard it was last year. And going into that seat, even if you are in your current School District and youre moving up into the role of superintendent, it doesnt prepare you for it. It is very doable, like youre a glorified high school principal. That is what it is. Youre interacting with mayor and billionaires and people with a lot of political influence. No different than running your high school. You are over your community. Youre over your area. That is what this job is. Right . But it does require you to be a lot more critical, a lot more tactical. A lot more patient and you cant do it all on your own. You need to depend on people. You have to have strong people who will help you. So, the next piece is, you dont know what you dont know. You cant understand it all. It is a complex job. There is a lot of Historical Context that you need to learn, which means, to me, it is not smart for you to just come in and blow up the place and bring your own team in without figuring out what assets are already available. So it took me seven months. I did not get rid of anybody until past seven months because i wanted everybody to show me whether or not they could do the work. But it gave me a fair amount of time to make a true assessment as to whether or not some of these folks will be part of our team going into the reorg. We have situations folks will come in, blow it up, reorg right away. You catch some heat from the community sometimes. You catch heat from your Board Members. If you take your time, you get to know, you get to listen and learn of people, it makes it a lot easier when it is time to make those moves. People feel you have given them a fair shot. Seven months, from february 1, until rest of this year, we worked with a limited staff. We have a full compliment now of a staff. We were able to get some strong people within the organization to move up. And then some strong people from our side. Here is the advice i would give you. I feel like your cabinet should be 50 50. 50 of people who have been there, 50 of outsiders, that gives awe wellrounded balance, right . I believe the cabinet should be representative of the district that you serve. So having a very diverse population of cabinet members that replicate your district from both racial and gender, gives you a true balance of a team that can Work Together. I think that is very critical. I think as you look at your principles, because that is a very critical position, i have this belief that 70 should come from within. We should have pipelines established and 70 of people moving into the rank of principle, should be people that you developed because you created a strong pipeline. 30 from outside. Of some of those people can be experienced. Some can be brand new. They have just potential to be a strong talent. But that is the advice i would give you on that component as you think about how you want to reorg size your reorganize your school distribute. So we think about an ecosystem. We know, in an ecosystem there is a lot of factors at play. Whether it is working with elected officials. Whether it is churches. Whether it is faithbased organizations. So i want to share with you just a short video of what this, what this looks like for us. On my way to sans city to get uncomfortable to explore how reality is realized. [inaudible]. [inaudible conversations]. Last year with class of 2012, with brain group, he has projects with including your fellow americans and redream project. He interviewed on the mayor on the street where he grew up. So as, uncomfortable as i am here, were about to get more uncomfortable. Needs to be pointed out in the 20th century, kansas city forever alter the physical and Cultural Landscape of the country. One of them built the magic kingdom, a fantasy world offered nonstop wholesome family fun and escape from reality. The other one moved to hollywood and opened. Last one is walt disney of course. Then we have t. J. Nichols, creator of the plaza, first shopping mall. Surrounded by multimilliondollar homes and luxurious country club. Nichols created oasis for the wealthy and Award Winning [inaudible] we have just been awarded first place in the National Association of homebuilders because of the fastest Opening Development in the United States. By just because of the plaza. [inaudible] as we walked we immediately noticed something strange. Currently white people count about 300. Black people count, 4. Going to a world class art gallery. [inaudible] even sidewalks are decorative. Just one mile to the reese, everything changes. Es east. Everything you saw, beautiful lake, kisseds fishing, that is two blocks that that way. Were crossing the street. Behind me there are bars on windows. This is just the beginning. Often called the truth wall. Because there is a major dividing line here that divides whites and blacks. Well explore the area to see how different it is. This is one of the troost signs. Everywhere. The plan to find a place to eat. We found a place that soldo nuts and hamburgers. Our doughnuts come out in a steel drawer. There is no place to sit down inside. The white people moved out and, out of the urban core. There are now fewer jobs for the people, for the black people still in here. No manicured lawns, Public Gardens or fancy sidewalks. From here the trrost avenue. I will stop for the sake of time, i know were trying to catch up. This video is available. It is online. I have my Communications Officer here. We can make sure that we get it to you as actual an 11minute video. But we just dont simply have the time. But the fact of the matter is, going into this city, and being able to really develop and understanding what we were up against, all right, the permanence of racism, right . And that dividing line is for real, it is for real. My school distribute serves the innercity boundaries, my school distribute serves. So 92 of the schoolchildren in our School District are on free and reduced lunches. When you go there, it is clear, that other area, west of troost talking about the plaza, where he talked about the black people count of four, white people count a couple hundred, yeah, thats real. That is real. So we knew that coming into this, this was not just going to be one of these jobs where you come in everything is together. Were going to have to do serious work around addressing the troost. One of the things were getting ready to do, were focusing on a truth and reconciliation project. What we said that we would do, we wanted to get a lot of our Community Advocacy groups, kaufman, some of the major funders, to participate in this. We didnt want kcps to be owner of it, because the truth is, i tell people, the School District is not in the position it is because of failed administrators and failed boards. This is an epic failure of a community. This School District was once 70,000 students. It is down to 15. And then there is emergence of charters. We have enough charters in kansas city right now would make it the 14th or 15th largest School District in the state of missouri. So not only we dealing with that competition of 22 to 23 other Charter Schools. We also have 14 other School Districts that surround our School District. Our kids are all over the place, right . Why it was really important for me to come in and do a lot of listening to make sure that we were, that we were just listening. So this is what this is about here. Listen, listen, listen. [inaudible] this is wonderful experience for me. I have the opportunity now to hissenning [inaudible]. My goal to really get out into the community and find out the opportunity to talk to the community. Hear from them, get them their input in the district. Saying for me it has to be students rather than adults parenting. I also want to tell you that feels like students, as a senior i think we need more opportunities for our students. We all need opportunity, to really have interesting dialogue around what is working well and how we can improve. We know everyone here is a stakeholder, whether a Community Member or [inaudible] or if there just a partner or a friend within the School District, we have a lot of dialogue, discussion about what is working well, what is not working well, what we can improve on. And [inaudible]. I would like that were able to give feedback. I love that we are able i like that he actually came out to be involved, to find out what is going on with the schools. I love that about him. It is good that you know, i hope he keeps good work, keeps up good work what he is doing. It is, i think it is true to what i thought he was all about, which was that he doesnt make a decision [inaudible]. He really wants to understand is the, what is going on at the bottom level, what we need as a student, as a parent, as a teacher and make sure that he understands because you cant to help us and grow, he has to understand what is going on. This is wonderful process for me as a new superintendent, it allows me to really show my level of transparency and care that i have for this School System as the superintendent. So, ultimately after conducting those 11 listening and learning tours, it became, this is the result of all of that work. This is the post entry plan. Those of you who are in your first year, im certain you have a 100 day plan. You may want a model. We have a bunch back here on this table were willing to share with anybody who is either in their first year or youre getting ready to move into the superintendency. We have copies for but this plan here articulates everything we went through in the first 100 days. The entry plan, combining that in here, along with those 11 listening, those leften listening and learning tours. Those listening an learning tours are in here. Tells us the feedback we received from all 11 of those different events. This is critical. This helps guide you the rest of your year as a first year superintendent. In most cases you dont have a Strategic Plan. You may have one, but i dont know if youre following it. We did have one, but it was, it was written in 2009. It was 398 pages. I just, if it wasnt, it wasnt being used. So when mike said, hey, they have a 36 page Strategic Plan, youre absolutely right. Well focus on a few things. Well do those things extremely well. This Strategic Plan is common sense plan, it is common sense. Do your job, roll your sleeves up, do your job and we can move this School System. There is nothing magical in there, right . Ultimately there are things in the Strategic Plan just as the parents and Board Members said he listens. I do. There are things in the plan i didnt want. I was going around tables lobbying for some of that stuff not to be this. This is what the community said they wanted. Plan shouldnt be about a superintendent. Shouldnt be about a board of education. Should be about the will of everybody participating in that saying they need believes to be done in the city. There is opportunities to insert some things in there. Ultimately plans die or when a board changes. A plan should live on because the community embraced it. They were a part of building it. So they feel a part of something big. We have done that. That is the process weve taken. It has worked extremely well. I will move on this, Strong Communications and Community Engagement department. This is number one thing when i interviewed the board said our communication just not good. We were getting destroyed by the media too. Remember Kansas City Public Schools, second something goes wrong, were in the news. We said well take control. Well control our own narrative. Well not let anybody else tell our story. We went out and we did that. I can tell you the worst story that happened to us last year, because i dont want you to think everything is easy because it is not. I had school buses didnt show up to pick up kid first day of school. I have a whole bunch of media outlets, why arent school buses picking up kids. You know what the saving grace . I had three kids in the School System. They didnt get picked up either. That is what saved me. That allowed for those parents and Community Members to feel that he understands im one of first superintendents in recent history to put his kids in this School System. Theyre having a phenomenal time. [applause] but you have to make sure that you are controlling your narrative. Dont let anybody dictate your story. Because they will. Keep it moving. Because i know were running behind here. Be available, everybody. Be available. I talked about time constraints but in your first year, you simply have to understand that you have to be available. Youre going to lose, my wife knew this. Going into the first year, she was not going to see me. I have gotten a little bit better, not much, but a little bit better, because i have a full team now. Be available. We think that is very critical. Go to your stakeholders. I want to share this because im different. Everybody, this is the point i want to make to you. Use your own style. Everybody in here has your own style. Dont be like the person youre following. Sometimes those people are legendary and you cant replace them anyhow. Go to be who you are. Have your own style. So i want to share this with you [inaudible] superintendent. Has [inaudible]. [inaudible] i dont try to sound arrogant, but i actually won mvp in that tournament. Im just telling you. I know, thats terrible my man. The beautiful part about that was some of the guys who are out there playing were people who dropped out of the school syste system, troublemakers in the neighborhood and i was able to spend some time with those guys and bond with them and tell them i need them to help me to prevent from what happened to them happening to their relatives. The youngsters that are in my School System, and so i found a relationship with a lot of people in the community, just by getting out here and get into the trenches. I think thats very critical. Ms. Allen, im in a skip because we just have, i just want to try to keep us on time. Investing community is something we did. Did some fancy shirts. We were out of one of the Grocery Store and we just went and knocked on doors and introduced ourselves to families in the community and as people were coming inandout of the Grocery Store we sat there and shook hands and help people put their bag in their car, we just found a way to get into the community and interact with them and let them know that we embrace the community. We want the community to also embrace us. Then craft a Strategic Plan. This is not a difficult thing to do. You just need to work with the team, hire you a great Strategic Planning consultant because if you dont get the right one youre destroying a lot of mone money. Theyve done several Strategic Plans, over 100 and it came to me as a recommendation from superintendent, thats where i first met you all. I was get ready to go into kansas city and they give me all kind information not type on my Strategic Planner. Advocate for your schools everybody. Listen here. You want change the narrative, we have a gentleman on 96. 5 the buzz call us out. He sent a video out trashing the School District. Why is the new media given the softball questions. What you take on these row questions. I told my board president that i would never do anything to embarrass this board i called her and i said listen, before i make a mistake and what you know im getting ready to go to the studio in 20 minutes. Within 20 minutes, we responded and said at danny boy, we will be out there 20 minutes. We went out to that studio. Let me tell you about controlling your narrative. He was shocked i came. He was nervous but he immediately gained respect. People had started to type under there, this is why i left the School District. As soon as we gave that response, we immediately ended what could have been an absolute nightmare from a social medias import everybody said how can we help the School District, we admire that the superintendent came out to address this at on and doing on the spot interview. Dont be confused, people will trap you. We did at one time. You dont go doing that think and stuff work that way every time that you dont know what you will walk into but guess what. Danny boy has to volunteer nurse will broadcast area. Hopefully well get not on live tv. Hes not lived up to his obligation. Instead a complainant, be a part of the solution. Build a great team everybody, this is critical. The great team. I feel good my district is in good hands right now. I have a strong deputy superintendent. I have a phenomenal chief operating officer on board. I have a strong legal officer. This cabinet is together and it didnt get like that overnight. It took me a year to get the swipe. I lost a lot of weight between june and february last year. It was tough. Im looking at preliminary data, we have a lot of work to do. To go through the changes we went through last year end still not have the kind of regression regressions, im ecstatic about that. Now we are aligned. We should be able to make a lot more progress than one or two percentage points. If we want to catch up with other districts we gotta find other percentage points. Well just keep moving on. Slow down, we just go back to that everybody. Just remember slow down. Never forget you come from. Most of you were Classroom Teachers at one time. Dont ever lose that perspective. At the end of the day, thats why were here. We are here to serve them and we think thats very critical. Ultimately, youre not alone. We are all support for everyone of you. I have a lot of support around this country. Have Anthony Hamlin messed me up on a bet, i lost to him, whatever. I have a lot of support and you all have that same support. We are here to support you. Heres my information, anything i can do to help you, i know how hard this job is but i know how rewarding it is too. I want you all to know this is a very noble field and a noble position to be in, and if you go in with your heart in the right place, dont worry about, dont let the celebrity status of this position consume you. Dont get a big head. Dont think youre better than the custodian that works in your School System. Just go in there and be humble and be a real person. I promise you, if you do that people will follow you. So thank you everybody. [applause] i want you to know that immediately following our next presentation we will have an hour where we can debrief and ask questions of everything that weve heard today so please stick around for that. As someone said, if you need to go the bathroom just go. Would you keep rolling. My name is Sharon Adams Taylor and im an associate executive director. Im so glad to be here with this cohort. Third time is a charm. I want to say, i wanted to tell you that asa has developed a role that focuses on equity and social justice. Dabbling at it for a while but now it has become a major focus of the organization that asa should be seen as a leader in educational equity. You cant just talk about it you have to be about it. What we need to be is those of you in the room, will be asking you from time to time to do things with us and react to things that were doing because we do want, we see educational leaders as leaders of equity. I had to arm wrestle dan to be able to introduce her next speaker because he wanted to introduce him. But girls win, thats equity. Girls win a lot. I want to point out a couple things. First, i will take real see this humanitarian award, this is and award thats been given for a few years to educators who have advanced women and minority places and leadership. You talk about terry grier. He has mentored about 55 superintendents. All of them, women and minorities into positions of leadership. If you know someone, get someone to nominate you. When you introduced you, you said my superintendent told me to come. Soandso is a colleague of mine and told me about this program. Okay, think about those people. This award honors them and honors those who work on behalf of children in poverty. Theyre out on the table. We have a goal of equity and were holding our first equity summit. Its a superintendent only summit. Were holding it in conjunction with the childrens defense fund. It will be at the historic alex farm outside clinton tennessee. October 14, 13th and 14th. Its a friday and saturday. You can come and get away and wont take up a lot of time. If you are a superintendent and interested and are working on equity already, come with us. This is about action. If you are a superintendent who is not working on it but realizes its important and you want to know more, perfect. If youre superintendent, let them know these are all on the table. Another beautiful thing about this, its not just a deep conversation and dialogue people can have in this historic surrounding, its that i will pay for two nights in a hotel, or pay for your food for the conference and ill give you 500 to defray your cost to travel. You cant just come and sit and eat on me and not do anything. If you know people who are committed, this is out there with a focus on equity. You all know the publicschool demographics are changing. 51 of our students are from lowincome families. The majority of students in Public School are children of color. They live in immigrant families and 7 of our students are undocumented. This equity works. Weve been talking about all day. Its important. These economically socially and racially Turbulent Times means its urgent now. This is when the important and the urgent merge and thats why were here today. Its very fitting that our keynote speaker is doctor john b king junior. You may know him best as mr. Secretary as he was appointed u. S. Secretary of education by number 44, president barack obama. He is now president and ceo of the education trust. So washington d. C. Based organization that spent decades focusing on on and advocating for poor and minority students. Doctor king considers himself living proof of a transformative power of a great Public School education. He was parentless by age 12. School became the haven of stability and structure and support that sustained him. He will tell you that Public Schools literally saved his life. He can tell you the name of the teachers that did that for him. When he was in the seat of power, when he was at the department of education, he did his best to pay Public Education back. Equity, human rights were issues that were amped up. Yall remember that, that seemed like a long time ago but they were amped up. We realize that even more now. Especially issues that impact our students. He was on exclusionary discipline. Guidance on transgender bias, gender equity and career education. Pregnant and parenting teens or those with disabilities in public Charter Schools. The letters were issued on Sexual Violence and ensuring access for all children regardless of immigration status, and on the relationship between health and education and encouraging schools and agencies to Work Together to improve both the health and academic outcomes for children. Thats that whole child, total child thing. Under his administration the Data Collection was issued for the first time the database became available to the public to download. That is like a gift from heaven. Its not just that the government is collecting data, but now we can get it, we can analyze it, we can use it. Many of you may not know this, but we fought really hard for the legislation to be included. Did they beat you down . They didnt beat them down, but im telling you, thats one of the many things that john king has done. Before moving to washington d. C. , he served as commissioner of education for the state of new york. At that time he was the nations youngest education leader and the first africanamerican to hold that post. He has received several awards but the most sacred was the humanitarian award. His work at the state level in new york at the federal level, the u. S. Department of education, and in his current position on the National Advocacy states, hes just doing what is always done, ensuring that children of color are integral to the conversation. Its one of the main reasons he is here to address you today. You begin your journey toward the leadership of urban schools, who deserves this i love Public Education shirt more than john king. Help me welcome him to the stage. Good afternoon everybody so we come together at a wonderful time of the year when the school year is about to begin. Even over these last few days, students have been arriving at school, arriving at classrooms, excited about the new school year, and yet we also have to acknowledge that we come together at the moment that i would argue for our country, we cannot accept as normal. This is not the typical start of the school year. Our children have watched on tv as nazis and the kkk marched in the street. Kids have watched on tv as folks have chanted anti somatic slogans, chanted racist slogans, lifted up racist symbols. Our kids have watched as lives have been taken due to domestic terrorism. Our kids have seen firsthand the way in which our nation struggle over issues of race and bias and the way in which that history remains with us today. We cannot accept that is normal but we must acknowledge it. This year, the start of the school year is different for those reasons. It means all of us are charged with ensuring that when our kids come to school this year they know first and foremost they are loved and they are valued regardless of their race or how much money their parents make whether immigration status or the lgbtq status. We have to send a clear message to every child first in school, we love you and we welcome you here. We also need to put the events they have seen in context. For many, some of their first conversations will be about the events in charlottesville. Some of the first conversations will be about the hatred their kids have seen on tv each night or in their own community. So as they have that conversation, it will be critical to help their students understand the Historical Context for that. Her students need to understand, what is it about our history that is the context for this. They need to understand the context of the horrors of slavery and the civil war and reconstruction of the birth of the kkk, of the imposition of jim crow, they have to understand the context and they also have to understand that that is just a part of the american story, ultimately the american story, we are blessed to say, as one of expanding opportunity. We had to help them understand that Historical Context, not in a sense of defeat but in a sense of purpose, to realize the generations before them have fought against the systems and overcome those systems and have helped us make progress. You cant let cynicism crowd out hope. We also have to teach them they are responsible for that work. They are inheritors of the task of bringing america more fully to a fundamental value around equality of opportunity. That is their job too. So the work of Civic Education and understanding is how bill becomes law. Understanding why its important not only to vote but participate in the political process. Why we must march and be loud of equity and social justice. That too must be a part of what Students Experience in school so we have to acknowledge the start of the school year is different and ask what can we do to make sure that for our students they hear loud and clear a message of love, a message of hope and a message of responsibility. We also have to acknowledge that what happened in charlottesville is one manifestation of racism, but it is not the only manifestation of racism. We have to acknowledge that the educational inequities that we see, they too are a manifestation of institutional racism. They too are a manifestation of the history of bias and inequality, and we can do something about that. Thats why im particularly glad to be here with you because together we can do something about that. Thats what i want to focus our conversation, today on what it means for all of us as educators to be champions of equity. First it means we have to acknowledge the scope of the problem. You cant solve a problem you dont know exists. We have to call out the scope of the problem and acknowledge the achievement gap that face our low income students and students of color. Those gaps arent okay. Even though we have the highest Graduation Rate from high school as a country, we still see ten, 15point gaps for African Americans and English Learners and low income and students with disability. We have to confront the reality that even though we know that post secondary education is absolutely crucial to success in the 21st century economy, affluent kids are six times as likely as lowincome students to graduate from college. We have to acknowledge those gaps. Weve acknowledge the inclusionary discipline is a part of the school to prison pipeline. It is part of the reason that young afghan american men are projected to be more likely to engage in a criminal Justice System and to graduate with a bachelors degree. We have to acknowledge that and then we have to act on those realities. You have to acknowledge those gaps. Weve acknowledge the ways in which schools are a reflection of all of our nations historic challenges around issues of race and then we have to act on those. We also attacked of the reality that if we dont do it our kids lives are at stake. I stand here today and clear as day i will tell you the only reason im skinny here today is because of the difference that teachers in new York City Schools made in my life. My mom passed away when i was eight, october my fourth grade year. I lived with my father who was struggling with alcohol. Some nights he was angry. Some nights he was sad. Some nights he would talk to me, some nights he wouldnt. I remember one night when he woke me up at two in the morning and said its time to go to school. I remember being on the staircase of my house, clinging to the banisters. My father pulled me, couch and said its time to go to school. I didnt know what was wrong with him. His condition got worse and worse. He passed away when i was 12. My life couldve gone a lot of different directions. I easily could be in prison or dead today, but for new york City Public School teachers. Not a lot of Public Officials have in their official bio. I always did because teachers there saved my life. They made school this place that was safe and engaging and interesting and supportive. He made school place where i could be a kid when i couldnt be a kid at home. I was also fortunate at Mark Twain Junior High School to have teachers who gave me a sense of hope and possibility when every message in my life outside of school was counter to that. They saved my life. That is whats at stake for our kids. The future of our society is at stake for exactly the reason sharon said. The majority of kids are eligible for free lunch or kids of color. We failed to educate them and we have no future as a country. But so too, if we fail the children in front of us each day, their lives are at stake. We wont know. My teacher said no, they didnt know what i was going through a home. They just made school this place that made all the difference. We dont know which kids in our classrooms are dealing with Domestic Violence at home or are homeless or hungry. When we do, we have to intervene, but sometimes we dont but we do have the moral responsibility to make sure school is a place where they feel safe and nurtured and supported. So what does it mean . How do we execute on this response. I want to focus on three important things that i think all of us can do together. One is, at the heart of school , its relationship between kids and teachers and the work in which they are engaged. Fundamentally our responsibilit responsibility, yes we have to deal with the buses and make sure the food is served and yes we have to deal with hr office and yes we have to balance the budget and talk to our Board Members, but ultimately, the core of the job, the relationship between teachers and students in the work in which theyre engaged. We had to do everything we cant give our teachers the best support and professional development and training and continue doing everything we can to make sure teachers are prepared to make class great for kids. Weve got to be conscious that too often the work in which our kids are engaged is not sufficient to prepare them for college and careers. We have a project that the education that weve done on assignment. We worked with seven School Districts. We collected thousands of assignments and duties to reflect College Ready aspects. We compared the standards people say theyre working toward to the work that students are engaged in. Everyone was working on writing. They know will be critical to get success in high school and beyond. Of the assignments we looked at a middle school, 6 of the assignments required writing more than a sentence or two. There is this gap between what we say we want and what we do. You can go online and find the report that weve done on Language Arts and mathematics but is the work that students are engaged the work that will prepare them for college and career success . We also know too often lowincome students and students of color dont have access to the very courses that are essential to get into college, much less succeed. The civilrights Data Collection survey rated that we did at the u. S. Education Department Found that lowincome students or students of color are disproportionately likely to attend schools where you cannot even take physics or chemistry were eligible too. You cant even take them. We say we want make sure more young people are prepared for stem careers and yet we have schools where we can take those courses. We know lowincome students are less likely to have the most effective teachers or access to ap classes and dual enrollment opportunities and College Counselors to help them navigate the process to gain admission to college. We can do something about that. Our work has to be about the academic core, the support we provide to our teachers, the quality of work, the courses offered in the work we do to help students aspire to secondary success. Sometimes at small things. Think about the state of louisiana. The state of louisiana has a project where they are planning to make completion of the Financial Aid form a graduation requirement. Students can opt out so families have to sign a form. The form says do you know there are billions of dollars available through filling out the form. If you dont want to fill out you can sign this form, but realize you may be leaving money on the table that your child to use for college. They saw a dramatic increase already. The requirement hasnt fully gone into effect. Theyve already seen a dramatic increase. Young people now understand there is money available for them. Pell grants, scholarships, aid from institutions, money available to them. They are shifting their aspirations about college. That is something we can do. Everyone of our high schools. We can figure out who has completed it, have they done it on time and we can make sure that they get that sense that colleges assessable to them. There is that work on college and career ready academics. The second body of work, this is something i know sharon is deeply committed to, we have to reject the false dichotomy that says all the answers are in school or outside of school. These kids are poor. They come from a singleparent household. What can you expect. Weve all heard that. I was on the two are of a high school when i was state commissioner. I asked the high school whats a principle, whats a Graduation Rate. She said a lot of them are from the Public Housing Development Across the street. I said thats not the question that i asked, but for her that was the answer. Do you know whether from. We cant assume because the low income or the because they speak spanish or because one of their parents are incarcerated, we can assume they cant succeed. At the same time we have to reject the argument that school is all that matters because a hungry child is going to struggle to learn. The best teacher cant be effective for the kid who is in class. We have to acknowledge that we need to do work in schools and work in communities. What does that look like . Sharon has a project around making sure we use the enrollment process each year and registration to make sure families get access to help. Families participating in healthcare, having Health Insurance makes a difference not only for the health and wellbeing of the child but for the family. Making sure our children are getting their Young Children enrolled in precape verde we know the return on investment for prek is 9 1. We know has longterm benefits for their social emotional wellbeing. Theres a study showing Health Outcomes are better in your 20s if you were in quality prek. Thats whats at stake. We have to work on that make sure theres a study done in baltimore on glasses. If you cant see the board and you can read the book, turns out the problem with your academics. I said that somewhat flippantly, but the bottom line is if you help kids get glasses, their academic outcomes get better. All of us in our communities can deliver the message yes, we will do if we can to make sure every teacher in every principle is as effective as possible, and as community, we have to address issues like access to really learning. We have to address healthcare and food access. Many kids this summer hungry. For a variety of reasons. They may be relying on free or reduced price lunch in School Breakfast for their meals. In the summer they dont have access to that. In many cases around the country its difficult to find a school or location where you can get those meals in the summer. The result is the kids have been prepared we can do something about that. We know states allow families to put free and reduced lunch benefit on their benefits card and weve seen much higher participation. Unfortunately, in society we havent been willing to pay for that in every place. Their kids in the state of virginia who are hungry this summer. We can do something about that. As educators, we have responsibility to lead our communities to take that on. We have a responsibility, kids who are chronically absent, whats going on in their lives and how can we intervene to make it different. We also can do something about exclusionary discipline and the impact that has on school to prison pipeline. We can provide training for teachers around issues, we know for example there is a study done last year at yell that showed prek teachers were more likely, watching videos of the same behavior on different students were more likely to identify africanamerican male students in need of intervention then white female students doing the same behavior. What that says to me is not that folks walked in and said i want to discriminate, but that says to me that we live in society in which its inherent in our culture and we have to do work to overcome that implicit bias and that is part of how we tackle the problem. Its developing empathy, creating programs that build empathy so they understand not that we should look the other way when theres discipline issues, but we should treat discipline in schools like we do in our family. We know kids make mistakes and we know they need consequences but the consequences arent enough. We would never say to a kid you did badly on this math quiz therefore no more math for you, but we do that around discipline. We say youre struggling with managing your behavior therefore no no more classroom, no more socialization for you. We can do better. One we have to tackle the academics. Two we have to tackle the things that happen around the academics. Their health and wellbeing and we need to do that in partnership with communities. The third thing our calls to do is be champions for equity. Advocates for equity. Theres a lot we can do in schools and School Districts and with community leaders. We have to be a loud voice for more just society. We have to say to people, actually, condemning the kkk and nazis is a really low bar. Right. Now clearly there are some folks with struggling of meeting that low bar. I understand. But that is a painfully low bar. That is not enough to say you are an ally of justice. You are against swastikas is not enough to say youre an ally of justice. What it means to be committed to an ocean of equality of opportunities is that youre committed to investing in our children and in our young people. Governor brown in california has this important point he makes that equal treatment for children in unequal situations is not justice. Its not just that we need to put the same resources, we need more resources. Thats the measure of whether you are for a more just society. Not just whether you can condemn domestic terrorism. The measure of whether or not youre for a just society is whether or not you want to make sure people have access to healthcare. I want to know not just whether you condemn the marchers in charlottesville, i want to know, are you poor people being able to have healthcare, or do you believe people should die for want of help. Do you believe there are undocumented students have the right to be educated and feel safe and secure in their schools and communities. Weve got to be champions for equity on a broader agenda than just rejecting the most of your expressions of hate. We have to be for an equity agenda that is about a just society that says we are going to nurture all of our young people because we all have a stake in the success of every child no matter their neighborhood or income. The dilemma for us is that we are at this moment for our society that can often feel painful. It was physically sickening to watch what happened in charlottesville. It was physically sickening to see the consequences of mass incarceration in our society. It is physically sickening to think that we are a set society that would allow families and young people to starve, but the question is, what do we, each of us, what do we do about it. Ill close with this point. I was listening to an interview with one of the young people, a campus leader who was out there on the night when folks were marching with the torches and he said, you know, the thing i was thinking about as i was standing there is, are we doing this right. Are we doing what Martin Luther king wouldve done. Are we doing what the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement would have done. His comments about that has stayed with me because i think that is the question we all have to ask ourselves. Many of us in this room, we werent of an age to be on the buses for the freedom ride, but im sure all of us have asked, if we were at that moral moment where would we have been . How would we have stood up. We dont have to speculate on that question. Here we are, will we stand up for our kids. Will we stand up for a just society and the idea that this is a society that believes in equality of opportunity. Will we stand up for civil rights and the kids who are most vulnerable. Will we stand up not only to the most brilliant and obvious expressions of hate, but will we stand up to institutionally based, will we stand up to the injustice that threatens the wellbeing and future of our children. With that, thank you. I look for to your questions. We have two microphones. If you have any questions raise your hand and we will get a microphone to you. I taught High School Social studies. Im happy to cold call. My name is felicia jones. I work in baltimore city. You did visit judy center in baltimore. Can you speak more about the strategic investment in prek and for any policy thats either in place or coming down the pike that will affect urban environments with a full day kindergarten and also prek. Thanks for the question and things for what you do at the judy center. Theres good news and bad news. Good news is, there is tremendous momentum in investments in Early Learning. If you look around the country, 30 plus states significantly increase their investment in Early Learning. Theres an investment in communities, cities like new york where they went from not having universal prek. There is tremendous momentum that is bipartisan. You see states with republican governors and legislatures investing in Early Childhood education. On the other hand, i fear this administration and congress is headed in the wrong direction. They understand what quality learning means. Is not just the experience of 4yearold but what happens to our kids 0 3. Kids outcomes are better not just in k12, but lifelong benefits. Weve got to make sure folks understand why those investments matter and we have to understand folks understand we have to invest in the continuity between prek and what happens in kindergarten and first grade and second grade. We know then, some places there has been this argument that theres a fadeout from prek that kids arrive ready for kindergarten but then we dont see the kind of gains we would expect by third grade. I would argue a significant portion of that is not having to have continuity between prek and k through to teachers. Sometimes having principles in Elementary Schools, theres High School Teacher and then they were middle school and then Elementary School and they walk into a room of prek or kindergarten and thats not necessarily their experience, we but cut to do a better job training principles to make sure they are ready to be supportive of teachers in those early grades. Again, to me theres no question that the momentum is there for this work. Weve all got to work to be champions of quality Early Learning. You folks have been shy. I know you have a thoughtful question or reflection because you always do. One of the things we saw with the passage in terms of accountability was a slight move in the direction of recognizing the social, emotional and wraparound needs of children as part of an accountability system. We have seen now 16 states that have submitted plans. I think youre right that folks have embraced that opportunity. We know its a strong predictor. They will look at exclusionary discipline. I have to be honest, there is a after mailing force. [inaudible] they need to focus on school climate, School Counselors and if there be title ii professional development. , changing discipline processes. We also know, and youve been a champion around us, if there is a sustained attack on medicaid, that will have dire consequence consequences. We have schoolbased Health Services and clinics and students with disabilities and so forth. There is optimism and real concern about where the administration and congress is headed. One of the things i noticed in the and last election was bipartisan conversation about Public School education and its impact. If i look at developing nations and upheaval in the economy, they use that to overcome and both parties ignore that. I wonder if part of the willingness to ignore it is a misguided belief and Charter Schools would be able to save the day. A Charter School is a school that is funded publicly but is not really public. I wonder if that process has allowed for an inability for National People to look at Public Education, to solve the issue of manufacturing which is at its height at world war ii yet manufacturing jobs cut by 30 . I wonder your thoughts. I think the reality is the vast majority of students are going to be in traditional district schools. Anyone that rick ignores that reality, i think is a mistake. Our administration worked to make sure there was a role for highquality public charters. I take your point around defining the meaning of public and the reality is that charter laws look vastly different state to state. You have some states where there is a very high bar to get a charter, there is rigorous oversight of academics and operations by a public entity, and there is a willingness to close low performing schools and attention to where schools are located in the impact that that will have on local community. I can change that and say massachusetts is an example that has that law and new york as well. Michigan has a terrible charter law. It has resulted in a proliferation of forprofit, low performing charters, and you look at a place like detroit, terribly destabilizing to have the support quality charter authorized. Part of what we need to do around charters is have a thoughtful approach to the role they can play as Public Schools and Public Education. Separately, there is now a National Conversation thats very worrisome and vouchers are not, in my view, a scalable solution to the problems we face in our actually a distraction and a rejection of the Critical Role that Public Education plays in our national future. Im very worried about where we are headed. Voucher laws and tax credit laws will the drivers of resources and that is hugely worrisome and a priority for the current ministration which i think is quite dangerous to the equity work that weve been talking about. The final point i make is, i think the critique that theres too low conversation about education in our political discourse is a fair one, but i think we can also collectively do something about that. Part of what we all need to do is to get communities to understand the relationship and the health and wellbeing of our economy. There are states where thats better and stronger than other. This is a bipartisan, multi governor, and democratic governor, they get and have understood that the future of to state depends on the citizens who have high quality secondary education. Theyve made investments in Early Learning and in k12 and theyve made investments in Higher Education have a statewide campaign for adults who have some College Education but no degree, but theres this universal understanding on both sides of the aisle that the state success rests with quality education, but i dont see that same quality from state to state. I appreciate you coming in. Im bernard hamilton. Have a question related to a trust. Im very curious to know what the current priorities are and the other collaborative groups. Could you talk about the priorities. We do work in p12 and Higher Education. We been working hard to support states with every student succeed ask. They iran a series of boot camps for state coalitions, civil rights organizations, business organizations, educator groups, immigrant Rights Groups and helping them understand the advanced equity and the risks. They tried to work with them. In many states there are now coalitions for ensuring that states use the asset to advanced equity to address things like access to advanced coursework and effective teachers, exclusionary discipline and chronic absenteeism. We look at the quality of assignments and how they align with career ready standards. We try to help their educators work with districts around the assignment. We are also doing a lot of work around diversity. We did a report last year on the perspective of teachers and their experience in school and are trying to call attention to a couple things. The majority of our kids are kids of color but only 18 are teachers of color. Its a Pipeline Program problem not only around recruitment but also retention problem. If you look at our report, part of what you hear her teacher saying im expected to be the disciplinarian. Why does the burden fall on teachers of color. They reflect much more diversity than those retained over time. One latino teacher is expected to be the translator for all the families. I bring about those as the invisible tax on teachers of color. Those things have a consequence. Thats the work were getting around teacher diversity. In higher ed we are very focused on completion. We have too many students who start but dont finish. Working with ten minority serving institutions to try to implement evidencebased tragedies to prove completion. Education being the great equalizer. And i wonder if education is still the great equalizer if we have this gap that process . I also wonder if that cant become such a selffulfilling prophecy for children of color that we essentially just beat them down to the point where they are feeling like no matter what i do im not going to be able to close, help close this gap because you measuring the against a standard of white and asian students typically, and a standard may not be the standard that you should be measuring the against. First, my kids are Montgomery County schools like appreciate the work that happens in Montgomery County schools. One of the advantages, one of the reasons we chose Montgomery County is because there spent decades of intentionality about School Assignment policies and housing policy to produce diverse schools. My older daughter just finished up at a middle school thats about a quarter black, a quarterly kiddo, a quarter white, quarter asia. She came off the softball fuel. She looked at me and said whats benetton . But one of things i appreciate about Montgomery County is diversity and integrated knowledge as a country we have not made nearly the progress we would have hoped since brown at issues of school diversity. In fact, with community that a more segregated today than it were ten or 20 years ago and as a consequence both in the message it sends to students but more importantly i think around resources. Most places the resources follow more affluent students. If you schools with concentrated poverty they are often schools that are getting much less of what the need to be successful. So part of how we tackle what youre describing i think is being intentional about school diversity. On the other hand, we also know and Montgomery County struggles with his as to many communities, you can have a school thats diverse at the doorway but that doesnt mean theres diversity in the classroom. You could walk into school and find the africanamerican and latino students are in the remedial class and white students are in the ap class. There has to be intentionality about assignment of classes. We know universal screening, for example, for gifted programs results in more students of color and more low incomes to participating. Theres intentionality about the training of teachers and principals for teachers of color and white teachers who need to understand what culturally relevant pedagogy looks like, what it means to the classroom environment that artist kids identity that helps equip them with the critical consciousness to respond to what is happening in the society around them. And supports the academic success, sees them as future successes and aske ask how to recreate a classroom environment that helps them get their, as opposed to some some students will succeed or fail based on race or income. You are exactly right theres a lot of work to do, and we unfortunately have been too willing as a society to accept this continuous status quo of inequality. And it is i think ultimately going to undermine the quality of our democracy. If we can figure out a way to close these gaps. Good afternoon. Many of our districts are dependent on voter referendum passing to repair, build facilities. Im wondering what are your thoughts about whether or not School Construction will be part of any National Infrastructure bill . And if not, what else can we do . Our students the most vulnerable students, find these dilapidated facilities without technology, infrastructure that are also contributing to the help of the lack of good health for students. Look, i think if the Current Administration wanted a bipartisan infrastructure bill, that is achievable. Their strong support in congress both sides of the aisle for investment in infrastructure, the jobs that would come with investment in infrastructure. I think you would have bipartisan interest in schools being a part of that, the construction or improvement of school facilities. That said, so far that is not felt like a legislative priority and im not seeing real momentum anas i have to say im not optimistic that that bill is going to happen. But there is i think bipartisan support for that kind of bill. Thats may be less hopeful. In states on the other hand, i do think it is possible to build political will around School Facility investments. North carolina has particular challenge because legislature has not been invested in making more Resources Available in public Higher Education, and more public k12 education took it for the who are most vulnerable. The legislature needs to move to a different place. I do think theres organizing that we can do in terms of hoping people understand what the facilities challenges are. I think people dont necessary to realize how bad it is in some of our buildings. Theres litigation in michigan around School Quality when they describe in the schools with water dripping from the ceiling, rodents running across the floor. Go to a place like flint. I was in the schools in flint leicester were all the water fountains are covered and they are not the only place that did it with made in the water and the consequences that has. So as the country we have not made the Investment Infrastructure that we should but i do think as the public understands that, use examples around the country people being willing to make that investment. The other thing i would say is we are competing for dollars with other investments including prisons. We did a report at the Education Department on the rate of growth in spending on education versus the rate and growth and spending on prisons. The rate of growth of spending on prisons as dramatically how are higher over the last few decades, over the last three or four decades. So we are making a choice. Every time we put those dollars into prison instead of k12 or public Higher Education we are making a choice, i was economically a bad choice but that is a choice legislatures are making. There is a relationship between the work when you do on criminal Justice Reform and the resources that we need an education around things like facilities. Thank you for sharing your time with us. Im executive director of latino administrator superintendents. September 5 deadline is looming to resent the dreamers act, and i know theres ten conservative states wanting to end the program. Can you expand and talk about the implications of that happening . This strikes me as one of the most shortsighted, irresponsible, immoral positivelpolicyproposals, thereh of them, that weve seen over the last few months. It makes no sense. These are your people who are in our schools. They are in our communities, and we all have a stake in making sure that they had a path to opportunity, a path to Higher Education, a path to the workforce and the opportunity to contribute meaningfully. In a bipartisan way i believe that if you were to do a poll, a unanimous poll of members of congress i think you would have strong bipartisan majority in support of doctor protections. But we have a political environment in which folks think theres political points to be made by demonizing immigrant communities. And folks are, therefore, scared. They are scared of being primary by people who are louder than they are in demonizing them in the community. So you have his congressional paralysis. I think we all have a responsibility to make sure that kids in our schools feel safe and supportive. We have a responsibility to make sure, nothing this would happen thats going to unto the Supreme Court case that made very clear that undocumented students have a right to k12 education. We have a responsibility to make sure undocumented student to getting the benefit of the k12 education. Weve got to work in our states to try to change the political climate. There are a number of states where not only are the states invested in protecting dreamers, but you think about a state like california thats making state Financial Aid available to dreamers. We can reproduce that in other states and we could build political will. I have to say i am very scared about the rhetoric that weve heard, and i think our best hope is that when folks meet dreamers and spend time with dreamers and understand their story, they are moved and their hearts can be changed. Thats what we have to do. We have to change hearts, both for elected officials and for our fellow citizen. I am actually the unofficial help team of aasa and support my wife, doctor bernadine. Of course i will thank you very much for this. Listening to your narrative and the things youre saying ive always asked the question, people a voice asked me whats the biggest threat to Public Education and a boy said [inaudible] in a former teacher, when did things seen is that we can operate in silos. We operate in different lanes, a different path that it we speak to whats happening in that of the path. My question to you or what are some the things youve seen that it is successful across the country being able to tie all of these entities together . Because when we were together, and kind to see some successes because of dont think we disagree with what the end goals should look like. I think we tend to disagree on what the path to get to the end goals should be. I want to see what are some of things youve seen across the country while we understand problems, what are some of the solutions . Its a great point. What we should aspire to is to break down the silos and have a vision of collective impact. What will happen in our community if we are all working in the same direction . Some places writing that, wine is communities that have promise commitments with its that every in our community is going to be able to go to Community College for free, guaranteed. And then we as a community are going to keep looking at the date is to figure out how we make sure all students are prepared when they get there and able to succeed while they are there, in bringing together Higher Education, the business community, k12 leaders, communitybased organizations, and committing that that promise is not just about kids skating to college but through college with a degree and then working to continually mobilize their resource and support them. If you look across the country these promise never to growing in number, and theyre beginning to have real impact in terms of folks partnering in ways that they havent before. That to me is one very promising example. We had an initiative in the Obama Administration called promise neighborhood which was around how d to get the collecte impact where you are pairing schools with other services, other social services . I can think about being in indianola, mississippi, very high Needs Community where folks, healthcare, Early Learning were working together across sectors partly driven by that promise neighborhoods grant. Thats another Grant Program that made a continue Going Forward but the power was not necessarily just in the dollars that in the dollars being linked to folks working together across sectors. I think about visiting indianola and meeting with families where the families are getting job counseling at school from a jobs counselor partnering with the School System to support those pairs that they could navigate. If you are a parent struggling with not having a job, that has an effect on kids. We get separate, kids and families are whole people. They dont come in silos. That level of coronation was possible through that promise neighborhoods grant was a very hopeful i thought sign. Ive got to give shared credit for the work about Health Insurance. Healthy School Districts see that theres a role that School Districts can play in making sure the kids have access to health care. For a lot of people that was the first time they thought about, i can actually do something about this by making sure that families are taking advantage of access to what is medicaid or the Health Exchanges to get healthcare. Thats another i think very promising. Would everybody please stand . Everybody please stand. Take this opportunity to stretch and to clap your hands in thanks. [applause] [inaudible conversations] okay. Are we taking a break . No. Okay. A stretch. Then sit down. [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] 10second warning. That was that was a fast menon, bernadine. Minute. I think theres some folks in the hallway doing some photo op with dr. King. If we can get started. Some comments from during the day. First of all, back to rosa atkins, she wanted to stay the day but she was called back. If we can close the doors that would be great. Bring in people on this side of the door. So rosa wanted to say this afternoon to answer some questions but she went back to charlottesville. Secondly, theres a colleague that bob copeland and i had in new jersey, a guy named sam stewart. So those of you who are aspiring to pretend, i want you to take this message with you because when he retired after being kind of the dean of superintendents in new jersey, i gave sam a call and i said sam, i just cant believe youre retired and i can call you, i dont see you in meetings anymore. I am just really curious after all these years of being a superintendent what do you miss most . Without taking a pause, without a beat he said, the glory. Right . So here comes the glory comes you can call sam stewart, otherwise bob and i can do a dose of reality. Although its the calling, its also a really wonderful job it finally when i was introduced by the end of superintendent in cherry hill new jersey before i took that position the interim having no me during the transition want to have a chance to say a few words before the board introduced me and officially signed my contract. And the board because the really excited as boards are with hiring a new superintendent went to all the newspaper articles and settle these great things about me. The interim superintendent, adolescent you, stood up and said he quoted golda meir. He said, dont be so humble. Youre not that good. [laughing] so between glory and reality is my friends who will say to you what really is going on. There are some people in the room that i want to introduce to you before our speaker, who i love dearly. First of all, the folks from cohort two. Theres a few when you did apologist to because i became sick in the spring and was able to attend your graduation, and it broke my heart and then had this terrible summer with some illness. Im all well now but with your phone cohort two . Stand up so we can recognize you. [applause] the reason it broke my heart is because you are like family. I mentioned that this morning, and then we love cohort two, cohort one are the ones who went out and said we dont know what this is about, but its a essay and its more, could be better . I agreed without analysis. And they took a chance on us as we took a chance on them. There are many and cohort one who in this room as well, and you could stand up so we could wave hello to you, from cohort one. [applause] so you artie met ingrid who entered yourself. With a goodlooking young man back in the corner is anthony hamlet from pittsburgh, superintendent come just completed his first year and hes smiling. [applause] [inaudible] so during the course of these two cohorts and the work that we do nicely as you can see with many wonderful colleagues in different organizations, we do have the chance to go back to our cohorts, and when very few of us who went to visit anthony and the neighboring district during the year, and i would extend the offer to those in the room that if you want us to, i just sit and talk with you, although were interrupted in pittsburgh by a snowstorm. It was like a quarter inch of snow out there and everybody left we didnt get to finish our consultancy. But what we do also offer is the opportunity to spend time in your district. If its helpful i would bring people like steve from lincoln, nebraska, or bob or others. I think its a Good Opportunity among colleagues to have a good conversation, a collaborative conversation about the work you are doing. We intend to extend that this year. The second piece we intend to extend is our support of those who have finished the cohorts rather than just letting out there. So we are discussing with jeff starr from five delta kappa and as i mentioned this morning and clark who just retired as cemented from Charlotte Mecklenburg u. S. Comfort and said she would like to be helpful not as a mentor at a supporting the transition into the superintendent or for the first year or two. If youre interested in that let us know. The other is a message from our good colleagues at usc. Apparently the cspan stuff goes across the entire country, and so some are saying reminds the folks in the room and it seems that we a few Slots Available in a university of Southern California program which is not begin until after our howard Program Begins in begins, help me, the end of september . River first onsite 21 september. If theres people who would like to be part of that program or anybody in this room would like to refer somebody to the program please let me know. In our first cohort there was among the many stars somebody who came as a sitting superintendent. When i first got to know this sitting superintendent i said well, this is interesting. Because it was designed to be for those who are not yet in the superintendency, yet we learn from her and she as a colleague help others learn with her as we went through the program. We learned from her about the issues that women superintendent wouldnt about the main issues of black women superintendents faces across the country. We speak candidly by the way. There are no punches pulled and joe is been emphatic about that. So traci davis superintendent of Washoe County, 64,000 kids, was a star among stars in a first cohort and continues in her leadership in the state of nevada and a leadership nationally hoping as an sort of a programs and continuing to come back in to speak with our colleagues, and urging as best she can, anthony, and others come into doing even better. I am just so pleased and deeply honored to be able to share with you one of our favorites, one of our superstars at our profession, traci davis is superintendent in one of the most interesting places in america. I remember i was out visiting something at i turned on and as watching some information about how Washoe County come how reno, nevada, raises money com, and or tax base doesnt take care of everything they do. Youve got to like google how does reno, nevada, get a lot of its tax money . Its not the way we do in virginia. There are special houses that take care of special needs that are taxed very heavily. I had no idea it so its funny to me that pipeline of revenue that takes care of our kids in the special place, its fascinating to me the differences across our country. But its not just that in dealing with that. Its many of the peace of the world in which tracy lives that i find exhilarating, i find encouraging and i find her to be truly a leader among leaders and so is my pleasure to introduce to you one of my kids, traci davis. [applause] we started school three weeks ago and this the kickoff to our first day of school. This video is because it speaks about what we do as a committee. What you dont know in the video is not only are you walk around with the board of trustees we have sevenmember boards but the mayor is in the video and many officials thank you. Thank you. Its a committed effort and elected officials because the work we do we do as a Community Even though we are School District and as tranthree says we operate mort says robert tivoli. We need to be in buildings that only with ourselves as addition but also elected officials, committed leaders and that was part a Big Initiative we had as her first day of school. I want to give you a little background about clicker. Are you going to be the clicker . Okay. About Washoe County School District where the 59th largest cladistic in the nation. With 64,000 students and growing. As you can see them at that square miles i cover is pretty large. We are rural, suburban, urban and were actually the largest employer in northern nevada with over 8000 employees. Okay, you have to click because this is not w we are going at it for schools and to think its interesting to see the on one oe four schools. Later youll see a breakdown of what administrators look like and the demographics of our School District. I need a cute, right . As mort talked about perpupil funding. We need finances to do Amazing Things and in nevada and reno are perpupil funding at 5780 per kid. When we look at what that looks like across the nation i see some of your faces going we have to compete with anybody else but this would beer per pupil funding. It presents challenges as a School District. We started off with a board of trustees ms of having a Building Block of successes. One of the things we talked about is importance of teamwork as a superintendent with your board because you have to go out with the United Nations and tell the story together. The board of trustees and myself committed to each other thats what were going to do. I cared what else talked about we have a Strategic Plan, this guiding document. How are we going to get to the end. One of the things we talked about his of a child by name and biface to graduation. Were going to get into libido that because everybody knew that every child by name and face to graduation. It sounds good but what does that mean i it is to looking at the return on investment . Also you will look stay right there. As you look at this we will talk about what do we do to get there. One of the things we did is we get out with four fundamentals and are guiding practices around what we believe would get us to the finish line. These fundamentals are core instruction to every child in the district should be able to hear one instruction belo be abo get to the finish line. The other piece we talk but inclusive practices, this i give a special and isolation or gifted and talented and isolation. The very best should be included in our School District and not isolated. We talk about climate and engagement, what is going to take to move the district. What we came to was 90 x 20, it is our belief that by the 2020 we should be able to get to a 90 Graduation Rate. I can tell you what i came out and we talked about 90 by 20 a lot of skeptics said dont you think thats a little too high . What happens if you dont get there . I will be meeting and meetings and they would challenges i said well, who has lower expectations for any kid through a door in Washoe County . Weser changing that as a culture of the committee. When you go to people say whats expectation . We expect to get a 90 . Its going to take the whole community to do that because as we talked about the challenges that we face as educators, whether its about poverty, whether throughout the seasons of social and emotional learning, issues chilled have with transgender. What all these things happen that prohibits kids to get to this finish line. We want to get to the finish line of 90 by 20. The last on the middle we have a rough multitier systems of support. Im going to highlight a few things click and one of the think so to highlight is around social emotional learning. This is where, a twostory, mort and i begin to talk and we did know where this lover of this work and its amazing work. Washoe county School District is a handful of districts that are part of collaborative decision social and emotional in. Im going to talk with every knowledge we want kids academically ready for society, we need kids to be ready and his sense of how they behave social and emotionally as they entered. You have to marry this to because they could be successful and make straight as but if they dont know to perform or have selfawareness, he could have essential skills the part of your workforce then we didnt do our Due Diligence in building the entire child. But with that there should be some data and correlation. As weve been doing this work weve been looking at correlating the data to see if that work is working. I can tell you what we see is we have hired gpas with her students who are involved in this, fewer suspensions, and better attendance. I can also tell you when you look at disproportionality and we all know what that is about come we seen a 50 decrease in some of those data points rep disproportionality for our students who are under certain whether they are free and reduced lunch, whether their minority students. Another big highlight for us was president obama and his administration cited that we were the district to follow and a transgender policy. We had no idea that was coming. You know what happens after they posted it, right . The policy been a place for a while and they, there became an upper interdistrict. I had a wonderful board. We talk about kids and every kid, our job is to educate kids and the policy was designed to ensure a safe environment for all kids. We had reached discussions but i can tell you that the policy was not written and isolation of just a district. We took this out to her committee leaders, our parents and that he did so wasnt just a district decision to it was a Community Decision for kids. On that note as you know when the president was elected one of the things we had in our community was we had a Large Population of hispanic students. You know what the scare was around people and Border Patrol and what was happening in our country. We had an instance where he did have a few kids dress up and Border Patrol, go to a school and behave, which out of the country. We dont look any different from the United States of america. The same issues you have we have. Our board came up with the resolution and we agreed that were going to declare our School District a safe place for all kids so they could get a free and appropriate education. I had to commit our board on that transgender policy and the policy resolution around safe school environment. One of the other Building Blocks is community. One of the things i do is i try to get into committee have Committee Breakfast this, with our faith base leaders, with legislators. I have conversation course what people ask this question we dont know whether going to ask but you just got to be ready. Thats part of the job around being transparent with the community, making sure they have access to you as a superintendent seek an answer questions and also not the was a district just give information out. We have to listen and receive information so we understand how the committee feels so we can adjust accordingly. We have town hall meetings, listen and learn. We have a variety of activities to engage our community. One of the big things we are, sharing information at an age when we had to be transparent. Our district embark on this opportunity to share information and be completely transparent. That sounds like we all do that but i can tell you if you go online right now you can see how much money i spent on my credit card this morning to which was zero thank you very much. But what that means to the community about the money and the taxes that they raise. Can you see how much your school is spending on money . If you go to our website not only what you see the piece threat transparency around salaries, how school spend the money, you can send much money were spending on our buildings and which is to make datadriven decisions. Slide. I put this up because theres aa plethora of information whether its about the schools for the Superintendents Office or the board office. We share everything. Theres nothing if not a secret for our community. As the result we are trying to continue to build this trust with our community. We put date of a rent our schools. With something called the data gallery which will ensure you look at whats happening with construction sites. I am proud to say, and mort other to how we raise money for taxes. Its not like what happens on the east coast and i was a learning opportunity for me as a cohort but we is dated to make good decisions for 64,000 kids. And keep in mind we are saying we want of a 90 Graduation Rate by 2020. Most people to understand you can park cars without a High School Diploma and make 80,000. You can be a cocktail waitress, make 75,000. So think about the nature of the work. You can work in the might and make 80,000. When you think about the value of a diploma, sometimes its hard to get kids to alone that and get to the finish line. Our challenge in nevada are different than other states and in every state has its own challenge. We have some serious challenges as we move forward to get this. We we look at opportunities around stamm, we are having companies moved to northern nevada. Tesla was the way. Tesla is in reno come in northern nevada and were super excited about that. But beyond tesla we have switched, apple, microsoft. How will be building good relationships with these companies . Especially the kids graduate they have opportunities to work in these companies and they can be employed for our future of our community. Weve expanded our signature academies. Our signature academies are cte academies and let me just give you such an example. I believe that kids, every child should have an opportunity to go to college. Every child is not going to choose to go to college. There will be children who choose to go to highly skilled careers. There will be children who choose to go to the military. We have to ensure they have the opportunity to go to college but we have to ensure they dont have those opportunities, do they have these pathways . We are building pathways such that if you choose you want to go to college, great. But if you want to graduate with certification a start making 50,000. We have to ensure this workforce is ready to go. As mort talked about how we raise taxes and its a long so im open to get into but i can tell you, in 2016 we had a a ballot question for Capital Funding and im so grateful for our Washoe County community because for 15 years we had not passed a ballot measure. Why this is a board, i dont know but yearround schools and double sessions, we are facing a serious challenge for to put our high schools on double sessions. What does that mean lex school days a normal school, right . Eight to three. Will cut the school day in half, half kids, apple store to 5 00 in the morning and in that 12, then the next apple, 12 30 and get out at six. Because we were beyond capacity because of growth. We had to go out and tell our story about this but we were blessed with a huge, huge 1. 1 billion bond to build schools and renovations, take care of existing schools. Now we have to talk about equity. We can build all the new schools but what about the old schools . Our Community Came together and we after 15 years had a bond passed for 1. 1 billion and will take care of our inner court and repairs to all older schools. One of the things we do what you didnt put in this slide is every time we followed the blueprint for the plan we go live on facebook and you can go see everything we said were going to do with the money at the taxpayers gave us, we put it up. We will put our money, our mouth and trust and show you that we are so happy you trusted us as a district, heres what we said were going to do and use evidence of it. We have to build that trust in the Community Within lacking trust. You get to see the superintendent in the bobcat driving around. Its a way for community to go online and look at their schools and see the renovations life as they are happening. As we begin to talk him we talk with every child by name and face and this is one of a cornerstone and so we talk about with everything we do, whether its capital, whether its raising money, whether its creating partnerships, the basis of every child by name and face the graduation. In 2016 we had a history recordbreaking Graduation Rate of 77 . Im going im going to talk about this because its going into my fourth year of officially thirdyear interim, some terrible things happen but we got there. We had serious achievement gaps. Think about as you do this work and want to racial Graduation Rate. What is the result of raising the Graduation Rate if you dont close gaps for kids . That means the same kids are excelling and the kids you need to get to where they need to be are not growing. We have to have an intro to look at the organization to see how could we become better as leaders for the children we serve . There is a graph of rent a look at english language learners, ieds, chilled in transition and free and reduced lunch. I started with a recordbreaking 77 Graduation Rate Graduation Rate. When you look at that slide, theres evidence that something is in happening in our District Access as it should for all children and we keep saying every child by name and face to graduation. I want to look at the student diversity. When you look at this slide and you look at these colors, this is kind of the makeup of our district. Pay attention to what it looks like for children who may look like me. Pay attention what it may look like for children who may be asian. Pay attention to what it will look like for our hispanic and breatbreadth and other brown children. Interesting enough this happens across the country in a variety of district but if you look at our district, we will look at who services are student. Does anybody see anything that is a start difference . Right, the people who serve the kids dont look like the kids. Sometimes that can be in cap and who will provide services for our students. When we look at our administered in our district, you can see the breakdown. Heres one of the things that mort said he was wild by when i told the story. And then here are past superintendents. And then came along me. Right . And actually something historic happened in Washoe County School District before he became the super duty. Another thing that happened that we dont talk about is we appointed our firstever africanamerican trustee on the board, the community did. So within a months span to circle things happen. The first historic africanamerican woman was appointed to the board, and they hired the first africanamerican superintendent in Washoe County School District. Think about what that says about the community. What they entrust to me to do, and spite of what some might feel the color of my skin or magenta or other things, right . I have a large task at hand. But today i can talk about my district really for a long time. I can really talk, i get into it but i will talk about we know what the what is. Some of you made seen the video by think its worth sharing because its part of my story and its part of who we are as a district. Can you go back . Theres the video not the one they sent you, on the link. As they bring up the video [inaudible] the next thing they say is what . The key isnt to know what. They key is to know why. When you know why, you options on what your what can be. For instance, my wife is to inspire people. My what is standup comedy. My what is writing books. My what can be going out with some friends. In fact, another what is moving towards my why is a what series we have called break time. Every wednesday at 3 00 you should subscribe to this channel. Channel. We do a series called break time on youtube. We were in winstonsalem. Break time come heres that works. In the middle of my show i sit down and Start Talking to the audience. Funny things happen. Or ill meet somebody whos really interesting. I met this one guy and he said he teaches music at school. Im just going to show you the clip. [inaudible] let me get a couple of bars, like amazing grace. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me wow. [applause] now, give you a version, and your uncle got out of jail. Got shot in the back when he was a kid. Let here that version real quick. Lets hear what youve got. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me [applause] [laughing] and now, and now im found was blind but now i see [applause] thats good. So even as i show the city with you because whether you the superintendent, the trustee, the mayor, we know what the what is. But when we get up in the morning especially in a job as a super did a moral compass have to be about your why. There have been times that a wake up and up talk about challenges am big on the front page of the paper. Only someone said sometimes you dont want to be on the paper and youre in the paper. We had an opportunity to share some of those experiences in the first urban academy something summer happening. I remember we were doing some work with mort and he says traci, what are you doing . Tell you what it is. I said, its my why, right . Because there are children that we need to impact and we need to know what our what i is that thr station got to have the grit and resiliency and pull your why forward, right, so you can get to this finish line. So one of the things that i incorporated as a superintendent in 90 by 20, two things. One, we dont graduate kids their senior year and we have to stop being reactive. When theyre in the 12th grade zinc you need to take seven classes he can get your diploma, i didnt take seven classes in my junior year. Thats why im here right now. Can we be proactive about this work . Weser graduating kids at prekk and weve heard that the Early Childhood literacy all day today. The road to graduation starts the day they walked through our doors. There some special things i thought we could do as a district to remove this needle. What we do every year is to every freshman class i sent out a magnet and have a qa are and it is the ticket to the graduation for their senior year. To the parents they also get information on what classes to my child need to graduate . We just kennison folks can go online and get information. We cant assume the parent a critical talk to the cancer. So my job was to how can we get this information in parents and in a variety of ways. The other go back once i did the other sheet as a data profile sheet. What we do for every high school student, every year, is we put them on, are you on track for graduation . Nudges you you are on track were not enter, how were going to help you get on track. If youre a sophomore and feel the class, we have interventions for you. You can come to summer school. You can come to intercession. This whole idea of not failing kids. Because when youre seen in somebody tells you you had to take seven night classes can otherwise you will not walk, think about how im daunting that is. If we can circumvent that and figure that out every year from a freshman, he missed a half credit, here are the opportunities to stay on track, the more kids we can keep on track early, the better off we are in when you get to the end of the road. So this is kind of a graphic of her Graduation Rate in Washoe County School District. And as you can see with the blue of course ahead of the states but you can see incremental steps and, of course, i think mort said i took over sometime in 201314 so im super proud of this Graduation Rates. But then if you look at whats going to happen this year, we are live on cspan second to the number of bullet im going to tell you is there was a song in my heart it would be celebrate good times because theres going to be another recordbreaking year ended the kind of way. And a big kind of way because way to set the bar high for every kid. No matter the color of the skin, gender, race, religion, if theyre transgender. My goal is to get into the finish line to ensure that the land into community and be able to get a job, go to college or the military and be productive citizens. I am so excited to tell you that i know youll want to do know the number is, right . I can only tell you its over 80 . [applause] when we share this information with the community i am so excited about the 80 . But what im really excited about and, they might have percentages of the, go one more time, really excited about we close gaps in every grade. This year were going to talk about how we close gaps for every subgroup in washo School District. We have to go out to kids and have a value. What does that look like for me as a superintendent . It looks like this. It looks like,ey, i have my own child who is a senior this year and has put me through the wringer and my versions of my childs issue is is not the vs. Of another child. The superintendent says regardless of if you work on the academic side. You need to be connected to a kid in our district who is at risk, and if youre connected to kids, you understand the operation side, you understand the power of what everything means. If youre the cfo and you have to have a budget cut we did have a 46 million deficit and we solved that as the board of trustees and myself, and we did not lay off anybody. Thats hard to do. And 30 million of tom came from admin. But back to my leadership team. Everybody has to know a kid, and whenever l that kid is a freshman or is a senior, your job is to make theyre shay graduate. We pick kids who are at promise, as we say, and i have to tell you about my kid mitchell personal kid but the kid im a mentor for. He didnt like me about life in the work we do and my internal scope of why. My kid was the same age as my daughter. My kid was an alcoholic, my kid know how to sell drugs, and is blew me away as a mother my killeds idea of rubbing away is, do you eave a plane ticket . We look at the chengs of our students, my kid is sleeping in car didnt know where her next meal was from. We have to be cognizant of the challenges. Those are the barriers that impede children from getting to the finish line, and figure out the resources to help those children and help them families and thats why the community is so important. The School District cannot do everything. We have to be honest. Sometimes we have to join hands and forces. What i can tell you about Washoe County, is that inspared of everything you read or hear, people hold hands every day for 64,000 kids to get to the finish line to support them so if theyre not eating, we have ways to help them eat. If theyre sleeping in cars with their families, there are opportunities to get Affordable Housing . Off kid have a ton of addictions, across the country. What can save a life . Part of that is relationships. Its easy when the superintendent walks into one of our challenging high schools and they look at me like, oh, you are one of them. And then they dent dont want to here me because they see me as part of an establishment. Then i said, oh, yes, did see all eyes on me. What you think about tupak, those lyrics . His writing . And they look at me like, wait a minute. Im building a relationship. Whether you like tupak not, dont care, but if you look at the things he wrote and you challenge kids to write their feelings, and interpret the english language, and talk about the power of what tupak was doing. Whether you like him or not, he was doing something. And all of a sudden a kid is like, oh, superintendent davis, you know about that . Oh, yeah, know about that. I know about dr. Dre. I know a lot about a lot of stuff. So you bridge the gap with kids and you can help kids. Thats part of our charge as superintendents. How does the organization build relationships with kids . How do we connect with kids . When we do that, we are so much better at getting kids to the finish line. Im going to do a few closing remarks. Simple remarks. Probably embarrass a few of my kids and im a graduate of the First Academy and one thing i would share with all Academy Members and third academy, bet get you some Critical Friends. I was from the west coast and came to the east coast, theres threehour difference so times im mad at 11 00 at night when they dont pick up the phone, and he says you now what time it was on the west coast, tracey. Our friend lisa who stepped out. Shell call me in the morning. I say, you do know its 4 00 on the west coast, oh, yeah, girl, its 7 00 here. What do you think about this . You need Critical Friends to have honest conversations about your feelings. And a quick story with lisa. She said thats the real story. We were talking one monday morning, and i probably had been through one of those days where my life was flickering and not shining. There are day wes flicker because whatever goes on, its not shining as bright as it can be. Said, lisa, let me tell you what happened to me today, which was sunday. This is a true story. I said that song, hold my mule while i shout . Yeah, im still old enough to know that song, young enough to remember it. Said im going to sing a new song. She said what . I said i was listening to at the word and it was about no weapon formed against me shall prosper. There are 64,000 kids but i have to do work for, and in spite of the challenges i might face, and i said im going to write a new song, she said what is it . I said i am getting my lashes done but im crying because i have to pray because something amazing is happening in washoe. Its because a community of people came together to put their arms around children and when we stand as one, in spite of our barriers around politics, color, race and we have a united message about what we want to do for kids, we can be epic. Watch washoe School District, well be epic for children. Thank you. [applause] thank you, traci. Dr. Davis you make my heart flutter. Very proud to be honored to be doing this work with the urban superintendents example and just so thrilled that were working our third co hort and so full from today. So thank you all and just wanted to pause and just give a shoutout to dr. Jill harrison whose heart and soul is in this academy. [applause] and i hope if youre watching, dr. Harrison, were making you proud today and we look forward to seeing you and welcoming you back. So its my pleasure to introduce the next speaker, who i have im a fan of a lot of people but ive been a fan of soon to be doctor clint smith since i embarked on my journey of urban education, and now my son is going kindergarten, it hitsing more home now that i have a kindergartener. Im employed and excited to crow introduce dr. Clint smith, an author, poet, a National Spokesperson for speaking out against injustices that you may see or notice. So i wont take too much time away from this awesome man who is going to come up but he is an author of counting dissent and he will have Copies Available after the presentation, and also that we have questions or want to talk to him, well have q a after his presentation. With that i welcome doctor soon to be dr. Clint smith. [applause] how is everybody doing today . Good. Good. Good. I know yall have had a long, long day so hopefully i wont put you to sleep, and i appreciate everybody being here and im deeply appreciative of being invited. So a little bit of background on me. Im christian smith, fourth year ph. D student at Harvard University where i study the relationship betweened indication and incarceration itch taught high school englishing in prince county, in maryland, on the other side of the state for a few years before i transitioned to graduate school, and ive been teaching in incarcerated settings. Taught in a prison in massachusetts for the past three years. Before transitioning here, where we just had my fiancee and i just had a little boy, and so i you have to excuse me. This is my first event in a post baby era. So for those who have had three million olds before, one night they republic sleep, you get a fivehour stretch and you sing the praises to the universe and another night every 45 minutes youre awake, so if i miss up, you can say, its okay, weve been there, dont worry. But i so i study the relationship between education and incarceration and my dissertation is thinking about how we conceive of the purpose of education for those who are serving life sentences. Often times we typically talk about those who are serve something sentences for juvenile for nonviolent drug offenses or talk about those who are serving on death row, and i think we talk about both of those because theres a sense of moral urgency robbed them back because we dont perceive that those serving extensive anytime prison for nonviolent drug offenses should not be spending that mump time because lawyer not a threat to Public Safety but we ontalk about those on death row because they because we perceive the Death Penalty is being montreally incongruity houston we understands ors as a society. Im a poet and spend a lot of time on the road and i had a book that came out last year, and so was on book tour, and so from me both of these are extensions of the same political and scholarly projects and different, simply different orientations to make sense of so much of what is going on around us. This is a nontraditional type of speech, because im a poet, im going to share some poems with you and put the them in context enough one another. So, raise your hand if you have seen spoken word pretty before. Youre about that life. This is an urban superintendent. I should have known. This is not the suburban superintendent conference. When this is when people share spoken word poetry, poetry men to be performed and read out loud. We think youre supposed to it there and say, hmm, hmm, and youll have a polite little golf clap. Thats not how we do something here. If you lying something, you newscast. If you really like something you do the delicious chocolate noise and go, mmm, and if you like something and it moves you or speaks to your experience you do jesus with a shove because its a secular space, and you say jesus and fall over on the person neck to you. But check with them first. You might not know them like that. We dont want anybody leaving here with issues. I do have middle schoolers, i made the mistake of doing that speel with middle school evers before, and then is a present my poems they take every opportunity to fall on one. So my middle School Presentations in the past have been like hundreds of middle schoolers saying, jesus, falling on top of one another, which was fun for them, less fun for me. Ry allstar when i entered the classroom, the first book i read was that book, you have read shake the wave and framed the work i wanted to do, and i wanted to create a space that would cultivate young citizens, young people to become politically and socially engaged so they could effectively critique the world theyre part of. The first day i came in i came into the classroom, i just read this book, and then id also watched too many teacher movies and i came in, and all the students sat down and i turned around and on the chalkboard i started riding, mass incarceration, drug abuse. Poverty. Violence, and just like kept going. Listed 20 things, and the kids are just sitting there, very confused and i threw the chalk on thank you ground and i was like, this year, were going to solve all of that. They said, man, we just want the worksheet. This is too much. And then i realized that while my commitments were well intentionest, part of what you have to do with young people, you have to get them to understand who they believe themselves to be and who they understand tempses to be in the context of the world around him. So, a young person cant commit themselves to social justice endeavored or commit themselves to fighting mass incarceration or Food Insecurity or poverty unless they understand how those issues relate to their own lives and who they are. So before you do this outward facing work, a lot of what you have to do as a teacher is do this inward facing work and make students reflect on who they and are how they relate to the world. You have to do a lot of exercises you have to a lot of writing exercises that get them to do that inward, introspective work and that means theyll have a lot of of doing a another of reflection on people and places and experiences that have shaped them, which means they talk a lot about their family in good context and bad context. I always do the assignments im asking my students to do. Im not asking them to do anything i wouldnt be willing to do. This is a poem i wrote during a writing exercise with them that was thinking about based upon who are the people in our lives who have most shaped the people that we want to be, like the as precisional baath have shaped who we become and shaped the aspirational versions of what they want to be. This is that poem. In new orleans, seafood was much a part of life as changing tide its. I was raised between shrimp and catfish, learned to walk on crab legs and baptized on a pile of cray fish before knew what they are. I was always disgust build the oysters. My dad loved them elm said if the zinc in them guess for your hair. And i saw the hairline on my family and thought i need to eat more. And the pearl in oysters were to protect itself from the danger, the otherwise store cook couldnts until the think that try to destroy you makes the thing most beautiful. Last summer while visiting home i went to check on my dad to see if he knew the score of the game. Whenned opened the door to his bedroom i found him laying on the ground like a broken promise. Hi father held his stomach of if he had been stabbed. Never been so silent. Theres no treason. Like that of your own body turning against itself or Benedict Arnold with a bayonet in your blood stream. Chronic kidney disease, defersee diving with no oxygen, wait fargo transplant to bring you back but my father is a hardening, growing up where expectations never grew above high tide. When the wave owes of the world try to wear you down, its okay, we are all weathered and she taught me an oyster can turn a parasite into a pearl theres no surprise my father can turn a kidney into caligoography. He wrote me a letter saying if anything happened i had to be ready to become the man of the house. Ive always put god fitz. You complain because it makes you sound like youre an heir to a british monarchy but you are a king. I gave youor grandfathers name because the moe sacred things most sacred things come in trinities. My sharks, another shark, my father, is an oyster. His chest bears scars from waves trying to erode him of this world mitchell father is an oyster and i pray when he is pull from this ocean that those who live above the surface will see the brilliance of his pearl. [applause] so this always happens. So you snap during the poem, and you clap after the poem. If you snap after the poem, it turns into some weird 90s r b and thats what not whats this. I appreciate that. Part of what i think about when i think about any dad for context i was raised in the south and my dad is a southern mans man, and my mom was, i love you, and growing up i like score a goal in a soccer game, get an a, i run home and told my dad, i scored a goal, got an a. She is like my dad has this thing where he would slap me on the butt to show me he appreciated. Told my dad issue scored a goal, it got an a. Good job, boy, and then walk off in slow motion because he cant dissen angle himself from the Denzel Washington movies he stop. So she laps me on the butt and i said, dad, you have to stop, were in a restaurant. After he got sick, part of what happens for anywhere of us who is experiencing Family Member wheeze gotten sick or gotten sick ourselves, it recalibrates the way you consider your relationship to your loved ones. Really makes you reconsider the nature of how you engage with them and how to be precarious situation with regard to your health and not knowing what is going to happen makes you reflect on what you wish you would have said or done or engage ordinary interacted with your friends or children or friends or coworkers. So after for me poetry has always been the means by which that process and makes sense of what is happening in the world around me and he was in the hospital, johns hopkins, and was the surgeon came in and said there were some complications after the surgery. Were not sure what is going to happen. Well do our best. The first moment i had been con fronted with the mortality of my father in a way that when youre growing up you never consider your life without your parents or what that might look like so for me i wrote this poem to try to understand who this person was in relation to my life, and ive been very fortunate to share my work in many places across the country and the world, but i read the poem that night after the surgery and and it was like the hardest reading i had to do i was reading and it started getting emotional and my mom started and my brother and sister and my mom came over to me and hugged me and said, love you, and my dad looked at me and were in the hospital and he is wearing the little hospital robe with your butt showing out. And i finished the poem and he wife, and i thought this is the moment and he said, good job, boy. I was like, all right, people show love in different ways. Thats fine. But its interesting because its actually really recalibrated again the way we both of us engage. We both grew up in context in which sort of hypermasculinity and misconceived notions of how men should engage with one another, even in the context of a father and son shape the way that our relationship looked like, its not to say i didnt know my father didnt love me, but that love manifested itself in a very specific way that often aligned like normative constructions of what masculinity what we were taught that black masculinity in particular was supposed to look like. Now we have swung to the other side and my son is, i have to do a reading or do this paper. Hes like, son, wait, and then theres a long pause and im like, what is it, dad . And he is like, always remember, theres another long pause, i love you. And hangs up really quickly. And i thought, mom got to take away these denzel movies. Too much drama. But for me, part of what i think about when i think about my dad is that when i think bit my parents generally, this idea of the pedagoguey of black parenting and the decisions black parents have to make over and over and over again, at its been clearly manifest of the palls several years with regard to the violence that black children are experiencing at the hands of police. The ways in which the cal calculus for them was i. D. Than it was for the parents of my other friend. When your young you dont understand. Grew up in a mixed race, mixed income community, i had black friends, white, asia friend. It was like the disney channel. We were riding our bikes with the theme music in the background, hair blowing in the wind. He would say im glad you have such diverse friended but you have in understand the implications or your decisions might be very different for you than your other friended. When youre a kid youre like youre the mean dad, youre struck dad. Why cant you be more like tommys dad and hes like, tommy dont live in this house. Wasnt until tamir rice was killed, the 12yearold boy who was killed in cleveland, ohio, shot by police within two seconds of them pulling up, playing in a toy gun in a park in open carry state. That made concrete the abstract fears my parents had for me growing up that i couldnt fully come to grips with until i became hold e older and certainly now as the father of a black son, the way in which i think about the things my parents were telling me, and how unfortunate it is ill be telling my son likely many of the same thinges theying to me and my their irparents taught them. Really sort of brought home the concrete reality of the unique idio sin contract siss what it means to grow up as a young black child in this moment of time but through our countrys history. Wrote this poem after tamir rice was killed, reflecting on the conversation mist father had with me and inevitably ill have with my own son. One night when i was 12 years old, on an overnight field trip to another city, my friends and i bought supper soaker. Turned the hole at the parking lot into our phone water, filled battlefield. He hid behind cars, running through the darkness between the streetlights, across the pavement. Within ten minutes my father came outside, grab me by my forearm and led me into our room with an unfamiliar grip. Before i could say anything, telling me how foolish i looked in front of my friends the eh derided me for being so naive. Looked me in the eye, fear in his face and said, son, im sorry, but you cant act the same as your dwight friend . Cant pre trend to shoot guns, canned round round any dark. Canned hide behind anything a ooh than your own teeth. Know how scared he was, how could i have fallen into the empty of the night as some man would mistake the water for a good reason to wash all of this away. These are the sort odd message if was inundated with my entire life, always keep your hand where you can see them. Dont move too quickly. Take off your hood when the sun goes down. They wouldnt make a memory of this skin, be kids, not casket or concrete. They wanted to keep us alive. All my black friend were raided with the same message. The talk begin to us when we became old enough to be if stann for a nail ready to be hammered to the the ground and our mel nip was something to be feared. What does it to too a child knowing you cannot be a child. The whims of adolescence are you cannot be curious, you are not a forded the lux of making a mistake. This cannot be what defines us. We have parents who raised touts understand that our bodies went meant for the become side of a bullet or flying kinds and jumping rope and laughing until our stomachs burst. We had teachers who taught us how to raise or handed in class, not the signal of surrender, and we should give up were not worthy. So when with say that black lives matter, its not because others dont but its because we are worthy of existing without fear when theres so many things that tell us we are not. I want to live in a world where my son is not presumed to be guilty when he is born and a toy in is hand is not being seep as anything other than a toy. We want to build a world where a childs name is not written on a tshirt or tombstone, where the value of someones life is not determined by anything other than the fact they had lungs, a police where every single one of us can breathe. [applause] and so having been a teacher and currently being a teacher, both a researcher and a scholar and a teacher in a different sort of context, part of what i think about when i thing about pedagogy is the idea of history and the way we teach history and the sort of implications and the potential difficulties that arise and that manifest stemses when we dont teach history accurately or holistically. So, everybody is familiar with Thomas Jefferson, correct . Second president of the United States. Third president of the United States. Im a terrible history teacher, clearly. So president of the United States, and what i was taught about Thomas Jefferson growing uppings that Thomas Jefferson was a brilliant man, the intellectual founding father of the country, responsible authorize the thy conception of the declaration of independence and helped create the constitution and the sort of paradigm of our ideas the best off our aspirations. What i was never taught and i read years later is that Thomas Jefferson thought very explicitly that black people were inferior and wrote about it. Saying that black people are both in the context of mind and body, inferior to that of the white man, that he said that he he talk about phyllis wheatley, the First Published africanamerican poet in the history of the United States. He said that black people didnt have the intellectual or artistic capacity to create art. So he is like we can call this Something Else but shouldnt call it poetry because black people dont have the emotional capacity to great beautiful things. So so he threw her work aside and didnt recognize it with the literary merit it deserved. So, these part of the conversations that werent happening in my classrooms that gave me a veer myopic perspective about Thomas Jefferson and his back in our larger political discourse in a way that is strange because although our president was trying to make a point about the extent to which so many people in the mid19th century and early 19th century to the extent to which even before that, the stento which they owned slave he was trying do a false equivalency between the confederated generals and the statues and those who founded responsible for founding the country and served as the founding fathers. In o then wound hate is a false equivalent simple theres something uniquely different about someone whose existence, professional and military existence was predicated on trying to destroy the country that we now call home, which the were the confederates and then somebody who owned slaves and yet members of the United States and were trying to build the union. Think that to focus on the other moment, actually serves as an interesting and opportune teaching moment where we can sort of unpack this often this piece of history often not discussed in a way that would be helpful. George washington and Thomas Jefferson and so many of these president s, they were asleep owners and the slave owners and the question is how to reckon with the duality how they and are hold both truths as once. S a educators we have a moral responsibility to assure what is happening in our classrooms were not simply providing one side of who someone was, whether in history or literature or science class, but we provide a sort of holistic analysis who they were. The implications are vast you. Think about Martin Luther king, as soon as the day comes up everybody wants to post a Martin Luther king quote on their facebook and instagram and strip it of its cob text and you have people who stand on the ideological opposite end of the spectrum, as dr. King, will take his words out of context and use them as a means to sort of continue or push forth their own sort of ideological and political concern. What happens is that while dr. King is someone who is celebrate, if you go back twothirds of the americans didnt approve what he was doing, he had negative approval ratings, 66 . They thought he was too radical. Didnt like his tactics, didnt like how he was asking for it. What happens is win you create this mythology around he Civil Rights Movement, bryan stevenson, an activist in alabama, talk buzz how he looks back the Civil Rights Movement like it was a threeday festival. Day one, rosa sat down on the bus. Day two, martin had dream. Day three, everybody who could vote and everybody had cotton candy and we assign couple buyy. Kumbiya. What helps is when you create a caricature of a movement you create care to tours tours of t caricature of the people in the movement and you dont realize our social changes help. So you look at the polls on Martin Luther king and dont under the full context. What happens is people look at black lives matter activists on the bridge or Colin Kaepernick take a knee and ask why are people doing that . Dr. King would not allowed people walking across a bridge to help. Youre joist like, selma just came out. Dont know what youre talking be. But this is again, this is like deeply entrenched in our discourse around the nature of what how we teach history. So i think its really important that as sort of leaders in your district, you are providing opportunities and pushing your teachers to really teach history and teach just generally in the in a full context and the context thats going to allow people to grapple with the totality of what the country and is stood for historically because the problem is if you dont, people will look at the world and will sort of fall victim to the pathologies of theyre inundated with about why certain people live the way they do. If youre not talking about the history of inequality theyll look at one part and young people wont understand that the reason that a Certain Community looks one bay and a Certain Community looks another way is not because of the nature or the characteristics or the culture of the people within the community but is instead the result of decades and decade of social policy and social engineering, which ill talk about in a little bit. This is a poem that is thinking a lot about history, thinking about our founding fathers, and what we know is that 12 of our first 18 president s owned slaves. Eight of them owned slaves while they were in office and this poem is a letter about them. Letters to five president s who owned slaves while they were in office. George washington, when you won the revolution, how many of your soldiers did you send from the cotton field to the battlefield . How many had to trade anywhere rifle for plow . Can you blame the slaves who fought for the british because at least the red coats were honest about the oppression. Thomas jefferson when you told Sally Hemings you would release their children, was there honor . Were you diffused as bribery, make is less of a crime. He you 0 wrote the declaration or information did you intend black people to have freedom over the barrett. Did you think theyd be happy being more than just half human . When you proposed sending slaves back to africa, did black body feel like tools . Did the scar on their chest include an exry racing date Expiration Date . How many brown bodies do you have to bull does before you can call it progress, mr. Washington, jefferson, malfed disson, monroe, jackson, when you put your hand on the bible and swore to protect the country, lets be hobbit who you were talking about. On the first Independence Day fireworks sed the sky aflame, dont forget where we were watching from. When you remember jeffersons genius, dont forget the slaves who built the shelfs in his library. When you sing that this country was founded on freedom dont forth the shackles drags against the ground my entire life. Ive been taught how perfect the country was but nobody told me about the pages town another of my text books. Oppression doesnt disappears because you decide not to teach that chapter. You only hear one side of the story you have to question who the writer is. [applause] so kind of what i alluded to before, when i was a teacher, i was deeply consumed with the sort of larger social context shaping the lives of my students. I recognize that often times as im shoe you are more aware than anyone, the way we talk about education is in a silo in isolation and devoid of the larger social, political and Historical Context that shape our schools. What happens is people start looking at schools and at districts and say, this school is failing. Or these teachers arent dollar bell, the students are not proficient, recognizing we cant understand the data and cant understand those facts without understand the larger history that is made these schools look the with a they. Do without understanding the way that political doings, like the way that schoolers are funded, with regard to property taxes, with regard to zoning policies, with regard to history decade old decisions around School Integration and busing that prioritize and give resource to certain communities and schools and take resources away from other schools. Even larger context i think about the new deal. The new deal is one of to the things i without taught in school, the new deal is responsible for the creation of the contemporary middle class. It was gave rise to sort of intergeneration wall wealth in the 20th century in a way that nobody else did after the Great Depression and this is responsible for the existence of the contemporary middle class life in the United States as we in other words it, which is true. The other part of that is that when the new deal was signed, it was signed in a way that made so it that black people did not have access to the benefits that were afforded to most of americans by the new deal. Black people didnt have access to housing mortgages, g. I. Bill, minimum wage protection, social security, and so many of the thing that create and serve as the social bedrock and financial bedrock of what would become decades and decades of intergenerational wealth. What happens is you give the Economic Foundation to one community and dont give to another fuel, you are disengine juice to look at that community and say, why are People Living like is . Whoa hwa do the Schools Look Like is . Guest what does he housing look like thats . What happens is we dont its not even that our students arent getting the history. Some so many of the teacher and parents dont have history. We have People Living in communed that dont understand the history of how the communities came to look the way they do. And what happens is nobody is teacherring you the history, that the reason your Community Looks the way it does is not bus of you, its because of decades of social and public policies, decisions that have been made to prioritize certain communes and deprioritize other communities and you gibb to internalize the idea that you dont work hard or your lazy or your community is inherently violent. I remember when a standcame up to me, weed some gun violence s she is like, michigan smith, this just what happened. What that would toll me is he accepted the covens his community and the the conditions you live are in not inevitable facets of you you are as a person or the people around you but they are the result of decisions made and you have to understand how those decisions have been made so thaw county go on to make different ones. This is a poem i just really want to doubledown on that because i think that that is the sort of the sort of training i never got, in a professional development. That it wished somebody had told me. We have so many teachers who are amazing teachers, amazing educators, who, because they dont know again, the history of why their district looks the way it does, wire thy community or city looks the way it does. They begin to fall victim because teaching is hard. When you have a hard day, it is easy to sort of just like blame the student for what the students are doing or not doing. But you have to be able to sort of do that sort of macro analysis that reflective work to step back and say, okay, the reason that tommy is doing this, cannot actually be disentangled from the fact there are certain zoning policies in the community that make so it that people build a liquor store near his house but not their the kid in the suburb that bring a certain time of demographic and violence, and so as educators, as superintendents, as people who, who in School Systems, part of our work it is to make sure youre not focused on the schools but instead understanding we have to bed a of advocated for the conditions of the communities in which our student and our teachers work and live and if were not going to do that were not actually doing the work that is necessary to create transformative communities where our students can thrive and grow. So this is a poem another poem that is thinking about history, that was i wrote after thinking about the new deal as a microcosm, an example of the way in which intergenerational wealth has been stripped from black and brown communities in this country in a way that is not is not an accident. I used to make fun of people who used to read off of ipadded but here we are. Well say its better for the environment. In the 1930s, 75 of southern black folks are either maids or farm worker. The only workers who didnt qualify for the benefits of the new deal were maid order farmworkers. I was told you can only call something a coincidence if it wasnt done on purpose. A coincidence is texting with a friend and then running into them at the Grocery Store. A coincidence is showing up for the office in the same new shirt as you coworker, walking past a second machine and find something quarters in your pocket. Taking away all federal benefits from an entire demographic of people feels like we should call it something different, a little more honest,s more grounded but see the thing about racism in america is that if you dont call it racism, people think it isnt there. Itself the shot dough no one can see when it is standing right behind you. The Carbon Monoxide killing you in a room where there is no smoke. A million black folks in prince and people shrug and what happened, and a young man shot by police who are running in the opposite direction call it selfdefense. Interstates build in black students and people wonder why the businesses felt. Dont get to see poverty and act like your surprised how much can you take a the water from a fish tank and expect the fish to suffocate. When a fish dies from have nothing water, do we call that a company ends distance . If you block the sun from reaching a tree do you have to ask why it doesnt grow . Government wont give you a loan by a house in a better neighborhood and blame you when your son is shot. They stuff you in a Public Housing and then tear it down and ask s why aisle the skull schools are empty. You cant blame us when it healths if we keep our eyes shut it cant be our fault we dont see you. The council triis only able to whisper the words american exceptionalism because were so good at covering our ears while someone else is screaming. [applause] a couple more poems from my book that are shorter. Me book couple out 11 months ago, almost a year ago, my first collection, my first book, very proud of it. Remember when i first got it i kept touching and it just like, rubbing my face against it, and i emailed my publisher. What is this remarkable texture of this cover . Just feels so good on my fingers and he responded milled matte i was like, oh, mattay. And hes like no, its matte, and i was like that might be matte, but this is mattai. Thick they mess up with the pronunciation. So this book is similar to so much of the work i shared in that i am sort of wrestling with the cognitive dissidence growing up as a black person in this country. How do someone exist in a world and navigate the duality of growing up in a home, in the case where you feel love, affirmed and celebrates and then going out into a world in which youre constantly rendered a caricature of someone else residents fear and the notions of youor project on to you before you can express them for yourself. And you know, part of i always tell me students, first slaves came to the United States in 1619 before it was the United States. The emancipation proclamation was 1863. Civil war ended in 1865. The Voting Rights act was 1964 and 1965. So its only billion 60 years in which black people have had a semblance of legal and legislative freedom. For 350 years before that it was fundamentally legal to delegitimize, dehumanize, and disenfranchise black people, not like somebody being mean and using the nword but you are state sanctioned second class citizen. Dont think we give that timeline enough. What we off often do is look at the conversation about the monuments or the conversation about rhetoric like make America Great again or the conversation about charlottesville, through a lens that is ahistorical, and what we dont do is when we dont put everything in its historicalon text, we fail other properly diagnosis the moment. So if you kick somebody for 350 years, and then for then they get up, it would feel disingenuous to kick antisemitic somebody for seven times as long as you have not kicked them and after thank youon kicking them be like, okay, why dont you have the same tithe of globis your wage so much lower . Why decent you graduate from college at the same rate. Thats what we do and how the conversation in our sort of political discourse happens and we ourselves often fall extreme perpetuating it because we dont think about it in a longterm context. Somebody might say to me, oh, well, youre sort of stretching agency from our community or students and saying we are constrained to the inevitable reality of history and thats not the case. Talking about complicated dualities in the same way we can recognize the Thomas Jefferson was brilliant mant and was deeply racist, we possess the able to recognize the reason that certain communities look the with a do they is a result of Public Policy decisions made in the country for centuries and say we do not have to accept the conditions and realities of those very systems that created it. So its about holding to dualits that sometimes people might present to us as being crickly when theyre really not. All that to say, i give that 400 year minihistory, because i think its important to recognize the way in and black people have experienced and continue to experience statesanctioned violence, but its also important to remember that black people and brun people are not defined by that violence. Its important to remember that despite that long history, black people and brown people are so profoundly contributed to the social fabric and cultural fabric of the country in ways way cant begin to express. What i want my students when i think about is, our students often brick in a lot of traumatic to the classroom and that should be written about and should be expressed because it often doesnt getted expressed anywhere else. When you work with young people theyre not defined be the trauma they experience youve dont even know theyre experiencing trauma because they the way they express themselves otherwise is like full of rapture and joy. Want them to make sure theyre wrote about both of those, and in the process of write egg the book i wanted to make sure i wrote about those as well so in addition to singing about history and different manifestations of oppression i wanted to write about the moment of joy and levity and laughter that exist in my own life because its important to recognize were not define bid the violence that the world seeks to impose on us. When i was a kid, my parents used to dance together in the kitchen a lot. And when i was young, was like, you need to stop. Thats nasty. You go somewhere else with that. Im trying to eat any spaghetti and youre doing that. You get older and have a child yourself and look back at your parents doing that and im like, thats so great. Keep that fire alive. Ill go to the other room but keep doing your thing. This is great. And everybody is familiar with frank and beverlyfully sometimes when go to place where its a majority white audience they just stare at me. I didnt know who bob dylan was for a long time, either, but hes great. But a poem about my parents dancing to that. When maze and Franky Beverly come on in my house, moms eyes close, she raises the spatulas if she wag going orchestrates the gumbo into existence, she turns the nobody. And she opinions the pot, walks over, shoulders oscillating back anding for between the melody. Pops dose the same doesnt he has been doing since 73. Left me, right knee, pop, snap, left in the, right knee, responsible. At the start of verse 2, he pivots on his left foot and its clear if he hurt his back or doing an unauthorized version of the sprinkler, the way mom looks confused whats happening but goes with is because she is fly like that and has never left pops hanging on the dance floor. The start of verse 3, mike alarms going on in the kitchen. Theyre hands are chanced now. Fingers interlocked, swinging each other back and sport and. The feet are music of their own. At the end of the song frankies voice begins to fade but a they keep dancing. She holds her hand on the back hover his neck. He pulls her in closer. He look eights him, skises him between the sweat on his forehead and then they laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh, long after the song has stopped. [applause] so ill do this last piece, thank you yall so much itch appreciate and it well have a couple minutes for questions after, but something i did with this book is that i wrote a series i share the poem about the conversation that my father had with me, the proverbially called the talk. So as a sort of artistic experiment i imagined what the talk might look like if it were coming front a nonhuman, nonliving objects. So wrote a dozen of them, five were in the book and ill read these five in a row and if you have questions i can try to answer them. Thank you all again. What the ocean said to black boy. You know how to swim, by the i know you can float. Dont you bob along my surface before you even knew you could they say you just bad intentions, boy. They use me to put you out. Dont want you burning this place down. Again, they say a little too much a little too much turner, little too much of what they already had enough of. What you see when you look at me . You know how many of yall i swallowed in you just a drop of ink on this canvas. They call me blue best they dont understand he the sky works. They call you black because the dont understand how god works. What the which i okayed da say. See how the render you a mistake, they have undone me as well. Pulled back my shell and feast on my flesh, claimed was for their survival and then wonder why i only show my face every 17 years but youre luckier they live that long. Ive been playing this game before you knew what breath was, this here is prehistoric. Why you think we fly . Why you think we roll in packs . You think these swarms are for the fun of it . I tell you dont role deep enough but every you swarm this, shoot. Get you some wings, son, get you some wings. What the fire hydrant said the black boy. Got a hangled history. Must be hard to look meat and just see summertime, childhood, something to keep you cool in the heat. They say we both stay posted on cornered, both consecutive with warnings not to stand too close but we both mind our own business until people use is for thing wes were never meant for do you note whats to be a burning home, burning cross, putting a boy against they wall so the dogs have an easier time. Of yours you know. A prison cell, an empty gun, mourning mother of a bo whack that the sending him to that School Across town would mean he would have an easier time. When they open us, spilling, until theres nothing left inside. Everyone stands around to watch. What the window said to black boy. When spun breaks me they call its crime, call it property damage. They call it breaking the social contract. When someone breaks you they call it inevitable. Your fault, they call it wednesday. They say its you came shattered out the box but they dont know that this is just something you do to show how many of you there are, that none of you are the same, that the more shards there are, the more ways there torii fracture this light than envelopes us each day. What the cathedral said to the black boy. Come inside, child. Rest yourself. Its okay to want to be held. Aint we all just trying to be some type of sanctuary for somebody . Do it foe e remind us what miracle its to last this long, amid this minute at the and wreckage, take a breath and call it prayer. Take the breath and tall it living. What that ocean tell you . Theyre frighten ode you . They aint ready for your type of holy. Close your eyes. This stained glass shadows. All we got is what we name ourself. Otherwise i am just a room and you are just a body. And we know how wrong that is. [applause] have time for a couple questions. Anybody has them. What your favorite hot pocket . Pepperoni. Man. [inaudible] students about Christopher Columbus. I teach them that Christopher Columbus that someone so, the whole thing, columbus sailed the ocean blue, 1492. So, a part of what i did was i brought to a lot of rid tour around dodge news folks and i think Indigenous People are often simply ignored in the conversation, not even just about americas founding but the larger political discourse. Even if you look at certain statistics or data thats put out by federal and state agencies, sometimes native american folks arent even on listed there. When i think that reflects a longer historical am purposeful amir ya amnesia and their existence. Theres a great book out there called an indigos peoples history, a take on a people roz history but its specific to the lives of and experiences and cultures of indigenous folks and even in that conversation, when we sea native people are indigenous we have to make sure were not just lumping together different groups of people who are like fund onl fundamentally difference. Theyre not homogenous and when you talk about native americans you have to say that not all native americans are the same. The same way not all black people or the same or all latino people are the same. Its important to disentangle and understand the the understand what was done to them in order for the, like, american colonial project to exist, and i think that i just try to bring that to the fore. Part of the discourse is manifest destiny and Andrew Jackson the last Louisiana Purchase and we talk about expansion of the United States without talking about the people who were swept aside during that expansion, and so i think thats incredibly important and so kind of like what said before, Christopher Columbus did come to the United States and did do things that led to the existence of the current state of our union as it exists, and in that process, he and many others killed purposefully or on accident, both, many, many indigos Indigenous People and i trying to make sure thats at the center of the conversation when we talk about that. Let me just say, congratulations on the new baby boy. Yes. And our staff is still talking about you. We had you back in 2014, your first year at harvard. It was. Just a baby grad student then. So, my question for you is, one, how do we take everything that you are speaking to and how do we how can you help us to build capacity with our new teachers . If we had an educators that enter our classrooms with this philosophy and this mindset you have, this world would be a totally different police. So im just asking you, how can we take this and teach our young or our novice educators before they enter the classroom to have this mindset . Yes. I love shaker heights. It was great being there. I wish you could have pushed us through a little nor ohio but thats a conversation for another time. But its kind of like what said before. I think that this none of this was part of the conversation in my First Year Teacher training at all. At no point in my professional development as an educator were people talking about history or the large e social and political context of the communes where we taught. That work happened both on my own and with specific colleagues who were in the school and who were teachers who were thinking about this but ones who had to pull me aside, you actually know history of the community, the reason why so many of our students parents work aft this place or what happened when thers to down the projects in this neighborhood or what happened when they created the interstate was built through this neighborhood. So part of it is after college in college i didnt get exposed to a lot of the literature around the behind of racial and social inkey quality in United States and wasnt until i started teaching and graduate school. I think about the way that just small things like that would have transform because i think theres an intellectual transformation that happens and then that continues into a pedagogual transformation, something as small as taking 30 minute to learn the thing about the new deal, recalibrating the way i understand inequality in the country. And so thats just like a small example of something that can be even brought to a state level or municipal level or district level, and what does it mean to what would it look like if there was a specific professional Development Session or series of sessions that were specifically allotted to not just like how do you learn this new technology or not how do you do behavior management. Those things are incredibly important. But what does it mean for us to specifically focus on the sort of larger context that have created the communities in which our schools exist as a way to help our teachers constantly reflect on the lives of their students beyond the classroom. Thats just its something that never happened for me and something i Thomas Jefferson think would have been indispensable. So many of our teachers are given the time and space to think about these things. I just want to acknowledge your voice. It really is amazing. I would like to share a poem. What have you done to develop your ability to deal with the vulnerabilities and be able to share, what would you offer as guidance to those sharing their voice be met certainly, as superintendent, you have an unique opportunity, there was a real presence of your counterpart. Unfortunately, i imagine this happens to a greater extent in a higher position in these educational hierarchy. A critique that one might have , you are indoctrinating. I talk about Holding Multiple Truths at once, presenting complicated dualities. I think they operate under the pretense that they should be able to discuss political decisions every single day. In a position of power, i think the stakes are even higher. They serve in a unique capacity and being able to serve as advocates. What might look like for superintendent to recognize that they cannot think about jobs, their students, without also think about immigration policy and students and housing and all the things that affect our kids lives. Unfortunately so many leaders of districts are silent. Thats not an easy thing to do. I am just asking us all to reflect on what you see in your district and what your students need. In the moment where there are Public Schools that are being denigrated, those of us who work with demographics of students who have no option but to attend Public School have seen a myriad of educational policies put forth , but i think it is essential to recognize the unique nature of this moment and the threat that is posed to the lives of our students and teachers, and thus the entire members of our community and that there is a sort of moral urgency, a moral responsibility to speak out and say things that maybe before you wouldnt have said something about. On the vulnerability piece, my parents are still wrapping their head around how this happened because i wasnt, i wasnt shy but i also wasnt the first to raise my hand, i definitely dont want to join theater class or anything like that. For me, this happened when i went to a porch rereading in new york city in 2008, and i saw someone sharing their work and it was a woman who shared her poem about having cerebral palsy. And in three minutes the way i thought about an entire demographic of people had completely changed. I had never been moved so much by art as i had that night. I didnt know what it was but i wanted to do it. I went to many poetry readings i read back home for many years and was and continue to be nervous before ever stepped on the stage but i also recognize that its something ive worked hard at for a decade or so, and i recognize the unique nature of the artform, and i think part of what this does in a way, the things that im talking about are perceived differently in different audiences because they are presented through the framework of art rather than talking at you. I think you can invite people in in a way that changes the dynamics of the conversation. Keep going to those readings. It took me many years to not be a bad poet. Thank you all so much. I really appreciate it. Mike i will be right outside with my book. Ill be in the front with my book. If youre interested, i also have the credit cards will be thing. If your thinking man his palms were great and i really want to support him you can do that or feel like man, hes a graduate school and i remember that and i dont want him eating ramen noodles, we can do that too. Thank you all so much. Climatic. Are there any logistical issues or anything we need to wrap up. After the comments and after the book signing that will take place here we do have a reception upstairs, outside there will be a little area for reception. For mentors, theres an invitation for dinner and thats also up there. If youre following the news today, in texas, Hurricane Harvey has been upgraded to category three. Our thoughts out to those communities and to your colleagues who are dealing with that, what theyre calling a lifethreatening storm. For those of you who did not get the this morning, if you want to follow the comments coming out, it is urban soups academy su pts academy. You could see many pictures of you out there in twitter land. Any comments from anyone in the room that you would like to share before we go off to the reception . Any comments or final thoughts . I am from atlanta and i just want to say thank you, i have a great deal of gratitude for which has been a very powerful morning of learning, thinking about the tax leadership on the line and the dangers of leading and our incredibly big responsibility of grappling with the concept shared today with adults, and meaning to radiate a level that will help our communities and our teams move beyond the concept shared. Im incredibly grateful to have been a part of this morning. [applause] i just want to thank aa for being brave enough to have this conversation. I think its, especially discussing everything in our country, especially that you are you are all bold enough to talk about this issue in the Historical Context. I want to thank asa for being that brave and for people coming together and say we need to address it and i thank you for your bravery. Why does a 67yearold white man stand in front of you doing this work . Why do we have some colleagues who have been at this for. [inaudible] peter, why . It sounds like we are kids all over again find their cause. When you look at the challenges and the question of why, i hope you all have your answer. I want to share mine with you. I was born in the 40s print of a good fortune to be raised by loving parents who were hardworking lowerclass. He was a mechanic and on a good day he could hold up his greasy hand and say look i got the dirt out from under my nails. You know those characters with the popeye arms that came out of the Great Depression, who raised five boys, but its not just that. My grandparents escaped from russia in the 1880s. I had the misfortune to record my grandparents asking what it was like to be an immigrant and a stowaway when she escaped with her family, her parents, mike drake grandparents who came to the United States. I could trace that and feel that generation but i can also feel our granddaughter was born six months ago, and the projection is that that beautiful child was going to live to see the next century. The scope of life that we each hold in our hands from the 1880s to 2100 and beyond is just breathtaking and humbling. To be in this room with you is humbling and honoring and full of inspiration. I came to recognize a final point a long time ago. They said its not for us, if not high then who. Its not for you, then who. I am glad that youve answered that question by saying we will accept the responsibility. The answer is it should be i that i bring to this work, commitment, conviction, intellectual rigor, honesty and an absolute devotion to each and every child in this country. I hope what youve gotten is an understanding of commitment from asa and our y is about you and about the children of america. Im so deeply grateful that you have stepped forward to join the ranks of educators. Thank you for being here. Take care. The book signing will be outside the door. I do have a reception upstairs. [inaudible] [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation] heres a look at our prime time schedule on cspan. Starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, a profile interview with sonny perdue. On cspan to its book tv with indepth interviews. We began with author and journalist mattei b. On cspan three, American History tv with a look at several State Capitol buildings including virginia, texas and new york. This weekend on book tv, saturday at 830 eastern, bestselling author on his book, science in the soul. The scientific way of thinking or relying on prejudice and feelings. It can help you enormously in thinking clearly about what to do about whats right and wrong. You can identify logical inconsistencies in your moral position next sunday at 2 30 p. M. Eastern, kate recalled the life of robert smalls, former slave who became the first africanamerican captain of an army ship and went on to serve five terms in congress. I was fascinated by him, and particularly fascinated by the idea that i had never heard of him. Through my work at National Geographic and smithsonian and writing for the new york times, i had read a lot of stories about the civil war and i was amazed to find that he was not of better known figure. Former wall street journal author and editor describes the role in shaping america. He is interviewed by. [inaudible] the journal supported the federal exchange act with the idea that this would stabilize money and local banks could issue money against gold. They created the national currency. The journal supported that, but then in the 1920s, began to have second thoughts. For more of this weekend schedule, go to booktv. Org. Coming up this weekend on American History tv on cspan three, saturday at 10 00 p. M. Eastern on real america, the 1947 u. S. War department film, dont be a sucker about hate filled speech. Im just an average american and im an American American and some of the things i see in this country make my blood boil. I see people making all the money. I see them pulling jobs that belong to me and you. Do we allow this to go on, what will become of our freedom act. On sunday it asked p. M. Eastern, we too are the president ial vehicles collection at the Henry Ford Museum in michigan. Then on the presidency, Herbert Hoover scholar talks about the relationship between the 31st president and calvin coolidge. Just 40s before the election, coolidge, ever a party regular, finally gave a public endorsement in a telegram that evoked sensational headlines. Hoover, he declared, had shown his fitness to be president. Hoover said coolidge was able, experience, trustworthy and safe. American history tv all weekend, every weekend only on cspan three. Book tv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading the summer. What is in your book shelf right now. I read a lot about the future of the economy. Frankly im doing more of my reading because of the cyber moment we are at so im reading a lot of intelligence documents. At home, my wife has become nearly obsessed with totalitarianism. It started with north korea and then she started reading a whole bunch of other things about north korea and started reading them to our kids. Theres a book, the children of monsters, about the families of tyrants over the last many decades. Theres been a lot of deliberation about totalitarianism that has led us to a newfound appreciation of American Free speech assembly. The idea that the media is the enemy of the American People is a fundamentally anti american argument and claim, and we need to celebrate that First Amendment together. Weve been thinking about it both from a humanistic sense and also as a cautionary tale. I am reading a lot about Cyber Threats to america. Book tv wants to know what you are reading. Send us your Summer Reading list via twitter booktv or instagram at book underscore tv or posted to our facebook