Stories

The Benefits of Giving Students Texts That Relate To Their Lives

Rather than read Hamlet with my AP English Literature and Composition students as has traditionally been the case, I suggested to this year’s class that we read something different—something local,...

Teaching

We Must Integrate Data Literacy Into Teacher Prep, And It's Easier Than You Think

When my colleagues and I asked a group of pre-service teachers to graph and make a claim about data, the response we got surprised us. “Data exploration is completely new to me,” said a college...

Charter Schools

We Have an Education Crisis On Our Hands and Curtailing the Charter Schools Program Is No Way to Fix It

The recent announcement by the US Department of Education to propose radical changes to the process by which charter schools must follow to open new schools is a dismal reminder of our education...

Math

American Students Have a Math Problem We Already Know How to Solve

When brand-new kindergartners arrive at any Uncommon elementary school, one of the first chants they learn is, “I love math and math loves me! It’s as easy as 1,2,3! Just watch and you will see!”...

anti-racism

This Eighth Grader Led Her School to Build an Anti-Racist Library

When Kinadee Jordan thinks, you can almost see her mental gears spinning. Clad in a “Boyz in the Hood” hoodie, the eighth-grader crafts her thoughts on Langston Hughes’ poem “I look at the world.”...

COVID-19

Kanye's 'jeen-yuhs' Shows Why We Need to Nurture the Dreams of Our Black Students

As a disclaimer, this piece does not serve as an endorsement of Kanye West’s “Slavery was a Choice” stance or his friendship with Donald Trump—or even his failed presidential campaign. We can say...