Giving Compass' Take:

• During Black Lives Matter at School, a week-long series of workshops, rallies, and community events, students and educators discussed what reforms in NYC schools they would like to see change.

• How can donors partner with educators and policymakers to help make some of these reforms a reality?

• Read about how having black teachers in schools benefit black students. 

More diverse school staff members, updated curriculum, more counselors, and changes to how school discipline issues are handled.

Those are the four issues that students across the city are calling attention to during  Black Lives Matter at School, an annual week-long series of workshops, rallies, and community conversations about racial justice in education in cities across the country.

The four demands touch on issues Mayor Bill de Blasio and schools Chancellor Richard Carranza have also worked to address: to hire more black teachers, to mandate black history and ethnic studies in K-12 curricula, to fund “more school counselors not cops,” and to “end zero tolerance,” a reference to harsh discipline practices that research shows can disproportionately affect black students, with negative consequences.

A substantial body of research shows that students of color gain from being in classes with teachers who look like them, leading to better test scores and fewer suspensions and expulsions, among other benefits. Yet while absolute numbers of teachers of color have increased in recent decades, they still make up just 7 percent of the nation’s teaching force.

Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza has indicated he is looking into possibly revamping school curricula, in addition to making it more “culturally responsive,” but has not provided many details on what a broader overhaul might entail.

Read the full article about Black Lives Matter movement in schools by Sara Mosle at Chalkbeat