Dr. Bradley Scott

Education Civil Rights for Today and Beyond – Podcast Episode 147 | Classnotes Podcast 147

Aurelio M. Montemayor, M.Ed.Classnotes Podcast (October 30, 2014) Federal law and court rulings have taken steps to protect the civil rights of students in our public schools. What that looks like has changed over the decades as Bradley Scott, Ph.D. director of the IDRA South Central Collaborative for Equity, has described in previous Classnotes podcast episodes. Today, he gives an overview of what civil rights in education means for our schools today.

In particular, he outlines five priorities that the U.S. Department of Education has for the nation’s network of equity assistance centers: My Brother’s Keeper initiative, teacher equity plans, parent involvement, discipline guidance and dropout prevention.

Bradley is interviewed by Aurelio M. Montemayor, M.Ed., IDRA senior education associate.

Show length: 13:28

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Resources

Improving Public Education Accountability Systems and Addressing Educational Equity
Eleven of our nation’s most prominent national civil rights organizations released a strong statement in October 2014 to support new investments in the public schools
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/28/eleven-civil-rights-groups-urge-obama-to-drop-test-based-k-12-accountability-system/

Equal Access to a Quality Education – The Civil Rights Issue of Our Generation
Dr. María “Cuca” Robledo Montecel keynote, March 29, 2011
http://www.idra.org/resource-center/equal-access-to-a-quality-education/

The Challenge of Seeing, Part II – Shaping the Sixth Generation of Civil Rights and Educational Equity
By Bradley Scott, Ph.D., IDRA Newsletter
http://www.idra.org/resource-center/the-challenge-of-seeing-part-ii/

The Challenge of Seeing – Shaping the Sixth Generation of Civil Rights and Educational Equity
By Bradley Scott, Ph.D., IDRA Newsletter
http://www.idra.org/resource-center/the-challenge-of-seeing/

Coming of Age
By Bradley Scott, Ph.D., IDRA Newsletter
http://www.idra.org/resource-center/coming-of-age/

The Fourth Generation of Desegregation and Civil Rights
By Bradley Scott, Ph.D., IDRA Newsletter
http://www.idra.org/resource-center/the-fourth-generation-of-desegregation-and-civil-rights/

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Show Notes

  • Aurelio asks Bradley why we still need to be concerned with civil rights in education today.

  • Bradley talks about the role of the nation’s 10 equity assistance centers, including the IDRA-directed South Central Collaborative for Equity, in addressing these civil rights issues (gender discrimination, sexual abuse, racial hostility, etc.) and working to make schools work for all learners.

  • Bradley discusses the five priorities for the equity assistance centers, as directed by the U.S. Department of Education. The first is the My Brother’s Keeper initiative, which focuses on boys of color.

  • The second priority centers on parent involvement. Bradley considers the ways that some parents are systematically excluded from important discussions at their children’s schools, and the systems of redress they should have when they or their children are discriminated against.

  • For the third priority, discipline guidance, Bradley explains the societal impact of the disproportionately high suspension and dropout rates among poor and minority students.

  • The fourth priority is collaboration around dropout prevention, and the need to “not just warehouse [kids] in schools,” as Bradley says, but rather to “get them ready to competently go on to college.”

  • Bradley explains that the fifth initiative around teacher equity includes building capacity in teachers to better accommodate and reach diverse student groups in more culturally competent ways.

  • Aurelio and Bradley call out the dangerous assumptions inherent in the claim that “college is not for everybody” – including the road to infringing on students’ civil rights.