A Saturday event at a Vallejo church called for the local African American faith community to become more involved in efforts to improve the educational standards for the city’s youth.
The event at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church featured guest speaker, the Rev. Dr. Amos Brown, a civil rights icon and pastor of the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco. Brown also studied under Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Education is a civil right, but it’s up to the black faith community to prophesy,” Brown said.
Brown encouraged parents to set an example for children and encourage reading.
“You need to learn how to read and think for yourself,” Brown said. “We let opinions … do the thinking for us. If you can’t think for yourself, someone else will do the thinking for you.”
Brown’s lecture followed a presentation by Vallejo City Unified School District Superintendent Ramona Bishop. She addressed the issue of disproportionality in the national education system when it comes to minority students.
Bishop also shared numbers that showed improvement in the district, including the falling number of students expelled, suspended or retained since she took her position in 2011. The improvement, she said, is a result of various new programs that the district has recently developed, including the focus on science, technology,engineering, arts and mathematics and full-service schools.
Source: Times Herald Online |
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