CAIR in the Classroom

CAIR is fast becoming a contributor to our children’s public school education.  Concerned parents of students in Houston’s Friendswood Junior High exposed an Islamic presentation during classroom time given by representatives of the Council on American Islamic Relations.   The WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh  exposing CAIR’s agenda in this Texas public middle school follows this commentary.  First let’s look at CAIR’s participation in a Brooklyn, New York public school.

CAIR’s active participation as an educating organization working with the Khalil Gibran International Academy, an Arabic language and Arabic culture public school is documented in KGIA’s Executive Summary which states the American Muslim Association of Lawyers (AMAL) offers internships, and helps with a course in human rights (in 6th grade…) (P. 7, p. 18). The AMAL website appears to be inactive (http://www.theamal.org/index.shtml) but the group (or at least their website) was founded by Omar Mohammedi, President of the New York Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), and lawyer for the infamous “6 imams” who have threatened to sue airline personnel and passengers for “profiling.” CAIR has been named in the Holy Land Terror-financing trial as an unindicted co-conspirator.

 Frontpage contributes some background to CAIR’s history- “CAIR’s founder and executive director, Nihad Awad, was the IAP’s [Islamic Association of Palestine] public relations director with a long history of extremism. Awad openly praised Iran’s notorious Ayatollah Khomeini. He blasted the trial and conviction of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers – against whom the evidence of guilt was overwhelming – as “a travesty of justice.” At a 1994 Barry University forum, he candidly stated, “I am in support of the Hamas movement.”

“CAIR has been the mouthpiece of some of the vilest anti-Semitism imaginable. For example, the organization co-sponsored a 1998 Brooklyn College rally at which a militant Egyptian Islamist led the attendees in chanting, “No to the Jews, descendents of the apes.” Hussam Ayloush, who heads CAIR’s Los Angeles office, contemptuously refers to Israelis as “Zionazis.” [http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=5E5F4FCA-2B20-4393-917C-506AC4C756F7] 

 

Consider the possibilities regarding what would be taught in a Khalil Gibran International Academy classroom.  The KGIA Executive Summary. reveals a day in the life of an imaginary student in the school. “Although KGIA offers a variety of enrichment electives in the arts, sports, and technology beginning at 3:30, Fatin has chosen an elective on Human Rights. This class is being co-taught by one of the school’s full-time teachers along with an Arab-American lawyer. She can’t wait until the end of the semester, when one of the collaborating organizations, the American Muslim Association of Lawyers, will offer students internship opportunities at their members’ law offices for a semester.

 

 An April 2008 Weekly Standard article, “CAIR vs. the NYPD The Wahhabi lobby attacks” by Stephen Schwartz documents that Almontaser, the former Principal-designate and architect of the Khalil Gibran International Academy,  has once again joined forces with CAIR and Omar Mohammadi, CAIR’s NY President, to demand that the NYPD end its distribution of the report, “Radicalization in the West: The Home-Grown Threat” prepared by Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt of the NYPD Intelligence Division to other jurisdictions’ law enforcement agencies.

“This month, the Wahhabi lobby plans to drop its manifesto of grievances on Commissioner Kelly, on April 17. In minutes of a meeting held in New York on March 3, officials of CAIR present included Faiza Ali, Aliya Latif, and Omar Mohammadi, joined by Islamist agitator Syed Z. Sayeed, religious adviser to the Saudi-backed Muslim Students Association at Columbia University. They noted that the NYPD had asked for a detailed reply to the report. The participants at the March 3 get-together also observed that while they would prepare such a response, CAIR itself has financed and is working on a more thorough text designated its “long-term analysis/alternative model of radicalization.”

 

Perhaps the most remarkable detail about the March 3 conclave was the leading role taken in it by Debbie Almontaser, a New York resident who last attracted attention as the front-person for a middle-and-high magnet school to be established in New York, the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA). [Emphasis added] KGIA was intended as a special institution emphasizing an Arabic language curriculum and related studies, but its proponents were accused of trying to establish an “intifada academy.” Nevertheless, when Almontaser came under scrutiny as the project head she was defended by many in New York as a faultless moderate. Her involvement in CAIR’s counter-attack on the NYPD demonstrates otherwise: her assignment in dealing with NYPD was to organize an online discussion group for input into the Community Statement.

 

Such would not be a minor responsibility, and shows that she enjoyed the full confidence of the CAIR commissars. Debbie Almontaser appears to be a classic “stealth Islamist,” and KGIA looks like just the kind of radicalizing effort it was said to be by its critics. Almontaser resigned from her position as head of KGIA last August, but now claims she was forced out, and is pursuing a legal complaint to regain her place at the school. KGIA has been promised housing in an elementary school in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, but its future is little more certain than that of Almontaser’s own career.”  [www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/968cekhc.asp]

In a recent Frontpage article by Phil Orenstein, “Almontaser has expressed virulent blame America attitudes in the past making statements in interviews such as: “I have realized that our foreign policy is racist; in the ‘war against terror’ people of color are the target….the terrorist attacks have been triggered by the way the USA breaks its promises with countries across the world, especially in the Middle East.”

[http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID=E0DE76AC-4424-4C76-8E88-2AEA34FF77D9]

 

Consider also a 2004 article in the American Thinker, “Your children may learn that Muslims discovered America”, describing CAIR’s involvement with stacking the deck in your child’s education as they stack American public library shelves with: “……the placement of propaganda in our schools by Muslim extremist groups. As the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation pointed out in a report issued this week titled, “The Stealth Curriculum:Manipulating America’s History Teachers” these efforts are intended “to use America’s public school classrooms to shape the minds of tomorrow’s citizens by manipulating what today’s teachers introducing into the lessons of today’s children”.

The article goes on to specify CAIR’s deliberate involvement:

The Council  on American—Islamic Relations, some of whose members have been “outed” as terror supporters, has an active program to supply these this type of propaganda to libraries across the nation. Naturally, like schools, the librarians are more than happy to accept inexpensive, or free, material to fill their shelves. Yet these same books and audio—visual material are filling our children’s minds with lies that are tantamount to propaganda that teach hate. Efforts should be made by local activists and PTA or PTO members to scrutinize the reading lists at our “educational” institutions. http://www.americanthinker.com/2004/04/your_children_may_learn_that_m.html

 

BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS

Texas children roped into Islamic training

Class by CAIR teaches: ‘There is one god, Allah’

By Bob Unruh, News Editor, WorldNetDaily,

30 May 2008
 

 

Public school students at Friendswood Junior High in the Houston area have been roped into Islamic training by representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations during class time, prompting religious leaders to protest over Principal Robin Lowe’s actions.

Pastor Dave Welch, spokesman for the Houston Area Pastor Council, confirmed the indoctrination had taken place and called it “unacceptable.”

“The failure of the principal of Friendswood Junior High to respect simple procedures requiring parental notification for such a potentially controversial subject, to not only approve but participate personally in a religious indoctrination session led by representatives of a group with well-known links to terrorist organizations and her cavalier response when confronted, raises serious questions about her fitness to serve in that role,” the pastors’ organization said.

According to a parent, whose name was withheld, the children were given the Islamic indoctrination during time that was supposed to be used for a physical

education class.

“I am simply trying to get the word out to those whose kids may not have told them about an Islamic presentation that all kids were required to attend,” wrote the parent, who was working to assemble protests to the school board.

WND previously has reported how public school textbooks being used across the nation have begun promoting Islam, teaching even the religious doctrines.

WND also has reported on several other school situations in which Islam has been taught as a required subject, and when administrators have defended those decisions.

In the Texas case, a school e-mail to parents provided only a half-hearted acknowledgement that such mandatory religious indoctrination might not have been the best decision.

“In hindsight, a note should have been sent home to parents indicating the purpose and content of the presentation in time for parents to contact me with questions or concerns or requests to exempt their child,” the school note from Lowe said. “This will be our practice in the future, should we ever have another presentation of a similar nature.”

School officials also said the “Islamic Awareness” presentation was “to increase understanding of the Islamic culture in response to racially motivated comments that have been made to students on campus.”

The pastors said in a statement: “According to students who were forced to attend these sessions, these Islamic evangelists taught them:

• Adam, Noah and Jesus  are prophets
  
• There is one god, his name is Allah
• The 5 Pillars of Islam
  
• How to pray five times a day
  
• Islamic religious garb”

The pastors noted that the principal’s claim there were “comments” to students on campus was unverified. Nor does that excuse or justify “this infringement upon the religious beliefs of students and parents of the community nor the violation of school policy and possibly state and/or federal law,” they said.

“We do not believe that this unapproved action by Principal Robin Lowe represents the school district and certainly not the majority of students or parents in the Friendswood community. Our commitment is to support all appropriate administrative, legal and political remedies to assure that this will not happen again and these Islamic activist organizations are kept out of our schools,” the pastors said.

The parent reported the presentation was 30-40 minutes long and handled by two Muslim women from CAIR’s Houston office. CAIR, as WND has reported, is spinoff of the defunct Islamic Association for Palestine, launched by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and former university professor Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Among the convicted CAIR staffers are former communications specialist Randall Todd “Ismail” Royer, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges he trained in Virginia for holy war against the U.S. and sent several members to Pakistan to join a Kashmiri terrorist group with reported ties to al-Qaida; and Bassem Khafagi, who was arrested in January 2003 while serving as CAIR’s director of community relations and convicted on fraud and terrorism charges in connection with a probe of the Islamic Assembly of North America, an organization suspected of aiding Saudi sheiks tied to Osama bin Laden. In October 2006, Ghassan Elashi, a member of the founding board of directors of the Texas branch of CAIR, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for financial ties to a high-ranking terrorist.

The parent reported that Lowe told students her sister, niece and nephew were Muslim.

But the parent complained the Muslims “were given full attention of our kids, during academic school time, to present their religious beliefs … This was put right at the end of the school year … which will most likely prevent a Christian response.”

There also was no parental notification and students were required to attend.

“The kids did not even know they were having an assembly or what topic it pertained to until they entered the gym,” the parent wrote. “I send my kids to school for academics … I teach them religion at home.”

[http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=65659] 

Caution to the Wind….

Alan Brodsky, in a NY Post op-ed writes,

   

 

–“When the consequences are great, as when creating a school, officials must act with an over-abundance of prudence. They must have unassailable faith in school leaders.”

 

–“But would kids come away less committed to US values and traditions than their peers? How would the school present 9/11, Islam, Israel, the Mideast – America?”

–“Yes, in theory, such a school can be useful. More Americans need to speak Arabic – not just to bridge cultural gaps, but to spy on the enemy and expose his plots. We need to know how Islamists think and act – not to understand their “grievances,” but to help predict and foil their next attack.”

The article speaks for itself and we couldn’t agree more.

Read the entire op-ed:

                                

                 Almontaser: Ties to dubious groups

 

WHO NEEDS VIGILANCE?

THE NY TIMES & ‘INTIFADA HIGH’

By ADAM BRODSKY

May 2, 2008 — SOMEONE should tell The New York Times what happened on 9/11 – it ap parently has no clue. If it did, it never would’ve run that 4,500-word, front-page tearjerker Monday on Brooklyn’s Khalil Gibran International Academy and its ex-principal, Debbie Almontaser.

 What happened back then (as everyone but, it seems, the Times knows) is that Arab Islamists, disguised as harmless civilians, murdered 3,000 people and leveled the World Trade Center. In so doing, they awoke America to their war, which relies heavily on deception and targets unsuspecting, open-minded, tolerant Westerners. Gullible fools, that is.

Since then, Americans got wise. One response to the sneak attack: vigilance. If you see something, say something. Be careful whom you trust.

The Times sees no need for vigilance, as if 9/11 never happened. But caution underlies resistance to the city’s first Arab-themed public school.

No, no one feared the school would train kid bombers. But would kids come away less committed to US values and traditions than their peers? How would the school present 9/11, Islam, Israel, the Mideast – America?

Surely, if Americans had flattened the Riyadh Tower (Saudi Arabia’s tallest building), the idea of opening a public school in the Kingdom to promote US-Arab understanding would occur to no one. No wonder jaws dropped over plans for a taxpayer-funded, Arabic-themed school in the city, in response to attacks here by Arab terrorists.

Yes, in theory, such a school can be useful. More Americans need to speak Arabic – not just to bridge cultural gaps, but to spy on the enemy and expose his plots. We need to know how Islamists think and act – not to understand their “grievances,” but to help predict and foil their next attack.

When the consequences are great, as when creating a school, officials must act with an over-abundance of prudence. They must have unassailable faith in school leaders.

Once a school opens, it’s hard to reverse decisions. Almontaser’s lawsuit against Mayor Mike and the city – she cites her First Amendment rights in claiming she was wrongly forced to quit – shows that.

Folks can debate if Almontaser, a Yemeni-American, is a well-meaning Muslim moderate railroaded out of her dream to create “ambassadors of peace and hope” – as she, and the Times, insist.

They can weigh the paper’s suggestion that she was fired in large part because of a Post story, which a judge said “misleadingly” reported her comments on the term “intifada.”

Or they may decide that anti-Islamist experts like Daniel Pipes, who labeled her an “extremist,” had her pegged better. And that the Gibran school really is “the kind of radicalizing effort it was said to be,” as Stephen Schwartz put it.

That debate might answer questions like: Why did Almontaser feel compelled to defend teen girls whose group sported t-shirts with the incendiary words “Intifada NYC”? What’s with her ties to groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land terror-funding case with links to Hamas?

Certainly, there was enough to raise real concerns, in an era of necessarily heightened distrust. And that should have been sufficient to disqualify her, if not to kill the school entirely – however qualified and well-meaning she may be.

As they respond to terror with vigilance, Americans will no doubt sometimes go overboard. But you can be sure mistakes will be fewer here than they’d be anywhere else.

Meanwhile, too much caution is surely better than too little.

 

 

 

 abrodsky@nypost.com

[http://www.nypost.com/seven/05022008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/who_needs_vigilance__109129.htm]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

Revisionist History in the Classroom

After four separate Freedom of Information Law requests and four court hearings, the Department of Education has not responded to our demands for complete transparency.  The reason for KGIA’s existence is to teach the Arabic language and Arabic Culture; however, the curricula and textbooks have not been revealed.   As we pursue the truth, everyone continues to wonder exactly what is being taught in the Khalil Gibran International Academy.  Are they learning that Muslims discovered America?  If so, why?  The answer is that if the Islamists can establish their presence as the original inhabitants of North America then the land becomes part of the Ummah, the Islamic lands.  The caliphate now extends to the United States.  According to the open source Wikkipedia the Ummah is-

Present day meaning–

Some modern Islamists use the term “Islamic Ummah” or “Muslim Ummah” to refer to all the people in the lands and countries where Muslims predominantly reside, and which were once under the control of the Islamic Caliphate. They thus include non-Muslim minorities as members of the ummah. Shariah (Islamic law) would apply to the citizens of the state. In such a unified “Islamic Umma,” the non-Muslim citizens would be subject to Dhimmi limitations and conditions.

The Council on American Islamic Relations has endorsed the school and stated that they are participating with KGIA.  See CAIR-NY-founded American Muslim Lawyers Association and the American Mideast Leadership Network, run by a Hezbollah apologist.  Considering its status as a  named unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land terrorist funding case and its years of plying Islamic literature to American Public Libraries the question is, “What have they supplied KGIA’s library with?”  This is just one of many questions we need answers to.

Following is a 2004 article reprinted from the American Thinker by Ed Lasky.  Islamic propaganda in American public schools has been exposed for years.  Exactly what was Mayor Bloomberg and the NYC Department of Education thinking when they endorsed and supported this school?

April 16, 2004

Your children may learn that Muslims discovered America

By Ed Lasky

A Native American tribe has forced distributors of an Arab studies guide for American teachers to remove an inaccurate and absurd passage that Muslim explorers preceded Columbus to North America, and eventually became Algonquin chiefs named Abdul—Rahim and Abdallah Ibn Malik!

The Middle East Policy Council, a Washington advocacy group that promotes this curriculum to school districts in 155 U.S. cities have apparently been somewhat unresponsive and dismissive of complaints. Ridiculous as this example is, it is illustrative of a far more disturbing development: the placement of propaganda in our schools by Muslim extremist groups. [Emphasis added] As the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation pointed out in a report issued this week titled, “The Stealth Curriculum:Manipulating America’s History Teachers” these efforts are intended “to use America’s public school classrooms to shape the minds of tomorrow’s citizens by manipulating what today’s teachers introducing into the lessons of today’s children”

The American Textbook Council has played a leading role in resisting Arab efforts to supply propaganda to our schools, and recently published a report, “Islam and the Textbooks”, by Gilbert T. Sewall, which reports this phenomenon. It can be found here.

These militants and their supporters have set their eyes on our children, and are attempting to brainwash them by supplying free textbooks which whitewash the truth regarding Muslim extremism, while promoting Arab and Palestinian political goals. These “teaching materials” also impugn and devalue America, Western nations, Israel. Judaism, and Christianity. The article, ‘Textbooks for Jihad,’ found here is a good analysis of these developments .

The Council  on American—Islamic Relations, some of whose members have been “outed” as terror supporters, has an active program to supply these this type of propaganda to libraries across the nation. Naturally, like schools, the librarians are more than happy to accept inexpensive, or free, material to fill their shelves. Yet these same books and audio—visual material are filling our children’s minds with lies that are tantamount to propaganda that teach hate. Efforts should be made by local activists and PTA or PTO members to scrutinize the reading lists at our “educational” institutions. [http://www.americanthinker.com/2004/04/your_children_may_learn_that_m.html]

Stop the Madrassa Press Release- “Open Letter from Educators”

Former SDS, Communist Party, and Weather Underground Extremists Defame Critics of Khalil Gibran Academy;

They Join Prior Supporters, Such as Cop-Killer Mumia Abu-Jamal and Rabbi Michael Paley, in Support of Almontaser & KGIA

New York, New York April 4, 2008 — . Once again, radical Islamist groups and their enablers are attempting to silence American citizens through boycotts, name-calling, threats of lawsuits, defamatory accusations and other forms of intimidation.

This time, as the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA) finds itself under new fire from angry parents in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn who feel KGIA is being imposed on their elementary school, hard Leftist KGIA supporters are attempting to bolster the failing “multi-cultural” experiment by defaming their critics. In a letter this week to Mayor Bloomberg, KGIA supporters label those who have questioned the creation, purpose, affiliates, management, and other issues regarding the Arabic school “a small group of fear-mongering bigots.”

Among those who signed the letter to Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein were a number of well- known former leaders of extremist Leftist organizations. For example, as reported by the open source Wikipedia, William Ayers, who is now at the University of Illinois at Chicago, reportedly was “a Weather Underground member…. he became radicalized at the University of Michigan. During his years there, he became involved in the New Left and the SDS. Ayers went underground with several comrades after their co-conspirators’ bomb accidentally exploded on March 6, 1970, destroying a Greenwich Village townhouse and killing three members of the Weather Underground…. They avoided the police and FBI while bombing high-profile government buildings—including the United States Capitol (two bombs on March 1, 1970), The Pentagon (May 19, 1972), and the Harry S Truman Building which houses the United States Department of State (on January 29, 1975)—along with several banks, police department headquarters and precincts, state and federal courthouses, and state prison administrative offices. Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn raised two children, Zayd and Malik, underground before turning themselves in in 1981, when most charges were dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct during the long search for the fugitives…. Ayers published his memoirs in 2001 with the book Fugitive Days. His interview with the New York Times to promote his book was published on September 11, 200…. In this interview, he… was quoted as saying, “I don’t regret setting bombs; I feel we didn’t do enough.”…. In the fall of 2006, Ayers was asked not to attend a progressive educators’ conference on the basis that the organizers did not want to risk an association of their movement with his violent past. ”

Another of those defaming critics of KGIA is Michael Klonsky, of the Small Schools Workshop who, again according to the open source Wikipedia, “…helped organize the first chapter of Students for a Democratic Society in the area. He became active in national SDS early in 1967…. During his community organizing, Klonsky began developing a proto-Marxist ideology which emphasized community and worker organizing…. In late 1969, Klonsky founded the October League, a communist party which in 1977 became the Communist Party, Marxist-Leninist. He was elected the party’s chairman…. Klonsky made several trips to China beginning in July 1977, where he was warmly received by government and Communist Party of China officials and treated to state dinners… “

Stop the Madrassa Community Coalition (STM) has filed Freedom of Information Law requests to obtain complete information concerning textbooks, lesson plans and design documents to be used at KGIA. Because the DOE did not comply STM was forced to file an Article 78 petition in Manhattan Supreme Court. Not surprisingly the documents turned over pursuant to the FOIL requests substantiated STM concerns. To date the school does not have proper textbooks, curricla, or lesson plans for teaching middle and high school Arabic language and culture. What was discovered from FOIL requests is that KGIA was poorly designed and poorly thought-out. In recent months STM has stepped up its calls for immediate closure of KGIA, and expanded its fight nationwide to halt the imposition of radical Islamist agendas in curricula, Arab language programs, history classes, textbooks, teacher training, and charter schools. STM does not oppose the teaching of Arabic language or Arabic culture in a balanced public school curriculum offering several languages and covering all cultures.

We will not be silenced and we stand in solidarity with others who have been defamed or targeted for exposing the dangers of Islamo-fasxism and jihadism.

# # #

Stop the Madrassa Community Coalition is a grassroots organization working to help parents and teachers investigate, expose and eliminate Islamist and other ideological influence on textbooks, curricula and courses. . For more information please visit www.stopthemadrassa.wordpress.org..

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Text of Open Letter from Educators in Support of the Khalil Gibran International Academy and Principal Debbie Almontaser to:

Michael Bloomberg Joel Klein

Mayor of New York City Chancellor of New York City Department of Education

Dear Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein,

In 2007 the New York City Public Schools approved the establishment of the first-ever NY public school focusing on Arabic language and culture. This new small dual-language school, Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA), addressed a need and dream of many in New York’s Arab communities. Leading the campaign for this specialty academy was Debbie Almontaser, a respected educator and community leader, who was selected to become the school’s founding principal.

Before the school ever opened its doors, Almontaser was forced to resign. When Debbie Almontaser was forced out as principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, a blow was struck against the rights and academic freedom of educators everywhere. Principal Almontaser was the guiding light and the pioneer behind the founding of the new school, which was envisioned as part of a vibrant small-schools movement fostering personalization, autonomy, and the empowerment of teachers.

A campaign of lies, racial fear, and anti-Arab prejudice, emanating from a conservative media group including the New York Post and supported by Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein, forced Almontaser from her post. Prior to and during the first semester of the school’s existence, Almontaser was replaced by two principals, neither of whom possesses her exceptional academic qualifications, her leadership capabilities, her relationship with the school community, nor her knowledge of Arabic language and culture.

KGIA was attacked by a small group of fear-mongering bigots. It was labeled a “terrorist school” and a “madrassa.” But this campaign of slander has been met by a broad coalition supporting the school and its intended principal, including leading organizations spanning the many diverse communities in New York. This coalition is pursuing every channel to restore Almontaser to her rightful position and to clear her name and her reputation.

Debbie Almontaser did nothing wrong. She committed no crime. She violated no rules nor any terms of her contract. She was forced to resign after doing nothing more than answering a reporter’s question about the root meaning of the word “intifada.”

For those of us working in the field of education, the treatment of Debbie Almontaser represents a threat not only to our rights as educators and citizens in a democratic society; it is also an attack on the small-schools movement and on the push for diversity and equity within our system of public education. Will bigotry be allowed to decide which public schools can exist and who can lead them?

We the undersigned insist that Debbie Almontaser be returned to her post as founding principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy.

Bernadette Anand, Bank Street Graduate School of Education

Gary Anderson, Steinhardt School of Education, N.Y.U.

Rick Ayers, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education

William Ayers, University of Illinois at Chicago

Carmen Colon, Association of NYC’s Educated Communities

Kathleen Cushman, Education Writer

Lisa Delpit, Center for Urban Education and Innovation, F.I.U.

Michelle Fine, The Graduate Center – City University of New York

Ofelia Garcia, Teachers College, Columbia University

Maxine Greene, Teachers College, Columbia University

Kris D. Gutierrez, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, UCLA

Paula Hajar, Bronx Charter School for Better Learning

Annette Henry, Education Program, University of Washington, Tacoma

Jay P. Heubert, Teachers College, Columbia University

Mike Klonsky, Small Schools Workshop

Susan Klonsky, Small Schools Workshop

Kevin Kumashiro, University of Illinois at Chicago

Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Carol Lee, Northwestern University

Sally Lee, Teachers Unite

Linda Levine, Bank Street Graduate School of Education

Tara Mack, Education for Liberation Network

Edwin Mayorga, New York Collective of Radical Educators

Deborah W. Meier, Steinhardt School of Education, N.Y.U.

Jon Moscow, The Brotherhood/Sister Sol

Arwa Nasser, United Nations International School

Donna Nevel, Center for Immigrant Families

Pedro A. Noguera, Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, N.Y.U.

Gary Orfield, Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, UCLA

Granville Leo Stevens, Independent Parents Organizations

*affiliations listed for identification purposes