more school meetings

Hello Kathy and all,

I will not be able to attend the meeting this afternoon with Lopez due to another meeting commitment for my job that got scheduled yesterday. The good news is that meeting is about connecting racial justice issues such as Education and Employment discrimination to the Supreme Court advocacy work that I currently do in PA.

Below are a couple of questions I have that may or may not fit in today but thought I would share them with the group anyway just in case. I am also including background info I had sent to a smaller email lists that gives some background on why I am asking these questions and their relevance to our cause.

In light of the recent Supreme Court decision(more info below) that race could not be used as a factor in assigning students to school to achieve diversity, will the PPS consider using income status (free lunch) as a way to achieve diversity in our PPS?

Ability Tracking and selection into different academic programs? What role does it play in providing or not providing opportunities to all students?

What would happen if All students were tested to see if they were gifted but call it something else? Is this being done? If it is, what aren't there more students being placed and what is the connection between the Gifted Program, IB and AP?

What efforts have been made to ensure that the IS (International Studies / Frick Middle School) students who are now IB have been provided the necessary support in order for them to be successful? What will this look like in the future? Many of these IS students are African American which would help boost the number of students currently in the IB program and taking AP courses but what is the likelihood that these students will be able to achieve the college credits and pass the necessary test? What is being done to help these students be successful?

I will be at the Panera meeting on Sunday at 2pm and am speaker number 10 at the Public Hearing on Monday.

Here are a couple of links to good education articles and letters in the PG today.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08011/848438-298.stm
Principals in city return to instruction

http://www.post-gazette.com/forum/letters/
Postcards from the edge of a strike

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08011/848350-298.stm
Expulsions of preschoolers preventable, study finds

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08011/848422-298.stm
Magazine ranks Pennsylvania 10th for schools, with B- grade

All the best at the meeting this afternoon.

Celeste