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Higher education institutions are in a great position to create authentic programming to support local underfunded or underperforming public school districts. This article gives an overview of an education outreach collaborative between a 4-year public university, local schools, and a community institution and highlights lessons learned from the project. This community outreach program emphasizes literacy, social justice, and college preparation. It consists of a fifth grade literacy program, a high school tutoring and mentoring program, and a scholarship program for precollege students, all situated within a local public school system. Literature reviewed shows how collaborative projects can be utilized to support community outreach programs using university resources. Preliminary results from impact measures show positive outcomes among program participants. The program can be replicated in similarly situated university-school-community collaboratives.

This paper details four encounters we experienced while traveling in Cuba as part of a multiethnic delegation of US social justice advocates. The encounters were linked by a common thread of race, which made them noteworthy and uncomfortably familiar to us as Black women. Since our return to the US, we have reflected on the four encounters and concluded that, as a collective, they reinforce a lesson and highlight a fundamental challenge that is at the core of the work of all critical multicultural and social justice educators.

The author offers tips for addressing topics of diversity from a social justice perspective through the use of picture books during read-aloud time.

Over the last few years, much attention has been focused on the nationwide teacher shortage. As teachers begin to retire in record numbers, and the number of students entering teacher education majors continues to decline, concern around the teacher shortage heightens (US Dept. of Ed., 2016). The numbers are even more dire when looking at Teachers of Color entering the profession (US Dept. of Ed., 2016). To address this TOC shortage, Pennsylvania’s Department of Education called for Institutions of Higher Education to create programs aimed at attracting and retaining students of color in their teacher education programs. The Aspiring to Educate (A2E) program was Pennsylvania’s intentional attempt to diversify the teacher workforce. This paper describes the work of three Black educators, as they examine their positionality and work independently and collectively to answer PA’s call to action through the implementation of start-up Grow Your Own programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been no secret that today's schools are faced with many challenges. U.S. schools are struggling with low test scores, high drop-out rates, and unequal quality public education. These schools are also struggling to meet the needs of an ever changing population of students. The changing demographics in schools present challenges to teachers and administrators. In addition to working to improve grades, schools are faced with the challenge of building relationships with families to ensure that the needs of all students are met. Schools that strive to create better learning environments for children strive to empower "all" parents--not just ones from traditional families. In order to build successful schools it becomes crucial for schools to build partnerships with diverse families. Teacher education programs have the unique challenge of training students interested in becoming teachers (pre-service teachers) to build partnerships with "all" families including those from diverse structures. Many who teach pre-service teachers struggle with ways to go beyond the textbook with the goal of providing quality, memorable learning experiences for their students. This article describes a project that examines the effectiveness of moving beyond the textbook and bringing families and pre-service students face-to-face in an effort to begin to build a much needed understanding and to allow for perspective taking. Results proved that the panel discussion format is a powerful tool that can be used to teach pre-service teachers to appreciate and respect diverse family structures. More than a lecture or reading a book, the panel discussion allowed students to actually meet the families and hear their true life stories. This hands-on strategy allowed students to hear and understand the perspectives of others and to appreciate the differences.

For years, instructors have used talks, speak-outs, and panel discussions so that students could hear the perspective of others. Bringing panel discussions into the classroom can provide valuable experience for students. They allow students to hear viewpoints and arguments of others, in contrast to traditional classroom discussions that only allow students to state their own points of view. The purpose of this project was to examine the effectiveness of moving beyond the textbook and bringing families and pre-service students face to face in an effort to build an understanding and to allow for perspective taking. For this project, a panel of parent volunteers from diverse family structures was assembled to speak to the students. Information was gathered to determine the future of using a panel discussion as a teaching strategy on diverse family structures. Informal information was also collected from the panelists and students. This article shows that panel discussions help teachers build partnerships with families.

This paper details four encounters we experienced while traveling in Cuba as part of a multiethnic delegation of US social justice advocates. The encounters were linked by a common thread of race, which made them noteworthy and uncomfortably familiar to us as Black women. Since our return to the US, we have reflected on the four encounters and concluded that, as a collective, they reinforce a lesson and highlight a fundamental challenge that is at the core of the work of all critical multicultural and social justice educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education institutions are in a great position to create authentic programming to support local underfunded or underperforming public school districts. This article gives an overview of an education outreach collaborative between a 4-year public university, local schools, and a community institution and highlights lessons learned from the project. This community outreach program emphasizes literacy, social justice, and college preparation. It consists of a fifth grade literacy program, a high school tutoring and mentoring program, and a scholarship program for precollege students, all situated within a local public school system. Literature reviewed shows how collaborative projects can be utilized to support community outreach programs using university resources. Preliminary results from impact measures show positive outcomes among program participants. The program can be replicated in similarly situated university-school-community collaboratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issues associated with teaching a diversity perspective course for preservice teachers in early childhood education. Topics mentioned include the design of the course to introduce various aspects of diversity, such as power, race and socioeconomic status, to preservice teachers, challenges associated with teaching the course, such as integration of dissident material and the different teaching experiences of the students, and the means to address such challenges.

The article presents a project which evaluates the efficiency of a face-to-face discussion between pre-service students and diverse families. It mentions that the project involves a panel of parents who were from different family structures. It states that the project is a component of the brown bag lunch series which is an open forum wherein various universities can attend. It says that the project implies that pre-service teachers felt that organizing a panel discussion as an undergraduate class experience is a valuable tool which could help in creating the essential atmosphere for establishing relationship with diverse families. It adds that the panel discussion format can be a powerful tool for teaching pre-service teachers in terms of respecting diverse family structures.