[Applause]
[Music]
as an education advocate I represent the
Birmingham Board of Education and in
that space we probably call ourselves
BCS that’s short for Birmingham City
Schools but it also means believe create
and succeed now in that space any urban
school system across this nation can be
BCS because if we believe in our
students if we create opportunities for
our students then they won’t succeed now
as a board member I’m a lay person I am
NOT a professional educator but in my
role is important that I support
professional educators and there’s two
things I need to embrace and supporting
them that is the deep down optimism that
they can be successful in engaging our
students and the second thing is that
there are more solutions than there are
problems in educating our children now
what we find in education is we talk
about a lack of resources but I don’t
believe those lack of resources are
limited to human capital nor do I
believe it’s limited to finances I
believe it’s the real issue was limited
to time we don’t spend enough time with
our children many of us assume the
educational issues related to urban
school systems across our nation are
only from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. but a lot of
it deals with 301 p.m. to 750 9:00 a.m.
we have to embrace spending more time
with our children
ten years ago James Heckman said that
the disadvantages or early disadvantages
left untreated will lead to educational
difficulties in later years that as
advantages accumulated disadvantages
accumulate as well
many of us may assume that that’s
related only through K through fifth and
if we don’t get K through fifth right we
can’t get six through a frame and if we
don’t get six through eight right we
can’t get nine through twelve right but
I think it goes deeper than that we have
to look at what happens between birth
and five years of age because those are
the biggest disadvantages so imagine all
of us in this room we’ve just finished
dentistry school we come home we say we
want to open up our own dentistry office
in the neighborhood we grew up in we
were the top of our class we have the
top align equipment and we have the top
of our facility we have the top of the
lunch staff and we’re good at bringing
smiles but for the last five years the
people who are in proximity or dentistry
office have not brushed our teeth they
have not floss they haven’t been to a
dentist’s office they haven’t done
anything as it relates to their dental
hygiene and so when they walk into our
office after having done anything to
their own dental hygiene five years
what’s the best we can do that’s the
frame we have for a lot of our urban
school systems across this nation that
the foundation is not properly set for
our children so none of us should
believe that it’s some big solution that
we can’t find it’s actually easy it’s
called time we have to spend more time
with our children and we have to invest
early so imagine
across all the urban areas of this
nation we embraced early childhood
learning centers but we say we want to
engage the prenatal stage we want to
engage fathers and mothers after their
child is born we want to engage families
prior to their children entering our
school systems that the concept of words
and the concept of numbers is a village
project and if we’re going to close
those disadvantages because we can’t
afford for them to continue to
accumulate all of our children could
enter our school systems at grade level
but it’s important to continue on this
notion of investing and spending time
more time with our children
180 days in school is not enough it’s
right at six months a half a year that
doesn’t necessarily work for us as
adults right
none of us has adults on any of our
professions as a doctor as a lawyer as
an accountant and many other
professionals will just take ten weeks
off in the summer and then expect to
come right back to work and jump right
in to where we were or in the case of
schools and a higher grade level so why
do we have that expectation for our
children we have to invest more time
with our children and then as we go up
into high school it’s not necessarily
less time is how time is being spent
imagine if we will that education is not
necessarily limited in high school to
math reading social studies science in
English but we want to empower our
juniors and seniors to leave high school
early every day some of us have already
know of this and when they actually walk
across the high school stage to get
their high school diploma in addition to
put in a diploma in their right hand
let’s put workforce certification in
their left hand so they can exercise
options if they choose not to go to
college or they choose not to go into
the military they can go into the
workforce
there are more solutions than there are
problems for our urban school systems
across this nation but we have to pivot
as adults from an adult driven culture
continuing to do what only works for us
and not works for our children that
means being bold and that means
embracing change and that change starts
with investing more time thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you
[Music]
as an education advocate I represent the
Birmingham Board of Education and in
that space we probably call ourselves
BCS that’s short for Birmingham City
Schools but it also means believe create
and succeed now in that space any urban
school system across this nation can be
BCS because if we believe in our
students if we create opportunities for
our students then they won’t succeed now
as a board member I’m a lay person I am
NOT a professional educator but in my
role is important that I support
professional educators and there’s two
things I need to embrace and supporting
them that is the deep down optimism that
they can be successful in engaging our
students and the second thing is that
there are more solutions than there are
problems in educating our children now
what we find in education is we talk
about a lack of resources but I don’t
believe those lack of resources are
limited to human capital nor do I
believe it’s limited to finances I
believe it’s the real issue was limited
to time we don’t spend enough time with
our children many of us assume the
educational issues related to urban
school systems across our nation are
only from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. but a lot of
it deals with 301 p.m. to 750 9:00 a.m.
we have to embrace spending more time
with our children
ten years ago James Heckman said that
the disadvantages or early disadvantages
left untreated will lead to educational
difficulties in later years that as
advantages accumulated disadvantages
accumulate as well
many of us may assume that that’s
related only through K through fifth and
if we don’t get K through fifth right we
can’t get six through a frame and if we
don’t get six through eight right we
can’t get nine through twelve right but
I think it goes deeper than that we have
to look at what happens between birth
and five years of age because those are
the biggest disadvantages so imagine all
of us in this room we’ve just finished
dentistry school we come home we say we
want to open up our own dentistry office
in the neighborhood we grew up in we
were the top of our class we have the
top align equipment and we have the top
of our facility we have the top of the
lunch staff and we’re good at bringing
smiles but for the last five years the
people who are in proximity or dentistry
office have not brushed our teeth they
have not floss they haven’t been to a
dentist’s office they haven’t done
anything as it relates to their dental
hygiene and so when they walk into our
office after having done anything to
their own dental hygiene five years
what’s the best we can do that’s the
frame we have for a lot of our urban
school systems across this nation that
the foundation is not properly set for
our children so none of us should
believe that it’s some big solution that
we can’t find it’s actually easy it’s
called time we have to spend more time
with our children and we have to invest
early so imagine
across all the urban areas of this
nation we embraced early childhood
learning centers but we say we want to
engage the prenatal stage we want to
engage fathers and mothers after their
child is born we want to engage families
prior to their children entering our
school systems that the concept of words
and the concept of numbers is a village
project and if we’re going to close
those disadvantages because we can’t
afford for them to continue to
accumulate all of our children could
enter our school systems at grade level
but it’s important to continue on this
notion of investing and spending time
more time with our children
180 days in school is not enough it’s
right at six months a half a year that
doesn’t necessarily work for us as
adults right
none of us has adults on any of our
professions as a doctor as a lawyer as
an accountant and many other
professionals will just take ten weeks
off in the summer and then expect to
come right back to work and jump right
in to where we were or in the case of
schools and a higher grade level so why
do we have that expectation for our
children we have to invest more time
with our children and then as we go up
into high school it’s not necessarily
less time is how time is being spent
imagine if we will that education is not
necessarily limited in high school to
math reading social studies science in
English but we want to empower our
juniors and seniors to leave high school
early every day some of us have already
know of this and when they actually walk
across the high school stage to get
their high school diploma in addition to
put in a diploma in their right hand
let’s put workforce certification in
their left hand so they can exercise
options if they choose not to go to
college or they choose not to go into
the military they can go into the
workforce
there are more solutions than there are
problems for our urban school systems
across this nation but we have to pivot
as adults from an adult driven culture
continuing to do what only works for us
and not works for our children that
means being bold and that means
embracing change and that change starts
with investing more time thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you
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