Racial Justice Is Not a Choice
High-stakes tests have not only failed to achieve racial equality in schooling, they’ve also made it worse for students of color.
African American/Black
40 Acres and a Mule
A high school teacher uses a role play so students can imagine life during Reconstruction, the possibilities of the post-Civil War era, and the difficult decisions that Black communities had to wrestle with.
Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action
In an era when a U.S. president calls Haiti and African nations shithole countries; a time when hate crimes are on the rise; a time when Black students are suspended at four times the rate of white students; and a time when we have lost 26,000 Black teachers since 2002, building a movement for racial justice in the schools is an urgent task. Black lives will matter at schools only when this movement becomes a mass uprising that unites the power of educator unions and families to transform public education.
Why We Should Teach Reconstruction
Unfortunately, the transformative history of Reconstruction has been buried. First by a racist tale masquerading as history and now under a top-down narrative focused on white elites. It’s long overdue we unearth the groundswell of activity that brought down the slavers of the South and set a new standard for freedom we are still struggling to achieve today.
“I Can’t Make a Teacher Love My Son”
After teachers label her son’s behavior as problematic and try to have him evaluated by a psychologist, a Black parent uncovers why schools fail Black boys and begins organizing her community to challenge practices detrimental to them.
Creating Bias Detectives, Blowing Up Stereotypes, and Writing Essays that Matter
“Part of the work of teaching students to read is teaching them to question not only the written word, but also the author,” Christensen writes in her article about teaching students how to confront writers whose stories erase the full truth and misrepresent people and places.
How We Failed Nigel Shelby and Allowed the Abuse He Endured
A writer interrogates school culture and our collective role in the suicide of a gay 15-year-old 9th grader in Alabama.
Black Lives Matter at School: From the Week of Action to Year-Round Anti-Racist Pedagogy and Protest
Every social justice educator should make building the BLM at School Week of Action during the first week of February a top priority.
The Largest Civil Rights Protest You’ve Never Heard Of
The largest civil rights protest wasn’t in the South, it was in New York City in 1964 when hundreds of thousands of students stayed home to protest school segregation. Here’s how today’s students reacted to a lesson about this historic boycott.
Queering Black History and Getting Free
A Black freedom organizer demands that teachers and activists radically change their frameworks around Black history by lifting up the stories of Black LGBTQ people like Marsha P. Johnson.
Teaching Social Activism in Prison
A Connecticut educator who taught English to incarcerated young men for 20 years describes what happened when she introduced her students to the Canadian “Leap Manifesto.”
The 2020 Presidential Election: Educators Speak Out
We asked a group of radical educators to weigh in on what they hoped would be part of any 2020 presidential candidate’s education platform.
Shock-Doctrine Schooling in Haiti
Immediately after an earthquake devastated Haiti in 2010, corporations swooped in to capitalize on the destruction and to privatize public enterprises. Hagopian explores how disaster capitalism hit the education system and what the effects were on students and families.
The Constant Testing of Black Brilliance
An educator reflects on how the education system has continually tested her Blackness from grade school through professional development, and argues that we need more Black spaces to nurture brilliance.
The Importance of Goodbye
A high school teacher explores how the dynamics of a classroom can change when a student leaves and what the effects can be on that student, the other students, and the teacher.
“Love Is Shining in My Heart for You, Dear Haiti”
“Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world.” That’s the only thing this Haitian American teacher remembers being taught in school about her family’s country of origin. She calls for a revolution in how educators teach Haiti.
A Colonizing Agenda
Janice Jackson interviews Rethinking Schools editor Wayne Au about the failure of Bill Gates’ educational initiatives.
LeBron’s School Should Be Every School Public, Fully Funded, and with Arms Around the Community
There are few public schools receiving as much attention these days as LeBron James’ I Promise School in Akron, Ohio — and it’s because it’s just that: a public school.
Black Boys in White Spaces
Right away I recognized her. Ruby Bridges. The courageous girl who defied white racists and became the first to integrate an all-white elementary school. My 7-year-old son pulled a handout out of his backpack with her face on it. He is in a bilingual, two-way immersion program at our local elementary school. As is our custom on Friday, we emptied his backpack and sorted the contents. We determined what needed to be recycled, what would be hung on our whiteboard, and what needed to be stored in my Things-to-take-care-of box by the fridge. I smiled, because as a former history teacher and lover of Black history, I was happy to see my son learning about this important historical moment. And then, I took a closer look and saw that it was in Spanish. I was elated as it dawned on me that my son truly is emergent bilingual. “Caleb, what’s this about? Did you read this in school?”
Pushing Past Hate, Pushing Past Paladino
Trump supporter Carl Paladino’s racism, misogyny, and transphobia galvanized community members to oust him from the Buffalo School Board. Their struggle also laid the groundwork for new coalitions and progressive change.
Seeing Ourselves with Our Own Eyes
A special education teacher uses poetry to help her middle school students write their own narratives and celebrate themselves.
What We Don’t Learn About the Black Panther Party — but Should
The history of the Black Panther Party holds vital lessons for today’s movement for Black lives and all movements to confront racism, inequality, and police violence. But our textbooks distort the significance of the Panthers — or exclude them completely.
Who Do I Belong To?
A teacher in a predominantly white school and classroom describes how she chose to protect and educate one of her Black students, rather than use him to educate her white students.
Jailing Our Minds
An education researcher explores “no-excuses” discipline policies and the rate of out-of-school suspensions at charter schools in Denver and around the nation. “Democracy is healthiest when our educational institutions reflect our best virtues — creativity, joy, and growth. We must strengthen our oversight over no-excuses charter schools, thereby ensuring that no child in that city — or our country — is subjected to policies that could have been culled from one of Denver’s neighboring prisons.”
Rethinking Islamophobia
The increasing violence against Muslims, Sikhs, South Asians, and others targeted as Muslim, suggests we, as Americans, are becoming less tolerant and need educational interventions that move beyond post-9/11 teaching strategies that emphasize our peacefulness or oversimplify our histories, beliefs, and rituals in ways that often lead to further stereotyping.