Reactions to story from The New York Times

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  TFA in Popular Culture

  http://missbennettinthebay.teachfor.us/2008/07/09/tfa-in-pop...
  14 days ago in TeachFor.Us » Miss Bennett in the Bay · Authority: 8

  TFA in Popular Culture July 9th, 2008 Yesterday, I was watching a healthy dose of Cash Cab when the $100 question was posed to the contestants: “What non-profit, founded by a Princeton senior, sends recent college graduates to teach in low-income schools for two years?” TEACH FOR AMERICA! I unabashedly screamed at my television. I watched in horror as the contestants hummed and hawed their way to foolishness. I screamed the answer at them again, unconvinced that they could not, in fact, hear me. I was dumbfounded when at the last second they went for their life line, a street shout-out. I was even more blown away when the person on the street, without even thinking about it, said, “I have no idea.” The contestants finally guessed “teaching corps.” (I will ignore the generic-ness of this answer and instead ponder the most important question: how have these people not heard of my organization?) Cash Cab takes place in New York City, where the TFA National Headquarters are located. The New York corps is the largest corps with 1,000 current members. But I can see how, in a city of millions, this alone would not be enough to educate you about the existence of TFA. Let’s consider the broader picture. TFA’s been around since 1990. Since then, it’s grown so astronomically that newspapers all across the country are profiling the organization as a desirable place to work after college. Even if these people are not reading country-wide newspapers, surely, at some point, they must have been exposed to The New York Times? Or, perhaps, Time Magazine? Or, if they’re book readers, this well-publicized book? But, obviously, they hadn’t been exposed to any of these things. Which got me thinking. What does Teach for America have to do to educate the general public about not just the organization, but the achievement gap in general? I mean, I’m sure that just the fact that TFA was a question on Cash Cab is a huge leap forward from 18 years ago. And I know that TFA has worked really hard on publicity, which has spurred the huge influx of applications they’ve received. But what about people who aren’t in college, thinking about societal issues? I know that nobody that I know from my hometown of Highlands Ranch, CO knew what Teach for America was until I joined it last spring. (I also know that they all looked at me like I was nuts when I explained it to them. And then looked at me with disbelieving admiration when I told them about my students’ successes this summer.) I think general awareness is opening up, slowly but surely. Particularly in places where TFA places corps members, local newspapers write lots of articles about this new-fangled thing we call working relentlessly. But then, on the other hand, is it really TFA’s job to educate the public about the achievement gap? I could see how higher-ups in the organization could make several arguments about this. First, I think they would say that just by being who we are, with so many members and alumni, and with Wendy Kopp working a million hours a week, all that publicity is, by itself, educating the public about the achievement gap. It’s up to our members, they would argue, to spread the word to everyone we know. Second, I think they would say that to use precious resources to meet some grandiose goal of having the general public know about the achievement gap would not be worth the small amount of return they would get for it. Would that really be meeting our goal of having all children receive excellent educations? Probably not, at least not directly, measurably, in the short run. But I do think that having the public know, concretely, about the poor state of education in this country is a worthy goal. I’ve always believed that education is the key to a better future. And I don’t just mean knowing how to analyze literature and do math. I mean being educated about the world around you to become an effective citizen. Americans think we are educated because we are force-fed information every second of every day. But, in reality, we have grown complacent, content with receiving sound bytes instead of depth. Gas prices are out of control. Stock market falls. War in Iraq. Politics. McCain. Obama. Health care. If, at the end of a 30 minute news cast, you remember what the first story was, please, tell me how you do it. I’m busy trying to remember what that commercial was about 30 seconds ago. My point is that complacency is our enemy. The world will not change, the achievement gap will not close if the public does not demand that something be done about our nation’s greatest injustice. And the first step towards that is education. What is the achievement gap? Why does it persist? What are Teach for America and others doing to close it? What systems currently in place are holding our progress back? These are the questions that need to be asked, and answered, in a public, simple way. No rhetoric. No politics. No skewed statistics. Just the simple facts. I know TFA has that data. It just needs to be shared in a way that evokes the passion that I know the American public is capable of. Posted in Teach For America, First Year
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  Eph Teaching Diary: Life in a Low-Income District

  http://www.ephblog.com/2008/06/13/eph-teaching-diary-life-in...
  40 days ago in EphBlog · Authority: 26

  Because Williams does not have an Education major, a graduating Eph who wishes to teach has three main options. 1) Enroll in a graduate school of Education 2) Teach at a private or parochial school (they are not required to hire licensed teachers) 3) Enroll in an alternative-route certification program, such as Teach for America, Mississippi Teacher Corps, New York City Teaching Fellows, Chicago Teaching Fellows, and many, many others. I am not exactly sure of the typical breakdown between these three options for Williams grads who go in to teaching. My (very rough) guess is that around 10 members of the class of ‘07 ended up in #2, and another 10-20 in #3. I only know of a few people who were considering #1. (Note: Plenty of students also go abroad to teach - the phantom 4th option on my list). Perhaps someone more familiar with these numbers (the OCC must know!) could chime in and correct me… I hope to get few writers from each of these categories, but I’m starting these entries with participants from alternative-route (meaning: not through traditional graduate school) programs. Obviously, as a current member of one these programs, its the viewpoint most familiar to me. But I am also starting here because it is the category that has been receiving the most attention recently - news articles, columns, books, and lots of good buzz about how a big chunk of our generation has chosen to devote two years of our lives to improving our nation’s educational system. Most aspiring teachers who choose that third category will find themselves in low-income school districts that have a high rate of teacher turnover — and a whole slew of problems that contribute to it. More below the jump… My school district, located in rural Mississippi, serves a county whose population is roughly 65% black and 35% white. I teach at the only public high school in our district - where the student body is 99% black. In certain Mississippi counties, the white students do not attend public schools. They attend private academies whose inception dates roughly coincide with the date of Brown vs. Board of Education – the historic court case which forced Southern states to integrate their schools. Ironically, there are currently 7 white students at our high school of 1700; Brown managed to do absolutely nothing for integration in this part of the South. About 70% percent of my students receive free or reduced-priced lunches (which means their families make less than $39,000 for four people). The median household income is around $25,000 in our county. A quick survey of my students shows that the majority live in single-parent homes, and many are being raised by grandmothers in the absence of either parent. A glance through my rosters reveals that roughly 30% of my female students this year were either pregnant or had a small child at home. The school itself is plagued by fights and a lack of certified teachers (more than a few were teaching on “emergency licenses” this year, not having completed a program of certification). A good portion of my 11th graders read at a 7th or 8th grade level, and a few fell well below that. Despite these grim statistics, my students constantly showed me that they weren’t simply victims of their circumstances. I was amazed this year by their creativity, their energy, their humor, and their insights. I was reminded of this on the days that they crack jokes about the material we are covering (”Watch out or I’m a’ go all Okonkwo on you!”), the days they get excited about class (”You be givin’ us these books, and at first they don’t seem good… but then they be real good!”), the days they showed up for track practice after a long day of school and hours of after-school tutoring (”Sorry I’m late… Do you want me to run laps?”) and the days they share their hopes with me— of going to college, of getting their trucking license, of graduating with honors, of getting a 15 on the ACT, or of getting that dream job… It would be so easy to look at communities like this one and see nothing but failure — but these kids often manage to do just the opposite. They are all well aware of the drop-out statistics, the prison statistics, all sorts of low-income-minority statistics .. but that doesn’t mean they have given up. I’ll end this post with a beautiful little anecdote from Rob Bland ‘07, another teacher in Mississippi, who wrote this on his blog back in February: I’m in the middle of my I.B. US History class. This is my motivated, well-managed class so they are on task, working on the “do now”, trying to figure out what this political cartoon about Franklin Roosevelt means. I get a knock on the door. It’s BR, one of my seniors who I’ve already taught for a semester. “Mr. Bland?” “What’s up man?” He points to a misshapen necktie knot that hangs belows his adam’s apple. “I need help with this.” It is presentation day in the senior career development class. All the students are required to dress formally. I don’t think twice about helping, though this is all somewhat new to me. I learned to tie a decent knot about a year ago; I started wearing a tie regularly this year. I take his tie and put it into a half windsor knot. Instead of putting the wide end of the tie through the knot, I hand the half finished product in his hands. A little confused he takes the tie and tries to put the wide end through the knot without holding it tight. It falls apart. A little frustrated, a little embarrassed, BR says” Just know, I’ve never done this before.” “Don’t worry about it man. Let’s try it again” I complete the tie again, this time putting the wide end of the tie through the knot. “Thanks Mr. B.”
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  Materialism — A Renewed Debate for the Twenty-First Century

  http://www.bahaiperspectives.com/society/2008/06/12/material...
  42 days ago in Baha’i Perspectives · Authority: 22

  Materialism — A Renewed Debate for the Twenty-First Century leila June 12th, 2008 Some may argue that we live in one of the most materialistic, consumer-driven ages of humankind. Even in times of economic downturn in the U.S., the yawning wealth gap ensures that the “ultrarich” keep spending-though across town, their neighbors continue to struggle. An article published a few months ago in The New York Times, for example, profiles “ultrarich” New Yorkers who boast that the recession has done nothing to slow down their profligate spending. Speaking of a particularly extravagant vacation involving a private jet, massages, custom-rolled cigars, and guided rides in racing boats and fighter jets, one individual remarked: “It was just all out - it was insane. I’m not afraid to spend money like that.” That said, let’s pause and turn to another article, published in the same paper. It profiles a relatively young couple, the Harrises, with two children who, after striking it rich with the dot-com boom, found themselves spending with increasing frequency, amassing a huge amount of “stuff”: toys, gadgets, clothes, cars. Yet, instead of feeling secure, fulfilled, as if they had “made it,” all they felt was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of “stuff” they had accumulated. So, they did the extreme. They rid themselves of nearly every material possession-including their wedding bands-and moved to a cabin in Vermont, where one partner would be working from home. A friend of mine maintained that their example was aberrant, atypical of the norm. But I argued that it’s indicative of an increasingly common trend among affluent Americans: that of the move away from a wealth-at-any-cost, workaholic, materialistic mentality, and toward a career and life path that is more meaningful, holistic, and humane. Take the Teach for America program, for instance, in which recent university graduates-after undergoing a rigorous application process-commit to spending two years teaching at poorly-performing public schools. A recent article reveals that many of its participants are high-achieving graduates of elite universities, who have chosen not, unlike many of their peers, to cash in their degrees for lucrative jobs in investment banking, for example. Juxtapose these two diverging trends, and it looks like we’ve got a serious case of cognitive dissonance going on in the U.S. What’s going on here? Why the extremes? Your guess is as good as mine. The time-worn adage, “Money doesn’t buy happiness,” has persisted for years, yet we haven’t seemed to learn from past examples. But I read a quotation the other day from a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith. Though it was written over seventy years ago, the words hold chilling relevance what the Harrises had felt, what had caused them to suddenly and dramatically reject their materialistic lifestyles: The materialistic civilization of our age has so much absorbed the energy and interest of mankind that people in general do no longer feel the necessity of raising themselves above the forces and conditions of their daily material existence. (Shoghi Effendi, Directives from the Guardian, p. 86) Bahá’u'lláh, the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, speaks of the lofty nature of humankind; that we’re capable of reflecting those noble qualities of God. But, we’re also guilty of getting caught up with the crass materialism that runs rampant in society. He warns against this: Ye are even as the bird which soareth, with the full force of its mighty wings and with complete and joyous confidence, through the immensity of the heavens, until, impelled to satisfy its hunger, it turneth longingly to the water and clay of the earth below it, and, having been entrapped in the mesh of its desire, findeth itself impotent to resume its flight to the realms whence it came. Powerless to shake off the burden weighing on its sullied wings, that bird, hitherto an inmate of the heavens, is now forced to seek a dwelling-place upon the dust. Wherefore, O My servants, defile not your wings with the clay of waywardness and vain desires, and suffer them not to be stained with the dust of envy and hate, that ye may not be hindered from soaring in the heavens of My divine knowledge. (Baha’u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 325) Both passages refer to the conscious effort required to resist succumbing to overt materialism. I don’t think that forgoing all of one’s possessions and retreating to the woods is going to provide any lasting solution for humanity-for the Harrises, I can only infer that it made them feel less burdened personally. What I can glean from studying the writings of the Bahá’í Faith, however, is that a much larger awakening must occur as to the limitations of rampant materialism as a quick-fix to happiness, alongside an outcry against the excessive wealth gap that continues to persist. We’re beginning to see the faint glimmerings of that today, but as it grows, I can only imagine that these efforts will flourish. And as humanity grows impatient with economic injustice and crass materialism, then just maybe, those efforts will bring about a more just and humane global society. [IMG [Slashdot]] [IMG [Digg]] [IMG [Reddit]] [IMG [del.icio.us]] [IMG [Facebook]] [IMG [Technorati]] [IMG [Google]] [IMG [StumbleUpon]] Tags: consumerism, materialism, money Baha'i Concepts , General Interest , Society
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  Telephone Game

  http://www.progressivenashville.com/2008/06/telephone-game.h...
  50 days ago in Progressive Nashville · Authority: 22

  Nobody reads original sources anymore. That's unfortunate, especially in public policy. It leads to things like this happening, when serious public policy mistakes are constructed because they're flashy, they have a name and they give the appearance that you've actually done something, even if all you've done is abdicate your own authority to someone with a good ad team. Teach for America gets eager teachers into districts in which recruitment is difficult. MNPS doesn't have a recruitment problem. It has a retention problem. Rather than address why it is that most new teachers don't want to spend their careers in Nashville schools anymore, apparently the new plan is to just lower change the expectation of how long new teachers should remain. No longer will we have to worry about that rascally retention problem, because instead we'll commit to hiring temps. Teach for America is a great way to inspire young adults to get involved in their communities and to consider lives in education. It is not effective school reform. The New York Times recently published an editorial praising Teach for America. Taking little more effort to draw its conclusions than our local politicos have, the Times based its editorial on a single, unpublished study, written by a relative of an employee at... wait for it... Teach for America. That study disagrees with the findings of 4 other studies, each of which has been published in a peer-reviewed journal. What were the substantiated findings? Students of new TFA teachers achieve at significantly lower levels in math and reading than students of new, fully-certified, trained teachers. The strongest negative effects (in other words, the area in which the TFA teachers did the worst) was in elementary level reading. Teaching kids to read is arguably the most important thing that happens in elementary school. Only when TFA teachers had 3 years or more teaching experience AND had completed a full certification program did they fare as well as their traditionally-prepared colleagues, and only 20% of TFA teachers actually stick around that long. (In other words, once you gave TFA teachers the same background as traditionally prepared teachers, they began to perform as well as, surprise surprise, traditionally prepared teachers.) The other 80% (i.e. the ones who teach for two years, pay off their student loans, and then go into other professions) cost $15,000-$20,000 each to replace. I didn't know how much I didn't know about teaching before I was educated in a nationally-accredited teacher education program. I remember that each time I work with first year university students or first semester grad students... you have no idea how little you know and how much you assume about schools, just because you happened to have been a student in one. Metro students deserve teachers who have received rigorous preparation to do their work well and they deserve a school system which treats teachers as professionals, within which great teachers want to stay. Well, sure, we're not going to fully fund our schools or, you know, prioritize teacher professional development over, say, whether there will be a major league hockey mascot in town to dance at the school assemblies, but look! We haven't forgotten about it entirely! Hey! The New York Times likes it! It MUST be good! In an effort to announce that we're doing something, Metro is embracing a program for the cut of the dress instead of the strength of the cloth. The ship's still sinking, but at least we've got those lovely violins.
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  A Memo to Wendy Kopp

  http://www.coreknowledge.org/blog/2008/05/22/a-memo-to-wendy...
  63 days ago in The Core Knowledge Blog · Authority: 62

  A Memo to Wendy Kopp Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 22, 2008 in Education Leadership and Teaching. 10 Comments To : Wendy Kopp, CEO and Founder, Teach For America From: Robert Pondiscio, The Core Knowledge Blog Re: Taking TFA to the Next Level Dear Wendy: First of all, congratulations on the huge surge in applications this year, and that New York Times editorial praising the impact of Teach For America’s teachers. TFA is hot, hot, hot! You’re well on the way to establishing the premier brand in education reform. Heck, you’re already there. That’s why you made this year’s TIME 100 list of the most world’s most influential people. It’s a good time to be Wendy Kopp and Teach For America. You’ve earned every accolade. Because of all this success, you have built up a boatload of political capital. You’ve earned the right to innovate and really move the needle for our most disadvantaged kids. Now it’s time to break the mold and deploy your corps members in a way that could take TFA’s impact—already significant—to new heights. You and I both know that the big knock on TFA is always going to be that its teachers are “two years and out.” Sure, you’ve got data to show that your smart, well-trained new teachers improve student outcomes. That’s great stuff. We also know that a third of corps members stay past their two-year commitment, and that’s even better. Even those who teach for just two years often go on to leadership positions, both in and out of education, deeply affected and energized by their experience. Bonus! But the more cache TFA gets, the more it’ll be used by some as a blue-chip resume item to catch the eye of recruiters on Wall Street, in the best law firms and corporations, and in top grad schools. Face it, that’s already an issue. These kids are no dummies, after all. So here’s how we solve the “two and out” problem and kick TFA’s impact into the stratosphere: Instead of throwing TFAers into the worst teaching situations in the cities you serve, place them in some of the best, highest-performing schools. (Stick with me, Wendy, here’s the beauty part.) Place them in that high-functioning school for two years as pinch-hitters for some of our best, most experienced teachers, and send those master teachers to the same schools to which you’re sending TFA corps members now. We can call it the Teach For America Fellowship, and throw in a nice extra chunk of change to incentivize those master teachers without worrying about whether it’s merit pay. Here’s why it makes sense:
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  In Which We Make Sweeping Generalizations from a Sample of 69 Teach for America Teachers in North Carolina

  http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/eduwonkette/2008/05/in_which_...
  69 days ago in eduwonkette · Authority: 180

  A special shoutout goes to the New York Times editorial board for making national policy recommendations based on the Urban Institute's study of Teach for America in North Carolina, which included a whopping 69 Teach for America teachers - a .5% sample of all TFA teachers placed during those years. The study found that North Carolina TFA math and science teachers produced results slightly better (about a tenth of a standard deviation) than experienced teachers in the same school. Because every state in the country is just like North Carolina, the NYT argues that "states that want students to do better in math and science need to focus recruitment on more selective colleges instead of on traditional teacher education programs, which are often little more than diploma mills." There is a long discussion of that study here. As I wrote then: I’m all for Teach for America as a stopgap, but the achievement gap claim is fanciful thinking. Why? By comparison, the black-white gap in NAEP math achievement in grade 12 is approximately 1 standard deviation (and is likely larger because many black students have left by grade 12). An advantage of .04-.1 standard deviations over teachers with 3-5 years experience in the same school is not going to significantly close the achievement gap. This is not an advantage over teachers in the nearest suburb or the best schools in the city that don’t staff TFA teachers, and is hardly a convincing rationale to permanently staff tough schools with a revolving corps of academically talented 2-year teachers.
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  My New Nome de Plume: "Editorial"

  http://fakewendykopp.blogspot.com/2008/05/my-new-nome-de-plu...
  64 days ago in The Secret Blog Of Wendy Kopp · No authority yet

  I was writing this great post about how we rock. Only I didn't have any data, evidence, logic, reasoning, rationale, support or even a fundamental belief that we did in fact rock. So I called up some of the consultants we keep around to crank and re-crank spreadsheets and asked them to provide me with some data that we do, indeed, rock. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Finally, one of them decided to dig up some flawed study that was vague on method, results and sample size. Great, like I am going to put my name on some post that has no data that can be verified, checked and re-checked, and reprinted in one of the trade magazines that pay to publish in. I mean if I didn't Darling-Hammond would wet herself in excitement as she took me to task. But man, I really wanted to write this post. So I sent it over to our PR firm, the NY Times. But of course they wouldn't publish it under any credible byline. I asked about a pseudonym but after the Jayson Blair thing they are pretty skittish. But hey, we don't pay them for nothing, and I reminded them of that. So they relented and decided to publish my post, unmodified as an "Editorial." Whatever. Read it here.
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  Teach For America Roundup

  http://teachbreakthroughs.org/2008/05/20/teach-for-america-r...
  64 days ago in TeachBreakthroughs · Authority: 2

  Teach For America Roundup May 20, 2008 Teach For America is definitely having a moment in the media sun this week. First they announced their recruiting numbers for this year: a remarkable 37% increase over last year, up to 24,700 applications submitted.  This comes as TFA was able to add 800 new positions at schools around the US, now placing 3,700 new teachers at low-performing schools.  This is a huge endorsement for the organization, one that has faced it’s share of criticism over the years.  We don’t have solid numbers yet, but a good chunk of this year’s admitted Corps Members reported experience teaching with Breakthrough.  That’s nice. Meanwhile, there is a new book out about the TFA story and its recent resurgence, Relentless Pursuit by Donna Foote.  I confess that I haven’t read it, but Slate’s Sara Mosle, an apparently-semi-disgruntled former Corps Member herself, provides a great writeup.  The crux of the book is that TFA hit a rough patch, one that it overcame through increased focus on training, support, and an investment in the strengths of its Corps Members.  Mosle makes the argument that TFA may be a good example of how to look at the education system in general, particularly as NCLB is being reauthorized. I like that Mosle is looking at teacher quality and support as the key to improving performance, and I like that TFA is producing numbers to back up their efforts.  Surprising fact of the day, from Mosle’s article: For example, by analyzing corps members’ personality traits, TFA discovered that those with an “internal versus external locus-of-control orientation” are less likely to drop out of teaching early and are generally more successful in the classroom. To translate into plain English, such a teacher typically takes “full personal responsibility for student achievement, refusing to blame outside factors, such as truancy or lack of parental support, for underperformance.” Here at Breakthrough, we exist on this premise.  Our kids are facing challenges, but there is zero reason why they can’t excel at the levels of their wealthier/better prepared peers.  Our students have a lot of reasons to give up, but they don’t.  And Breakthrough won’t let them.  To totally bite from Uncommon Schools, you need to teach them until they learn. TFA is an informal recruiting partner of Breakthrough’s and you will likely meet with a Corps Member at a staff meeting this summer.  Breakthrough appreciates TFAs efforts to close the achievement gap, but we do not have a stance on the sometimes-contentious issues surrounding the organization.  It suffices to say that TFA will be a GREAT option for some of you, while others will want to pursue certification and training through a longer, more traditional process.
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  Change/Wire highlights Peace Corps, Teach for America…

  http://nationalserviceexpress.com/2008/05/20/changewire-high...
  64 days ago in National Service Express Tour ‘08 · Authority: 7

  Change/Wire highlights Peace Corps, Teach for America… Be The Change, Inc.’s (BTC) Change/Wire blog highlighted a couple National Service-related items today: Ouch: Over at Foreign Policy magazine, a retired Peace Corps volunteer / official smacks the Peace Corps aroound a bit. Pretty intense criticism - some valid, some harsh. NPR interviewed the author on Saturday to follow up. It reminds me of a NYT op-ed from January. Any Peace Corps volunteers - or anyone - want to respond / agree / disagree / discuss? Looking Good: NYT recently ran an op-ed discussing Teach for America and how we’re seeing real results! TFA is working with students who want to succeed, but haven’t had the chance. Check out the study referenced over at the Urban Institute. Slate’s got an article discussing TFA, its effectiveness, and in context of No Child Left Behind (Bush’s education act). Two pages of interesting insight - a must-read. To get the latest from our friends with BTC, follow them here on Twitter! 
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  Daily News Roundup

  http://www.bethechangeinc.org/changewire/2008/05/20/daily-ne...
  65 days ago in Change / Wire · Authority: 11

  Looking Good: NYT recently ran an op-ed discussing Teach for America and how we’re seeing real results! TFA is working with students who want to succeed, but haven’t had the chance. Check out the study referenced over at the Urban Institute. Slate’s got an article discussing TFA, its effectiveness, and in context of No Child Left Behind (Bush’s education act). Two pages of interesting insight - a must-read. My Friends: Also in Slate - broadcast your wonkiness to the world by downloading one of Slate’s custom political ringtones. Set includes Obama saying, “Yes, we can”, Hilary laughing, and a McCain “my friends” compilation. Warning: setting the volume too high could precipitate Hardball-style confrontation on public transportation.  Ouch: Over at Foreign Policy magazine, a retired Peace Corps volunteer / official smacks the Peace Corps aroound a bit. Pretty intense criticism - some valid, some harsh. NPR interviewed the author on Saturday to follow up. It reminds me of a NYT op-ed from January. Any Peace Corps volunteers - or anyone - want to respond / agree / disagree / discuss? Making a Difference: The coAction Connection is releasing a documentary on youth and racism, filmed at the White Privilege Conference Youth Institute. You can read the press release here at the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation, where we picked up the story. Check out the trailer:

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