The BPC believes that education is a two-pronged effort: the educating of our children, and more broadly the education of our citizenry on the issues that impact where they live and work. From its inception, the Black Political Caucus has had the education of our children at the center of its activities. We believe that every child should have the opportunity to learn in a safe and challenging environment. We are committed to advocating for and supporting culturally competent teachers who create diverse, safe and challenging classroom environments for their students. We believe that classrooms should be places where students, with the help of their teachers, become literate, where students learn how to learn, where different ways of knowing and teaching are embraced, and where students apply new learning to solving problems. The classroom should be a place where every child is provided the opportunity to be involved in his/her learning; a place where no child is silenced. The BPC is poised to assist with educating citizens on the issues of education disparities of all kinds and, in partnership, help to develop ways to address these disparities on behalf of our children. We also understand that we must advocate for and hold accountable educational leadership to provide resources in order for healthy classrooms to exist.
While the issues surrounding the education of our children are important, we believe that the broader definition of education will, in the long run, better serve our communities.
The BPC believes that education is the platform on which our remaining three pillars of focus stand. We understand that without a commitment to the process of educating our citizenry, advocacy, social accountability and political action will not be realized. We believe that educating citizens on the issues is about understanding the issues, learning about the issues and finally realizing how issues impact and inform other issues! It is only through this literacy of issues that we can understand and make informed decisions about what happens in our communities and why. Implicit in this literacy is that community members find their voices and are able to communicate and to advocate for what is needed in their communities. With their new voice, communities are able to participate in electing candidates to represent them, advocate for legislation that will positively the community and its citizens. The BPC embraces the value of educating (literacy) for the purpose of empowering citizens to make informed decisions. Our education goal is to encourage citizens to become self learners, to become literate on the issues they believe will help to transform their communities and to become their own advocates.. To this end we are committed to assisting our citizens with their learning by providing information that will help them to understand issues, how issues arise, and how issues are connected to and impacted by other issues.