DATE: September 3, 2020
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Sara Clough, sara.clough@tc.edu; 917-621-6135
New York, NY – The absence of a consistent federal response to the coronavirus pandemic has dealt a severe setback to the education of Black and Brown students in school districts around the country, asserted former U.S. Education Secretary and Teachers College alumnus John B. King, Jr. (Ed.D. ’08, M.A. ’97) as part of “The Study of Inequality,” a special interdisciplinary program presented by Teachers College to welcome new students on August 31, 2020. King shared his thoughts during a wide-ranging conversation with TC Provost and Dean Stephanie Rowley that headlined the virtual program, which also included a discussion among TC faculty experts on the causes and consequences of inequality—and ways to eliminate inequity.
“There is no other way to say it – this has been devastating for children of color,” said King, who is now President and CEO of The Education Trust, a national nonprofit that works to close opportunity gaps that disproportionately affect students of color and students from low-income families. “We literally had the schoolhouse door barred for kids because they didn’t have internet access,” he said, citing data showing that just 66 percent of Black students and barely half of LatinX students reside in homes served by the internet, while 79 percent of White students have home internet access.
King noted that children of color have also been disproportionately affected by COVID’s social-emotional toll, which includes higher death rates in their communities, increased food insecurity and, concurrently with the pandemic, the police shootings of unarmed Black Americans. “We have to do more to look at systems at a moment of reckoning on issues of social justice,” he said, commenting on issues ranging from educational inequity to slavery and a justification for national reparations.
In introducing an interdisciplinary panel featuring TC faculty on the topic, Associate Professor of Education Leadership Sonya Douglass Horsford said the event exemplified Teachers College’s “vibrant intellectual commitment to inequality, whether it is the racial opportunity gap, health disparities or the social-emotional inequities that impact the way children learn.”
Moderated by Hechinger Report Senior Editor Lillian Mongeau, the four faculty members — Christopher Emdin, Associate Professor of Science Education; Kimberly Noble, Professor of Neuroscience & Education; Sonali Rajan, Associate Professor of Health Education; and Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Associate Professor of English Education — shared their perspectives and detailed the research and projects they have launched in support of what TC President Thomas Bailey called “the core tenet of our work, the pursuit of a more equitable world and eradication of disparities that disproportionately affect so many in our society.”
Read and watch coverage of the conversation between John King, Jr. and TC Provost Stephanie Rowley. Read and watch coverage of the TC faculty discussion on the causes and consequences of inequality.
To reach Teachers College faculty experts on equity issues related to education and health, contact Sara Clough, sara.clough@tc.edu, 917-621-6135.
The views expressed in this release are solely those of the speaker to whom they are attributed. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the faculty, administration, staff or Trustees either of Teachers College or Columbia University.