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As
we celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of many African
Americans this month, we also recall the great milestones towards
achieving the society envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Delivered on August
28,1963, Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech has resonated over the
decades because it touched on values we share as Americans—that one
should be judged on character and merit and that equal opportunities
for personal advancement should not be based on skin color, creed, or
wealth.
Dr. King, Rosa
Parks, and other warriors in the great battles for civil rights
understood that not everyone could enjoy the blanket of democracy
outlined in the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution,
but that did not stop these leaders from believing in the premises of
those documents. Let me quote from Dr. King’s speech: “… we refuse to
believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe
that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity
of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will
give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of
justice.” And these leaders were correct in their faith.
The Jim Crow laws,
ordinances and statutes that barred blacks and whites from sharing a
restaurant table or swimming pool or bus seat are gone. Legal barriers
to securing voting rights are also gone.
Yet the dream
articulated by Dr. King and many others has not been fully realized.
While armed guards no longer block school house doors, doors to equity
and access to quality educational opportunities remain closed to many.
The greatest treasure in the vault of opportunity is a quality
education.
Education is the
great equalizer; yet we continue to see achievement gaps between
students of color and their white counterparts. In our district, our
board of education and staff have made closing this gap a priority.
Last year, we saw
gains in the performance of our African American, Latino and Hmong and
Mien students. Yet, while the progress is encouraging, we must move
faster and more effectively to ensure the success of every child.
Our district
created the “Equity, Access, and Achieve-ment Team” (EAA) to help us
eliminate the achievement gap. The EAA team is a group of principals,
district office staff and community members focused on how we can
eliminate differences in performance among our historically under
served and under prepared students.
The EAA team’s work
is already underway. They have connected principals with research,
training and other tools to help them meet the needs of each child.
They are also connecting school and district staff to resources for
understanding and combating subtle obstacles to student learning such
as low expectations and cultural misunderstandings.
Through The
Connection and other means we will keep you informed about the work of
the EAA team. By closing the achievement gap we make Dr. King’s dream
a reality and ensure that “the riches of freedom and the security of
justice” are truly available to all.
Editor’s Note: This
is an excerpt from the Superintendent’s message of Feb. 1, 2006. To
review the progrss on these goals, go to Progress Report of 1/18/07 at
www.scusd.edu. (Note reports under Strategic Objective 1, especially
1.8.1)
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