In the United States, public education is viewed as the best and most impactful way to upend inequity and to intentionally create equitable opportunities for families, children, and youth to advance and succeed. However, as long as policymakers continue to exacerbate inequities by investing less in those with the greatest need and fewest assets for many Black and Brown students, urban students, and others historically underserved, access to high-quality public education remain an unrealized and distant dream.
The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified inequities in our public education and youth development systems and requires sustained, targeted, and inclusive efforts to provide equitable education for students of color. Similarly, candid and necessary dialogue about race and racism (systemic, institutional, and individual) is under direct assault in too many schools, districts, and states. Ignoring or excising racism, ableism, sexism, homophobia, and science in lesson plans as suitable content will remove the very real legacies and consequences of each for students, families, educators, and communities.
The National Urban League Movement does not shy away from our mission and believes that a value-neutral education that doesn’t confront the realities of the world or schooling that intentionally misinforms students and communities about the history and current events, is inherently dangerous as no education at all.
We believe in an engaging, challenging, and informative education that expands opportunity diversifies perspectives, balances an understanding of history and current circumstances, and is deeply grounded in lifelong learning, all existing within and beyond school.
To achieve the education that we envision, stakeholders must play an active and meaningful role in shaping policy, investment, and practice. All too often, communities of color, as well as their institutions and their stakeholders, are “left outside” education reform efforts and innovations, just as students of color are “left behind” in their education. Regrettably, reform and innovation happen TO these students, families, and communities instead of WITH them through their advocacy, agency, engagement, and leadership.
Urban communities must be sufficiently and meaningfully engaged in setting goals and measuring and reporting progress to ensure that our education and youth development systems truly deliver on their high expectations for children and youth. In that way, stakeholders would be accountable and responsible for child and youth success beyond what is currently framed as solely a school, district, and state matter.
The National Urban League believes students, parents, and community stakeholders should opt-in to a vision of education reform and innovation that expands and deepens opportunity, upends inequity, accelerates progress, and delivers more fully on the promise of education.
