#StandWithOkinawa: We Need The World With Us
By Moé Yonamine “Don’t cry here,” an 86-year-old Okinawan grandmother I had never met before told me. She stood next to me and took my hand. I had been visiting […]
Updates
Students “Warrior Up” for Climate Justice
[This is the third installment of our new environmental justice column — Earth, Justice, and Our Classrooms — and celebrates the annual two-day “Climate Justice Fair” at Madison High School […]
The Midterms, Trumpism, and the Increased Racialization of American Childhood
By Julio Angel Alicea When Donald Trump was making waves for his bigoted statements about Mexicans, Muslims, and women during the Republican primaries, my high school students, most of them […]
LeBron’s School Should Be Every School — Public, Fully Funded, and with Arms Around the Community
By Ari Bloomekatz There are few public schools receiving as much attention these days as LeBron James’ I Promise School in Akron, Ohio — and it’s because it’s just that: […]
“This Is Our Time, This is Our Moment”: Los Angeles Teachers Are Ready to Strike
An interview with Arlene Inouye, chair of UTLA’s bargaining committee By Ari Bloomekatz Mediation between the Los Angeles Unified School District and United Teachers Los Angeles failed in mid-October, and […]
Despite National Outrage, Scholastic Defends Children’s Books Celebrating Trump
By Deborah Menkart His buildings reached into the sky. His businesses just grew and grew. Then Trump became our president — people wanted something new. Believe it or not, this […]
Nurturing Student Activists in the Time of Trump
By the editors of Rethinking Schools The 2018–19 school year has begun at a time of terrifying climate disruption, seemingly endless war, spectacular inequality, xenophobic and fascist revival, police brutality […]
ED ALERT: Fighting Manufactured Chaos in Puerto Rico’s Public Schools
By Mercedes Martínez and Jia Lee August 13 marked the first day of school for more than 319,000 students and 22,000 teachers in Puerto Rico. But instead of feeling prepared […]
EDITORIAL: The Important Role Teachers Play in Resisting Trump’s War on Immigrant Families
“Aren’t Grown-Ups Supposed to Keep Kids Safe?” By the editors of Rethinking Schools Kina, the 6-year-old daughter of one of our editors, walked into her living room one day over […]
Bill Ayers on Arne Duncan’s How Schools Work
By Bill Ayers If you pick up Arne Duncan’s How Schools Work hoping to learn something about, well, unsurprisingly I suppose, about “how schools work,” you’ll be sorely disappointed. There’s […]
Wow! Exciting News About Teaching for Black Lives
Teaching for Black Lives has been earning rave reviews since it was released just a few months ago, and today we’re honored to announce that Grammy award-winning artist Macklemore and […]
A Hurricane in the Classroom: Inside the Schools Ensnared in Puerto Rico’s Privatization Fever — and How Its Teachers Are Fighting Back
[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 […]
Guns Out of Our Schools, Propaganda Out of Our Classrooms
By the editors of Rethinking Schools Just a week after 14 students and three staff members were murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February, President […]
Keeping Kids Safe — at the Border and in Our Classrooms
By the editors of Rethinking Schools Kina, the 6-year-old daughter of one of our editors, walked into the living room when the TV was on last week and saw a […]
Transforming Teacher Unions in a Post-Janus World
By Bob Peterson “I’m from Wisconsin, I’m from your future!” I start off my speech. Despite my love of science fiction, I’m not talking to sci-fi fans. I’m talking to […]
Puerto Rican Teachers and Students Protest Budget Cuts and Privatization on May Day
By Kate Aronoff In a May Day event largely overlooked by mainland U.S. media, strikers representing various unions, opposition parties, and social movements all converged on San Juan’s banking district, […]
Making People’s History in Arizona: Educators Rise Up
By Sarah Giddings My house has recently become muddled with protest signs, event flyers, red T-shirts, and simply, chaos. How it came to this point resides in the story of […]
The March for Our Lives and National Day of Action Against Gun Violence: Two Opportunities to Involve Young Children
By Bob Peterson During my three decades of teaching elementary school I was regularly impressed with how much my students knew about what was happening in the world, and even […]
Teachers Can Respond to Trump’s Racial Hatred with Empathy and Inquiry
By the Editors of Rethinking Schools By now, most of us have read of Trump’s vile and racist comments of last Thursday. We all have a moral obligation to speak […]
Overcoming Hate in our Backyards
By Mica Pollock Hate speech and harassment have spiked nationwide since the 2016 election. They’ve spiked in our own backyards, too — requiring each community to counteract hate proactively. We […]
Cyber Monday: Stock Up on Social Justice Resources for Educators
As online capitalism goes into overdrive today, put some social justice into your Cyber Monday purchases!Get 40% off all book and subscription orders from Rethinking Schools. Go to http://rethinkingschools.org and […]
The Black Panther Party Was Founded on This Day in 1966: Here’s What We Don’t Learn About the Black Panther Party in Our Schools — but Should
By Adam Sanchez and Jesse Hagopian On Monday April 1, 1967 “George Dowell and several neighbors from North Richmond, California . . . heard 10 gunshots. Sometime after 5:00 a.m., […]
Backpack Full of Cash: New Documentary Narrated by Matt Damon Explores School Privatization
By Barbara Miner Like many supporters of public education, Sarah Mondale and Vera Aronow had become increasingly concerned in the last decade about the attacks on public schools and teachers. […]
Christopher Columbus: No Monuments for Murderers
By Bill Bigelow A New York Times article, following the white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the murder of anti-racist activist Heather Heyer, described the growing calls to remove monuments that […]
Taking the Fight Against White Supremacy Into Schools
[This important article from Rethinking Schools editor Adam Sanchez was first published by the Zinn Education Project (where Adam works developing curriculum and organizing) and Common Dreams. We are republishing […]