student achievement
Hope and Outrage: A Tale of Two White Dudes
Outrage: Racist White Dude in Texas So, apparently Black Kids only get into Ivy League schools to fill quotas? https://twitter.com/_littledrizzy/status/986796203584077824 It basically went something...
School Discipline
If We Really Want to Make Schools Safe, We Need to Build Community
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently assembled a school safety commission that will explore the need to repeal guidance that helps schools discipline students without discriminating. Scrapping...
Parents
No Child Left Behind Had a Lot of Problems But I Miss the Days When We Cared About How All Kids Did in School
Once upon a time, well-heeled suburban schools used to have to worry about whether all their students made the grade—not just some of them, not just the White ones and the middle-class ones. The...
bias
Everyone Keeps Talking About Implicit Racial Bias But What Is It?
Over the last few days, I’ve been tackling implicit bias with my eighth-graders. I mean, if Starbucks can shut down for a day to learn about it, so can we, right? Also, we’ve been reading pieces of...
Poverty
How I Learned to Help My Students Talk About Hard Things
Up until a few years ago, I had struggled to find my voice as a teacher. I had internalized a set of classroom management principles best summed up by the common phrase: “Don’t smile until...
Politics
ICE Took My Students’ Parents Away
In my classroom there is a poster that says, “Follow your dreams, believe in yourself and never give up.” This poster is more than some frivolous decoration—it’s our mantra and our story. The hopes...
