| Vol. 3 No. 14 July 10, 2008 |
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| Reflections/Jonathan Gramling Regression again? |
| Unique hits only |
| I received an e-mail the other day announcing the Madison Metropolitan School District Community Service Activities Request for Proposals for the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 School Years. I was curious and went to the website to read more about the RFP. It turns out that the RFP is for approximately $290,000 in Fund 80 funds. Fund 80 is a segregated fund of the school district that can be used for after school activities that support, supplement and enhance the educational process. Since Fund 80 — which has been used to fund the Madison School Community Recreation Program and the activities of outside contracting organizations — is not a part of the school district’s regular budget and instructional program, it is not covered under the state of Wisconsin’s revenue caps. For the past 15 years or so, Fund 80 has supplemented the district’s diversity and equity efforts. By my count, the agencies that are currently receiving funding under Fund 80 are the Urban League of Greater Madison, Centro Hispano, Kasjiab House, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute, the Gay Straight Alliance for Safe Schools and Wisconsin Center for Academically Talented Youth (WCATY). With the exception of WCATY, which uses its funds for scholarships for students of color and low-income students, these are organizations of color and an organization that works on LGBT issues. These organizations came to the school district for funding because the student populations they represent were experiencing well-documented academic performance or safety issues in the schools. In particular, the academic problems that African American students experience have been so well documented for years and years. Each year, I prepare the Hues Row of Excellence celebrating the academic achievement of students of color graduating from Madison area schools. I also teach a middle school student workshop eaxh summer for the UW PEOPLE Program each summer. The PEOPLE Program’s mission is to ensure that the UW-Madison has a pipeline of students of color who are academically qualified applying for entrance each year. Over the course of the past 5-6 years, I have noticed that the group that is most underrepresented in these activities is young African American men. And I know they have the biggest drop-out, suspension and expulsion rates in the district. And Dane County has one of the highest incarceration rates of young African American men in the country. We should have massive resources being allocated to reverse these trends because the problem is getting worse and not better. Our young African American men need assistance and they need it now. That’s why I find it incredulous that the Fund 80 RFP — that in all likelihood will take resources away from organizations of color working on these problems since they receive the bulk of the funding — doesn’t even mention young African American men or any other at-risk student populations. Does the school district not feel that it has to work extra hard in this area? Does the school district no longer feel that it is a priority to work with this student population that is experiencing problems? Are the schools suddenly safe for LGBT students? The crisis situation that young African American men are experiencing needs immediate, proactive attention. For some, there may be fear that targeting services to young African American men is unconstitutional. Well I feel the specific problem is well-documented and should be specifically addressed by public policy. To not address it is neglectful at best. The way the present RFP is written de facto pretends that the problem does not exist and no matter what the reason is, it leaves a fundamental community problem unaddressed. Maybe the people who drew up the RFP feel that race doesn’t have to be mentioned and that somehow the problems of young African American men will be addressed. I think that is the wrong way to go about it and the Madison school board continues to operate in a post Affirmative Action mode for unless Affirmative Action goals are specifically addressed in the text of an RFP, chances are they won’t be addressed. The needs of young African American men, LGBT students, low-income students and other at-risk student groups need to be proactively addressed in this RFP process and not be left to chance that they will somehow be met by rather ambiguous criteria. And in addition to targeting these services, the RFP should have also asked that the agencies state their proven successful intervention and experience in working with these target populations. Any agency can say it will work with these critical student populations. It is another thing to have a proven track record and the staff training and experience in working with them. For whatever reasons that the school district was dissatisfied with the performance of these organizations of color in addressing these issues — I haven’t heard what they are or if they are — the school district had better be careful in going off on some abstract tangent that is “color and class blind,” which in the end doesn’t meet their needs. The only way to address real community issues is to address them head on. To pretend that we are all treated the same and have the same experiences in real life is to ignore the reality of these young people’s lives.. I firmly believe in Dr. King’s beloved community where one is judged by the content of one’s character and not the color of one’s skin. But we cannot get there existentially and believe and therefore we are the beloved community. We need to work hard and relentlessly on the issues including the plight of young African American men or Dr. King’ s beloved community will remain a figment of our imaginations. It remains to be seen what the results of this RFP process are. We will be watching. |
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The UW-PEOPLE Program's "Exploring
College Through Media" youth paper
The UW-PEOPLE Program's "Exploring
College Through Media" youth paper
