“Save the Muslim Girl!”
Does popular young adult fiction about Muslim girls build understanding or reinforce stereotypes?
Issue Theme
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 […]
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 Haniyah
Several years ago, I taught a unit on power in my 9th-grade social studies classes at Berkeley High School in California’s Bay Area. It’s a diverse school—rich folks from the […]
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 […]
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.
Arresting Development
The author of Lockdown High: When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse reviews the history, impact, and future of zero tolerance policies.
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.
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, […]
Portland to Palestine: A Student-to-Student Project Evokes Empathy and Curiosity
U.S. students talk directly with Palestinian youth and learn what it is like to live in a war zone.
Kalamazoo’s Promise: What Happens When All Students Are Guaranteed College
An exciting scholarship exposes racial tensions in a Michigan city.
Testing Kindergarten
You may not believe how many tests kindergartners take – and what they are missing as a result.
Balance of Powers
Good teaching has a balance of powers: gut, heart, and brain.
Breaking the Silence on War
We are now in the ninth year of the U.S. war in Afghanistan and the seventh year of the current war in Iraq. In classrooms throughout the United States, as in the streets, there is little critical discussion of these events they have become part of the wallpaper of life. Why has this happened? How can we break the silence?
Adding Salt to ‘Class’ Literature: Barbara O’Connor’s Books for Young Readers
Chapter books that portray working-class lives with sensitivity, humor, and respect.
Beyond the Medal: Representations of Disability in Caldecott Winners
We often think of Caldecott books as the gold standard for picture books. Here the authors of 10 Quick Ways to Analyze Children’s Books for Ableism” look at what these prize-winning books tell young children about disability.
“
Reading by the Numbers
Does Accelerated Reading really promote a love of literature, or just a love of points? Harry Potter scores 44; Hamlet gets 7.
“Baghdad Burning” Heats Up World History
It’s always a struggle to work current events into history classes. A blog by a young Iraqi woman about her day-to-day life in Baghdad provides an opportunity to connect the medieval Abbasid Empire to today’s news.
The Big One
The environmental crisis requires a profound social and curricular rethinking.
“I Thought This U.S. Place Was Supposed To Be About Freedom”
A 5th-grade math club contributes skills and determination to a community struggle to keep their school open.
Transforming Teacher Unions in a Post-Janus World
Bob Peterson analyzes the Janus decision’s impact on teacher unions, talks with union leaders from across the country about how they are responding to it, and argues that the damage of the decision can be countered through the upsurge of progressive activism engendered by the victory of Donald Trump.
A Hurricane in the Classroom
SPECIAL REPORT: Education “reformers” are using the disaster in Puerto Rico to close hundreds of public schools and convert much of the school system to charters. But teachers, parents, and students are fighting back.