The Guilford County School district has spent $357,448.60 on an “African-American Males Symposium” this past July. The costs were paid for by a portion of the $1.6 million in Race To The Top funds given to the district, except for the catering. The catering bill came from local funds and totaled around $8,779.90.  Stipends were given to teachers to attend the two-day event in the amount of $100 per day. Those stipends represented the bulk of the cost of the event at $264,500.

Speakers included:

• Dr. Geneva Gay (talking points used)
• Mr. Mychal Wynn (talking points used)
• Dr. Cayce McCamish (handout)
• Mrs. Sherry Rogowski (handout)
• Mrs. Dibrelle Tourret
• Mr. Eric Hines

All related documents that I received can be found here.  The symposium booklet has an opening letter penned by Superintendent Maurice Green and profiles of the speakers.  Be sure to read the booklet and then recall the ‘school to prison pipeline‘ narrative I’ve written about before.  The last paragraph of page two caught my eye with regards to the ‘pipeline’ narrative:

African American male students are receiving a disproportionate number of out-of-school suspensions, which amounts to a significant loss of instructional time. Thus, the district’s suspension rate is a major contributing factor to the achievement gap for this subgroup of learners. Research suggests that strategies such as providing culturally relevant pedagogy, addressing staff bias and preparing teachers to effectively instruct African American males are effective strategies in addressing these negative trends.

 

Buzzwords used throughout: Equity, Culturally Responsive Teaching, Social Justice, Racial justice and Multicultural education.

Here’s some more about “Culturally Responsive Teaching” and how it “intersects” with Common Core. While watching, you have to ignore that Common Core does not help or address at risk or minority students whatsoever: