Volume 27, No.2

Winter 2012/2013

Annual Subscription: $24.95

Purchase Digital Copy: $4.95

To purchase individual paper copies of the magazine email us or call customer service at 1-800-669-4192

  • Editorial: New Teachers’ Union Movement in the Making

    New Teachers' Union Movement in the Making

    By the editors of Rethinking Schools

    The seven-day Chicago teacher strike last September was historic. It showed the importance of teachers using their collective power to demand that all children get the education they deserve. It […]

  • Lessons in Social Justice Unionism

    An interview with Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis

    By Jody Sokolower

    How did Chicago teachers win their strike? What is the significance of their victory? What’s next?

  • “When Are You Going to Come Visit?”

    Home visits and seeing our students

    By Elizabeth Schlessman

    A 4th-grade teacher visits her students families and realizes how much she has been missing about their lives.

  • Precious Knowledge: Teaching Solidarity with Tucson

    By Devin Carberry

    A high school history teacher centers a study of social movements on the fight over the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson. His students spread the knowledge.

  • Your Struggle Is My Struggle

    By Marcela Itzel Ortega

    One of Carberry’s students explains how the film Precious Knowledge changed her feelings about herself and her family.

  • Lessons from the Heartland

    By Barbara J. Miner

    An excerpt from the newly published Lessons from the Heartland: A Turbulent Half-Century of Public Education in an Iconic American City focuses on the history of vouchers in Milwaukee.

  • Stealing and Selling Nature

    Why we need to teach environmental history

    By Tim Swinehart

    A history teacher argues that students need to know the environmental history of our current crises including how nature was turned into a commodity to be bought and sold.

  • The Character of Our Content

    A parent confronts bias in early elementary literature

    By Jennifer Holladay

    Her daughter’s homework-a story that legitimizes rape and extols whiteness as the standard for beauty-leads a parent to question the balance between teaching skills and teaching content.

  • Learning in the Digital Age: Control or Connection?

    By Jane Van Galen

    A teacher educator explores the contradictory nature of technology in education.

  • Books About Contemporary Palestine for Children

    By Katharine Davies Samway

    It’s difficult to find accurate books on Palestine for young readers. A former teacher educator describes resources for K-8 students, including picture books, nonfiction, fiction, and poetry.

  • Stanford/Pearson Test for New Teachers Draws Fire

    By Nini Hayes, Jody Sokolower

    The fight for—and against—standardized testing is heating up in teacher credential programs. It has burst into flames at the University of Massachusetts. Back in 2010, Rethinking Schools published an article by teacher […]

  • Short Stuff 27.2

    SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE IN MISSISSIPPI The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against Meridian, Mississippi, Oct. 24, 2012, arguing that the city’s juvenile justice system has operated a school-to-prison […]

  • Literature for Young Bilingual Readers

    By Grace Cornell Gonzales

    The Upside Down Boy/El niño de cabezaby Juan Felipe Herrera(Children’s Book Press, 2000) Featherless/Desplumadoby Juan Felipe Herrera(Children’s Book Press, 2004) At a recent districtwide meeting of bilingual educators, teachers raised […]

  • Resources 27.2

    Check out these valuable resources, reviewed by Rethinking Schools editors and Teaching for Change colleagues.