While We’re Stuck On Blackface, Black Faces Continue to Suffer in a Racist School System

Yeah, I said it. All week, on social media and news outlets, there’s been coverage of Virginia’s Governor, Ralph Northam, denying claims of wearing blackface…

Forget Implicit Bias, Let’s Talk about Explicit Bias in Education

Last month I kicked off a training on ways to use language as an asset to unleash the critical thinking potential of English learners with…

Schools Don’t Need to Ban Homework, They Just Need to Make It Better

School districts around the country are doing away with homework, according to the latest education headlines. But research clearly shows that the solution to homework…

Black Kids Don’t Need a Handout or a Shortcut, They Just Need Schools That Work

Outrage: Black Kids Are Dumb, Poor and Incapable of Success Do y’all remember the line from “The Color Purple,” “I’m poor, I’m Black…I may even…

Why We Need to Stop Thinking About Students in Terms of Strengths and Weaknesses

My son is a freshman in high school and this felt like my first report card pick up all over again. While I have access…

What Oklahoma Teachers Can Learn From the Montgomery Bus Boycott

On this day in Montgomery, Alabama, 63 years ago, Black people strategically rebelled against one of White supremacy’s ‘systems.’ That day, Black folks got into…

Time to Recognize That the Black Education Movement Is Growing and Isn’t Going Anywhere

Here’s the scene. There’s a movement of Black education advocates afoot. It’s built on the shoulders of the Black-led movements that preceded it, and it’s…

How My School Blocked Me From Teaching ‘The Hate U Give’

While “The Hate U Give” is a best-selling book and top-rated film, I’m getting some real pushback from my administration about having my students read the…

Episode 19: Football and Literacy (feat. Vesia Wilson-Hawkins)

In this episode, we sit down with our colleague Vesia Wilson-Hawkins to discuss what it would be like if parents got as fired up about…

Eighth-Graders Are Doing Fifth-Grade Work. No Wonder Our Kids Aren’t Ready for College.

I just read a report that, as a father, makes me question my own kid’s school. I mean, if these problems are happening in so…