January 07, 2016 

By SOPHIA TAREEN 

Associated Press 

 

The professor of a Christian college who asserted Christians and Muslims worship the same God said Wednesday that her views are in line with the suburban Chicago college's mission and disputed university accounts of interactions with administrators who've taken steps to fire her.

 

Larycia Hawkins, who's Christian, was placed on leave at Wheaton College in December after posting her views on Facebook. She also wore a headscarf to show solidarity with Muslims. College officials placed her on leave in December for having inconsistent views with the college's "doctrinal convictions." On Tuesday, they said she refused to participate in "clarifying conversations" about theological issues and initiated termination-for-cause proceedings.

 

However, Hawkins disagreed with that notion during a news conference Wednesday at a downtown Chicago church where she received backing from religious leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

 

Hawkins, a political science professor, said she met with administrators several times after the Facebook posting and provided statements explaining her beliefs which she believes line up with the college's mission. Hawkins said she was told further discussions weren't required, but college officials then changed their requirements and said she would have to participate in two years of ongoing conversations during which time her tenure would be revoked. She said university officials advised her to get an attorney, and the next communication was the notice of termination proceedings.

 

"The rules changing, the goal post keeps moving. And I said, 'I have dignity, I've answered your questions and my statement stands,'" she said Wednesday.

 

Students, alumni, professors and clergy members from several faiths spoke Wednesday in support of Hawkins, with Jackson comparing her to Rosa Parks. Hawkins, who has been at the university since 2007, detailed her religious upbringing in Oklahoma as the granddaughter of a pastor.

 

She defended her views, saying that she believed Muslims, Christians and Jews were all "people of the book."

 

College officials have said they had had frank conversations with Hawkins on doctrinal issues as they pursued the possibility of reconciliation with her but that she "has stated clearly her unwillingness to participate in such further clarifying conversations."

 

A university official did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Wednesday.

 

The termination process involves a hearing before a faculty committee and a decision by the college's board of trustees.

 

Nearly 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students attend Wheaton College, which is roughly 30 miles from Chicago.

December 24, 2015

 

Dr. Maulana Karenga 

 

This year marks the 49th anniversary of the pan-African holiday Kwanzaa, a celebration of family, community and culture. And all over the world throughout the global African community, African people will come together for seven days, December 26-January 1 to celebrate themselves and the good that they represent, create and enjoy in the world.

 

And they will raise up and recommit themselves to practice the Nguzo Saba, The Seven Principles, which are the moral and cultural ground in which the holiday is rooted and on which it firmly and steadfastly stands. Kwanzaa, like the first harvest celebrations which are its mold and model, is organized around five fundamental overarching activities. Kwanzaa is first a time for ingathering of our people, a joyful coming together in various ways to reinforce the bonds between us as persons and a people and to build and rebuild relations of good, beauty and expansive meaning.

 

Secondly, Kwanzaa is a time of special reverence for Creator and creation in deep appreciation of the beauty and bountifulness of the earth and self-conscious commitment to preserve and protect the earth which makes the harvest of good and the sustaining of life. Thirdly, Kwanzaa is a time for commemoration of the past, time to pause and respectfully remember the lives, teach the lessons and raise up and recommit ourselves to honor our ancestors and the awesome legacy they left us.

 

Kwanzaa is also a time to recommit ourselves to our highest values, the Nguzo Saba, the cardinal virtues of Maat and all those other moral principles that ground and enrich our lives, strengthen us in our struggle and expand our consciousness and capacity to bring good in the world. Kwanzaa also is a time for celebration of the Good; the good of family, community and culture; the good of life, love, and lis tening gently and joyously to each other and responding accordingly; the good of sisterhood, brotherhood, friendship, marriage and all relations of good, meaning and beauty; and, of course, the expansive and enduring good of the world and all in it.

 

As always, it is important to remember and reaffirm that the hub and hinge on which the holiday turns and the ground and source of its ultimate meaning and measure are the Nguzo Saba, The Seven Principles. Created out of the Kawaida, African-centered philosophy of life and struggle, the Nguzo Saba were posed as a Black value system, the central set of values we needed to rescue and reconstruct our history and humanity, build and strengthen our community, and wage the success-ful struggle for liberation in which we were engaged.

 

In a word, it was a communal value system that would aid us in our struggle to be our-selves and free ourselves as African people and make our own unique contribution to the forward flow of human history. To highlight these principles, Kwanzaa was created as a seven-day holiday with each day serving as a time to focus on each of the principles. Moreover, during Kwanzaa we engage in a ceremony called “Lifting Up the Light That Lasts” which is a candle lighting ceremony.

 

This ceremony rises out of the ancient African teaching found in The Husia that we as a people are “given that which endures in the midst of that which is overthrown” and this enduring gift and legacy are our spiritual and ethical values.

 

Thus, at Kwanzaa, we lift up these lasting values which light the path to building, celebrating and sustaining family, community and culture and bringing good in the world. One of the major symbols of Kwanzaa is the Mishumaa Saba, the seven candles, and each one represents one of the principles. In lighting each candle, we thus lift up the principle that represents a light that lasts.

 

Moreover, in lifting up the light of these enduring principles, we are to think deeply about them, discuss them and recommit ourselves to them, making them an essential and vital part of our daily lives. Thus, each principle calls for and commits us to practices which strengthens us in life and struggle and aids us in honoring the ancient African ethical imperative to constantly bring, increase and sustain good in the world. The principle of Umoja (Unity) is a call and commitment “to strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race”.

 

Kujichagulia (Self-determination) is a call and commitment “to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves”. Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) is a call and commitment “to build and maintain our community together and to make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems and to solve them together”. Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) is a call and commitment “to build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together”.  Nia (Purpose) is a call and commitment “to make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness”.

 

Kuumba (Creativity) is a call and commitment “to do always as much as we can in the way we can in order to leave our com-munity more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it”. And Imani (Faith) is a call and commitment “to believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle”. It is a teaching of our ancestors in the Odu Ifa that we are divinely chosen to bring good into the world and that this is the fundamental mission and mean ing of human life.

 

And during Kwanzaa we remember and reflection this in special ways and recommitment ourselves to strive to bring good in the world, build the good world we all want and deserve to live in, and pass this creation and harvest of good on to those who come after us. Heri za Kwanzaa (Happy Kwan-zaa).  And in the tradition of the ancestors, we wish for all this Kwanzaa good: all that heaven grants, the earth produces and the waters bring forth from their depths.

 

Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, California State University-Long Beach; Executive Direc-tor, African American Cul-tural Center (Us); Creator of Kwanzaa; and author of Kwanzaa: A Celebra-tion of Family, Community and Culture and Essays on Struggle: Position and Analysis, www.AfricanA-mericanCulturalCenter-LA.org; www.Official-wanzaaWebsite.org;  www.MaulanaKarenga.org.

December 17, 2015 

By JENNIFER C. KERR 

Associated Press 

 

Calling it a “Christmas miracle,” President Barack Obama signed a sweeping overhaul of the No Child Left Behind education law on Thursday December 10, ushering in a new approach to accountability, teacher evaluations and the way the most poorly performing schools are pushed to improve.

 

Joined by lawmakers, students and teachers in a White House auditorium, Obama praised the George W. Bush-era No Child Left Behind for having the right goals. He said that in practice, it fell short or applied a cookie-cutter approach that failed to produce desired results. Under the new law, the federal government will shift more decision-making powers back to states.

 

“With this bill, we reaffirm that fundamentally American ideal that every child— regardless of race, gender, background, zip code — deserves the chance to make out of their lives what they want,” Obama said. “This is a big step in the right direction.”

 

The overhaul ends more than a decade of what critics have derided as one-size-fits-all federal policies dictating accountability and improvement for the nation’s 100,000 or so public schools. But one key feature remains: Students will still take federally required statewide reading and math exams. Still, the new law encourages states to limit the time students spend on testing and diminishes the high stakes for underperforming schools.

 

The long-awaited bill to replace the 2002 law easily passed the Senate on Wednesday and the House last week, in a rare example of the Republican-controlled Congress and Obama finding common ground on major legislation. Obama held it up as an “example of how bipartisanship should work,” noting that opposing sides had compromised to reach a deal.

 

“That’s something that you don’t always see here in Washington,” Obama said. “There wasn’t a lot of grandstanding, a lot of posturing, just a lot of good, hard work.”

 

Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., who chairs the House’s education panel, said under the new approach, American classrooms will no longer be “micromanaged” by the Education Department in Wash­ington.

 

“Instead, parents, teachers, and state and local education leaders will regain control of their schools,” said Kline, part of the bipartisan quartet that spearheaded the bill.

 

Here’s how the major stakeholders fare:

 

TEACHERS

 

The new law eliminates the federal mandate that teacher evaluations be tied to student performance on the statewide tests. Teachers’ unions hated that idea, saying the high stakes associated with the tests were creating a culture of over-testing and detracting from the learning environment. States and districts will still be able, but not required, to link scores or consider them as a factor in teacher performance reviews.

 

STUDENTS

 

Don’t start applauding yet, kids. The nation’s 50 million students in public schools will still have to take the federally mandated statewide reading and math exams in grades three to eight and once in high school — so parents, teachers and others can see how they are doing against a common measuring stick. But the law also encourages states to set caps on the amount of time students spend on testing.

 

More children from low- and moderate-income families will have access to preschool through a new grant program that is to use existing funding to support state efforts.

 

SCHOOLS

 

No more Common Core — maybe.

 

The law says the federal government may not mandate or give states incentives to adopt or maintain any particular set of academic standards, such as Common Core.

 

The college and career-ready curriculum guidelines were created by the states but became a flashpoint for those critical of Washington’s influence in schools. The administration offered grants through its Race to the Top program for states that adopted strong academic standards for students.

 

Already, some states have begun backing away from Common Core.

 

PARENTS

 

The law provides for more transparency about test scores, meaning parents and others in the community will get a better look at how students in their states and in local schools are doing. It requires that test scores be broken down by race, family income and disability status.

 

Parents also will be able to see how per-pupil funding breaks down by state, district and school.

 

STATES

 

States and districts will now be responsible for coming up with their own goals for schools, designing their own measures of achievement and progress, and deciding independently how to turn around struggling schools. Testing will be one factor considered, but graduation rates and education atmosphere could also be factored in.

 

To make sure all children get a fair shot at a quality education, states will be required to intervene in the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools, in high schools with high dropout rates and in schools with stubborn achievement gaps.

 

ROLE

 

The measure substantially limits the federal government’s role, barring the Education Department from telling states and local districts how to assess school and teacher performance.

 

The measure also ends the waivers the Obama administration has given to more than 40 states — exemptions granted around the more onerous parts of No Child when it became clear that requirements such as having all students proficient in reading and math by 2014 would not be met.