Inclusive Schools

Fighting for LGBTQ+ Youth and Families

Jody Sokolower interviews Melissa Bollow Tempel, the Wisconsin teacher — and former Rethinking Schools editor — fired for speaking out about her district’s decision to refuse to allow her 1st-grade students to sing “Rainbowland.”

Rethinking the Inclusive Classroom

As one teacher says, “My students may be little, but that does not mean their emotions are.” A parent of a student with Down syndrome and educators in the same district discuss inclusive teaching strategies and pedagogical risk-taking.

Big Reactions to Small Steps

Harrington Pangallo describes pushback for reading a book to answer a student question — “What does gay mean?” — and her response.

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.

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.

The Classroom to Prison Pipeline

A master teacher faces a classroom revolt. She realizes that, no matter how imminent the high-stakes test, stopping the school-to-prison pipeline begins in the classroom with student-centered, meaningful curriculum.

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 […]

Bad Signs

What are the real messages in the inspirational slogans covering classroom walls? Plus some better alternatives.

Keepers of the Second Throat

When Chicago stole my mother’s tongue, it also stole all her yesterdays. A poet’s lyric plea for teachers to nurture their students voices and stories.

Everything Flowers

I noted the biased curriculum… the absence of lessons on the Chicano movement or other aspects of my history and culture

Prophet Motives

Any discussion of charter schools must ask not only whether charters promote a worthwhile vision of public education

Queer Matters

While we were excited to support the opening of the educational closet

Do Ask, Do Tell

Two Chicago educators question the premier teacher education accrediting agency’s removal of social justice and sexual orientation language from its standards.

Edwina Left Behind

Edwina did what was asked of her. Did Alaska do everything it could for her?