Cicely Morris, Woodworth Elementary, Inglewood
cmorris@email.com

Participants:
This map, created by Herschell Sarnoff at Jordan High School, shows the schools that have teachers participating in the "Towards a Students' Bill of Rights" seminar.

Meeting Times/Locations: Monthly meetings on Thursdays from 5-7. Meetings will be held in the IDEA offices, 1041 Moore.

Overview:
The Students’ Bill of Rights articulates a public commitment to providing every student in California with a high quality education that prepares him or her for a 4-year university, a living wage job, and active participation in civic life. Many young people, particularly those living in low-income communities of color, do not presently receive such an education. In May 2000, Eliezer Williams and a group of other students in troubled schools around California filed a lawsuit arguing that they deserve schools like those that serve their more affluent peers.

Williams v California holds more promise for promoting educational equity than any California case in the past two decades. Yet, the history of legal advocacy suggests that court decisions alone cannot insure quality or equitable education. Educational justice is born out of larger movements of students, educators, and parents who bring pressure to bear on the political and education system.

This course, offered through UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access (IDEA), invites educators from greater Los Angeles to study and teach about the Students’ Bill of Rights. It seeks to initiate dialogue among teachers and students about the education that every California student deserves. It also provides teachers with curricular materials and pedagogic strategies for engaging their students in studying access and equity in their own communities. Teachers and their students will be encouraged to post the results of these studies, as well as their ideas for guaranteeing students’ rights, in IDEA’s online journal, Teaching to Change LA. In these ways, the course simultaneously promotes changing teaching and teaching for change.

JamCam Cameras:
These cameras are available to loan to teachers involved in this seminar. If you would like a set of 5 cameras for a class project, please contact us. We also have instructions posted on TCLA to assist you in taking photos and downloading them.

Expectations:
Teacher-participants are expected to attend monthly seminars at UCLA and contribute, along with their students, to the journal, Teaching to Change LA. Teachers and their students can participate each month in the journal’s "Civic Conversation" feature. Teachers also should commit to engaging their students in a research project on one of the ten rights. This work will be featured in one month’s issue of the journal. Teachers will also be given digital cameras to take photos of their students and the students' work as needed.

Bill Bigelow. "Inside the Classroom: Social Vision and Critical Pedagogy" City Kids, City Teachers, 1996, pp. 292-304.

Stephanie Walters, "Fairness for First Graders," Rethinking Schools v16 n1, 2001, pp. 10-11.

Californians for Justice, "Still Separate, Still Unequal," 2001, pp. 1-15.

Freire, P. "Seventh Letter: From Talking to Learners to Talking to them and With Them; From Listening To Learners to Being Heard by Them." Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those Who Dare Teach. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998, pp. 63-68.

On Rights, October 15-30 (and General Resource)

Bill of Rights, United States Constitution, 1791.

United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.

South Africa’s Bill of Rights, 1996.

Blalock, Mary. "A Bill of Rights for Girls," Rethinking Classrooms, Volume 2, 2001, pp. 138-9.

The Young Communist League, "The Youth and Student Bill of Rights,"1998.
http://www.angelfire.com/ny4/buffaloycl/ysbr.html

American Civil Liberties Union, "The Bill of Rights, A Brief History,"1997.
http://www.aclu.org

American Civil Liberties Union, "We Have Rights, Too!…But What are They?" 2000.
http://www.aclu.org

Advancement Project, "What to Do When the School Discriminates Against Your Child," October 8, 2001, http://www.advancementproject.org.

Larry Miller. "A New U.S. Bill of Rights." Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 2, 2001 pp. 70-71.

Monk, Linda R. The Bill of Rights, Close Up Publishing, 1991. (Book, not in coursepack.)

See Also: Black Panther Party, "The Panther Party’s Ten Point Program," and Wayne Au’s accompanying article, "What We Want Is What We Believe," Rethinking Schools v16 n1, 2001, pp. 20-21. (NOT IN COURSEPACK.)

From Brown to Williams (General Resource and November)

Kluger, Richard. "Appendix: Text of the Decisions, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka." Simple Justice, 1954, pp. 779-85.

Williams, P.J. et al (1994) "Broken promises: Brown v. board of education forty years later." The Nation Magazine.

Irons, P. and Guitton, S. (Eds.) San Antonio v. Rodriguez (1973). May it please the court: The most significant oral arguments made before the Supreme Court since 1955. The New Press, 321-337.

Civil Rights Alert. "Resegregation in America’s Schools," August 16, 1999.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/groups/civilrights

American Civil Liberties Union, "Landmark Education Case Will Hold State Responsible for Pervasive Substandard Conditions in Public Schools," 2000.

Williams v. State of California, May 17, 2000.

Order of Judge Peter Busch, November 14, 2000.

See also: Williams v State of CA, Questions and Answers—in English and Spanish on TCLA web site.

On Learning Resources and Facilities, November 1

Kozol, J. Savage inequalities: Children in America’s schools. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991, pp. 40-82.

Slayton, J. "School Finance in California and the Consequences and Implications for LAUSD," 1997, pp. 1-9.

Freire, P. "First Letter: Reading the World/Reading the Word." Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those Who Dare Teach. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998, pp. 17 – 26.

"Section V: The Relationship Between Facilities and Student Performance," US Dept. of Ed.

On Quality Teachers, November 29 Meeting

Valenzuela, A. "Substractive schooling: What happens when schools disrespect students’ cultural heritage and when teachers fail to listen to students." Rethinking Schools, 15 (2), 2001, pp. 1–8.

Darder, Antonia., "Teaching as an Act of Love," Reflections and Questions, 1998.

Freire, P. "Sixth Letter: On the Relationship Between the Educator and the Learners." Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those Who Dare Teach. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998, pp. 55-62.

The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, "Teacher Quality," Crucial Issues in California Education, 2000, PACE, pp. 95-112.

On Rigorous Coursework, January 10

Oakes, J. and Rogers, J. et al. "Remedying Unequal Opportunities for Successful Participation in Advanced Placement Courses in California High Schools." Policy Report. 2000.

Oakes J. and Lipton, M. Making the best of schools: A handbook for parents, teachers and policymakers. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990, pp. 154-173.

Civil Rights Alert. The Struggle to keep college doors open, August 16, 1999.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/groups/civilrights

Harvard Civil Rights Project, Gate-Keeping: Allowing All Children Access to Advanced Courses, August 16, 1999, http://www.law.harvard.edu/groups/civilrights.

hooks, b., "Engaged Pedagogy," Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994, pp. 13-22.

On Safe Schools, February 7

Harvard Civil rights Project, "Zero Tolerance Policies and School Discipline," August 16, 1999. http://www.law.harvard.edu/groups/civilrights.

"Zero Tolerance Makes Zero Sense," Action for Better Schools, NCEA Newsletter, 2001.

Jennifer Obidah, "On Living (and Dying) with Violence: Entering Young Voices in the Discourse." Smoke and Mirrors: The Hidden Context of Violence in Schools and Society Stephanie Urso Spina ed, New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000, pp. 49-66.

American Civil Liberties Union, "Area Students Frisked Spread-Eagle in Front of Class," July 11, 2001, http://www.aclu-sc.org/news/openforum/OFSum01Articles/students.html.

Helfand, Duke. "Opposition Grows to Searches of Students" Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2001.

Freire, P. "Second Letter: Don’t Let the Fear of What is Difficult Paralyze You." Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those Who Dare Teach. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998, pp. 27–32.

On Fair and Authentic Assessment, March 14

Stern, Deborah. "Inside the Classroom: Social Vision and Critical Pedagogy" City Kids, City Teachers, 1996, pp. 66-69.

Harvard Civil Rights Project, "Testing: The Need and the Dangers," August 16, 1999, http://www.law.harvard.edu/groups/civilrights.

Advancement Project, "High-Stakes Tests: Your Future May Depend on It," October 8, 2001, http://www.advancementproject.org.

On Instruction in Students’ Native Language, April 18

Hakuta, Kenji, " The Education of Language Minority Students." Testimony to US Commission on Civil Rights, April, 2001.

Rumberger, Russell and Gandara, Patricia, "The Schooling of English Learners," Crucial Issues in California Education, 2000, PACE, pp. 23-44.

A Students’ Bill of Rights: Towards Action, May 16

October 11th – Draft version of WEB PAGE.
Class 1

October 15th – Posting background & prompts for November 15th issue.

October 31st – Submit Questions and Vision Statement.
TCLA posts resources, plans, ideas for Dec. 15th issue.

November 1st - Class 2

November 8 - Lawyers and experts Submit answers to questions.

November 15th – Post Q. & A. re: Bill of Rights & Educational Equity (Start Weekly Updates.) Vision Statements – What every student deserves.

November 29th – Class 3

November 30th – Due date for Learning Resources and Facilities

December 15th – Resources and Facilities Posting

January 10th 2002 – Class 4

January 15th 2002 – Quality Teachers Due Date

February 1st 2002 – Teacher Quality Posting

February 7th 2002 – Class 5

February 15th 2002 – Rigorous Quality College-Going Instruction Due Date

March 1st 2002 – Rigorous College-Going Instruction Posting

March 14th 2002 – Class 6

April 1st 2002 – Safe Schools Posting

April 18th , 2002 – Class 7

May 1st , 2002 – Fair and Authentic Assessment Posting

May 15th , 2002 – Instruction in Students’ Native Language Due Date

May 16th , 2002 – Class 8

June 1st , 2002 – Instruction in Students’ Native Language Posting

June 6th, 2002 – Youth Summit

July 1st , 2002 – Youth Summit Postings

July 15th , 2002 – Information on the Performance of Schools in Providing these Rights

August 1st, , 2002 – Information on the Performance of Schools Posting

August 15th, , 2002 – Public Dialogue, Comment, and Petition to Insure these Rights

September 1st , 2002 – Public Dialogue Posting

JamCam Digital Camera Instructions

To Download the software (only need to do once for each computer):

Insert the CD into your CD-drive and follow instructions for installing "JamCam". If you also wish to edit the pictures, you can also choose to install PhotoDeluxe.

Directions for using JamCam Camera:

1) On the back of the camera, there are two buttons. The left button is your on/off button and your select button. The right button circles through the menu options.

2) Turn on the camera by pressing the left button once. A display should appear in the screen, telling you the amount of pictures you still have to take.

3) There is also an icon of a battery on the screen. If the battery is shaded in, the power is full, when it is empty or flashing, you need to replace the battery.

4) When you press the right button, you will rotate through the menu options:

The first icon looks like a clock, but represents the timer. When you turn this feature on (by pushing the left button until the display reads "on"), you just push the shutter button and the camera will take a photo 10 seconds later. The second icon is the flash: you can push the left button to select on, off, or auto The third icon is the changing resolutions: R1 allows you to take 28 phots, R2 (the default) only allows you to take 8 photos before downloading, The fourth option is clear. When turned on, it will clear all the photos. You should only clear the photos after you have downloaded the images onto a computer or you are sure you do not want any of the photos you have taken.

When you are finished taking pictures:

1) Download the images by plugging in the USB cord into the camera and the computer. Alternatively, you can use the serial port plug, but USB is faster and the recommended option.

2) Open the JamCam software, select "Get Photo" and then "From JamCam"

3) Select the environment you took the photos (for classroom pictures, select "office" then click on "okay" at the bottom.

Note: For PC’s, you need to click the "select all" box and click on "download pictures". Then click "close" to see all of your thumbnails in one window.

4) All of your photos should show up as Thumbnails. Double click on an image in order to enlarge it. For each image, you can save the photo by clicking on the photo and selecting "save". If you do not save each image separately, they will not be saved on your computer.

5) After you are finished downloading your pictures and saving them, clear the pictures off of your camera.

6) If you wish to edit these images in PhotoDeluxe, open the PhotoDeluxe program, select file, then open, then find the location of your saved images (default is in the JamCam folder).

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