Black Kids Don’t Need to Sit Next to White Kids to Learn

WHAT WE GOT WRONG: Over the last decade, and indeed for longer than that, those fighting for justice, many of them White, have largely looked to integration as the panacea for educational inequity.…

We Were Making Progress on School Discipline Until Betsy DeVos Came Along

WHAT WE GOT WRONG: At the turn of the century, in 1999, I was graduating from high school, motivated to enter the teaching profession with a passion to reform school discipline practices and eliminate the school-to-prison pipeline. …

The Equity Backlash Is Real. Resist It.

WHAT WE GOT WRONG: For all its problems, No Child Left Behind illustrated a whole lot of problems that we still haven’t fixed. The hard data that came back showed some of the failures in education that bell hooks and Paulo Freire had been talking about forever. In large part, we have those numbers to thank for the increased focus and funding that led to the rise of the modern educational equity movement.…

Don’t Integrate Schools Just to Benefit White Kids

White progressive educators and parents, I know lots of you. And I know you think diversity in schools is important. But you all are pushing…

White Teacher, Here’s How You Can Successfully Partner With Black Families

The show was going really well. We were in Pittsburgh, taping a live 8 Black Hands podcast episode at the State of Black Learning Conference,…

White People Need to Understand That Helping Is Not the Same as Controlling

A few weeks ago, I attended a conference called Educator Summit in Philadelphia. I’m not much of a conference attendee and didn’t know exactly what…

Here’s What I Wish White Teachers Knew When Teaching My Black Children

Dear White Teachers of My Black Children: I am a Black mom and I have two children who are now in high school. Raising them…

Women’s History Month Is a Time for Young Girls to See Themselves

March is Women’s History Month. For those of us who are history buffs and/or have the job of teaching history, these themed-month celebrations are really…

For White Teachers Teaching White Boys in the Suburbs

We talk too much about White boys. But, also, really. When we talk about them, we don’t say nearly enough. We don’t talk enough about the boys in our classrooms.…

Forget the School-to-Prison Pipeline, For White Boys It’s the School-to-Politics Pipeline

Tonight, President Donald Trump will deliver his State of the Union address. Like many other U.S. citizens, I see our current president as deeply flawed,…