HANDBOOK AND POLICY GUIDE

The Dayton Community School Council is part of one of the most important movements in the history of American education.

Inspired by the courageous examples of Black and Puerto Rican citizens in New York who formed the Governing Boards of IS 201, Manhatten, Ocean HillBrownsville, and Brooklyn, Black and other minority citizens have begun to organize themselves throughout the country to improve the education of their children. The Dayton Community School Council, as an important force for educational change in this city, is linked with Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow "change agents" in cities all over the nation.

Citizen Control of Schools - A New Idea?

The idea of citizen control of schools is not a new one; it is "new" only in the cases of non-whites and the poor. The white middle and upper classes have historically and traditionally exercised both direct and indirect control over the schools their children attend, and ironically, over the schools which their children do not attend; that is, those attended by the dark-skinned and the poor.

By means of various control mechanisms, comfortable and well-to-do white people have exerted powerful influence over who will teach, what will be taught, who will manage the schools, and how the schools will be managed. Among these control mechanisms have been their power to appoint and dismiss superintendents; their power to appoint

school boards, or in the cases of elections to provide funds for election campaigns and for mass media publicity, which in turn, significantly influence election outcomes; their presence on state and local committees which determine policy concerning teacher certification and employment, curriculum and textbooks, the expenditure of local, state and federal funds, and the employment of various contractors who serve the schools - building contractors, food service contractors, medical and dental services, and even such services as janitors, window washers, and garbage disposers.

They exert indirect influence through their station in life which is a constant reminder to principals, teachers, counselors, and others that the children of these parents are important human beings who are expected to learn. Educational personnel know that their jobs depend on performance. They know that white affluent parents expect the schools to prepare their children to attend Harvard, Yale, Chicago, or California, and therefore, they know they had better take care of business or be prepared to move on.

This network of powerful elements, including the control of universities which train the teachers and administrators, has enabled affluent whites to control their schools and the schools of oppressed minorities in a manner intended to serve the interests of the white middle and upper middle classes.

Until very recently Black and poor parents had no mechanism of control.

They had no way whatsoever to influence what was happening to their child in school. They knew the children weren't learning, that they read poorly and had difficulty with math. They knew their children were in danger of becoming "push outs," but, as in the case of many parents, they often didn't know what to do, and even when they did know, nobody would pay them any attention because they had no power.

The lessons of the history of civilization have taught that groups which hold power and control the destinies of others never give it up until they are confronted with enough counter-power that they are forced, in their own best interest, to give up, or at least share, the power.

The Rationale for this Handbook

The real significance of the Dayton and other community school council movements is that they help Black and other oppressed citizens to achieve the following:

⚫ develop the power and strategies to affect the educational destinies of their children,

assert to the white establishment the power that black and poor parents intend to have over the education of their children is as great as the influence that white parents exover the education of their children, ⚫ prove to themselves that they have the courage and the talent to organize and conduct a social change movement, and

⚫ show their children and the adult

community that they are no longer a powerless people who can be manipulated to the advantage of and at the will of the powerful majority, and that they will develop a power base so that they can control their own educational destinies.

In accordance with these objectives, this handbook and policy guide was developed as a project of the Community School Council. During the course of its educational leadership development program, the director of the program, Arthur E. Thomas, found himself continually engaged in conflict with the school superintendent and the Dayton Board of Education. The conflict became an educational tool since it provided stark evidence of the basic condition of white institutional racism. Efforts to educate minority group children are meaningful only as this condition is understood.

The handbook is designed to serve as a training and community development tool for minority groups, poor whites, and mixed communities who are interested in modifying the content and form of educational services that are delivered to their children. This alternative mode of delivery of educational services operates as a change agent of the context of white racism documented as a feature of the institutions of this country by the National Advisory Council on Civil Disorders. The Council reports, "What white Americans have never fully understood, but what the Negro can never forget, is that white society is implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it."

Beginning with that basic premise, it is evident that most large cities have two school systems: one white and one Black and/or other minorities, both controlled by whites. Yet most schools, whether Black or white, continue to be organized and to operate as though racism does not exist. The absence of integrated curricula, the absence of minority groups in leadership positions

or in teaching positions in predominantly white schools, and the failure of the schools to educate their students to learn to guard the nation's democratic ideals are neither accidental nor unwitting omissions.

Flowing from the rising consciousness of minority peoples of their condition is a recognition that a counterracist strategy has to be developed, one which removes racists from control over the lives of minority and poor white children, and enables learners to gain the skills, knowledge, and desire to transform the hostile environment in which they live. The alternative is to blind students and their communities to this reality, to mute their sensitivities to their oppression, rather than enabling them to develop strategies for survival and liberation.

Included among many alternative strategies is the necessity to develop ways and means to ensure that parents, students and community leaders are involved with teachers and school admínistrators in shaping the content and form of their educational programs. Kenneth Haskins, urban educator and former principal of the Morgan School in Washington, has discussed this necessity as follows:

Parent participation can be viewed in three ways (and therefore evaluated in three ways, though not necessarily separate): as a right which belongs to parents regardless of the degree of change in any other area than that of parent participation itself; as a positive adjunct to an educational program or as an integral part of it (parent participation in this sense should reflect its value in educational terms, at least for the children and in a limited way for parents); as a necessity, where there is a perceived inability of traditional educators and

current sponsors to completely understand and deal with the children they are "educating," either in terms of needs or desires.

The relationship between parent participation and student achievement is becoming increasingly apparent. In cases where parents hold negative attitudes toward the school, the student is inclined to reflect a similar attitude. Involved parents feel better about their schools, and hence their children feel better about learning in those schools. As teachers, parents, and students begin to work together, they begin to learn from and to teach each other, and to perceive the school and the community as being integral parts of the same educational construct. They merge their individual and joint responsibilities into a workable whole.

As participants begin to share with each other what they have learned and experienced, they begin to perceive, many for the first time, that indeed their own children are both human and educable, despite the fact that the society of which they are a part withholds this information from them. The strength of a counter-racist alternative is its potential for helping school and community groups to feel better about themselves, an essential component of any educational process. In a society that is organized against the best interest of minorities and the poor, parent-community involvement is an educational necessity, an eminently human option to the centralized white bureaucratic control of minority group schools.

II. The Role of the Community School Council

One of the very most important assignments of members of the Community School Council is to help free the minds of the students and the adult citizens of the community. It is well known that slavery and present day racism have very carefully and systematically carved out a position of inferiority and servitude for Black people. It is also known that the constant repetition of failure in school, low-paying or no jobs, poor housing, physical abuse and psychological humiliation, poor health conditions, and minimal political power, have resulted in convincing many Black people that they are unworthy, that "Black is Bad", and that Black people are incapable of handling complex intellectual, economic, or political activity. In essence, what occurs is that when Black people look into the social mirror that white America has created, many Black people are confused and believe the reflections they see there are a true picture of themselves. Not enough Black people can see the picture for what it is: a deliberate, ugly distortion whose purpose it is to keep Black people in a state of self-hate and self-defeat.

Little by little, the current emphasis on Black heritage, Black achievement, and Black power is helping increasingly larger numbers of Afro-Americans to reject the white images and to take on new feelings of confidence and selfworth. More and more the new image of

"Black is Beautiful" is developing, and slowly the old feelings of inferiority and powerlessness are being replaced with beliefs of power and worth.

It should be clearly understood, however, that there remain many powerful impediments to the complete psychological freedom of Black and other dark Americans. Three of the primary roadblocks are the following:

First, there is the strong holding power of centuries of automatic responses to white tyranny. In spite of the very positive effects of the Black Movement during the last fifteen years, people who have lost their jobs, their homes, their loved ones and have been, themselves, threatened and brutalized for not staying in their "place" find it extremely difficult to maintain their new images and independence of thought in the face of ever-present punishment for non-conformity. The strength of the new Black Awareness is ever challenged by the psychological remnants of white supremacy.

Second, the closer Black people come to gaining their psychological freedom, the more hazardous the journey becomes. Efforts of the majority to reinforce the old inferiorities become more furious, in a last-ditch attempt to maintain the parent-child, master-servant relationship.

Third, those Black people who are in the most strategic positions to help free other Black people: teachers, ministers, and politicians, are, themselves, too often psychological prisoners of "the system". Those who have the rostrums and the platforms are often too captive or too afraid to set the examples and speak the words which will inspire others toward emancipation.

Armed with the understanding that these three and other impediments will hinder the task, community school council members are, at the same time,

better equipped to cope with these obstacles. A clear understanding of the nature of the problem is an important part of the solution.

It is advantageous as strategies are planned that they reflect an accurate analysis of the psychological damage which slavery and racism have inflicted upon Black people. The three impediments cited are by no means intended to be a complete analysis but they are submitted to stimulate the Councils toward developing their own criteria for analysis.

There is great urgency for helping Black people to discard the old racist, self-defeating images and to recognize some of the barriers which will surely be encountered. Further, the necessity for replacing the old image with a new one of self-worth, pride, and dignity is a priority well worth mentioning. Admirable as these qualities are, though, they are not specific enough for program planning and strategy development. Guidelines must be drawn to determine what the new positive image or the new positive Black Self might be.

Recently a black high school student in Dayton complained at a student meeting, "What is wrong with this school is it doesn't turn out Black students." When asked what should a Black student be like, the high school student had difficulty in trying to answer. So did all of the other students at the meeting. Not one of them felt he could give an adequate answer to the question, but most of them had partial answers. As they began to talk with each other, expressing their ideas, a number of desired characteristics began to emerge.

This same question has been posed to various black parents and teachers in the Dayton Model Cities schools. Based on the responses of some stu

dents, parents, teachers and administrators, the following profile emerges. It is by no means complete, but is offered as a possible vision of what Black people might expect education to accomplish for their children.

Profile of the New Black Student:

He understands and appreciates his heritage.

He values the worth of Black people in his community and in the larger national and international communities.

He understands himself and values his own personal worth and dignity. Has confidence in himself.

He knows what it means to be a "free man", refusing to be anything less.

He has respect for his parents and teachers, with a full understanding of how race and class bias have determined their behavior.

He has an inquiring mind which is ever questioning the nature of man's historical and contemporary existence.

He has a deep commitment to be a change agent in his own and in the larger Black communities. He has familiarity with and appreciates the history and culture of other oppressed groups, particularly Puerto Ricans, Mexican-Americans and American Indians.

He is intolerant of injustice in any form to any people and is willing to make great personal sacrifices to eradicate injustice. He has specific awareness and indepth understanding of the American social and economic system, with