Tag: neighborhood

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s Neighborhood Black Mothers Will Soon Receive Monthly Cash Payments
IN OTHER NEWS

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s Neighborhood Black Mothers Will Soon Receive Monthly Cash Payments

A new program is launching in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward — the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr. — that could help build the case for the idea he popularized half a century ago: guaranteed cash payments as a vehicle out of poverty. The program, which will launch early this year in King’s neighborhood, will send monthly payments of $850 to 650 Black women over two years, making it one of the largest guaranteed income programs to date. Guaranteed income — the concept of sending people cash payments with no strings attached — was featured in King’s 1967 book, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” in which he argued that sometimes the simplest idea could be the most effective in ending poverty. But the concept of guaranteed monthly payments remained a fringe issue for decades un...
Across The Nation Closures Of Black K-12 Schools Threaten Neighborhood Stability
EDUCATION

Across The Nation Closures Of Black K-12 Schools Threaten Neighborhood Stability

Jerome Morris, University of Missouri-St. Louis Residents of the St. Louis neighborhood known as The Ville have been fighting for years to stop the closing of Charles H. Sumner High School, the oldest historically Black high school west of the Mississippi River. Sumner High School has been under repeated threats of closure from the school board and the superintendent, who cite declining enrollment. The most recent such threat arose in December 2020. Established in 1875, Sumner High is named after a former U.S. senator who vehemently opposed slavery. The school’s alumni represent a who’s who of Black people, including rock stars Tina Turner and Chuck Berry, comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory and tennis legend Arthur Ashe. Throughout Black people’s history in the U.S., predo...
South Central LA Teachers With Personal Ties To The Neighborhood Made Better Connections With Students
EDUCATION

South Central LA Teachers With Personal Ties To The Neighborhood Made Better Connections With Students

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea One way to examine a teacher’s personal connection to their students’ community is to ask them to create a hand-drawn map, based on memory, of the neighborhood where they teach. My study found that teachers whose maps represented personal ties to the community, including local businesses or cultural spaces, were observed to be more skilled at making connections to the everyday experiences of their students. This supports previous research that shows the more connected teachers are to their students’ neighborhoods, the more authentically they can incorporate local resources, history and concerns into their classroom teaching. For example, they might incorporate interviews with students’ families into an Englis...