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In this explosive episode we share our final installation of an incredibly informative and intense 3-part series of conversations with our most downloaded special guest, Dr. Sandy Womack, Jr., the Region 3 area superintendent of the Columbus, Ohio school district and a lifelong educator with 30+ years of experience.
He’s the author of two books which are a must for every educator and leader:
●"Even the best of plans go astray" and
●"Creating Successful Urban Schools: The Urban Educators Month by Month Guide to School Improvement”.
In our hard-hitting, truth-telling and daring conversations, we’ve covered topics that very few others have the courage to unpack, speaking truth to power on the topics of:
● Effective 21st Century Policing
● The truth about Critical Race Theory (CRT), and
● We set the record straight on the current state of affairs in Ohio regarding charter schools and voucher programs (under Governor Mike DeWine’s budget proposals) and how this will impact public education and ultimately the school to prison pipeline.
Dr. Womack says, “25% of the state budget appears to be set aside for charter and voucher schools,” which he says is “significant” because “only about 11% of the students in Ohio will attend charter schools. “It sets the agenda, because you truly put your money where your mouth is.”
● We look back on the 50th Anniversary of Hip-hop music and how it has impacted urban education and beyond. He stresses the impacting force of an education and knowledge of self. Dr. Womack mentioned that he “came up in the era where you had ‘conscious rap’ from artists like KRS-One, Public Enemy, The Pharcyde and De La Soul”, just to mention a few.
Dr. Womack shares that, “Hip hop has made a tremendous impact because it gave a lot of young African Americans the ability to see themselves in a positive light – through music and the ability to use their vocabulary and true to life story-telling.”
● The importance of celebrating “the firsts” (first black pioneers and significant role models of color) in a world that goes out of its way to try to devalue these accomplishments. Dr. Womack says, “recognizing and identifying ‘firsts’ is very important to do, because so many people today are trying to strip people of color of their history.”
We drilled down on the de-regulation of educational certification (something that is not a new phenomenon), and discussed the rarely-mentioned fact that hundreds of thousands of Black educators lost their jobs when Brown v Board of Education was implemented in 1954. A case argued by the great legal scholar and pioneer Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall exposed the fact that unqualified white milkmen were used to replace qualified black educators when Brown v Board was implemented. These educators were leading professionals in education and in their communities.
In the decisive leadership of Dr. Womack, Jr., which has led many young people back onto the path to progress, “truth” is at the root of his essential core. The truth “cultivates”. It “digs up” … it “reveals”. His dear grandmother, Alice Womack once said, "the difference between a lie and the truth is normally just half of the story.”
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