The Scoop with Tanya Flanagan

Unknown Speaker 0:00
This is a k u NBC Studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Unknown Speaker 0:19
Good morning, and thank you for joining me for the scoop with Tanya Flanagan. I'm so happy you decided to wake up and start your day with me. Here on the scoop, where we talk about life, joy, funny moments, trending topics, and so much more. We promise to keep you in the know and find out what you know. So let's get started.

Unknown Speaker 0:47
Good morning. Good Sunday morning, Las Vegas. Thank you. Once again for waking up to join me I'm so appreciative that each and every week, some of you wake up bright and early and choose to tune in to the scoop here with me. Tanya Flanagan, on 91.5k, u and v jazz and more. It's Sunday we try to bring I try to bring you an interesting conversation that is enlightening and leaves you with something that you didn't know or something that you just find engaging and uncommon are just fun and funny. But today our conversation is a little bit serious. And I am pleased to welcome to the show with me. Christina Laster, who is the western region, Education Director for the National Action Network. Christina, good morning. And thank you for joining me.

Unknown Speaker 1:32
Happy New Day. And I'm so glad that I could join you. I mean to rattle me,

Unknown Speaker 1:37
I know you are in Southern California. So I am here up early. I'm here in Las Vegas, and you were there in Southern California. And we're both in hot weather because you're in Palm Springs and we are seeing major temperatures these days. But I want to thank you, whatever you might be drinking, you might be doing iced coffee, some people are into that. You might still be having a warm cup of whatever. But I just want to say that I hope this morning is beautiful for you as it is here in the desert where we are.

Unknown Speaker 2:10
Right and you know this the heat the just to speak on that for a minute that excessive He really does. You know, change your your life because I'm a walker and I usually get up early to go walk but by 5am It's already at eight. Do you agree? You know?

Unknown Speaker 2:31
Sometimes I go out front door

Unknown Speaker 2:33
and 1000 Yeah, sometimes 1000 steps in?

Unknown Speaker 2:37
Yes. Well, that's hard. I think now I think this is a time of year when we have to adjust, pivot and try to do this 10,000 steps, somewhere indoor, I don't know, if you're walking around the mall. Or when you're at work, taking it, you get up and take a break from the computer, and you just move around. And increasingly it pushes us inside to do our exercises in the gym. I recently had two knee surgeries and 2023 both for torn meniscus situations. And it has made me really rededicate my life to exercise in a different way. So I'm in there trying to, you know, do what I need to do to be healthy and to be able to walk as normally as I possibly can again. But while we're, you know, talking, what we're talking about this morning is your role as education advocate through the National Action Network organization, which works to push for equality and equity, especially for poor black families, for African American families in this country. And today, we're talking about your work as an education advocate. And what National Action Network is doing across the country with some focus on what's happening here in Las Vegas and how you are extending your reach from Southern California into southern Tennessee into Southern Nevada, and doing some some great things. And one of the things that I at some point while we're talking today want to get into I was looking at from some of the things we had discussed prior to getting together this morning. The conversation about how racism affects the health of young people and and in, in the equity in the advancement of them. And how I would assume that plays into the education outcomes and experiences that children are having. Because it made me think about it through a different lens.

Unknown Speaker 4:32
Absolutely, because you know, it's we're experiencing these things and understanding the social walls and mechanisms and trying to pursue justice as adults. Imagine what the children are experiencing. Right. And you know, you have parents that are training their children to be unjust whether they like to call it that or not. You know, I typically like to talk about things as they are and And as they impact us, and then at the same time our children are learning, you know that it's okay in some of these educational environments for them to be oppressed and stratified, and all of the things that don't belong in a learning space, which essentially makes it a hostile environment. But this is very important. And it's very important that as community families, parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles, we talk about these things and develop our children to understand what's happening so that they don't have to feel as though they're alone, and don't know what to do. Right. And so my advocacy is all about pursuing learning justice. And with that being said, ensuring that parents and families have powerful tools that they need to advocate for their children.

Unknown Speaker 5:58
I like all of that, I want to add something to who you are what you do, because you have a wealth of knowledge and information on this subject, on the subject of families and education, how we achieve so that we reach the levels that we need to reach. And I know I introduced you as the education director for Nan, in that role, which you kind of alluded to just in your answer. But What all do you do? Because I mean, besides, in addition to the advocating for justice, and equity for children and families, and education, what are you? What do you do? What is Nan doing, and who some of the partners and how this works together to benefit communities across the country.

Unknown Speaker 6:36
So the National Action Network is a leading civil rights organization that was founded by Reverend Al Sharpton in 1991. And previously, they you know, focused on areas, domains of life, housing, workforce, you know, in a lot of on police brutality, I was appointed to the role at the National Action Network as the Western Region education director about three years ago. And immediately, I started to look at ways to create a agenda around education, and particularly focusing on black parents and families, what is happening with our children? Why do we keep on hearing this conversation about the achievement gap? What is going to be our priorities as a civil rights organization and influencing this space in this discourse in the policy and legislation spaces, right. And so outside of National Action Network, I'm a policy analyst and legislation strategist. So it only seemed fit that in my role in the National Action Network, I immediately start to look at policy and legislative changes, and how they're impacted on the west, right? How can we impact those decisions that are being made equitable allocation of resources, and so that territory stems from the middle of Michigan, pretty much all the way to the state of California, you know, Arizona, all of the surrounding states, including Nevada, and I have a committee and a team that are chapter leaders that are representing education. And each state that I bought together, we came up with a resolution about what it was that we were going to pursue as far as our agenda as a civil rights organization. And we started to carry that out. Part of that, and was in collaboration with the US Department of Education and the White House Administration, the main administration, he signed in October of 2021, and executive order for advancing opportunities for black Americans. This is the second of its kind, prior to Biden, creating this executive order in October of 2021. There was also, you know, Obama, who created a similar order, but it was narrowly focused to deal with education, only Biden expanded the order, so that there will be a comprehensive approach across government agencies and across domains like I mentioned before health care, housing, employment education, I have the awesome opportunity of working with the person that has been appointed the Director of the order and her team. And so immediately, we started to look at where our priorities matched, and how we could bring more information and resources and power to the community that is represented in the black order initiatives.

Unknown Speaker 9:54
Wow. This is awesome. So I wanted to now we can dig into the weeds. Send the questions and try and peel back some of the layers of the onion to talk about particular aspects of the work that you do. And thank you for doing this work. Are you are you finding that you're focusing on both rural communities is a more urban communities, and then because of concentrations in the West, or sometimes you'll see smaller populations of African American people in certain parts of the West. So how does all of that plays, you're doing your research, and you're looking at what does it look like?

Unknown Speaker 10:38
So statistically speaking, black children, and you can look this up on the national averages for assessments, which can be found at in a EP nape. Right. And so that's where all the assessments are housed. And you can look at progress over time. And so statistically speaking, nape indicates that black children have not progressed in over 20 years. And I pause, because a lot of times people are like, wow,

Unknown Speaker 11:12
yes. very sobering state.

Unknown Speaker 11:15
Right? Statistically speaking, looking at black children overall, in the US, they have not progressed in over 20 years.

Unknown Speaker 11:24
So what does that really mean? What does that mean? Yes, progress,

Unknown Speaker 11:27
right. What that means is in, these are academic assessments where they test them in areas like math, reading, or what we call English language, arts, ela. And recently, as of the last, you know, I would say decade or maybe less, they've been doing more science, too. And so those are the averages. And then if you look at it at the state level, and the very local school district level, you will see when those test results come out the same dynamic. And the first question that a lot of people asked me is that well, that's happening in poor communities. And actually, the data shows that it's happening in all of the socio economic statuses where our children are, so whether or not they are living in a lower to lower income socio economic community or a higher one, this data is still consistent.

Unknown Speaker 12:27
So Christina, let me ask, and I was about to agree with you that it's it's not necessarily an economic challenge that creates the hardship for a child to learn or for a family to provide a good learning environment. But the question is, what are the barriers that kids are facing? And I know there isn't one. One scenario is, once one size fits all, because you have so many you have, we're in a we're in a day and age where mental health is crucial. Children are increasingly diagnosed as needing IEP s and having attention deficit disorder to so many different challenges. And then today, I was looking at recently I was looking at the play racism has, which I began to talk about at the beginning of the conversation, but I wanted to step back and put a more qualifying, put more qualifying qualifiers around who you are and what you do and why. But the conversation of how inequity and inequality, racism basically also affects the outcomes people of color have black people have in excelling in different spaces in their lives, one of those spaces be education.

Unknown Speaker 13:47
Absolutely. And so one of the main things that we were able to view right away that was consistent across territories and across school districts and across demographics, as far as socio economic was that there existed a hostile environment where their children weren't. Okay. And so we were effectively able to have these conversations with the Office for Civil Rights at the US Department of Education, and they ended up putting out guidance, recognizing the the qualitative and the quantitative data and with our conversations with civil rights organizations like our own who receive complaints. They recognize the need to look at this from the angle of the hostile environment right, and re re affirming their work to combat any hostile environment that exists. And so a hostile environment exists where there is conduct whether that be physical, verbal, graphic or written, that is sufficiently severe, pervasive or persistent so as to interfere or limit the ability The evidence individual to participate in or benefit from the services, activities or privileges provided by a school. And so one thing that we found to be consistent and whether people that actually worked at the school such as school officials or employees believed this or not, there was in all places where black children are attending school, which is all over right, right hostile environment that exists for them in that had a way of limiting them from the time they enter into the time that they leave, because we know that our children are bright, and they're smart, and they're brilliant and and the deficit is not in them, I need people to hear that the deficit, though narrative come out that it is the deficit is not in our children. So then when you when you think about the fact that the deficits not in our children, you have to then look at what is structurally harming them. Okay, in 2019, just to further validate this hostile environment. In 2019, the American Academy of Pediatrics puts out a policy statement with tons of research in it, you guys can look that up. It's called the impact of racism on child and adolescent health. And in it, they talk about acute health symptoms. So we're thinking of how many times do our children complain that their tummies are hurting, they don't want to go to school, their stomach hurts, or some kind of other spontaneous illness, nail biting, her pulling different kinds of nervous reactions, that you know, tapping and, you know, really getting nervous about school, or either what I found with high schoolers were that they started to sleep a lot more, right? So they come home from school, and fall asleep and didn't wake up until sometimes the next day or really late that night. And parents were thinking, Oh, well, they had a long day. Well, no, they experienced a hostile environment.

Unknown Speaker 16:58
So if we have our two kids in the space, where they're going through, they're supposed to be in a learning environment. But unfortunately, this learning environment or a different times this learning environment, is creating challenges, where they don't feel comfortable, they don't feel empowered, they don't have the opportunity to engage. And you're just for whatever reason, different and a list of different reasons is out there for why different students at different times because not all students or are missing the piece that they need to excel, right. So some are excelling in spite of the challenges that they face with their adapting and overcoming so but it in this conversation, I want to try to understand or help people here. What do we do? What are what is Nam proposing in this partnership with the Biden administration as a strategy? And what, because I know Nan has some boots to the ground, or like quite a bit of boots to the ground action, in terms of engaging people to participate in a conversation about what to do to make this a community problem, which it is, and a community solution, what is the solution look like?

Unknown Speaker 18:21
So that solution looks like dynamically when I say we offer powerful tools, recognizing where the problem exists, the root of the problem and attacking that which we have done very well over generations. So a lot of times when I'm talking about this stuff, I'm talking about preaching to the choir, right. And we know that there exists some issues structurally. So what we have trained parents to do is go after and pursue legislative and policy changes, even, you know, committing to so they can family members, whatever building the community up to say, hey, I can be that representative that represents the community in the legislator, right? Teaching the governance, structure, teaching, you know, how governance, operations and all of those things affect our day to day lives. So immediately, we started to roll out of Know Your Rights sessions, know your rights sessions, going through codes, going through school, you know, finances such as titles, the various titles of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and then bringing in some of the people from the US Department of Education to help with those sessions. We did community schools, one we've done for, you know, Office for Civil Rights one, and what we found was that people were then empowered understanding the code the rules or regulations. As the policies, the laws, and all of those things that govern education and how they could effectively move to change the needle. Okay, so these are not simply requests, right? A lot of times, we go in with oral tradition where we're frustrated, and we want to talk a lot about things. But we're going in with oral tradition in a codified system that understands the code. Not that the verbal complaint.

Unknown Speaker 20:29
Right, so you're having more of a call to action to empower people on what to do. So when you're looking as you're doing your work, and the population that's being affected, are we talking about elementary age school kids Middle High School? Or is it really just from your research and studies showing that it's across the board? It's kids at all different levels of education.

Unknown Speaker 20:52
It's, it's children at all different levels of education, and then young adults and youth in higher education. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 21:02
So this is just across the board.

Unknown Speaker 21:06
I know you've done some things to the, to the culture of America, right? I mean, that's undeniable.

Unknown Speaker 21:15
It's really, what I find when I come into spaces of conversations like this, and 2024 is how sad that we're actually having to have conversations like this in 2024, because we have been net here now for such a long time, we have gone through the development of HBCUs. Historically Black Colleges and Universities, we have Kristine programs and different community groups create all types of resources and mentoring programs. And you know, Greek organizations give back and there's just so much concentration on resources and efforts to try to empower kids in urban areas that are predominantly black and rural areas where you just have like this concentration as well, of black families and families of various socio economic levels. Yet steel, we're having this conversation, and I want to say was even three years ago, I was sitting in an education, seminar presentation, and I was listening to families talk about the things that concern them with the powers that be in education here in Clark County in Southern Nevada, and 20 years ago, to put that in perspective, I was a reporter for the local newspaper. And I have to say, as I covered issues, 20 years ago, whatever it might have been as a reporter, fast forward, 20 years later, the complaints and the issues were still the same. And it was like, Oh, my gosh, have we not moved the needle at all on these issues, surrounding and dealing with education and affecting families in the community, and how they, you know, families feel the school district or education system should be responding. It's still the same conversation. So now, this is three or four years since that conversation, and we're still having this conversation,

Unknown Speaker 23:08
right. And so my conversation is different in the way that I'm not really there to empower people, I'm there to give them powerful tools. And those powerful tools are legislative advocacy tools, right. And so a lot of what I do is through looking at laws, policies and codes, and that's what I teach, and that's what I teach my team to work on. Right? We're not going to continue to have a conversation and create a fancy booklet, and then call it educational opportunity plan that doesn't have any weight and is not legally binding. We're not doing that. Right. We've we've already had those conversations. And those types of toolkits and templates get dusted off 15 years later, and we're seeing the same thing, right, we're looking at how to have legal impact, one way or the other, whether that's through, you know, creating legislation with the legislator, as constituent led efforts are with the school board or to impact litigation. And so that's a little bit different than the conversations that people were used to having. And it requires, you know, everyone to get up to speed on the code, because how many people really understand the laws and the policies and regulations and the regulatory and enforcement agencies that impact our day to day lives? Right. And so in that sense, we're having this legislative and policy advocacy conversation. And outside of that, if it's not codified, we're not doing it. You're

Unknown Speaker 24:44
right about this conversation being different and I appreciate the work that you're doing and the awareness level that you bring into this conversation. We have people fortunate to have here in our community and I think you know her as well. Camila Bywater And she's doing tremendous work in the education space to just in her Park co Park co worker or partner, Tracy Lewis. And so Tracy's history and I don't know if you know, Tracy as well, but her mother marmoset Lewis scopes, many, many, many years back when I first came here as a reporter, mircette was a staunch advocate for equity and equality around education and making sure kids and families had access to the things that they needed. And she passed the baton to her daughter, and Camila and Tracy are just huge on just what's right, what's fair, and making opportunities available for kids and families in the community. I know she's had some time with them.

Unknown Speaker 25:47
Yes, I've worked with Camila and Tracy when they were at Nan and love AB C. And they were also co partners in our collaboration with the white administration and the US Department of Education and the Office for Civil Rights and every single step of the way. They've been there representing Nevada in a dynamic way, and the parents and families in Nevada, and so I'm happy to know that Camila is, you know, pursuing further, you know, course of action on behalf of the community, because, again, that's what we've worked on as a priority is how do we pursue what's right, Justin fer codified, right? And whatever that looks like, from whatever perspective a person is at whether they run for city council, or whether they're running for a board seat, I'm a school board member in the state of California. So I understand that things have to be in policy, right. And decisions have to be made decisions about, you know, school climate, and environment and funding, all of that is very important. And so yes, they're, they're just amazing in their pursuit, and I know that they're not going to give up. And those are the kinds of people that I like to be in coalition with.

Unknown Speaker 27:08
Yes, Camila and Tracy are both very dynamic, young women doing a lot to make a difference. The work that you were doing is tremendous. And the work that they are doing is so important. What's so unique about it is that you're right, this is a conversation, the conversation you're having is around policy, we're coming to the end of the show, I want to make sure because we've talked a lot you have talked and shared so much good information with people. But for those who this may be hearing this for the first time or being having a moment to think about it through a different lens, who want to find more information. I want to make sure we share information on social media, we're before we get out of time, so people can find information on what you've shared with them. So if you could kind of quickly share that. Just websites or social media or anything.

Unknown Speaker 28:01
Absolutely the initiative for black Americans that Biden signed into executive order in October of 2021. And then you can find me if you have questions about anything that I've shared or how to, you know, get started on this legislative and policy, this policy and legislation advocacy trail. You can find me on Facebook, or you know, 365 wise on Tik Tok and Instagram, I'm on LinkedIn, I shared Know Your Rights stuff quite frequently, breaking down the code so that you understand how to make a codified demand versus a oral tradition to complaint and all of those things that matter to making sure that you pursue the best and most powerful path of advocacy for your child and other children to

Unknown Speaker 28:49
absolutely. Well, Christina, we are down to the end. And I want to say thank you for spending some time with me. This is a conversation that we really could talk about for a very long time. And there's so much to it and so much to make sure people understand about it, and the different aspects, but I'm glad that we had just a little bit of time this morning. To begin to delve into it. I'd like to at some point invite you to come back and continue this conversation with me at a later date. But I want to say thank you for being on the show this morning. And thank you to the listeners for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed it. And I hope you learned something clever grandfatherly. Yeah, thanks. I want to thank you for tuning into the scoop with me Tony Flanagan and I want to invite you to get social with me I'm on Facebook and Twitter. My name is my handle TA in YAFL a na ga n. You can also find me on Instagram at Tanya almond eyes Flanagan and if you have a thought and opinion or a suggestion, don't hesitate to shoot me an email to Tanya dad flanagan@unlv.edu. Thanks again for joining in. Stay safe and have a great week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai