Understanding the Humanitarian Crisis in Puerto Rico

Friday, August 19

6:30 PM

Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center 

4048 W. Armitage Ave

Chicago

Host Organization: Chicago Boricua Resistance

Solidarity with Mexican Teachers and Farmworkers-July 26 Event

This year's Curriculum Fair theme: DEFUND Police in Schools and Communities: FUND Community Schools and Communities will explore the connections between racial and economic justice, the links between racism and capitalism, and state sanctioned violence in communities and schools.

As educators, parents, and communities members, we know the troubling relationship Black and Brown families often have with police, yet police have become a common fixture in our schools and in our communities. We refuse to accept this as a norm. Our children deserve to be educated not policed.

At the same time we are truly witnessing the "history of the present moment" as groups of activists and organizers in Chicago and around the nation have been fighting back against economic and racial violence in unapologetic, creative, and effective ways. The critical analysis and rejection of the conditions which facilitate and reward over-policing and police brutality toward Black and Brown communities is stronger than any time since the modern civil rights movement began. Our goal is for the Curriculum Fair to build on this work and help educators bring this critical analysis into the curriculum and into the classrooms by discussing and planning workshops (among others) that explore:

    

  -What does it look like to strive to be an anti-racist teacher practitioner?

    

  -How do we understand the political economy of, and the connection between, chattel slavery, the prison industrial complex, and over-policing in Black and Brown communities?

      

 -What are the historic and contemporary issues that contribute to the explosion in incarceration and policing in Black and Brown communities?

    

  -What are the radical possibilities for truly restorative justice in our schools and in the communities in which they are situated?

Join us to discuss and plan the theme for the 2016 Teachers for Social Justice Curriculum Fair #TSJCF16, and begin to plan together to make this the most meaningful and action inspiring TSJ Curriculum Fair yet.

Elected Representative School Board Bill Passes House in 

bi-partisan landslide!

The years-long battle to win an elected, representative school board for Chicago is one step closer to victory after the Illinois House gave overwhelming support to the measure in a historic vote today, March 3.

Parents, teachers, labor groups, community organizations, and education justice organizations across Chicago have been pushing for the bill, which would take unilateral control of the schools away from the mayor and allow Chicago voters to elect their school board members.

The bill, HB 0557, won by a bi-partisan landslide vote of 110-4, a tribute to the hard work of Rep. Rob Martwick, the bill's chief sponsor; 67 co-sponsors; House leadership; and the Grassroots Education Movement(GEM), the community coalition that has been pushing the measure  for years.

Elected school boards are the norm nationwide and here in Illinois. Chicago is the only district in the state where the mayor appoints school board members.

Chicago parents, teachers and students understand that the current school board works for the mayor, not for the people the schools serve. Today's vote could usher in a new day of accountability and democracy in the nation's third largest school system, though we understand that an elected board is NO guarantee of democracy-it is only a condition for it, and an important marker in an ongoing struggle for justice and equity in education and ACROSS society.

GEM organizations will now focus their attention on passing the bill in the Senate.

Since mayoral control of schools started in the 1990s, and mayors began appointing school boards, NO education justice movement has successfully overturned this massive public disenfranchisement. Chicago's movement is on its way! Stay tuned, there will be plenty more to do!

GEM is a city-wide coalition of parents, teachers and community members dedicated to bringing democracy and accountability to CPS  Member organizations are:  Action Now, Blocks Together, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Chicago Teachers Union, CODE - Communities Organized for Democracy in Education, Communities United, Enlace, Grassroots Illinois Action, Jobs with Justice, Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), Logan Square Neighborhood Association, Northside Action for Justice, Parents 4 Teachers, People for Community Recovery, Pilsen Alliance, Raise Your Hand, Teachers for Social Justice and United Working Families.