My idea of beautiful hair - a perfectly shaped afro.

I remember growing up my big sisters had beautiful, perfectly shaped afros. They wore it tight; they wore it blown out; and sometimes they put an afro pick in just the right position. Absolutely beautiful.

When I first saw the image below, I loved it. I still don’t understand why a lot of other bloggers found it offensive. Neither did PW senior news editor, Calvin Reid (black guy)…

PW’s African-American Cover Image:

Black Beauty or Big Mistake?

It didn’t take long before complaints began to circulate on Twitter about the image used on the cover of this week’s Publishers Weekly to illustrate the annual feature on African-American book publishing.

“We don't get the 'Afro Picks!' cover. It's not hip, cute, or appealing,” said one tweet. Another tweet: “It seems like a big mistake,” while another read, “what exactly is the rationale behind the Afro-picks cover?” “This is a ridiculous cover. An afro with lotso picks. Get it?” “Publishers Weekly what were you thinking?” By early afternoon on Monday, Twitter was swarming with comments about the cover illustration and few of the comments were complimentary.

The image was a photograph taken from a new book from W.W. Norton, Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present by Deborah Willis, a collection of carefully chosen photographs intended to highlight the physical and cultural beauty of African-American life. The image (Pickin', 1999) by Lauren Kelley is a photograph of a black woman whose hair is full of Afro picks, the ubiquitous metal toothed hair-comb of the 1970s, complete with plastic handle in the form of a black power fist. The afro picks are arrayed in the woman’s hair to create a kind of giant sculptural Afro hair-do and the woman is leaning slightly forward to give the viewer a better look at the quirky artificially created hair-pick crown. The coverline for the image is: Afro Picks! New Books and Trends in African-American Publishing and it refers to the feature story “African-American Books in Today’s Marketplace,” a look at the current marketplace for black books written by Felicia Pride.

In an effort to respond to the complaints, I contacted W.W. Norton executive editor Bob Weil, who edited the book from which the photo was taken. He wanted to emphasize that “this is a positive and transformational book.” He recently spoke at an event promoting the book at the Studio Museum in Harlem and said, “Willis's book goes miles to show a more complete and honest history of the black image. One man stood up in the audience and said he's using the book therapeutically with his psychiatric in-patients at Bellevue to improve their self-esteem; another young woman stood up and said she came upon the book by accident and was amazed to discover a book that reflected the world she knew.”

And with all due respect to those who were offended by the image, that is not a universal reaction. In an e-mail message from professor Willis, a scholar of black photography, chair of NYU’s photography department and a MacArthur Fellow, wrote: “It's amazing how the viewers read this wonderful image that exemplifies power, humor, style, and beauty. Including the fist on the comb indicates power and strength and pride. It reminded me of the 70s. Ironic could it be that the readers are afraid to look at the power in black hair. (smile.) Thank you for using the image and exposing Black Beauty.”

Read the entire article here.

Pushing a harder line for the weakest schools

If a public school struggles year after year, is the solution to shut it down? Fire everyone and start over? Hand the reins to a contractor? Or help teachers and principals raise their game?

The Race to the Top is pushing a harder line for the weakest schools. School systems that want a share of the federal aid have four options (all of which we are seeing in Peoria):

Turnaround: replacing a school principal and at least half the staff;
Restart: converting a school to an autonomous charter school or hiring an education management organization to run it;
Shutdown: closing a school and dispersing its students; or,
Transformation: replacing a principal, improving teacher effectiveness and taking other steps for comprehensive reform.

Systems with nine or more of the weakest schools may use the transformation option in no more than half of them.

"After years of school improvement efforts, there are far too few examples of persistently low-achieving schools that have significantly and rapidly improved performance. We believe that, in part, this is because turning around such schools generally requires fundamental changes in leadership and often in governance and staff, changes that many [local education agencies] are reluctant to make."
Education Secretary Arne Duncan

Will it work?

Source

It's really sad when people should know better...

Today, the Journal Star Editorial Board stopped just short of calling statements made by a local attorney what they are – race baiting. When you know the facts to be this:

… but you have a respected member of the community making statements like this:


... this, my people is race baiting.

I am personally offended by the comment and in my opinion, the teacher's attorney owes the black community and the Peoria community as a whole an apology. To date, the story in which the statement was made has garnered a voluminous number of online responses - more than any story in Journal Star memory. Disappointing.

Reverse discrimination does happen, however, it is unfortunate that the teachers who are alleging racial discrimination against District 150 are only suing for a monetary remedy, rather than the hope for change and better understanding within District 150.

As I read through comments from teachers and their supporters on local blogs, it is evident to me teachers and administrators within District 150 are in grave need of racial sensitivity training. This demand for training should have been a part of their lawsuit.

There appears to be some misunderstanding by teachers about exactly what “black culture” is. Black culture is not a bunch of angry, disrespectful kids with their pants hanging down – that is “hip hop culture”. Look around, the “hip hop culture” is embraced by youth black, white and otherwise. It is not particular to black children.

Black culture is a culture that is rich in history, family, philanthropy, the arts and citizenship. (See the Obama's, the Heritage Ensemble, Preston Jackson, EmergePeoria, Annie Jo Gordon) Apparently, the local teachers union has become confused about the pride many of us still take in our culture, because they are attempting to make a mockery of it on a regular basis. Look at the lawsuit, what are the teachers complaining about? Be they right or wrong, they are issues that are based around culture.

In my opinion, it is black parents who should be suing District 150 for their massive failure to educate our children. Can we get an attorney in Peoria to take that case?

The Race is on...

Since teachers being transferred will be based on achievement and where one may be most effective, is it possible that District #150's fight with the teacher's union on transfer rights, might actually help Peoria's chances in Race to the Top?

Illinois prepares application for 'unprecedented' money

December 07, 2009 - Illinois school leaders will spend the next month and a half developing a plan to reform parts of the state's educational system in hopes of receiving up to $400 million in federal funding.

The money is available through the $4.35 billion Race to the Top program set up through the federal stimulus package.

The deadline for the state's application is Jan. 19, and Illinois will have to turn in a strong application to contend for any money in the competitive program, Illinois State Board of Education spokesperson Mary Fergus says.

State leaders say they're hoping previous efforts to develop a system for tracking student performance will help set the Illinois application apart.

Gov. Pat Quinn also named a 25-member council of government officials, school leaders, parents and others this week to help chase the federal grant money. "We believe we're in a good place to compete for this," Fergus said. "This money is unprecedented."

“With these appointments, Illinois is sending a strong signal to Washington that a top-notch education for all students is a foremost priority,” Quinn said in a news release.

The federal program focuses on allocating money to states that show reform plans in the following categories:

• Student tracking, known as longitudinal data systems
• Improving quality of teachers and school leaders
• Adopting rigorous learning standards
• Turning around struggling schools

State leaders received a $9 million grant in April to help fund the longitudinal system, which has been in the works for several years, Fergus says.

The system would allow schools to track individual student performance from pre-school age until the student is in college to accurately measure student growth and collect data that was previously unavailable to schools, Fergus says.

The state still needs to work on some of the application's criteria, including improving teachers and school leaders and turning around struggling schools, Fergus says.

Any money given to the state from the program would be split down the middle, Fergus said. The Illinois State Board of Education would get half, and the rest would be divvied up to school districts that agree to follow the reform standards set up through the application, Fergus says.

Source

Green t-shirts

A teacher has a right to be organized and loyal to their union. However, I think it crosses the line when they bring it into the classroom.

Imagine my surprise to see a teacher wearing a green t-shirt in school on Monday. The children wear uniforms; they can't even wear a polo shirt with a logo; plus it has to be a certain color. But a teacher can show up wearing a green t-shirt, which they received at a union meeting, wherein they voted to strike. Really?

I immeditately began to wonder about the teachers not wearing green t-shirts, doesn't this make it kind of awkward for them, maybe even a little intimidating. And what about the parent, dropping their child off, running to work or wherever and they see their child's teacher wearing a green t-shirt? The prospect of a strike can be a threatening proposition for a working parent.

In this parent’s opinion, wearing the green t-shirt in school or on campus is in bad taste and it causes tension in the schools - a tension we all know can't be good for the children.

Harlem Children's Zone

Harlem Children's Zone has helped put historically low-achieving students in New York on academic par with their grammar-school peers. CNN's Anderson Cooper reports.

Hat tip to Brooke

Of course the Vatican has a MySpace page

The Vatican has released its list of favorite songs for MySpace’s new streaming service MySpace Music, which launched yesterday (December 3).

One of the 12 tracks is Tupac Shakur’s song “Changes,” which was released in 1998 on Tupac’s Greatest Hits album, which was released in 1998. Excellent choice, if I may so myself.

“The genres are very different from each other, but all these artists share the aim to reach the heart of good minded people,” The Vatican wrote on its official MySpace Music page.

The list was compiled by Father Giulio Neroni, artistic director for St. Paul’s Multimedia, a church publisher. The list:

1. Advocata Nostra – Music From The Vatican. From the album Alma Mater featuring the voice of Pope Benedict XVI.
2. Uprising – Muse. Single from the album, The Resistance.
3. Causa Nostrae Laetitiae – Music From The Vatican. From the album Alma Mater.
4. Il Mare Mi Salva – Rossomalpelo. Song from the band led by contemporary Italian singer songwriter Serge Gaggiotti
5. After The Rain – Dame Shirley Bassey. From the album The Performance.
6. Coexist – Nour Eddine. Song from Moroccan Musician, based in Italy.
7. Don Giovanni – Mozart.
8. Rafaele Merry Del Val – Lorenzo Perosi Inni Mottetti e Canzoni, Pablo Colino & Coro Academica Filarmonica Romana.
9. He Doesn't Know Why – Fleet Foxes.
10. Changes – Tupac Shakur.
11. Regina Coeli – Music From The Vatican. From the album Alma Mater.
12. Mi sarete Testimoni – Santo Subito! (DVD). Music DVD embodying the voice and image of The Pope.

World Aids Day 2009

To a community in denial, it's time to snap out of it and get tested.