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 […]
Criminal Justice
Cops Don’t Keep Kids Safe at School: The Case Against School Police
Before I was taught a single teaching technique, I was taught to fight school shooters. At the start of the Stanford Teacher Education Program, we took a seat in the […]
Dirty Oil and Shovel-Ready Jobs
High school students learn about the conflict over the pipeline by participating in a role play.
Haniyah’s Story
Haniyah wrote this article as a 17-year-old participant in Project WHAT! a program of Community Works West, based in Berkeley, Calif. The young people in Project WHAT! all have family […]
Chicago’s Peace Warriors
A group of students from Chicago’s North Lawndale College Preparatory High were in the middle of a weeklong summer training to become Peace Warriors—peer nonviolence leaders. Suddenly, a sophomore named […]
Teaching the Prison Industrial Complex
“Harm comes from prior harm.” As Deandra says this, I am sitting in the back of my classroom, taking notes. My students are sitting in a circle in the middle […]
Stop the School-to-Prison Pipeline
“Every man in my family has been locked up. Most days I feel like it doesn’t matter what I do, how hard I try—that’s my fate, too.”—11th-grade African American student, […]
Schools and the New Jim Crow
The author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness applies her thought-provoking analysis to children, schools, and priorities for education activism.
Arresting Development
The author of Lockdown High: When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse reviews the history, impact, and future of zero tolerance policies.
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.”
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.
Student Athletes Kneel to Level the Playing Field
In the initial weeks of the 2016 football season, as Kaepernick’s fledgling protest began to take shape, critics bombarded him with insults and it was unclear what the response around the country would be. And that’s when Garfield, and high schools and students around the nation, stepped up to the challenge.
Unfolding Hope in a Chicago School
A middle school teacher describes the trauma experienced by his students over the year and struggles to create meaningful hope rather than slogans.
Editorial: Making Black Lives Matter in Our Schools
As we return to our schools this fall, we need to rededicate ourselves to building an education system and a society that values Black lives.
Ban the Box!
Should the box about criminal history be eliminated from job applications? A role play helps students explore the lifelong impact of a felony conviction.
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