Dr. King Would Have Shined a Light on the Shame of ‘Progressive’ Cities. So Should We.

On the day that the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was taken in 1968, he had become increasingly focused on the least of…

We Have to Get Education Right for Black Students and Families in 2020

I’m just going to get straight to the point. In 2020—and beyond—we have to get education right for Black students and families. Point blank and…

We All Carry Implicit Biases. Christopher House Is Learning to See and Change Them.

Research shows that, as early as preschool,  racial bias affects student learning. From a young age, we adults are treating children differently based on their…

27 Mistakes White Teachers of Black Students Make and How to Fix Them

A few years back, I was in my room meeting parents during an open house, just days before the school year started. A woman walked…

There’s a Face Off Between Parents and Presidential Candidates, And It’s Way Bigger Than Charter Schools

In the words of the late, great Notorious B.I.G., “I’m going, going, back, back to Cali, Cali.” A year ago I told y’all a national…

Black Families, These Are Not the Democrats Who Will Save Us

While watching the Public Education Forum 2020 on Saturday, one phrase caught my attention: Democratic “hopefuls,” referring to the presidential candidates in attendance. Given that…

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.…

Here’s How We Got Educating Black Kids Wrong Again in the 2010s

WHAT WE GOT WRONG: Congratulations, America! You’ve once again managed to provide the shittiest public education for Black students and families. So as we close out this decade and enter a new year, I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting some of these moments, policies and practices that have upheld your deep-rooted oppression!…

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. …

These Students Let Their Textbook Publisher Know Nobody ‘Needed’ Slavery

Fourth-grade teacher, Laura Wooley, was preparing her students for an upcoming social studies test using a McGraw-Hill textbook. During the course of the review, her…