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FT. LAUDERDALE, FL 33310
PERMIT NO. 1179
Don’t forget to Spring Forward this Sunday VOL. 48 NO. 5 50¢
THURSDAY, MARCH 7 - MARCH 13, 2019
WHAT’S
INSIDE Florida Education Plan Lacking in Both Promise and Practice How is Florida addressing the needs of its lowest-performing schools under Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)? Last year, an independent non-profit education advocacy organization called the Collaborative for Student Success set out to find out. They did so by convening a group of education experts from around the country to take an indepth look at the way 17 states were supporting and encouraging local school improvement efforts (which can be found at http:// promisetopractice.org). The experts, both from the federal and district level, provided education officials, and state lawmakers with independent information on how each state could improve their plans, as well as their plans’ implementation. What they found, however, was not encouraging when it comes to Florida’s ESSA plan and implementation. Florida’s ESSA Saga In September 2018, Florida received final approval from the U.S. Department of Education for its plan for tracking student progress and measuring school performance, as required by federal law. Florida was the last state in the nation to receive such approval, as the state and federal education officials wrangled for months over the state’s proposed plan. Originally, the state’s plan was submitted to the U.S. Department of Education in September 2017, but failed to include specific waiver requests to portions of the law to which it objected. Federal officials sent it back to Florida’s Department of Education saying they couldn’t pick and choose what aspects of the law to follow, and that they needed to submit waivers for portions of the law to which they would like an exception. The state submitted a revised ESSA plan to federal officials in April 2018 to try and comply with federal officials’ requests and included a separate federal school rating system—one that factors in English-language
Linkage Between Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder and Ovarian Cancer a Civil Rights, Public Health Crisis
‘Leaving Neverland’
PAGE 5
PAGE 12
A M E S S A GE F ROM OU R PU BL IS H E R
is Michael Jackson’s Pandora’s Box
Broward County School Board decides:
Runcie stays
Should Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie be fired? That’s a question the nine-member Broward County school board answered with a NO vote 6-3. Lori Alhadeff, the newest Board member -- and parent whose child was killed in the mass shooting, was adamant about sending Runcie packing. Based upon the input from the majority of those in attendance, including the Board members, the opinion of the job that Runcie has done warrants that he remain
as the Superintendent of Broward County Schools. Runcie has been scraped over with coarse sandpaper and pushed into a pool of alcohol and yet he survived battered, torn, and emotionally scarred but still willing to serve. A simple majority was needed to vote out Runcie, but there wasn’t enough votes to make the firing possible. Runcie has been able to build public trust and confidence in this school board and administration despite
BARRY JENKINS
Church out!
the negative reputation the district garnered years before his arrival.
The Battle for Mayor in One of America’s
By Bobby R. Henry, Sr.
Proudest Black
Cities is Underway By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent
MIFF and the Knight Hero Series The Miami International Film Festival (MIFF) brought filmmakers from across the country to South Florida. The first week of March was full of screenings and panels with aspiring and professional talent. One session, in particular, The Knight Hero series, brought three major filmmakers to talk about their careers along with other parts of who they are. “I want people to get a clearer idea of what’s inside of them. Everyone who is making a film starts with something inside of them and they are alone. To hear how someone else turned that little kernel of truth into a film may be what they need to take the next step” said Jaie Laplante, executive director of MIFF. The inaugural class of the Knight Hero series features Aaron Stewart-Ahn, Boots Riley and Barry Jenkins. The Knight Hero Series session took place on
Ernest D. Davis served four of the five allowed terms as the Ernest D. Davis mayor of Mount Vernon, N.Y. firmly believes that With 70,000 mostly African his successor, the American residents, Mount city’s current mayor, Vernon sits north just of the Richard Thomas, is in Bronx and in the same county it for himself and has done much more harm as Westchester’s wealthy elite. For Davis, an architect by to Mount Vernon than perhaps anyone whose trade, the idea of Mount Vernon held that office. taking a backseat to any city or town is quite insulting. For the 80-year-old Davis, the only thing worse than a negative perception of his beloved city, is a constituent believing that anyone sitting in the city mayor’s seat is there simply for political and personal gain and not for the people. Davis firmly believes that his successor, the city’s current mayor, Richard Thomas, is in it for himself and has done much more harm to Mount Vernon than perhaps anyone whose held that office. So, after reading an NNPA Newswire article that featured Thomas in December, Davis said he began to contemplate a strategy to help unseat the young mayor.
(Cont’d on page 5)
Continue reading online at: thewestsidegazette.com
By Clayton Gutzmore
Rest in Peace: Local Leaders Step Up to Protect the Sacred Remains of the
‘Sugar Land 95’
(Cont’d on page 15)
The discovery of the remains of the ‘Sugar Land 95’ victims, the majority of whom are believed to be former slaves who were a part of the state of Texas’ controversial and inhumane convict-leasing system, could have been unearthed well before the contractor found the remains if people chose to listen to community activist and historian Reginald Moore from the beginning. (Photo: DefenderNetwork.com) (Cont’d on page 14)
The Westside Gazette Newspaper
@_WestsideGazett
I looked again. I saw a huge crowd, too huge to count. Everyone was there - all nations and tribes, all races and languages. And they were standing, dressed in white robes and waving palm branches, standing before the Throne and the Lamb Revelation 7:9 (The Message)
TheWestsideGazetteNewspaper
Church out is an old slang expression that we use to use when things got rough and it was about to go down (stuff was about to hit the fan). In an attempt at removing another Black leader the school board of Broward County Florida felt the compassion of a community that has been looked over for some time and misunderstood. When people have been labeled or should I say mislabeled due to neglect or “planned ignoring” which is a therapeutic technique and all of a sudden the client is speaking up for him/herself, immediately the opposition says that there is something wrong with this picture. In a show of solidarity from the diverse communities across Broward County in general, the Black community came out once again in numbers to speak from the other side of the coin. Speaker after speaker gave their support for superintendent Robert (Cont’d on page 15)
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WESTSIDE GAZETTE IS A MEMBER: National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) Southeastern African-American Publishers Association (SAAPA) Florida Association of Black Owned Media (FABOM)