Some Articles on American Education on MLK Day.

Dana Goldstein points out that schools are more segregated today than they were when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in 1968.  She also notes the following:

And make no mistake--integration is one of the most powerful school reform tools in the kit. 

Here's how we know that: At the macro level, four decades of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress--the "nation's report card"--show that the achievement gap between white and minority students shrunk fastest during the 1970s and 1980s, the era of Court-mandated school desegregation. Between 2004 and 2009, on the other hand--our NLCB, "standards and accountability" era--the achievement gap between white children and black and Latino children did not shrink at all.

Sarah Mead explains that simply making MLK a day of services, as well intentioned as it is, misses the point in teaching what MLK was really about:

I'm particularly uncomfortable with the decision to make King's holiday a "day of service," on which young people are encouraged to engage in service projects. Not that there's anything wrong with any of these projects. They're nice things to do. But the progress of the civil rights movement didn't come from people working in soup kitchens, cleaning up parks, or doing similarly nice, service-y things. It came from people nonviolently but directly standing up to unjust power structures and engaging in civil disobedience. People actually broke unjust laws--and got arrested for it. Teaching our kids that this is a day about service seems to get the message dead wrong--or at least to suggest that our nation and world are no longer plagued by injustices that require more than volunteer work to right them.

In the South, many school districts do not let there students off school for MLK Day (along with other holidays) in order to make-up for missed snow days.

I have two things to say to these school districts: First, given your less than stellar history on race relations, using MLK Day as a snow day is not the smartest move (at least from a purely PR standpoint).  In fact, it is quite disrespectful and offensive.  Secondly, you should do what other districts in the country do for missed snow days: build in snow days when making your calender, and if you use them up, add on days to the end of the year. 

Finally, there is also this piece from my favorite education writer these days, Diane Ravitch.  She  published this on last year's MLK Day.  She asks if you can imagine Martin Luther King standing along side businessmen and billionaires in favor of more testing and charter schools. I know that what is known as "education reform" gets a lot of positive attention from progressives and leaders in the African-American community these days.  However, MLK was a supporter of public workers and unions, and would just as likely been on the side of supporting public schools, teacher unions, and more money for poor districts (not based on test scores).  He would also have likely pointed out that the real culprit of the achievement gap was poverty.  The NYC Educator blog shares Mrs. Ravitch's views on MLK and union support by quoting him:

"The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival, but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome."
-- MLK Jr., Illinois AFL-CIO Convention, 1965.