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Public School Holiday Celebrations: Christmas-centric or Multicultural?

With the children home for the holidays, with the spirit of love and peace in their hearts, how did their schools celebrate the season? Or did they celebrate Christmas?

In many locations, holiday parties involve decorating contests with Christmas trees and ornaments. In elementary schools, Santa might make an appearance. Songs of reindeer and gifts ring out, along with talk of who’s been naughty or nice. Children are asked to write essays on “what I want for Christmas,” or after the holidays, they are asked to explain what gifts they received.

However, this Christmas-centric view does not align well with the actual makeup of today’s public schools. Research shows that today’s . While the data tends to speak from an ethnic or racial point of view, it still indicates the need to take multiple perspectives into account. Schools have to begin to recognize that not all children celebrate Christmas and have made adjustments that make their celebrations more inclusive. However, there is still much work to be done if public schools are to have a truly multicultural perspective.

In this video, The Doctors discuss a recent news story about a school district that banned all dominant holiday celebrations in the name of inclusion.

Unintended Consequences

There remain many public schools in this country that engage in holiday celebrations that revolve

The Common Core State Standards were developed after education officials became concerned over the lack of progress American students were making in the areas of math and language arts. After years of being outperformed by children in other countries, various stakeholders came together to devise a new set of standards that would raise the bar for student learning. The result was the Common Core, which took shape over the course of 2009 and was implemented in 2010. In the years since, 43 states, Washington, D.C., the education wing of the Department of Defense, and several U.S. territories have adopted the standards.

Developed by Experts

The Common Core standards represent a cooperative effort between dozens of officials including governors, teachers, curriculum design experts, and researchers. However, two agencies, the National Governors Association for Best Practices (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) led the charge for the creation of the standards and continue to lead the ongoing efforts to implement the standards nationwide.

Throughout the design process, the NGA and CCSSO relied on input from content-area experts, teachers, and even parents to devise standards that are both rigorous and relevant to a modern-day education. The authors of the standards also worked with higher education officials, workforce trainers, and employers to ensure the standards facilitated the development of knowledge and skills required for success in college, at the workplace, and in life.

Purpose of

Districts across the nation have raised questions about their responsibilities in providing educational services to the most recent wave of immigrant children, specifically those from the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Many of these children have arrived unaccompanied, countless numbers have done so illegally, and the vast majority have little or no knowledge or understanding of English.

Children who arrive in the United States without an accompanying adult are cared for at one of whose operation is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services. While at the shelter, all expenses for caring for the children, from food and clothing to immunizations and other medical care, are paid for by the federal government. Although children in these shelters receive educational services, they cannot attend school offsite. Children are allowed to enroll in public school only after they are released to a sponsor – a parent, other relative, or family friend. It is these children, who in the past year alone , that school districts aren’t sure what to do with.

Part of the problem districts face is difficulty determining the child’s educational background when their sponsor brings them in to enroll. Often, the sponsor is unaware of the child’s history, and language barriers can prevent the child from conveying their history. As a result, school districts are unsure where to place children and what services they may need. Sometimes, schools don’t even know if

The notion of comprehensive education is nothing new, yet with all of the education reforms and testing initatives, has it fallen even further to the wayside? Are our current curriculum standards robbing children of a real education, in favor of No. 2 pencils scratching on standardized bubbles? Many consider John Dewey, the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century philosopher and advocate of progressivism to be the father of student-centered learning. Dewey championed the idea that schools should address a broad spectrum of student needs, rather than drill rote memorization of facts into students’ heads. The addition of school counselors, special education programs, advanced courses for the gifted, and student support services like positive behavior interventions would all fall under the realm of whole-child educational programs that schools throughout the nation have implemented for quite some time. According to the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, whole-child education should encompass the following:

• Every child comes to school healthy and is supported in his or her pursuit of good mental and physical health through physical education, health, and wellness classes and activities that enrich their lives.
• Every child learns in an environment that is free from discrimination, upholds the tenets of social justice and equality, and provides opportunities for students to feel valued and respected.
• Every child is actively engaged in their learning, which is facilitated by hands-on and project-based learning, community service, extracurricular activities, and other programs that extend learning beyond the classroom.
• Every child participates in personalized learning programs that meet their

What is the School-to-Prison Pipeline?

In an era in which negative or violent behaviors at school – from bullying and harassment, racism and sexism, and school shootings – is commonplace, public schools have taken measures to beef up security in the name of protecting students and staff. Schools in urban areas have long been home to security guards and metal detectors, however, security measures in recent years at urban and rural schools alike have grown to include armed school resource officers (SRO), complex networks of surveillance cameras, and zero-tolerance discipline policies that have resulted in a substantial increase in the number of student suspensions, expulsions, and school-based arrests. In fact, the number of disciplinary actions taken in schools is at an all-time high.

This video from the ACLU shows their belief that children should be educated, not incarcerated. We are working to challenge policies and practices that contribute to the school to prison pipeline.

However, this is just one component of the modern-day school-to-prison pipeline, in which students are forced out of school by Draconian policies that land them in the criminal justice system.

This begs the question, “How did we get to this point?” The American Civil Liberties Union has identified in the development of today’s police-state schools that funnel children into courts and jails:

1. Lack of funding and resources: Many discipline problems arise when students are disengaged