Meet the Black moms mobilizing parents in schools

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Feb 21, 2023 View in browser   By Bianca Quilantan FOUR CITIES, FOUR MOMS — Following the Virginia governor's race in 2021, the prominence for suburban mom groups across the country grew and captured the nation’s attention by heightening the focus on their children’s schools. — Those moms — who were mostly white — helped etch the battle lines of the culture wars, fighting on both the left and the right over book and subject bans, and how issues of race and gender are taught in the classroom. Going into the 2024 election cycle, school issues are expected to play a major role on the campaign trail. — Meanwhile, the voices of Black moms — several who have long been pressing for equity in education and demanding more for their students — have yet to be amplified to the same extent. Your host talked to four moms and advocates who have been mobilizing Black and brown parents in their communities to speak up at school board meetings, press for school spending transparency, claim a seat at the table with local officials and even run for office. IT’S TUESDAY, FEB. 21. WELCOME TO WEEKLY EDUCATION. Let’s grab coffee (even virtually!). Reach me at bquilantan@politico.com. Send tips to my colleagues Mackenzie Wilkes at mwilkes@politico.com, Juan Perez Jr. at jperez@politico.com and Michael Stratford at mstratford@politico.com. And follow us on Twitter: @Morning_Edu and @POLITICOPro.   We’re spilling the tea (and drinking tons of it in our newsroom) in U.K. politics with our latest newsletter, London Playbook PM. Get to know all the movers and shakers in Westminster and never miss a beat of British politics with a free subscription. Don’t miss out, we’ve got some exciting moves coming. Sign up today.     Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories. Meet the moms D.C. charter school students | AP WASHINGTON, D.C. — Over the past seven years, D.C. PAVE’s annual “Parent Voice and Choice” week has empowered parents to walk into the Wilson Building, D.C.’s seat of government, and advocate for their students. For Maya Cadogan, the founder of the group, it’s about breaking down barriers to access the rooms where people are making the decisions about their kids’ schools. — “The majority of the school system here in D.C. is Black and our parents are majority Black,” she said. “But when I went in to start this work, there were already groups of white parents who were oftentimes in the Wilson building advocating for the things they wanted to see in a city that is rapidly gentrifying.” “That meant that the balance of power was really off,” she said, “because while those families might say that they're representing all students and the voices of Black or brown families, that's not the same as those voices actually being in the room to ask for what they want.” — PAVE parents also drafted a Parents’ Bill of Rights about how they wanted to be able to engage with their education system, which they tried to share nationally but they “got no bites and no one wanted to talk about it,” Cadogan said. BATON ROUGE, La. — Adonica Duggan, a mother of four, founded the Baton Rouge Alliance for Students about two years ago to organize parents to hold school boards accountable and press for more budget transparency. She led a campaign to push East Baton Rouge Parish School System to show how it has spent more than $220 million in federal funding it received since 2021. — “We had additional federal funding coming in as a result of the pandemic, we had this opportunity to have the spotlight and the nation's focus on what was happening in school buildings,” she said, “and I really felt like this was the moment where we were going to make a decision as a city on whether we were going to get it right for kids or whether we were going to be kicking ourselves for generations.” ATLANTA, Ga. — Kim Dukes, the co-founder of Atlanta Thrive and a mother of 10 children, has also been training other parents on how to advocate for their children’s education. Dukes has been canvassing and knocking on doors to educate and engage parents with Atlanta Public Schools. — “A lot of times I do feel left out because when I think about it, the white moms are leading education because they have the resources and they don't have as many barriers in place,” Dukes said when asked about the national conversation on advocacy in schools. “But I think we are leading the work because we're helping the most vulnerable parents and the most vulnerable kids receive what they deserve.” — But Dukes also said she is working to get families to work together and learn from each other, though it can sometimes be a challenge. “When we come together, it's like, ‘Well, I can teach the moms in your community how to raise $70,000 with a PTA,’ when in real life, a lot of our schools don't have a PTA,” she said. “And so it's me trying to ensure that my families can understand each other.” NEWARK, N.J. — About six years ago, Shennell McCloud founded Project Ready to demand more from her local schools. Since her organization’s inception — along with her New Jersey Parent Summit — McCloud has mobilized parents to head to the polls for local elections and has seen hundreds of parents become elected officials, nonprofit leaders and grassroots advocates. — Project Ready specifically is focused on getting more Black women in elected positions to amplify the voices of Black and brown families especially when it comes to their children’s education. In Newark, the school district predominantly serves underrepresented students. But often “the voices of Black women are muffled and silenced,” McCloud said. — “We’re in a month where we are continuing to celebrate Black history and through that Black history, you also have the opportunity to examine historical organizations that did not often have a seat at the table,” she said, adding that Project Ready is preparing parents and Black community members to “interject themselves into a conversation that very much involves them.” THE COLLEGE BOARD CIVIL RIGHTS GROUPS CALL ON COLEMAN TO STEP DOWN — A group of 28 civil and human rights, educational equity and gender equality organizations are demanding College Board CEO David Coleman’s resignation over the botched rollout of the new African American studies course. The groups said that the nonprofit that oversees Advanced Placement exams needs new leadership to advocate for students and academic freedom or the College Board will “continue to be a pawn in the political games of governors and other elected officials advancing a white nationalist, anti-democratic agenda.” — “The public rollout of the College Board’s long-awaited Advanced Placement Black Studies Course has been a public relations and brand disaster for your institution causing pain, division and turmoil for the community it sought to celebrate,” the groups wrote. — They also said Coleman is responsible for issues that have led to growing mistrust educators and students have for the College Board. — The letter comes as the College Board and Florida have been in a tense battle over who is responsible for the outcome of the new framework for the course, which will launch in the 2024-2025 school year. The College Board has been preparing the course for about a decade and included the expertise of more than 300 professors of African American studies from more than 200 colleges nationwide as it decided which subjects would be in the curriculum. — The Florida Department of Education claims that state officials had been in contact with the College Board since January 2022 regarding the course and first questioned if it was legal under state law in July. In a July letter, the DeSantis administration claimed the pilot course would violate the state’s anti-"woke” laws that restrict how race can be taught in the classroom. — The College Board argued that its revisions were completed by Dec. 22, 2022, which the nonprofit said came “weeks before Florida’s objections were shared.”   JOIN POLITICO ON 3/1 TO DISCUSS AMERICAN PRIVACY LAWS: Americans have fewer privacy rights than Europeans, and companies continue to face a minefield of competing state and foreign legislation. There is strong bipartisan support for a federal privacy bill, but it has yet to materialize. Join POLITICO on 3/1 to discuss what it will take to get a federal privacy law on the books, potential designs for how this type of legislation could protect consumers and innovators, and more. REGISTER HERE.     Student Loans 7.2M LOAN FORGIVENESS APPLICANTS LIVE IN GOP DISTRICTS — House Republicans pressing the Supreme Court to block President Joe Biden’s student debt relief program represent more than seven million Americans who applied for the program, according to data from the Education Department. More than 25 million are in line for the loan forgiveness program, Michael reports. — An amicus brief signed by 128 House Republicans urged the Supreme Court to invalidate Biden’s program. In total, the data shows, about 11.8 million of their constituents could potentially be eligible for the loan forgiveness. Nationwide, slightly more borrowers in Democratic districts signed up for the program compared to those in GOP districts. Education Department TITLE IX GUIDANCE ON SPORTS — The Education Department on Friday unveiled new Title IX resources on equal opportunity in athletic programs. The federal education law prohibits sex-based discrimination and is enforced by the department’s Office for Civil Rights. — The department said it designed the documents — one for K-12 and one for colleges — to help students, parents, coaches, athletic directors and school officials evaluate whether a school is meeting its legal duty to provide equal athletic opportunity regardless of sex. The documents come as college basketball ramps up with competitive tournaments next month. The NCAA has been criticized in the past for providing women's basketball players with training facilities inferior to men's teams during the tournaments. Syllabus — D.C. public school budget proposal criticized for cuts: The Washington Post — How one mom fought Washington’s special education system — and won: ProPublica — Tiny college hijacked by woke-obsessed DeSantis saddles up to fight back: The Daily Beast — ‘Brainwashing a generation’: British schools combat Andrew Tate’s views: The New York Times — To increase equity, school districts eliminate honors classes: The Wall Street Journal   Follow us on Twitter Delece Smith-Barrow @DeleceWrites Michael Stratford @mstratford Bianca Quilantan @biancaquilan Juan Perez Jr. @PerezJr Mackenzie Wilkes @macwilkes   Follow us

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