As all of the teachers have slowly and sullenly headed back to their collective classrooms throughout the state, a large portion of the state’s elected officials — who happen to be mostly Republicans — are actively trying to undo what little progress was made through the legislative remedies as a result of the teacher walkout.
A lingering cultural construct that brands Black boys as “bad dudes” and Black girls as young “angry Black women” stems from the same dark ignorance that caused the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and decades of racist policies passed by state legislators and policy makers. The truth is, they were the architects for what are now today’s educational equality gaps
Their essays were symptomatic of my lowered expectations for my students of color.
Today’s legislators are treating lower and middle-class students and public school teachers, of every race, to the likes of, how white legislators treated African-American students and their Black pedagogues during legal segregation.
Opinion By Nehemiah D. Frank
Oklahoma students consistently perform below nearly every other state in the nation, and I imagine that this year’s test scores will be lower due to unreasonable state legislators who have seemingly sworn their loyalty to oil and gas corporations. Considering last year’s average test score ranks Oklahoma at 49th in the nation for Pre-K through 12-grade education, we can literally hear the chains clanging against the floor as the new arrivals — former students — stroll into Oklahoma prisons. Our state ranks 2nd highest in the nation for incarceration and 1st in the world for incarceration of women.
The City of Tulsa and the Community Service Council released the first annual Equality Indicators report today at Tulsa City Hall, which uses data to measure equality using a tool developed in partnership with the City University of New York Institute for State and Local Governance and The Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities network.
My pay does not reflect my educational level or experience. Each year, more and more is expected of us but with fewer resources.
Oklahomans have asked themselves the million dollar question or perhaps the billion dollar question: Why are public schools inadequately funded in Oklahoma when the state boasts natural resources that have created some of the worlds wealthiest people?
Before the “Work the Contract” initiative began on March 12th, Cameron would spend time before and after school (and on weekends) making lesson plans, grading, calling parents, making copies, planning activities, organizing group work, and meeting with his coaches, principal and data team. Now the time to complete these duties is confined to his 55 minute planning period (contractual time afforded to allow teachers to attend to business outside of their classroom) each day. His regular 80/hr work week has been reduced to forty. “I am having a hard time not bringing any work home,” said Cameron. “It feels like a slap in the face that we have to prove to our legislators how much work this takes.”
The ramifications in allowing the name of a person who protected and promoted white supremacy, white power, a Ku Klux Klan mentality, and Nazism — all racist ideologies at their core the same — to remain on the side of a public school building is detrimental to race relations for the city and the nation.
According to the Tulsa Public Schools Strategic Plan, 25.7 percent of students are chronically absent. Research shows that students who have more than ten unexcused absences are less likely to succeed in their classes, less likely to graduate, and more likely to have problems with education and employment later in life.
The Black Wall St Times asked T’erra Estes, founder and director of the nonprofit Teach Not Punish. The organization provides a support system that empowers families and professionals by offering educational opportunities that inspire positive behavioral change in homes and the workplace.
The SPLC’s report chronicles the timeline of the namings and finds that there are two distinct time periods wherein these schools were named. The first was during the rise of Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws throughout the south and at the time of the Tulsa Race Massacre in Greenwood. The second was immediately following the Supreme Court’s decision of Brown v. Board.
OPINION BY | Nehemiah D. Frank
Let us be frank: renaming Robert E. Lee Elementary School “Lee School” is a lash on the back of every African-American student attending a Tulsa public school, which is alarming considering 25 percent of TPS’ total student population is composed of African-American pupils.
TPS may as well remount the “No Colored” signs and command all the Negro students, Negro teachers, and Negro staff to ignore the symbol that acknowledges, values, and promotes white superiority in a 21st-century integrated educational setting.
But if your child receives a rejection letter, the cloud of depression instantly appears as a dark cloud over the entire house. And like clockworks, the tears began to fall for the student who see themselves as unworthy.
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