PragerU Ambushes Our Schools
Meet the right-wing nonprofit attempting to push racism, sexism, and climate denial in public schools.
Policy Articles
Erasing Palestinian History: The Propaganda of PragerU’s Israel Series
Hagopian critiques a new set of PragerU videos that seek to justify Israeli occupation.
Educators Beware: The Anti-Defamation League Is Not the Social Justice Partner It Claims to Be
Murad details how the Anti-Defamation League exploits and exaggerates rising antisemitism to push an anti-justice, pro-Israel agenda in schools.
Lessons from Wisconsin: The Slow, Stealthy, and Strategic Threat of School Vouchers
Peterson details how the success of vouchers in Wisconsin is becoming a national model for the right and draws on his experience in the state to make a case against them.
Israel’s War on Gaza Is Also a War on History, Education, and Children
Hagopian connects the attacks in the United States on teaching about race and gender to Israel’s attacks on children, schools, and historical memory in Palestine.
The Takeover of Houston Public Schools
Miller critically examines the state takeover of Houston’s public schools and its new superintendent’s dystopian vision for education reform.
Teaching While Undocumented
Two professors document the struggles of undocumented teachers and offer ways educators, schools, and policymakers can better support them.
The Growing Attack on Educators
A growing number of educators are being pushed out of the classroom for teaching about race or LGBTQ+ issues.
“Isn’t that what the case is about, the discrimination against Asian Americans?”
Interrogating the recent Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in college admissions, Au dismantles conservative arguments that pit Asian Americans against other people of color.
How School Lunch Debt Creates Shame and Inequality — and Our Fight to Abolish It
Debt activists examine the shame, stigma, and effects of student lunch debt — and their successful organizing for universal free meals.
Teachers Living and Resisting Indebted Life
Wozniak shares stories of educators grappling with student loans and a growing movement toward resistance and debt cancellation.
School Debt: The Great Unequalizer
As Schirmer writes: “School districts with the fewest resources pay the most to borrow.” Given the underfunding of schools, debt amplifies existing inequalities.
50 Years Older and Deeper in Debt
Karp describes the origins of the unjust U.S. patchwork system of funding schools and envisions funding justice.
How My Teacher Union Fought for Housing Justice
A teacher union member stories the Boston Teachers Union fight for housing justice.
Defend African American Studies
Black history is under attack — predictably by the right, and by the acquiescence of the College Board, a billion-dollar “non-profit” business. This is yet another example of the erasure […]
The Chilling Effects of So-Called Critical Race Theory Bans
Teacher educators describe how teachers interpret Tennessee’s “Prohibited Concepts in Instruction” law; vague language suppresses — educators resist.
The First CRT Election
Rethinking Schools was glad to see the midterm elections bring significant setbacks to MAGA Republicans and the most egregious “election deniers.” But overall the results were a decidedly mixed bag […]
Building the Foundation for Police-Free Schools
On Oct. 25, 2015, student Niya Kenny filmed a white school police officer body slamming her classmate, a Black 16-year-old girl named Shakara, to the floor during math class at […]
Oakland Youth to Teachers’ Retirement System: “Divest Now!”
It was a letter to the CalSTRS board, demanding that they dump the pension fund’s investments in oil and gas companies. It was signed “From the many young climate justice activists who will continue to be at every one of your meetings until you divest.”
Compassion, Solidarity, Care: Detroit-Area Youth Respond to the Pandemic
Just as workers are going to need unions, young people need to be organizing as students to make collective demands on the system as well as to meet their needs in an emergency.
How the Attack on Teachers Threatens the Future of Public Schools
As part of the so-called “Great Resignation,” many teachers are leaving the field or thinking of leaving earlier than expected; the impact on public education could be catastrophic.
As States Build Barriers to Racial Justice Teaching, Educators Fight Back
Teachers nationwide have been standing up to register their resistance and solidarity, organizing rallies, supporting school board candidates who reject these bills, and doubling down on their own efforts to learn and teach about race.
Shape-Shifting Segregation Policies
A teacher educator helps preservice teachers understand the history of how Mexican Americans have been racialized as Black and white at different times to keep them out of white schools.
Education and Social Justice: A Global View
Rethinking Schools editor Bob Peterson interviews Angelo Gavrielatos, president of Australia’s New South Wales Teachers Union.
Save Arab American Studies!
At first it seemed that ethnic studies advocates had won a major victory in California, but then a backlash targeted Arab American studies.