Tomorrow morning, Friday, March 5, the Children’s Defense Fund, is hosting a virtual conference: Child Watch 2021: The State of California’s Children and Youth in the COVID Era.
This event, which begins at 9 a.m. sharp, features a promising line-up of speakers, and is free to attend. All you have to do is register here.
The main panel for the conference, which is set to begin at 10:05 a.m., and which I am moderating, calls for “a radical transformation” in our approach to the well-being of California’s kids. And given the array of panelists, I promise it will be both lively and informative.
The panelists are as follows:
1. Dr. Bettina Love, who is the author of the highly praised 2020 book, We Want to Do More than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom. A professor with an endowed chair at the University of Georgia, in her research, she coined the term “abolitionist teaching,” which is the concept of bringing” the rebellious spirit and methods of abolitionists into the education world.” She is also the founder of the Abolitionist Teaching Network. In 2014, she participated in the White House Research Conference on Girls, where she discussed her work focused on the lives of Black girls. And for her work in the field of Hip Hop education, she was named the Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.
2. Dr. Shawn Ginwright, is a professor at the Africana Studies Department at San Francisco State University, where his research examines the ways in which youth in urban communities navigate through poverty and other constraints to create equality and justice in their schools and communities. Dr. Ginwright was awarded the Fulbright Senior Specialist award by the U.S. State Department for his work with urban youth. He is the founder of the Flourish Agenda, Inc, is the Chairman of the Board of the California Endowment, and is a Senior Research Associate at the Cesar Chavez Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco, CA. Dr. Ginwright is also the author of Black Youth Rising: Activism and Radical Healing in Urban America.
3. Michael Tubbs is best known as the former mayor of Stockton, California. Elected in 2016 at 26-years-old, he was Stockton’s first African-American mayor, and the youngest mayor of any major city in American history. During his term, Tubbs raised over $20 million dollars to create the Stockton Scholars, a scholarship and mentorship program. He piloted the first mayor-led guaranteed income pilot in the country. He is also a 2021 fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics, a member of Fortune’s Top 40 under 40, and was named as the “Most Valuable Mayor” by The Nation. Tubbs also serves on the Commission for Police Officer and Standards Training (POST) and is a member of the National Police Foundation’s Council on Policing Reforms and Race.
4. Shimica Gaskins is the Executive Director of the Children’s Defense Fund–California. She has background in law and public policy, particularly as it pertains to criminal justice reform and children’s rights. She has served as the acting deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy (OLP) of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where she worked on projects in such areas as Smart on Crime, law enforcement and emerging technologies, prison reform, reentry, and issues affecting children with incarcerated parents. Now, in addition to her work at CDF, she is is a board member for Impact Justice, and is a commissioner on the LA County Commission for Children and Families. Most recently, she served as the Director of Policy and Outreach for The Fair and Just Prosecution Project.
As for the rest of the event, as mentioned above, the event begins at 9 a.m. with two lead speakers.
The first is nationally honored civil rights leader, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, who most recently delivered the homily during President Joe Biden’s inaugural prayer service. Rev. Barber is the president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival, Bishop with The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, and visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary, and a 2018 recipient of the MacArthur Genius Award, and lots, lots more from there.
The second lead speaker is California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, who is responsible for the largest public school system in the nation, with more than 6.3 million students and over 10,000 schools — which means that, among other things, right he’s the head guy in the state dealing with complex problem of COVID-19 and closing and opening California’s schools. Prior to becoming the state’s top person in education, Superintendent Thurmond was a member of the state assembly, where he authored legislation that expanded the free lunch program, bilingual education, and the Chafee Grant college scholarship program for foster youth. He also introduced legislation to expand STEM education, improve school conditions for LGBTQ youth, and tax private prisons to fund early education and afterschool programs.
So sign up now and join us.