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NCC releases four 'webisode' videos
promoting quality education for children
New York, September 21, 2011 -- Equal and quality education for all children
is the focus of four brief web videos released today by the National Council
of Churches.
The videos are embedded with a study guide on the Councils website at
www.ncccusa.org/elmc/publiceducationwebisodes.html.
 The
four films, each six or seven minutes long, feature Dr. Diane Ravitch,
education historian at New York University and author of the best selling
book, The Death and Life of the Great American
School District; and Dr. John
Jackson, President and CEO of the Schott Foundation for Public Education.
Jackson and Ravitch discuss foundational values that have historically
defined societys commitment to public education but which the Council
believes have become controversial:
● Educational Opportunity for All
● Public Schools and the Common Good
● Public Schools, Part of the Community or Marketplace?
● Supporting Our Teachers
The films, created by the NCCs Committee on Public Education and Literacy
were designed to stimulate conversation about issues raised by the Governing
Board of the National Council of Churches in a May 18, 2010
Pastoral Letter that was sent to the President, Congress, and the Secretary of
Education.
In the letter, the Governing Board declared, At a moment when childhood
poverty is shamefully widespread, when many families are under constant
stress, and when schools are often limited by lack of funds or resources, we
know that public schools cannot be improved by concentrating on public
schools alone In this context we must address with prayerful determination
the issues of race and class, which threaten both public education and
democracy in America.
The Governing Board also questioned test-based accountability as the
philosophy that dominates todays media conversation around public
education: We worry that our society has come to view what is good as what
can be measured and compared As people of faith we do not view our children
as products to be tested and managed but instead as unique human beings,
created in the image of God, to be nurtured and educated.
In the short clip that introduces each video, the Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon,
NCC general secretary, endorses public school justice reform as a priority
for the churches.
Each child has special, sacred gifts that need to be nurtured, and all
children are special and precious in Gods eyes, Kinnamon declares, which
means that a system in which some children have access to excellent
instruction while others dont is simply unacceptable.
Jan Resseger of the United Church of Christ Justice & Witness Ministries,
chair of the Councils Committee on Public Education and Literacy, said she
looks to the four short films as a comfortable context for church study
groups to confront what have become heated issues and to read and reconsider
last years NCC Pastoral Letter in the context of the values the videos
explore.
Since its founding in 1950, the National Council of
the Churches of Christ in the USA has been the leading force for
shared ecumenical witness among Christians in the United States. The NCC's
37 member communions -- from a wide spectrum of Protestant, Anglican,
Orthodox, Evangelical, historic African American and Living Peace
churches -- include 45 million persons in more than 100,000 local
congregations in communities across the nation.
NCC News contact:
Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2228 (office), 646-853-4212 (cell),
pjenks@ncccusa.org
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