Will Start Small

How to minimize sprawl by minimizing the racist & classist impact of gentrification. When our public tax dollars go toward building stadiums, land value capture can recover that investment – and reinvest it for the people. Here’s how.

The Tools That Will Bring the Value of Public Investment Back to the People Op-ed: When our public tax dollars go toward building stadiums, land value capture can recover that investment – and reinvest it for the people. Here’s how.

“Some say that there is no tragedy in the slipping away of Black Los Angeles. It isn’t just happening here. In many major U.S. cities, the Black working poor are being moved to the hinterlands. And the Black working and middle class have been given the message to just move back to the South, where we were once enslaved.”

The Black Los Angeles I grew up with is slipping away For my parents, L.A. was a place of progress and opportunity. But today, especially for poor and working-class Black people, it's a disappointment.

Today, New America’s Early & Elementary Education Policy program and the National Wildlife Federation’s Early Childhood Health Outdoors (ECHO) program release state and federal policy recommendations to build outdoor learning opportunities that help young children thrive. These policy recommendations can help state and federal leaders to promote healthy child development, support the early childhood workforce, and enhance health equity in communities.

Federal and State Policy Recommendations to Improve Outdoor Learning in Child Care Investing in outdoor learning improves child care quality, supports the early childhood workforce, and enhances health equity

"Research provides evidence of a positive association between exposure to high levels of residential surrounding green spaces and better cognitive development in primary school children. To determine if surrounding greenness might have a similar impact on younger children, this research examined the association of residential surrounding greenness with early childhood neurodevelopment.

Over 1000 mother-child pairs participated in this research. The mothers were recruited while still pregnant, and their children were followed until the age of two. Estimates of residential exposure to green space were based on the average normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) within a 300-meter buffer area surrounding residential address at birth. The NDVI reflects satellite-based measures of surrounding greenness. Scores from the Bayley Scales of Infant Development administered to each child at about 24 months were used as a measure of their neurodevelopment. The BSID yields a mental development index (MDI) and a psychomotor development index (PDI).

An analysis of the data showed that exposure to higher levels of residential surrounding green spaces was associated with increased PDI and MDI scores. Reduced levels of traffic-related air pollution partially explained the association between exposure to residential surrounding green space and psychomotor development."

Residential exposure to green space and early childhood neurodevelopment Residential exposure to green space is positively associated with the neurodevelopment of young children

The achievement gap is a false narrative rooted in the racism of standardized testing. Calling it the opportunity gap doesn't fix it if you are still promoting standardized testing.

“In the Black community teachers are greatly respected. Research shows Black people are more for funding schools than any other racial group. The US made it illegal for us to read, so when you are recruiting a Black person from the Black community to teach we don’t realize you just want a punching bag. We may have gone through the same racist schools we are being asked to teach at, but owing to our history —the request is an honor, so how we are treated is especially cruel and heinous. We don’t understand how this could be an even worse environment than when we snuck and taught people to read or when we had segregated schools and the Klan terrorized us —but it is. Because the system actively does what ever it can to ruin Black children and if you are a Black teacher that loves Black children it will ruin you too. We need policy changes, we need these white supremacist and antiblack schools dismantled.”--Lark Sontag

Flesch book came out one year after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling. Racists, who would rather have no public schools than integrated ones, used Flesch’s book and studies to argue that U.S. inequities were owing to inferior teaching methods by bad women teachers and poor study habits of Black students.

So Dr. Seuss was part of the “disruption” that took place in education once it was no longer legal to discriminate against Black children.

We all know the bizarre racist and ableist teaching techniques that eugenics flavored standardization creates — “Cat in the Hat” was the beginning of that.

It was supposed to be a fun way for children to learn reading....

Cat in the Hat is racist, it's a caricature of a Black man in the 1920s Of course people change, but clearly the only thing Seuss changed was his name. Seuss made an entire children't book series based on the stereotype of Black man jazz musician.

This Saturday Lark Sontag will be presenting at Another Childhood is Possible The 23rd Annual Pittsburgh Racial Justice Summit Please attend this great virtual event.

Summit Schedule – Pittsburgh Racial Justice Summit The Racial Justice Summit, formerly known as the Summit Against Racism, is a flagship event for Pittsburgh organizers. The Summit creates opportunities for attendees to learn, connect, and act on behalf of racial justice.