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We would like to thank everyone who has spoken up in support of and about their experience at Miller African Centered Academy, shared a video or a comment, spoken at or attended a rally or public hearing, videoed the work and used their platform, offered advice, a prayer or kind word. Together we have forced Dr. Wayne Walters to respond to the City’s passionate response to the reality that the Pittsburgh Public Schools is attempting to take African Centered Education (ACE) away from Pittsburgh as an option. His response actually proves our entire point as to why African Centered Education is necessary. This battle is far from won. Please join us! But let’s get right into why. There are many reasons why Dr. Walters’ letter has both angered and disappointed so many of us!
Dr. Walters is actively opposed and dismissive of the Black grassroots and broader popular struggle to determine what education must look like for Pittsburgh. The beginning of Dr. Walter’s letter demonstrates his disconnectedness from and disdain for the struggle to take Miller African Centered Academy off of the close list: “Over the past week, we have heard from several families and community members expressing concerns about the planned closure of Pittsburgh Miller.” Several?? Over the last week?? Who is Dr. Walters talking about? The campaign has been building for two months and included several media stories, more than 100K views and hundreds of positive comments and shares online. Just last week about seventy people gathered in front of MACA to rally for it to stay open. This past Monday night at the School Board’s General Public Hearing, an overwhelming number of the forty public speakers, many of whom were there speaking on other issues, spoke in support of keeping MACA open. No, it’s more than several families who have spoken to Dr. Walters. He is trying to undermine us all by acting like he doesn’t hear the growing public opposition to closing MACA, but we know he hears the outcry. Otherwise, he’d ignore us. When we fight, we win!
Dr. Walters’ letter speaks of ACE as a matter of belonging and pride and legacy, but this is not ACE’s main focus. ACE has its focus on the placing of children in a multi-millennia tradition and heritage of African civilization, contribution, achievement and struggle as well rooting them in a rich tradition of social values that prioritize fostering unity among students, families and community in order to serve and build the larger Black community. In addition, ACE will provide insight, rigor and best practices for the existing subjects in the curriculum to ensure alignment to principles and values. Black students will know that they are heirs to the subjects taught. Properly taught, ACE emerges from the historical struggle for Black empowerment and provides children with a method to see the world in African/Black people’s interests, a fact that Dr. Walters seems not to understand and does not appear to support, probably because Dr. Walters, like most, has been taught to uphold white supremacy and preservation.
Please read Dr. Walters’ letter and note how he disrespects his own students, teachers, family, community members and PBS board’s binding endorsement of MACA by consistently referencing Miller African Centered Academy as “Pittsburgh Miller.” Walters has already begun the process of erasing MACA’s legacy. Note Dr. Walters does not commit to ensuring MACA or even that ACE is going to be a part of the FU plan (Shout out to 412 Justice for appropriately renaming the “Future Ready Plan” -”Future Unready, (FU), even after acknowledging Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and ACE are not the same.
PPS’s current, and historical disregard for MACA, its students, families, neighborhood, model and legacy is there for everyone to see!
Dr. Walters never says his administration values ACE, simply that others do. In its current condition, PPS’s total, and historical disregard for MACA, its students, families, neighborhood, model and legacy is there for everyone to see.
We have come to understand that there has not been a consistent 3rd grade teacher at MACA for almost a decade. There is no dedicated science teacher. We wonder how and why so many African American students are unprepared to do well at Sci Tech. Because there is
no school secretary, there are days when the office phone just rings with no one to answer. MACA is lacking a consistent principal. The designated principal is on leave until November or later. There are no prepared foods; therefore, the children are served hot packs for lunch. MACA does not have any kind of library services or school librarian. Yet, the school’s lower scores on standardized testing are explained as a reason to call it a “failing school” and even suggest that ACE doesn’t work. In fact, what it demonstrates is that the District and twenty years of superintendents, including Dr. Walters, have not supported, encouraged or elevated the success of MACA. The records will reveal that in the early years MACA students succeeded with high test scores and have gone beyond high school to make their contributions to the world community. Let’s be honest. The last thing the power structure and their class of partners want to see are legions of Black children, particularly those from financially poor families, confident, highly competent, clear about their identity and perspective and committed to uplifting and struggling on behalf of their community for unity and justice! Aren’t we sick and tired of being sick and tired of getting the short end of the educational stick?
Dr. Walters Is Attempting To Invoke Divide and Conquer. We Will Not Let Him!
In his comments about A Leo Weil school getting itself off of the closing list (Congratulations, Family!) and MACA being placed on it instead, Walters implies had the MACA community organized earlier it would have been MACA that stayed open and Weil that closed. This kind of divide and conquer strategy is a prime example of why we are very critical of Dr. Walters and his brand of educational leadership. Despite being poorly engaged and relying on community organizations and advocates to communicate what was happening with the school closings, the Hill District held neighborhood meetings. Even if they did not attend the official PPS meetings, people did express opposition to Dr. Walters about the plan. Today there is a clear and determined community in front of the School District that will not abandon their just and righteous cause – African Centered Education for the excellence of African American children.
Dr. Walters has not reached out to the Coalition to Save Miller African Centered Academy at any time. Instead of making an effort to communicate with the Coalition, he tells the public in a letter that he will sit with us. By pointing to MACA’s current enrollment challenge without referencing any Hill District history, Dr. Walters helps Pittsburgh’s forces of White Supremacy and their policy of “Negro Removal” (Black Displacement and Replacement) that goes back in African American history. Dr. Walters writes: “We recognize that the decision to close a school carries an emotional weight that cannot be measured solely through enrollment figures, building conditions, or financial considerations.” However, Dr. Walters’ entire letter rests on saving money in one area and redirecting it to other areas that will yield more, supposedly, for everyone. However, what it shows is he does not care about the actual people being impacted. Let’s get into it! We know Dr. Walters is not the first person to make this case about closing schools to save money. In fact, the entire MAAFA, the great Africa to America tragedy impacting African people for more than 500 years, is rooted in Europe’s crime against humanity, enacting its interest in profits over people. The kind of “belt tightening” Walters proposes has been generating Black educational suffering for too many years. We say our children are precious gifts and not cattle to be herded back and forth. Black children have been moved and bused around far too much.
We all have to look at where this power structure is taking us. It does not look good! Today, if you go to see the original building for Miller African Centered Academy on Miller Street, the one the Board coerced the African Centered Academy to leave, and from which our children were herded to a new location, you will see that most of that building has been left to rot! On top of that, PPS sold that historical building for an undisclosed amount. Only part of it is being used for apartments, costing almost $2,000 a month for a 3 BR. The rest of the historical building is just sitting there deteriorating.
MACA’s specific history of closing has affected and devalued thousands of Black people and across many neighborhoods. In addition to our Hill District schools of Fifth Ave High School, Madison Elementary, Robert Lee Vann Elementary, McKelvey 6-8, and Schenley High School, PPS has already depleted entire communities of schools, Beltzhoover, Knoxville, Allentown, Broadhead Manor, and Hazelwood. All of those communities have no schools today, creating educational deserts.
Homewood lost CAPA to downtown, and Garfield lost Rogers Performing Arts School. Closing Rogers wiped out a critical preparatory pathway to CAPA, which was more than 50% African American when it was in Homewood. Today, just 25% of the enrollment at CAPA population is African American. Systems produce what they are designed to produce. This one is forcing Black and poor students to shoulder the financial and educational burden. Dr. Walters is assisting this system. Aren’t we sick and tired of systematic racial exclusion, suppression and hypocrisy?
Again, Dr. Walters writes “the decision to close a school carries an emotional weight that cannot be measured solely through enrollment figures, building conditions, or financial considerations.” In reducing the campaign and public support to only having an “emotional” component, Dr. Walters is continuing the story of White supremacy. Yes, we have emotions about this issue, but the fight to keep an ACE option in the District is rooted in our heads and our hearts – our history and our future. It is not just a case of Black people being emotional. There are many sound facts that resonate with the community. On the other hand, Dr. Walters is only concerned with financial considerations, even though the fact is that MACA is PPS’s only ACE option. There is also to consider:
Since Dr. Walters is concerned with financial considerations, let’s dig into the numbers of the FU plan. Dr. Walters attempts to paint our campaign as obviously shortsighted and inconsiderate of the whole system in wanting to keep MACA open. This is not the case. The FU Plan claims to save about $12,000,000 over the next seven years by closing Miller African Centered Academy and will then spend $8,000,000 in investments in A. Leo. Weil. Essentially, Dr. Walters believes that annually saving $1,7 million, about ¼ of 1% of the District’s annual $731,000,000 budget is worth:
? Safety issues: Children, some very small, and families are going to face danger and stress in this “less than one mile” walk across three major streets, returning up a steep incline and the construction from the housing that is expanding and coming to the Hill District. Let us all remember that a 4-year-old was hit by a car two years ago on Webster Ave., coming home from daycare, even with a parent.
? Coming development: As Tim Stevens of B-Pep and many community leaders have said at the Board’s hearings, hundreds of families will be moving to the Hill District in the coming development.
? Ending the almost two century history of Miller, Pennsylvania’s second oldest African American elementary school. The African School, what the school was called before it was called Miller, begins Pittsburgh’s Black educational struggle that has involved hundreds of thousands. This struggle includes the struggle of Black parents to include their children to simply get an education, then a decent school, then an African American teacher not until 1938, then African American principals, the struggle for Black Studies at the University of Pittsburgh in the 1960s, the Black education of PBS teachers by Forever Action Together in the late 60’s, then the fight against desegregation by white parents in the 70’s, then the work of Dr. Barbara Sizemore in the 1980s, the Advocates for African American Students who successfully sued and are still fighting PPS to this day, and the incredible achievement to create an African Centered Educational Program in racist Pittsburgh. Black students were and still are in segregated schools. Why Ending the still unfinished self-determination project to create a fully dedicated African Centered Educational program, we want to emphasize that the fight for African centered education is an education that builds and serves the Black community. African centered education reflects, honors, defends and continues its students’ own history, that is vital to their well-being. ACE is contrary to the current educational purpose that a child’s learning should simply be about their ability to get a job and can be measured by standardized tests and metrics. Dr. Walters’ lack of vision and interest and his actual disdain, (Note: “We cannot change the history of educational inequalities experienced by communities across Pittsburgh. But we can take responsibility for the decisions we make today….”), places him on the wrong side of this historical struggle. We call on the community to resist and struggle against him, his miseducation and the forces he represents. Black students were and still are in segregated schools. Why not save, strengthen and preserve Miller African Centered Academy and establish an African Centered Educational Resource Center?
? Ending the opportunity to use MACA as an African Centered Education Resource Center not only for the school but for the district and the larger community would be a devastation to all Black students and to the entire educational district and community. By creating within Miller African Centered Academy an African Centered Educational Resource Center, ACE would become a wonderful blueprint, a model for excellence, a professional learning hub, a true partnership and connection with community, educational and historical organizations and universities, a committed, principled and purposeful staff, student body, parents and community, continued study, research, professional development, study and reading groups, workshops, seminars, speakers, demonstration lessons, models, mentors, behavioral health and social skill management along with continued training on child development. We must develop the African Centered Education Resource Center for the challenges that Black Pittsburgh as a whole faces today. In addition to creating an enlightened cultural container and academic success, comparable to what MACA achieved in its heyday, an improved and strengthened MACA must create rigorous, inclusive, collaborative, purposeful programs, and classes – high literacy – reading, writing, listening, speaking and thinking, history, math, science, arts, service, physical activities inside and outside, language, peer mentoring, community engagement, etc. These tasks are not easy in a school district that insists on educational uniformity and a teaching force that is not prepared by the educational system to take on such challenges, to teach nonwhite students or to pushout nonwhite students. If these students don’t conform or fit into the cookie cutter mode of teaching, they are labeled “culturally deprived” “underserved”, “not proficient”, “unfit”, “troubled”, “uneducable”, “immoral”, “at risk”, “maladjusted”, “disruptive”, “aggressive”, “defiant”, “oppositional”, “underachieving”, “emotionally disturbed”, “low achieving”. Do these labels render high expectations for high achievement? The blame and labels should be directed to the miseducation of the Black student.
? As a project committed to addressing internalized White Supremacy, ACE must, ultimately, join the struggle with the many who are desperately trying to end the violence in our neighborhoods. From a young age, with lifelong values, African centered education continually and consistently teaches students the importance of unity, self- determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperation, purpose, building, improving and faith in self and others. Focusing and adopting these enduring principles and values, along with community engagement and responsibility, ensures a more cohesive school and community and world.
? As a needed step, Miller African Centered Academy, would take advantage of the reengaged African centered community, determined to preserve the school and would serve as a community advisory board.
? By continuing to allow the City of Pittsburgh to take millions annually and saying nothing about it in the FU plan, while squeezing Black communities, Dr. Walters’ wants the public to believe that saving 1?4 of 1% of the PPS annual budget is worth ending the MACA legacy and future. ACE exists to challenge that. Since before Dr. Carter G. Woodson’s “The Miseducation of the Negro”, Black people have critiqued Black educational leadership that does not understand the vital importance of developing a liberatory strategy for Black education for empowerment and control over their lives and environment. We call on the Black community to struggle against Dr. Walters’ unfortunate participation in Pittsburgh’s tradition of systemic educational racism and say “We demand that MACA is taken off the FU close list to continue MACA’s incredible Black history, legacy and eternal value to ensure our children are safe, cherished, celebrated and included in the historical contribution and continuation of world improvement, beauty and progress.
As Maulana Karenga emphasizes: “As we … remind ourselves and the world, it is African people who first brought life, light, and lessons to the world, and expanded the horizon of human thought, practice and possibility.” Pittsburgh Board of Education must create space for the new communities coming to the Hill and keep Miller African Centered Academy as an option, as an African Centered Resource Center, not only for the Hill but for the entire region. We know without question that a school district and city that have cost this Black community untold sums of money owe us a couple of million dollars a year. Black people pay taxes, too! We also know that this investment will reap benefits that are beyond financial measure for those of us who love Black children and believe in the larger Black community’s history and future. We and our precious children are still worth it. We must plant seeds for a future Black leadership that stands with and serves the larger Black community! ”It is essential that we reaffirm who we are and our obligation to honor our identity and the awesome legacy in which it is grounded, not in opposition or elevation over others, but in harmony, respect, worthiness and dignity.”
If you support this campaign, please share this letter and join us in the work to Save, Strengthen and Preserve Miller African Centered Academy!
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