The following is an excerpt of an LA Times article about the recent firing of two charter school teachers due to administrators' attempts to stifle discussion of the 1950s lynching of a 14-year old teenager in Mississippi by white supremacists because he allegedly whistled at a white woman. The timing of the decision to fire the teachers only a few weeks before the LAUSD run-off is fraught with consequences for two reasons. First, it shows that mostly non-union charter schools (a central facet of Mayor Villaraigosa's attempt to reform LAUSD) have problems to face with regard to employment issues. Second, the facts of the specific case show an incredible lack of judgment by administrators with regard to the history of civil rights in America.
...[The cancellation of a student program for Black History Month at Celerity Nascent Charter School] roiled the southwest Los Angeles campus and led to the firing of seventh-grade teacher Marisol Alba and math teacher Sean Strauss, who had signed one of several letters of protest written by the students.The teacher firings will likely (and appropriately) be used by UTLA to remind voters that a central component of LAUSD reform involves placing the education of our most problematic children in the hands of private companies with very little oversight over the teachers. The truth is that UTLA has been dragging its feet over any reform for the bloated Kafkaesque organization of the nation's second largest school district. At the worst possible time, UTLA will drag this case through the mud in attempt to show charter schools as yahoos with capricious employment policies. While major reform is mandatory, this case shows that some oversight needs to be kept by the district to ensure that these kinds of activities don't occur in the future.
The incident highlights the tenuous job security for mostly nonunion teachers in charter schools, which are publicly financed but independently run. California has more than 600 charter schools, and their ranks continue to swell. According to the California Teachers Assn., staff at fewer than 10% of charter schools are represented by unions.
"I never thought it would come to this," said Alba, who helped her students prepare the Till presentation, in which they were going to read a poem and lay flowers in a circle. "I thought the most that would happen to me [after the event was canceled] is that I'd get talked to and it would be turned into a learning and teaching experience."
School officials refused to discuss the particulars of the teachers' firings but said the issue highlights the difficulty of providing positive images for students who are often bombarded by negative cultural stereotypes.
"Our whole goal is how do we get these kids to not look at all of the bad things that could happen to them and instead focus on the process of how do we become the next surgeon or the next politician," said Celerity co-founder and Executive Director Vielka McFarlane. "We don't want to focus on how the history of the country has been checkered but on how do we dress for success, walk proud and celebrate all the accomplishments we've made."
...Alba said that when the principal informed the class that they could not recite their poem, she gave the example of a construction worker whistling at her as she walked down the street.
"She said that she would be offended by that and that what Emmett Till did could be considered sexual harassment," said Alba. "She used the phrase a couple of times and when I objected, she said 'OK, inappropriately whistled at a woman.' "
With regard to the specifics of this case, it is clear that the administrators at Celerity have, at a minimum, very little knowledge of modern history and the civil rights movement. At worse, the administrators are just freaking stupid and don't deserve to have the future of hundreds of LA's kids placed in their hands.
Emmett Till was a 14-year old kid visiting family in the South and was brutally tortured, wrapped in barbed wire and thrown into a nearby river. The two murderers later admitted to the killing but were never tried for the crime.
There is no doubt that the case is likely not an appropriate subject for a school assembly that included kindergartners. However, for a school principle to tell mostly African-American children that they can't present a project to the school on Emmett Till because he whistled at a woman, which is sexual harassment is simply obscene. By inference, the principal is saying that 14-year old Till deserved to be beaten to a pulp and thrown still alive into a river to die, because a black boy whistling at a white woman constitutes sexual harassment (a notion, by the way, that did not exist in 1950s Mississippi).
School founder Vielka McFarlane defended the firings by saying that "we don't want to focus on how the history of the country has been checkered but on how do we dress for success, walk proud and celebrate all the accomplishments we've made." It seems that under the Celerity plan, it is better for poor black students to focus on dressing right for McDonald's interviews than standing up for their rights. It seems the administration wasn't happy that students circulated a petition opposing the administrators' decision. With this absurdest logic, the young children at Celerity might be better off with the current corrupt and broken system.
