Youths Step Up to Question School Board Candidates – SF Public Press
By Noah Arroyo / Oct 3, 2018
Left to right: Phil Kim, Michelle Parker and Alison Collins. Photo by Michael Winter // San Francisco Public Press.
Alison Collins says addressing race in our schools is necessary to addressing the achievement/opportunity gap for African American students SF Public Press:
“Alison Collins, a former educator of 20 years who writes an education blog, answered last. She didn’t mince words. The other candidates had offered ideas for dismantling the pipeline, such as increasing literacy or reducing policing on campus. But none had put a name to the reason such policies were necessary in the first place.
“Systemic racism is a problem,” said Collins, the only African-American on the stage. “If we’re not going to talk about racism — and actually say ‘racism,’ which nobody wants to say — we’re not going to fix problems that are related to racism.”
“There are also kids that behave in totally normal ways, and are criminalized for it. Our children are labeled violent, angry, problematic, too loud, I mean, you see it all over the country, right? And it’s happening in our schools,” Collins said. “I’m a mixed-race person, my kids are treated differently, based on the color of their skin. And that’s something that really needs to be talked about.”