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…

70 Years of Promises in Education. What Will It Take for Us to Keep Them?

The promise of public education is that it prepares young people for life—and the commitments we have made to meet this aspiration have dramatically increased…

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!…

Is Education Journalism Driving School Segregation?

The question in the headline above must be asked because a recent study concludes that informed parents exercising choice are a cause of segregation. If…

Integration Is a Noble Goal, But Obsessing Over It Shouldn’t Distract Us From Improving Teaching and Learning

Another week, another headline about the urgency of jettisoning efforts to improve teaching and learning for all kids and instead laser-focusing on ending segregation in…

Here’s How Trump Is Making It Harder to Integrate Schools

This summer, integrated schools heated up as a campaign issue when Kamala Harris called out Joe Biden for his 1970s stance on mandated busing as…

Charter Schools Must Be Part of the Solution for Desegregation

America is more diverse than it’s ever been, as are the students attending public schools, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at individual schools.…

I Was Bused to School Like Kamala, But Here’s the Part She Didn’t Talk About

From kindergarten through eighth grade, I was bused to Frank W. Gunsaulus Scholastic Academy, a magnet school in Chicago’s Brighton Park community. I lived and…

In 2016 I Gave Money to the Bernie Campaign. Now I’ll Be Damned If I Give a Single Penny.

In 2016, I gave money to the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. It was and remains the first and only time I have ever given a…