Stories

public schools

My Sister Led the Way for Me to Go to College

Though I am in the first generation of my family to go to college, it was my eldest sister who inspired me to follow in her footsteps. In my neighborhood, there weren’t many people who chose to go to...

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California

Audacity of Nope: You Want People of Color Until You Don’t

I’d never say conservatives, especially those in education reform, have been cowed into silence. Conservatives tend to run the game, be quick to assume power and to alienate people who do not look...

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Charter Schools

These Chicago Twins Have Some Advice for First-Generation College Hopefuls

Fraternal twins Kemonte and Kymon Harrington are members of the first graduating class of the Noble Network of Charter Schools’ Hansberry College Prep in Chicago. Kemonte applied to 13 colleges and...

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public schools

From ‘Great Migration’ to ‘First Generation’

My grandparents traveled from Mississippi to Chicago during the Great Migration. My grandfather, Robert Thompson, was a hard worker who took a job at a meat factory and also drove a pickup truck...

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School Discipline

Illinois Is Trying Out a New School Discipline Law, But Will It Make Schools Safer?

Perhaps it is to be expected in our politically polarized country, but opinions about the state of discipline in our public schools fall into two fundamentally irreconcilable camps: There is far too...

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Teaching

A Chicago Teacher's Struggle to Get Kids to College in a Culture of Violence and Fear

Not so long ago, I learned that one of my former students, a fun-loving, academically strong kid who is now in high school, had a handgun stashed underneath his clothes in his dresser drawer. Some...

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