Mark Twain said, “Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.”

Today, we acknowledge that there is much wrong with our educational system such as: teaching to the test, cookie-cutter approaches to learning, de-emphasizing hands-on and physical education, ignoring innovation, and much more. From a student’s point of view, school can be boring, vexing, and confining.

The key, however, is not to drop out, but to begin to acquire a parallel education outside of the confines of the school system. As a person with innate talents and abilities, you should learn all you can to improve your talents. Acquire the education needed to make you a master of your craft. Read widely, study, practice, and create time to specialize. Any talent or skill requires hours of careful nurturing to yield greatness. It is through hours spent poring over computers that Bill Gates became a computer whiz. Similarly, Oprah Winfrey, recognizing her talent to connect with people, spent hours honing her skills before she became a master.

So, take time to hone your skills both within and outside of school and then…take the world by storm!

A Virginia high school English teacher is under investigation for allegedly asking the only black student in the class to read a poem in a “blacker” manner.

Jordan Shumate, a ninth-grader at George C. Marshall High School in Falls Church, Va., says he was reading aloud Langston Hughes’ “Ballad of the Landlord” when teacher Marilyn Bart interrupted him and said “read it BLACKER”!

After seeing this video, it made me wonder how many other children have gone through this? How many teachers are doing these so called mistakes? Once I read ” Langston Hughes “Ballad Of The Landlord,” I began to think, was this really a mistake? Is the school system properly examining their staff?

What could the school systems, parents, and students do to make sure this doesn’t happen in any classroom ever again? Someone said to me the other day racism doesn’t exist anymore. Last time I checked, racism never died!

Almost two years ago, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, signed the ‘papers please’ bill into law. Millions waited for President Obama to address national immigration policy, but nothing changed. The bill has continued to be challenged and will make its Supreme Court appearance this summer.

Something else happened soon after the immigration bill was passed. Another less visible, but equally destructive bill, was passed in the Arizona senate. House Bill 2281, known as the Ethnic Studies Ban, was targeted at a series of Chicano and Mexican-American classes in the Tucson School district. A fierce battle ensued with students and educators on one side, and the Arizona state government on the other.

You may not have heard anything about the months of protest, but one woman, Eren McGinnis, not only paid attention but filmed for an entire year in a high school. Through her documentary film, Precious Knowledge, we enter into the world of the forbidden class. In this film we get to see first-hand what all the fuss was about. It turns out that predominately Mexican and Latino schools discovered that by having Latino teachers, teaching students their history, arts, and culture improved the students grades, test scores, and confidence. When the high school seniors learned that they may lose the classes, they organized protests and publicly resisted the state’s attempt to eliminate their classes.

This amazing film is being shown at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee on tonight, at 7:00 p.m. The film was brought to the university through the efforts of Associate Professor of Film and Director of Community Media Project, Portia Cobb. Professor Cobb meet Eren in Budapest in 2010 during the debate over the bill. Portia, having worked in the central city of Milwaukee teaching film to youth and community members, believed it was a project that needed to be viewed, especially in Wisconsin, where citizens were beginning to organize against Gov. Scott Walker.

“The film is about protecting diversity and identity. The teachers are young and they use culture and history as a way to engage the students in more traditional lessons like math and science. And you can really see the students go through a human transformation in the film.” Portia states. “Even though the bill passed, you see the students become empowered. I think that’s something we can all learn from.”

The film is not just an observation of classes, but about overcoming adversity in the face of discrimination.

“One of the objectives of the community media project has been not only to teach film, but to help teachers think of other ways to teach,” Cobb said. “Wisconsin has been dealing with the difficulties of teaching African-American history and culture to African-American students for many years.”

Precious Knowledge may be offering a solution to education problems that have plagued the inner cities of America for too long. It is clear that having more diverse teachers that represent and embrace the cultural arts of the world can have a powerful impact on some of the most disadvantaged students in America.

“I think we need a balance” Portia says. “There are some very conscious white teachers, but when these students see the energy of the young teachers that are like them, it gives them hope.”

Isn’t that what education is truly about?

Anybody watch President Obama’s speech on education and No Child Left Behind?

In a nutshell, President Obama said that since Congress couldn’t make moves, he had to. The president turned some (but not all) of the power to reform education back to the states by inviting them to create their own accountability and advancement systems.

Ten years ago, a bipartisan rewrite of No Child Left Behind was signed by President George W. Bush. The 2002 law required all schools to administer reading and math standardized tests each year, and to increase the proportion of students passing them until reaching 100 percent in 2014.

I think we can all agree that we need to correct our public educational system but can you honestly say that NCLB was a failure?

I don’t believe that it was! I know some of you are thinking “what you talking about, Willis?”

Bear with me… Our school systems were in need of improvements and our children weren’t reaching their full potential. If you look at the low test scores, high drop out and unemployment rates, most would be in agreement that NCLB failed to improve outcomes for students.

However, I believe that it was never created to improve our school systems and have children reach greatness but instead, it was created to build a pipeline from the schools to the prisons and that is why NCLB is a success. I believe that it was created with malicious intent, ensuring that the neediest students from low-income communities and communities of color are not given a fair, high-quality education.

What if the original intent was to create a pathway from books to (prison) bars leaving NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND?

If you look at our juvenile detention centers and prisons across the country, filled with poor youth from low-income communities of color, I would argue that they have succeeded in leaving No (low-income) Child Left Behind.

A white teacher claims that his civil rights were violated after he was suspended for using the N-word during a “teachable moment” on racism in his sixth grade class at Murray Language Academy in Hyde Park. The Chicago teacher has now filed a federal lawsuit as a result of being suspended without pay for five days.

Lincoln Brown, 48, has taught urban students for more than 20 years. Brown’s response is that he was teaching his predominately African-American class, an important lesson in vocabulary, civility and race relations.

The lecture started when one of his sixth grade students passed a note of rap lyrics that included the N-word. Brown insisted that students should learn more about the historical context of the word from other resources than hip-hop music. He referenced Mark Twain’s classic book Huckleberry Finn to illustrate how the N-word can be viewed as hurtful and demeaning language.

There has been an exhaustive debate over the use of the N-word, including a funeral for it. Some people feel that it is a derogatory word that should not be accepted in any context because it was derived out of hatred and racism during slavery. However, there are others who believed the N-word to be privileged and can only be verbally exchanged among blacks.

What do you think?

Dohn Community High School, a dropout recovery charter school in Cincinnati, just started trying a new idea to get kids to come to school – paying them. The school, through help from private donors and the Easter Seals, is offering seniors that arrive on time every day for the whole week and behave well $25 a week. Students in lower grades are eligible to get $10 a week.

So what do you think about this idea?

If this helps at-risk kids attend high school and graduate, I’m all for it. The more educated that a society is, the better off we all are, especially when we are helping the ones who really need it the most. The funds are coming privately from donors and not from the state or anything, so there is no issues as far as who pays for it in this case. I don’t know how or if this could work on a larger scale, but the story sure is interesting!

Not good – in urban schools, that is. Unfortunate news for the country, as the city schools are tested regarding the progress of the student attending them. According to the Huffington Post, overall, the math grades have gone up slightly, however grades have been stagnant in every other subject.

The data was taken from 21 different urban school districts, and revealed that math scores have risen, but urban school districts are behind suburban and rural districts in test scores in all other areas, including reading.

Bad news for Detroit as well, as they revealed that 71 percent of 8th grade students are performing below basic math levels.

The good news is that math scores continue to rise:

“If you look at the trends since 2003, it paints a clear picture about the progress that has emerged in the large cities since that time; we’ve been able to close the gap between us and the nation by between 25 percent and 36 percent in those eight years” said Mike Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, which helps administer the test.

Progress has been made, therefore we are moving in the right direction. It will take more than the government and national education system, however.

It is certain that society outside of the schools can also affect a student’s education, such as living arrangements, emotional stability and family support and guidance. Given the current results of the nation’s urban school district report cards, it appears that minimizing this education gap needs to be a national effort and we have to step up. These children are the future of our nation, lets raise OUR hand and contribute.

This week’s episode features Kwesi, our Ohio State Director. Check the vibrant conversation on inspiring young people, building power in our communities and protecting voting rights. Much love to the hosts for putting together a thought-provoking show week after week!

Join the conversation on twitter by following @OhioLeague @ellecee404 and @BrianKeith2039

Maurice Johnson, 55, lives in Boston in a homeless shelter. He has a master’s degree in Plasma Physics from Dartmouth College, and a master’s in electrical engineering from Purdue University. He even once worked as a Senior Research Engineer for eight years at Lockheed Aerospace Corp. Check out Maurice’s LinkedIn profile. If you want to contact Maurice, his email is Mjnomad@yahoo.com

In high school, I attended Bradley Tech in Milwaukee, WI. Compared to other schools, they tried to be ahead of the curve with the latest technology but it’s nothing compared to what is available now. If I could substitute a textbook for a tablet assignment, college might have been on my radar. With the burst of social media platforms and options for young tech lovers to explore, how can a student not be excited to learn?

Check out how students and technology are co-existing:

Infographic provided by: Online Education

At the recent convening of the National Urban League’s Annual gathering in Boston, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates discussed education and the need for advancements to be made in the African-American and Latino communities.

One key moment in the discussion was the observation that Bill Gates offered about poverty and education. Gates suggested that poverty does not have to be eliminated in order to have an adequate education system. Rather, he insinuates that we must do more to have stronger education system and that will begin to address and eradicate poverty.

Gates further shares his thoughts on high school diplomas not being enough for young Americans to be successful. He suggested that more emphasis be placed on educating black and Latino students with concerted efforts to lift those communities.

What would you do if your child’s school district went on strike? Well that’s exactly what the Memphis City School Board of Commissioners is doing. Apparently, the city owes the school board millions of dollars. According to CNN:

“The board says it is owed a total of $151 million, according to the Commercial Appeal newspaper of Memphis. That includes what the city still owes for the 2008-09 school year, shortfalls on two subsequent school years and $78 million for the upcoming year.”

School is supposed to start on August 8, but the board voted that it won’t happen until at least $55 million is placed in the school’s bank account. As a parent, this would worry the crap out of me, but I understand where they’re coming from. Children of all ages are out future and if you short-change them, what kind of future will we have?

Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton, Jr. says that they are working on a resolution before the academic year starts so that the students won’t get caught in the middle of the financial dispute. The Shelby County Chancery Court and the State Appellate Court have already said that the city’s decision to cut educational funding violated the state’s law but they just kept on breaking the law instead of doing the right thing. Martavius Jones, the school board president, and the other board members have been fighting for four years for the city to stop illegally withholding the education funding, but even with a court order they have had no relief.

I agree with Wharton that this is not just a Memphis issue, but a national issue. School districts across the nation are dealing with elected officials who always seem to find something else to do with our children’s money. In a small negotiating move, both sides met recently and city administrators agreed to pay $3 million of the $9 million it owes for the 2010-11 school year. Funding was supposed to be delivered three days later, but crickets were still chirping in the school board’s bank account when that one-week mark came up. You would think that after the school sued the city in 2008 they would wake up.

I was talking with some friends the other day about private school because the public school system in so screwed up. It’s sad to truly say that they only way my children will receive a quality education is if top dollar is spent. Even the top public schools are still screwed up so what does that tell you?

Every parent wants their child to learn everything they possible can so that they can be everything they can possibly be, but the education system makes that easier said than done. It seems like they’d rather incarcerate our young men and women instead of doing their best to educate them.

America is considered to be the “melting pot” of the world. Though times have changed and people are able to move around, America still has the widest variety of people, cultures and lifestyles. We come from all walks of life, sharing a common purpose, to achieve the so-called American Dream of success and happiness.

On Thursday, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill requiring all public schools in the state to teach students about the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, as well as providing instruction on the role of people with disabilities. Even though there is a lot of controversy surrounding the issue and this bill is a first for the nation, I do agree with Gov. Brown when he said, “History should be honest.”

Beginning in January, the California school system’s curriculum will take a big turn. Although textbooks will not change until 2015, teachers will start the teaching process. Unlike the Traditional Values Coalition and other religious groups who oppose this change, I’m all for it. I have nothing against LGBT Americans and like I mentioned earlier, Gov. Brown is absolutely correct that history should be honest.

Students are already learning about the contributions of African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, and Mexican-Americans so why not teach them about the contributions of LGBT and disabled Americans? America was founded on the principle that anyone can make it here because everyone is welcome and supposed to be treated equally. Though we often forget this principle, it’s still the foundation of our country and it should not be forgotten. Who you love or choose to have relations with should not affect how you’re treated anywhere. America is a place where differences are supposed to be accepted instead of frowned-upon.

In a sense, I understand where the religious and conservative groups are coming from, but I feel that as times change, our minds should open up more. Whether you’re black, white, gay, or straight we all bleed red. We shouldn’t discriminate against one another because of what we are. Instead, we should come together to save our country because of who we are.

In the wake of the recent test score cheating scandal in Atlanta, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. wrote an opinion piece for CNN. I, along with Rev. Jackson and many others, believe that test scores have little bearing on students’ and schools’ educational achievement. A straight “A” student can fail a standardized test all because the tests and scoring are crazy and because many people just aren’t good test-takers.

Test tampering isn’t just an Atlanta issues, it’s a national issue. Many cities like Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, and Washington have all been guilty of changing student’s test scores so that they can meet requirements for Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act.

It’s no surprise that there are two tracks that the nation’s youth are on or are going to be on. That’s either the road to college or the road to reduced life options and/or jail. Anyone with common sense and eyes can see that schools in better areas receive a higher quality education while students in low-income areas are forced to get the short end of a burning stick.

In the article, Rev. Jackson quoted Dr. Pedro Noguera of New York University:

“NCLB was adopted into law in 2001. The fact that nearly every major city in the U.S. has dropout rates of 50 percent or more is the clearest evidence that the policy has failed and a new approach is needed.”

He went on to say that Obama’s Race to the Top basically has the same foundation as NCLB, when NCLB should be done away with completely. When schools don’t meet the requirements for NCLB or Race to the Top, they don’t receive federal funding for many of their programs or they will have sanctions imposed. Because of these idiotic tests, teachers are forced to “teach to the test,” which basically means if it isn’t test-related, then they aren’t allowed to teach it. This means that students aren’t presented with the broad education they deserve.

It’s not right to cheat students out of a quality education. These teachers and administrators who change these scores aren’t necessarily crooked; they’re just trying to find a way to give these kids a good education while stuck in a sorry system. I’m not saying what they did was right, but I do understand their struggle.

The United States is 14th in reading, math and science literacy. Countries like South Korea and Iceland understand that the youth are the future, so they strive to give them the best education while Americans are giving our youth crap, yet they’re encouraged to stay in school. Our education system is so screwed up and it makes absolutely no sense at all. In order to give your child a quality education, you must come out of pocket and with today’s economy, the average family is debating food on the table or gas in the car.

I feel that lawmakers don’tunderstand the struggle of the taxpayers because all of their children are in the best schools in the country and there’s a good chance that they never went to public school themselves. Until I’m able to afford to send my daughter to an amazing private school, I’ll continue to pray that she receives the best education possible from the public school system and work with her at home to make sure that she’s properly absorbing all that she needs and more. Unfortunately, not all parents are like me and the only teaching their kids receive is at school.

It’s time to fight for better schools for our kids. It’s true that the world needs doctors and lawyers just like it needs mechanics and garbagemen but if we don’t educate our youth properly, we’re going to have more drive-thru attendants taking orders than scientists trying to find cures for diseases.

Yesterday, the Shreveport Times reported on a recent school board meeting that dozens of upset parents and school board staff attended. In the meeting, many vented about the 313 jobs that are to be eliminated in accordance with the $50 million parish budget. After a public hearing, the final vote will be taken on June 21. The students of Caddo Parish as well as the staff have been handed the short end of the stick while the administration is still sleeping ever so lovely night after night.

These job cuts aren’t planning to come from Central Office but from the schools themselves. Instead of laying off Central Office workers who rarely interact with the public, secretaries, aides that are hands-on with students, parents, and teachers are being thrown on the chopping block. I, along with several other parents, staff, and even one board member, believe that the schools shouldn’t be touched and the cuts should instead start with the school board administration.

This is Ursula Brantley’s debut blog post on 99Problems.org. She’s a 25-year-old single mom from Louisiana with a passion for writing. Show her some love in the comments!!

Collins Academy gets a surprise visit from Nicki Minaj as she takes on the role of Principal. School has never been this cool.

When schools are bad enough that a kid has a higher chance of ending up in jail than college, something’s got to be done. California is trying a new approach to place the power in the hands of parents.

In 2010, California passed the “parent trigger” law, which allowed for parents whose kids attend failing schools to organize to shut down the school and replace it with a charter school. If 51 percent of the parents sign a petition, a charter school can be established.

Charter schools are playing an important role in education reform today. Some of them have become wildly successful, while many have also failed to perform better than the public schools. They are naturally controversial because they are still an experiment, and when it comes to their future, no one wants to use kids as guinea pigs.

Parent Revolution is the non-profit managing the effort to get parents organized and pushing back in their communities. They’ve faced a lot of opposition since supporting the parent-trigger law.

Mother Jones reports:

“The bill, backed by Parent Revolution and other charter school believers, squeaked through the state legislature last year and was opposed fiercely by teacher unions. (California Teachers Association’s Frank Wells argues that it was an ill-considered, last-minute attempt to qualify California for federal Race to the Top funding, which the Golden State didn’t win.) Similar legislation is now popping up in at least five other states, and it’s no exaggeration to say that what happens here could someday be mirrored across the country.”

Check out the rest of the controversial article at Mother Jones.

When state governments start calling out teachers for bankrupting budgets, think for a minute about what they really make…

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When times get hard and budgets are tight, some groups (both conservative and liberal) are advocating for cutting prison funding in exchange for increasing education funding. These groups claim that it is a better economic investment to focus on education and sentencing reform to decrease crime across the country. This could mean placing non-violent offenders in more rehabilitative programs rather than incarcerating them.

The Washington Post reports that “state spending on prisons has grown at six times the rate of spending on higher education in the past 20 years.”

However, not everybody is on board.  The executive director of the National District Attorneys Association was quick to respond with: “It is very hard to earn your way into prison in the United States…These aren’t people who just had a baggie of marijuana or shoplifted.”

It’s fascinating to see that one of the main spokesmen for district attorneys is not interested in correcting a corrections system that is currently dysfunctional. When it boils down to it, violent crimes may be good reasoning for being locked up. But, when we’re talking about young people committing non-violent crimes, does locking them up serve a greater purpose than educating them?

President Obama and his Secretary of Education are big basketball fans and often play together. However, Secretary Arne Duncan isn’t a fan of universities that have poor academic performance and good athletic performance.

On St. Patrick’s Day, he came forward and called out the 15 percent of NCAA schools that have less than 50 percent graduation rates among their basketball players. He accused the schools of allowing student athletes to fall behind in schoolwork, leading many of them to drop out later on.

According to Afro:

“His remarks came hours after writing on the Washington Post’s opinion page that schools ‘need to stop trotting out tired excuses for basketball teams with poor academic records and indefensible disparities in the graduation rates of white and black players.’”

Several studies have shown glaring inequities between black and white players’ graduation rates. The most telling example is the University of Akron, which graduates a full 100 percent of its white players and zero percent of its black players. Secretary Duncan believes that schools with poor performances should not be eligible to compete until academic standards go up.

The truth is, athletic scholarships provide kids with an opportunity to get an education regardless of whether the dreams of going pro become a reality. Maybe finishing a degree wouldn’t be the first priority if you ended up getting drafted. But only 1.2 percent of NCAA players actually go on to be in the NBA, so most of the athletes get left behind- especially since there are high expectations to focus primarily on the game. However, if kids are already stressing about getting good grades, does getting kicked out of the championships just make a bad situation even worse?

Justin Burkhardt wrote about this for 99Problems a few weeks ago, highlighting the racial disparity on D1 teams in a recent study released.

What do y’all think: is the NCAA failing at its mission to provide quality education for its players?