Students, parents, teachers and other education advocates across the nation are fed up with school closures. And they're taking their protest to Washington, D.C this week! As Andre Dunbar, a student activist from the Philadelphia Student Union explains in a guest post on Anthony Cody's Education Week blog, "Journey for Justice" will take place on Thursday, September 20th. Buses will be arriving from Atlanta (GA), Boston (MA), Baltimore (MD), Chicago (IL), Cleveland (OH), Detroit (MI), Europa (MS), Hartford (CT), Kansas City (MO), Los Angeles (CA), New Orleans (LA), Newark (NJ), New York City (NY), Oakland (CA), Philadelphia (PA), and Wichita (KS), and advocates will rally at the U.S. Department of Education.

Grassroots advocates working to reform school discipline are on a roll! The latest victory comes from the Recovery School Districts in New Orleans, which will no longer suspend students for minor misbehaviors (like uniform violations) thanks to the organizing efforts of groups like Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children (FFLIC), a member of the Dignity in Schools Campaign, and other allies. New Orleans joins Philadelphia and New York City in implementing new discipline policies that seek to keep students in the classroom rather than pushing them out of school.

Imagine you're a parent from Jefferson Parish, LA. You care deeply about your child's education and want to attend events and parent-teacher conferences at the local public school. Unfortunately, the school district sends home notices about these events in English rather than Spanish, your primary language. If your son or daughter can't translate for you, how are you supposed to know where to go or who to meet with? How can you be an engaged parent when you lack access to the resources to be one? A federal complaint filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center says that the Jefferson Parish public school district is discriminating against its 7,700 Latino students by failing to provide the translation or interpretation services the students' parents need to stay involved.

Today the National Opportunity to Learn Campaign is joining forces with the Dignity in Schools Campaign to launch Solutions Not Suspensions, a call for a moratorium on out-of-school suspensions. Every year, 3.3 million students in the United States are suspended from school, causing them to miss critical learning time, as well as opportunities to grow and succeed. Recent federal data show that Black and Latino students and students with disabilities are disproportionately targeted by suspensions. Solutions Not Suspension is calling on states and districts to support teachers and schools in dealing with discipline in positive ways – keeping students in the classroom and helping educators work with students and parents to create safe and engaging classrooms that protect the human rights to education and dignity.

In her annual Message on Public Education, Jan Resseger, Minister for Public Education and Witness at the United Church of Christ Justice, denounces the privatization of public education as the abdication of our responsibilities as citizens of a democratic nation to provide all children with a fair and substantive opportunity to learn. The 10-page Message also functions as a primer on how different aspects of the privatization movement (from vouchers to education management organizations to charters and online schools) are undermining the principles of fairness and opportunity that our country holds so dear.

The Juvenile Justice Project of Lousiana will be hosting its second annual fundraiser on Saturday, August 18. If you're in the area, make sure to go! There will be performances from The Treme Brass Band, The Hot 8 Brass Band, and Cucky C and Clearly Blue.

17 percent of all African-American students received out-of-school suspensions in the 2009-2010 school year compared to 7 percent of Latino students and just 5 percent of White students. Even more shocking, 25 percent of African-American students with disabilities were suspended the same year. In "Opportunities Suspended: The Disparate Impact of Disciplinary Exclusion From School," the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the UCLA's Civil Rights Project analyzes data from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights on school discipline and suspensions in the 2009-10 school year. The comprehensive report reveals the unconscionable disparities regarding which students are pushed out of the classroom and locked out of school.