The best thing the Legislature can do with a portion of its $9 billion surplus is to fully fund special education for all schools.
The annual report from the Minnesota Department of Education shows that school districts in 2020 spent $673 million from general education funds to pay for the gap, or unfunded special education mandates. If the state finally met its obligation to fund this gap, it would benefit all students and every school district in the state.
For more than a decade, schools have asked the state to fully fund special education, but rarely has there been a year where the budget had a surplus. Well, if there is any year that the state has enough money to fulfill its obligation to our public school districts, it is this year.
How would paying the special education bill help all kids? Right now, money to cover the programs is taken from a school’s general fund – the money to pay for classroom instruction. With special education fully funded, that money could stay in a school district’s classroom, resulting in smaller class sizes, more teachers and student support personnel.
If the Legislature were to use a small part of the surplus and fully fund special education, Anoka-Hennepin would receive $844 per student. A regional Greater Minnesota district like St. Cloud would receive $1,045 per student. A smaller district like Milroy would receive $1,307 per student. This full funding would improve education in all classrooms across all school districts in the state and provide stability as schools plan their budgets to help students achieve.
As it stands now, with a huge gap in funding from the state, school districts either have to slash budgets or ask local property taxpayers to help cover the state’s promise.
As legislators who support fully funding special education have said, “It’s time to put our money where our mandates are.”
Most people realize that the federal government’s promise to pay 40 percent of special education costs results really results in 15 percent, shorting school districts across the nation. Let’s not forget the state of Minnesota also needs to fund its fair share. The state has the $673 million to close this funding gap. Now is the time the public should ask their Legislature to finally pay the full amount of its bill.
It’s the right thing to do for the state, for our schools and for our children.
Kirk Schneidawind is the executive director of the Minnesota School Boards Association.
In the lead-up to the federal election, neither of the major parties has given higher education much thought or attention.
While the Coalition focuses on the military and Labor on aged care, universities continue to sweat it out after a decade of at best being ignored, and at worst being wilfully undermined by the current government.
Higher education might not be on many voters’ radars now, but as the number of 18-year-olds is projected to increase, if university funding and places do not increase, this could quickly become an issue if parents find their children can’t fulfil their dream of going to university.
A decade of cuts and worse
Universities have been shunned by the Coalition government since it was elected almost a decade ago in 2013. While the Coalition’s first budget in May 2014 established the Medical Research Future Fund of A$20 billion and increased some other research grants, it cut operating grants and grants to the Australian Research Council and CSIRO.
The budget also unsuccessfully proposed to remove caps on student fees, and introduce fees for research higher degrees.
During the pandemic the government changed JobKeeper’s rules three times to exclude public universities from support, but left private higher education providers eligible.
The government made some modest concessions, by allowing universities to retain their student funding for 2020 even if they under-enrolled, offering increased funding for micro credentials, increasing research program funding in 2021 by $1 billion, and funding new places mainly for 2021. But overall the government’s actions appeared at best unsupportive.
The Coalition legislated its signature higher education policy Job-Ready Graduates in late 2020.
Job-Ready Graduates cut higher education funding again, but also made substantial other changes. This included lowering the fees for courses the government deemed more likely to lead to work such as teaching and nursing, and increasing them for law, commerce and the humanities.
And as an eloquent closing statement of the Coalition’s political and policy priorities, its big-spending pre-election budget offered nothing new for education.
What has the Coalition done and what should it do?
The Coalition has rightly been concerned about the long-term substantial under-representation in higher education of people from regional and remote areas. It has increased places at regional campuses, introduced regional university centres, and compensated regional universities for the cut in funding in 2017.
Yet depending on the method used to identify regional and remote students, remote students still have less than half the participation rate of other students, and regional students have 76-80% of the participation rate of other students.
The Coalition government removed the cap on places for Indigenous students from regional and remote areas. It should extend that policy for all Indigenous students, all remote students, and even all regional students.
There were only 10,000 remote students in 2020, which is half the number of Indigenous students, so there is little risk of a budget blowout from removing enrolment caps for them. There were around 200,000 regional students in 2020, so removing the enrolment cap for them would be more expensive. But they are only 20% of all domestic students, so even if regional students increased their enrolment substantially, their impact on the budget would still be relatively modest.
What has Labor promised and what should it do?
Labor has promised 465,000 free TAFE places (including 45,000 new places), and up to 20,000 extra university places for universities offering more places in areas it identifies as national priority and skills shortages (clean energy, advanced manufacturing, health and education) and more places for under-represented student groups. However, 20,000 places may not be enough, and more could be added.
Job-Ready Graduates has several design flaws, even accepting the Coalition’s premise that it should favour the jobs it predicts for the future, which is at least questionable on evidentiary and normative grounds.
The more than doubling of humanities fees by Job-Ready Graduates signals a devaluing of fields which are intrinsically valuable, and are instrumentally valuable in understanding society and culture’s handling of health measures and of developments abroad, whose importance has become more obvious in the last three years.
Secondly, humanities students now pay 93% of the funding for their programs, far more than the 29% medical students contribute to their programs’ funding. Third, humanities graduates earn far less than medical graduates and thus have far less capacity to repay their loans.
The simplest way for Labor to fix this would be to put society and culture in the same funding category as English, which the Coalition bizarrely split from the rest of society and culture. That would cut humanities fees to the lowest rate and it would increase total funding for society and culture by 10% to the same rate for English, education, mathematics and statistics.
While tertiary education might not seem like a vote winner now, if universities are left to flounder, higher education may become out of reach for more young people. Voters will surely start to pay attention then.
Gavin Moodie has received various research grants from bodies funded by the Australian and state governments, and was employed by Australian universities for 35 years. He is currently employed by the University of Toronto and is a co investigator on a grant funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
The Florida Department of Education announced last week that it was rejecting the use of dozens of mathematics textbooks in K-12 public schools throughout the state, ostensibly because they contained content that discussed critical race theory.
When asked to provide examples, however, neither the department nor Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) would do so, in spite of claiming that the process had been “transparent.”
In a statement lauding the decision to reject the titles, DeSantis said that he was “grateful” that the department “conducted such a thorough vetting of these textbooks to ensure they comply with the law.” The department stated that it had engaged in a “transparent instructional materials review process” that “ensures the public has the opportunity to review and comment on submitted textbooks.”
But critics noted that the titles of the books — and examples of why the books had been rejected — were not readily provided to the public.
Fifty-four mathematics books were rejected by the state in total, amounting to 41 percent of the 132 titles that were submitted for review. The department did not include the names of the books that were rejected, leaving Floridians and news media unable to scrutinize the state’s decision to ban their use.
“@EducationFL just announced they’re banning dozens of math textbooks they claim ‘indoctrinate’ students with CRT. They won’t tell us what they are or what they say b/c it’s a lie,” contended state Rep. Carlos Smith (D).
Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, blasted DeSantis and the state Department of Education for not being forthcoming about their decision-making process.
“If elementary-level textbooks are rejected for critical race theory or social emotional learning how about further defining those terms, and giving examples of objectionable content?,” Spar asked in a series of tweets. “Who reviewed the textbooks, and what are their qualifications?”
DeSantis’s spokesperson, Christina Pushaw, responded to the criticism by tweeting images of math homework that she said was inappropriate and worthy of rejection from the state. However, the homework she shared was from an unapproved assignment a teacher gave students in Missouri, not Florida.
DeSantis claims his administration’s refusal to share the titles he deemed “indoctrinating” was because such material is “proprietary.” But Christopher Finan, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, said that the lawmaker’s refusal to share the titles is troubling.
“Textbook selection has always been a highly politicized area. It is not a surprise that textbooks are being attacked,” Finan said to The Miami Herald. “It just seems so bizarre that they managed to find [critical race theory] in math textbooks. It is direct from satire.”
Depending on how you look at it, Ed Secretary Miguel Cardona’s assertion that “we’re closer to a reset in education than ever before” is either a beacon of hope at the end of a long, dark tunnel, or the opening of a new front in an increasingly polarizing culture war.
Because my work as CEO of the national Breakthrough Collaborative involves middle-schoolers with college aspirations and college students who aspire to become advocates and teachers, I’m always inclined to take the optimistic view. Still, the challenges we face in our public education system rank right up there with war in Ukraine in the existential crises keeping me up at night.
Here in my home state of Florida, we are arguing about how to teach history and whether we can acknowledge the gender identities of students. Elsewhere—in Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Georgia, among others—the battle about inequitable outcomes of property-tax-based school funding models rages on in the courts and in school board conference rooms.
What too few politicians and parents are talking about, though, is the dire state of the career pipeline for teachers, the ones we’ll be depending on to lead the post-pandemic learning recovery in our classrooms over the next few years—not to mention for the next generation.
A Focus on Teachers
“Teachers matter,” to quote the definitive Rand study. They are key to inspiring our children’s passion for learning, to preparing a workforce to strengthen our economy, and to creating leaders capable of wisely navigating the global challenges of today—and tomorrow.
While it will require effort on multiple fronts, a focus on teachers may be the most robust lever we have for creating student-centric classrooms.”
The teacher workforce has been beset by challenges for decades, with low pay, stressful work conditions, and lack of preparation and support taking a gradual toll on the numbers of talented next-gen leaders—especially leaders of color—pursuing careers in education. The pandemic has turned a slow-moving problem into a crisis, as schools scramble to staff classrooms and schools of education continue to see declines in enrollment. One high-profile and recent example comes from Teach for America, one of the nation’s largest preparers of teachers of color, which has recruited its smallest cohort in at least 15 years.
Secretary Cardona took heat last month for failing to provide details for implementing his vision of “an educational environment that centers students’ needs.” While it will require effort on multiple fronts, a focus on teachers may be the most robust lever we have for creating student-centric classrooms.
Moreover, for a goal that’s potentially as transformational as the war on cancer or putting a man on the moon, we need a national strategy that counters the inequities embedded in our local-tax-funded educational system, inequities that led to the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately harming students of color and those from low-income communities. Without that leadership, we’ll be stymied by the same patterns responsible for the persistent disparities between schools in affluent ZIP codes and those in less prosperous neighborhoods.
Solutions Start With Teachers
Valuing teachers is the systemic path to centering students. In order to move the needle, we must go beyond what teachers need to do to address root causes that require cultural and systemic change. Here are a few things it will take:
Understanding that teaching and learning are inherently relational and the power relationships have on student and teacher success.
Centering the joy of learning and making classrooms a place students and teachers want to be.
Creating an empowered teaching culture to advocate for children and encouraging creativity that optimizes engagement.
Fostering culturally responsive methods through continuous mentoring by exceptional, experienced educators.
Developing partnerships with quality teacher preparation programs for coherent and supportive career pathways.
These strategies have taken root in efforts by district leaders, often in partnership with university-based teacher education programs, to “grow-their-own” teachers or source tutors for more emergent interventions. Yet, without a unifying and equitable strategy that eliminates system-driven disparities, we will not achieve the reset that Secretary Cardona is promising.
How can we do that without creating yet another mandate that builds bureaucracy, stifles educator creativity and makes “what to do about teachers” another cultural battleground—without actually centering the needs of students?
One possible answer is investing in more inclusive partnerships. Funding from both government and private sources could ensure that local efforts to expand the teacher pipeline and elevate the profession go beyond the institutional players by promoting programs that already have time-tested support of parents, teachers and students. Lighten the load on over-burdened school administrators by opening up the tent to include community-based organizations with built-in credibility with multi-racial and pluralistic constituencies.
We should be rushing to change the course of public education now, by collaboratively mobilizing every viable resource we have.”
Let’s imagine funders, school districts, and university-based and alternative teacher education programs collaborating across the teacher development continuum, catalyzing a reset rooted in the system’s nexus of greatest impact: teachers.
Finally, we must recalibrate our market economy—as we’ve done with nurses and software programmers—to appropriately value the work of teachers, by raising salaries, providing stipends and educational credit for experiential learning, and the early career supports required to pave a more affirmative path to long-term professional growth.
While we cannot ignore the global challenges of the moment, we need to recognize the threat at home also persists. Our national reset of an educational system that has been failing too many students for too long is long overdue. The human capital needed to mitigate the risk to our own children and grandchildren is in our reach. We should be rushing to change the course of public education now, by collaboratively mobilizing every viable resource we have.
The last time we heard an actor weigh in on Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill, “Star Trek: Discovery” actor Wilson Cruz tweeted that Florida had learned nothing about how to prevent another Pulse Nightclub massacre, which by the way was carried about by an Islamic extremist who didn’t even know it was a gay club. We guess the thinking is that if you don’t normalize homosexuality and transgenderism starting in kindergarten, you’re paving the way for these children to grow up as mass shooters.
Actor Mark Ruffalo says the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law is “cruel and traumatizing for children” after seeing former Disney CEO Bob Iger talk about it with Chris Wallace. Look closely, as this might be the only chance you get to see CNN+ before it gets sold.
It’s not political, it’s humanistic. This bill is cruel and traumatizing for children and stigmatizes gay youth. Yes, there is such a thing as gay youth. Just because you don’t want to accept it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. https://t.co/oueEmIoBVl
Ask the mother who told ABC News that her biological son expressed that she was transgender “at the earliest moment that she actually had words and language.”
What’s your rationale for someone you don’t know talking to your 5 to 8-year-old about sex? Why do you think it’s OK for a total stranger to be having those conversations without your knowledge? Try reading the bill first.
Preventing the grooming of kindergartners is cruel according to the Incredible Hulk who was apparently dropped on his head too many times. https://t.co/0PQDykzkCw
One more time for those in the back. What do you call people who want to talk to your 4 – 8 year old children about sex? https://t.co/rYTKoEDvTC
— I’m funny. I think (@JohnHickman4141) April 2, 2022
Could you possibly be more of a tool? Actors need to stick to acting. You theater kids just sit around in a circle jerk & repeat each other’s liberal talking points on whatever the new ‘trend’ is. I know it goes against the Pedowood norm, but sexualizing kids is bad, mmkay? https://t.co/wYp7TOS7Cz
I doubt kindergartners through third grade struggle with sexual identity…the closest they get to it is, “Ewww…you got cooties!”
How is it traumatizing ? Majority of Americans disagree with you after reading the bill. Being hyperbolic and over dramatic isn’t helping sell your fear. Read the bill.
CLARION, Pa. (EYT) – Kelsi Wilcox Boyles, Education Program Specialist of Riverview Intermediate Unit, has been accepted as one of 19 ambassadors in the Pennsylvania STEM Ambassador Program.
This program aims to shape the future of STEM education in the commonwealth by targeting vital policy conversations to legislative leadership in the areas of STEM Learning ecosystems, computer science, state and federal policy for formal and informal education, and workforce needs.
PA STEM Ambassadors met for an inaugural training session on Monday, February 28, and Tuesday, March 1 at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology to receive advocacy training from state and national leaders in the field.
The Riverview Intermediate Unit 6 is committed to building a STEM Ecosystem in our region through
RIU6 supports Career Ready PA, Remake Learning Days, Computer Science for All, and the PA Rural Robotics Initiative.
A learner, teacher, leader, and connector, Kelsi joined the IU team in 2014 and takes pride in connecting regional educators, students, and their families to quality resources and initiatives. Kelsi serves as a PAIU STEM Leadership team member, Remake Learning Days Northwest PA organizer, Pennsylvania PBS Western PA Lead, Code.org Facilitator, CMU CS Academy Facilitator, and a Common Sense Education Ambassador.
Representing leaders and emerging leaders in corporate, PreK-12 and higher education, and afterschool programs from 15 counties, PA STEM Ambassadors have agreed to invest 10 months in training and policy development to share expertise and content knowledge with influential stakeholders to help develop a stronger voice in shaping STEM education policy issues.
Steven Williams, associate director of the Pennsylvania Statewide Afterschool/Youth Development Network (PSAYDN) explained, “The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a leader in STEM and, to maintain that edge, we must develop leaders to advocate for bipartisan support in advancing, impactful STEM education policies.
“The PA STEM Ambassadors are vital to shaping STEM education and workforce policies. They played a role in shaping PAsmart and the landscape of STEM Learning Ecosystems.”
Kelsi said, “My goal is to provide opportunities for ALL of our students – rural students, students with learning disabilities, girls in STEM – to pique their interest and lead to a pathway for their future. I am very excited to begin my work as a PA STEM Ambassador and to represent Riverview IU6 and to be an advocate for our students, educators, and families.”
PSAYDN collaborated with the Education Policy and Leadership Center (EPLC), the national STEM Education Coalition, the Afterschool Alliance, 2018 National STEM Ambassador Jeff Remington, and staff from the Pennsylvania Department of Education and Pennsylvania Department of Labor to provide training support to the ambassadors. This year, STEM Ambassadors will have an option of a leadership track as well.
About Riverview Intermediate Unit 6
Riverview Intermediate Unit #6 (RIU6) is a regional educational service agency supporting the needs of the public and nonpublic schools in Clarion, Jefferson, Forest, and Venango counties and parts of five others. RIU6 is one of 29 intermediate units across the state of Pennsylvania that provides support programs, training, and therapy services to schools in its region. Most known for Special Education and Professional Development, the RIU6 team aims to be the premier provider of training, consultation, and technical support to our local schools, while acting as a liaison to PA Department of Education and Harrisburg. More information is available at www.RIU6.org.
About PSAYDN
Pennsylvania Statewide Afterschool/Youth Development Network (PSAYDN) promotes sustainable, high-quality out-of-school time youth development programs through advocacy and capacity building to enhance the welfare of Pennsylvania’s children, youth, and families. PSAYDN believes all children and youth deserve access to programs that encourage positive youth development and support the successful transition to adulthood. PSAYDN is managed by the Center for Schools and Communities. More information is available at www.PSAYDN.org.
As a first-generation college student and immigrant, I didn’t always feel that I belonged in higher education. But I had faculty and mentor support that empowered me to become the best version of myself in a new and different environment. Throughout my career in academia, three things that have always been at the forefront in my thinking are access to higher education, social mobility and social justice.
Now as president of St. Edward’s University, a private, Catholic liberal arts college in Austin, Texas, I want to offer that transformative education to others. But the dream of college has become further out of reach for low- and moderate-income students due to rising costs and the economic strain of the pandemic.
We need to urge our lawmakers to double the Pell grant to ensure access and affordability across higher education. The Pell grant program, which will mark its 50th anniversary this June, distributes need-based federal funding to nearly 7 million students each year, mainly undergraduate students from low-income families earning $50,000 or less. Fifty years ago, the Pell grant covered more than three-quarters of the cost of attending a four-year public college, but it now covers less than one-third of those costs. Dr. Montserrat Fuentes
As of January, legislators have proposed various increases to the Pell Grant program. President Biden recently proposed to increase the Pell Grant by $2,000 and it can be expected that it will be in his (FY) 2023 budget request.
There is also a $400 increase in the proposed fiscal year (FY) 2022 appropriations bill. Additionally, there is a proposed $550 increase to Pell for four years included in the current version of the Build Back Better Bill, as well as a proposal in the federal Pell Grant Preservation and Expansion Act that would more than double the maximum annual Pell Grant award from $6,495 to $13,000 over the next five years and expand access to Dreamers.
The Pell grant increase in the appropriations bill is the most likely proposal to succeed and would provide a needed one-time boost. Our low-income students deserve a much stronger investment that can only be achieved through doubling the Pell maximum grant.
As a Hispanic Serving Institution and Minority Serving Institution, our Fall 2021 freshmen students are 43% Pell-eligible and 58% Hispanic, we know that the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected low-income students and students of color, exacerbating their financial struggles. Overall, recent enrollment trends have shown these high-need students are opting out of college after high school, which we know will likely mean no college for many of these students.
We need our lawmakers to act now and make sure that the proven Pell program will continue to be an effective tool in increasing accessibility, removing barriers to college completion and reducing student debt. Higher education is still the most consistently reliable way to break that poverty cycle. And our country needs an educated citizenry to address the growing complexity of social and political problems.
According to a recent analysis of the Congressional proposals from The Gender Equity Policy Institute, doubling Pell would decrease debt for all students pursuing bachelor’s degrees by about 79 percent. It would be particularly beneficial for students of color, helping to reduce debt for Black (80 percent decline), Latino (83 percent decline), and Native American (85 percent decline) students.
Doubling the Pell could also help the approximately 11.7 million eligible Pell recipients who have completed some credits, but have not received their degrees, go back to college to complete their degrees. One of the advantages of the Pell program is that the grants are mobile, meaning students can start out at a community college, earn an associate’s degree and then carry the grant to a 4-year degree-granting institution. Some of our most successful students and alumni came in as transfer students from community colleges.
Doubling the Pell could put more Pell-eligible students back on the college track, retain students who are considering dropping out, and amplify programs that will ensure their success.
Those of us with a college degree and already in a solid financial situation should still care about more Pell eligible students going to college. Investments in the Pell grant program will aid our nation in the long-term economic recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and keep our state and country from losing ground in an ever-competitive global economy.
My own personal and transformative higher education experiences have resulted in so many wonderful opportunities in my life. It is the reason why I and others in our field strive for equal opportunity for higher education. What better way to make Pell-eligible students feel like they too belong in college and can succeed in attaining their degree, then to make sure they can rely on adequate funding that will make it possible.
Dr. Montserrat Fuentes, is president of St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas.
By Megan Sayles, AFRO Business Writer, Report for America Corps Member msayles@afro.com
As a young boy, New York native Christopher Emdin was always interested in how the universe works. He was an inquisitive child, and his mother would foster his curiosity.
When he began school, Emdin quickly developed a passion for science, which endured into his college years. With degrees in physical anthropology, biology, chemistry and natural sciences, Emdin felt fortunate to have his family’s support but he also felt discouraged by science’s diversity problem.
“The further along I went in the world of science, the less I saw Black and Brown children, the less I saw people who were from my neighborhood,” said Emdin. “It was gut-wrenching.”
Emdin decided to use his degrees to work as a math and science teacher at schools in urban neighborhoods. He discovered that while many young people of color can envision themselves as experts in sports or music, they do not believe that they can excel in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
“They say ‘I can’t do this,’ before they even try, and I think it’s because schools have made them believe that you have to pick one side of your identity really early,” said Emdin.
Emdin decided he needed to do something to address the lack of STEM self-esteem in youth, so he started HipHopEd, a nonprofit that exists at the intersection of hip-hop and education.
What started as a Twitter conversation has now grown into a global movement that collaborates with teachers and legislators on the development and implementation of hip-hop-based interventions in study areas that include STEM, counseling, literacy and school leadership.
One of the organization’s premier initiatives is Science Genius. In this program, students create science-themed raps and songs that focus on the content they’ve learned in their classrooms. The goal is to engage urban youth who are typically disconnected from science.
According to Emdin, if students can combine their personal interests with a degree in a STEM subject, they will become significantly more employable. He wants to be the person that can change young people’s assumptions about the difficulty of STEM education and careers.
Aside from his work with HipHopEd, Emdin has also written several books surrounding STEM education and cultural competency. His latest work is titled “STEM, STEAM, Make, Dream: Reimagining the Culture of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.”
The book provides strategies for educators, policymakers and community leaders to increase equity and encourage curiosity in STEM.
“We should not require luck to be able to uncover our genius, and so I want to leave a legacy where I have created an infrastructure, artifacts practices where every young child will intentionally get confronted with their own genius and step into that,” said Emdin.
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Roland Parrish has given millions to help further the education of young people. Especially those in under-represented communities.
He’s the first African American to have a facility named in his honor at Purdue University after his $2 million leadership gift to support the management school library renovation.
While he has accomplished so much to this point, he is very open about his humble beginnings, crediting that start to much of his success and drive to close the educational gap for minority students.
“My ministry is to help people. Just to help people. That’s what I want to do. I think that God has offered me and given me blessings so that I can continue to help people,” Parrish said. “It’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon what I did. It was hard work and blue-collar work ethic I learned from my parents.”
As the CEO of Parrish Restaurants, Ltd, he owns and operates 27 McDonald’s restaurants in and around the Dallas area. He built his first in the Pleasant Grove area of Dallas — an intentional business decision.
“I guess it’s what they call a socioeconomic challenged community, but that is the kind of community I came from,” Parrish said.
Through the years, he has used his business savvy and success to help the next generation of entrepreneurs and business leaders.
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“If I can provide an educational opportunity, I just think that is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s a great investment and that’s one of the things I look at. Can I provide something to them and help them live the American dream? Then hopefully, they can help someone else and pass it on,” Parrish said.
For more than 20 years, Parrish has made financial contributions to St. Philip’s School and Community Center in South Dallas, pledging $1 million to the advancement of its students. The school’s mission is to provide an education through faith-based experience, with emphasis on serving low- and moderate-income communities.
“I’m more of a doer than a talker. I want to use my platform and voice to provide an opportunity for young people. They are our future and so they are the ones who can make a difference in society. I try to do these things for them. It’s for our future,” Parrish said.
Since 2003, Parrish has hosted the annual “McMiracle On Highway 67” in December. Throughout the years, 3,000 students have received bikes and helmets thanks to Parrish’s donation of more than $300,000 to date.
Since 2010, Parrish has been the presenting sponsor of the Parrish Restaurants, Ltd Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame, which is hosted annually by the African American Museum. Housed at the museum, each year, the event honors a new group of African-American Texas athletes and coaches who have made outstanding contributions to sports.
He has supported the St. Mark’s School of Texas, in their annual fundraising efforts to feed the homeless at the Austin Street Center Shelter, in South Dallas since 2010.
His support of young scholars has also been on display during the Roland Parrish Scholarship Debate Tournament as he has partnered with the Dallas Urban Debate Alliance to award scholarships to Dallas ISD debaters annually.
“Debating helps with truancy, academic advancement, confidence in public speaking, and critical thinking skills,” Parrish said.
Parrish is a financial supporter of the Zan Wesley Holmes Outreach Center, which is located in the Frazier House. The center services young people and their families who are living in poverty. The Center’s emphasis is on South Dallas and the Southeastern sector of Dallas.
In January 2022, Parrish sponsored the inaugural Roland Parrish Band Competition where he awarded 10 North Texas band programs $5,000 for their treasury departments.
Recently, Parrish has collaborated with the Texas Rangers Baseball Foundation to create the Charley Pride Fellowship Program. Named after the late country music icon who was the first Black superstar in the music genre, it’s a 10-week paid internship with a focus on increasing minority representation in sports front offices and beyond.
His philanthropy also extends to communities trying to make a comeback. Parrish is the second-largest investor for the restructuring of the Re-Imaging Red Bird Project, which will bring a Marriot Hotel and hundreds of jobs to the Red Bird community. It also means nearly 200,000 square feet of medical/clinical services facility for the southern sector (Parkland Hospital and UT Southwestern Medical Center).
“I want you to realize that I came from a humble background and that hopefully you can achieve this and go beyond what I have done. I hope I motivate young people to higher heights,” Parrish said.
Chancellor David Banks takes questions from the press after giving a speech at Tweed Courthouse, the education department’s downtown Manhattan headquarters, laying out his vision for New York City Schools. | Christina Veiga / Chalkbeat
His Wednesday address acknowledged sharp enrollment declines, lingering concerns over school safety both from violence and from COVID, and, three school years into the pandemic, a battered trust among families and school staff.
“There are so many things that are broken as I come here as chancellor. It’s amazing to me,” Banks said, his voice bouncing off the walls of the rotunda at Tweed Courthouse, the lower Manhattan headquarters of the New York City education department.
“Families decided to vote with their feet, and to say, ‘We’re going to find other alternatives and other choices for our children,’” he continued. “That’s an indictment of the work that we have done.”
Banks promised to move things forward by expanding what he called more relevant and exciting learning opportunities for students, building out virtual learning options, and lifting up and sharing what’s already working in classrooms. He called for a markedly different approach to literacy instruction, with a specific focus on students with dyslexia, and expanding gifted education.
To get there, Banks said it will take an overhaul of the vast bureaucracy of the education department, announcing he would eliminate the relatively new position of executive superintendents, and require district superintendents to reapply for their jobs.
He repeatedly noted the amount the city spends on its schools: $38 billion this year.
Unlike the last shift in administration, when then-Chancellor Carmen Fariña went about methodically undoing much of what her predecessors in the Bloomberg administration had implemented, Banks said he would borrow what he feels has worked under previous chancellors. His vision combines some of the central tenets under both Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“Every time you get a new mayor, you get a new chancellor, a lot of times the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater — maybe just start all over again with the new shiny thing,” Banks said. “We’re not interested in that. We’re interested in things that work and how you scale excellence all across the system.”
Banks also inherited the previous administration’s blueprint for helping students catch up after several pandemic-disrupted years, which includes increased and regular testing to determine where students stand academically, and screening for social and emotional health. Banks did not lay out any of his own specific recovery plans.
Enrollment has dropped about 9% since the pandemic began in March 2020. But there is nuance in the numbers. Much of the drop has been driven by fewer new students coming into the system, according to a recent report from the Independent Budget Office, which also found that retention actually ticked slightly higher.
Inside the classroom
Some of the most notable changes are expected in the way students learn to read.
Following his speech, Banks said too many schools have used a method popularized by Lucy Calkins, a Columbia University Teachers College professor. The approach was lauded by former Chancellor Fariña.
“Across the city, it has not worked,” Banks said. “There’s a very different approach that we’re going to be looking to take.”
That approach includes a greater emphasis on explicit phonics instruction, he said, as well as a focus on students with dyslexia. He wants to partner with the well-regarded private school Windward on the Upper East Side, which is known for working with students with dyslexia.
Part of New York City’s challenge, however, may lie in the fact that the central education department doesn’t even track the kinds of reading curriculum used at each of its nearly 1,700 schools. Asked by reporters after his speech about whether schools would be required to adopt the same curriculum and how he would judge progress, he said those plans are still being made.
“We’re coming up with different approaches, how we will implement that, where we will implement it, and how we will measure it. You will hear more about it in the coming weeks,” Banks said.
He also said schools need to provide more interesting and relevant learning experiences, emphasizing the need for career and technical programs as well as access to field trips. He also wants to make sure students are taught financial literacy, and that they have access to real-life civics instruction by participating in student government.
Banks has also been a consistent supporter of expanding virtual learning. In prepared remarks, he called for a new Digital Learning Advisory Committee, made up of educators, families, students, pledging to build on the lessons learned through the pandemic to provide more options for students who preferred remote learning.
When it comes to gifted and talented programs, which have come under scrutiny for starkly underrepresenting Black and Latino students, Banks’ prepared remarks only briefly called for “opportunities for accelerated learning in every school,” saying that gifted programs would be scaled up “all over the city.”
Bureaucratic shake-up
Banks formally announced an organizational move which had been expected: The city’s nine executive superintendents will be eliminated. Former Chancellor Richard Carranza created the position in 2018, shortly into his tenure, in an attempt to provide more clear lines of accountability and support for schools. The hires reportedly cost $2.5 million a year.
In shaking up the system, Banks is requiring the rest of the department’s superintendents to reapply for their jobs. (There are currently 46 superintendents, including those who lead each of the 31 districts, those in charge of high schools, and those leading certain special education programs.) Moving forward, the role will be newly empowered, he said, with bigger staff and increased resources.
“It’s very difficult to be a superintendent, and you don’t really have real authority,” he said. “When principals and families go to the superintendent, and the superintendent can’t get you an answer, because they got to go further up the chain of command — that’s not impactful. Doesn’t work.”
Banks also wants to celebrate effective principals and tap their expertise to lift up their peers. One initiative championed by Fariña that the new chancellor plans to revive is the learning partners program, which allows schools to visit and learn best practices from one another.
The chancellor also wants to give principals more autonomy, harking back to a pillar of the Bloomberg administration. Though the city is still working on a framework on what that might look like, Banks said the education department’s template is the autonomy zones piloted in the early 2000s under Bloomberg.
The approach gave more control to principals over hiring, budgets, and curriculum, in return for being held strictly accountable for student achievement.
“We are going to create a different paradigm for principals who know what they’re doing,” Banks said.
