Teaching
Chicago Teachers Union: Focus On Students and Teachers, Not Venezuela
In a few short weeks, my classroom will be squirming with anxious excitement from a group of new first graders. But they aren’t the only anxious ones—after more than 20 years in Chicago schools, I...
Diversity
Don't Just Invite Black Men to School on the First Day, We Need Them All Year Long
A tradition for many schools that educate predominately Black children involves welcoming the children back with scores of Black men cheering them on as they enter the building to start the school...
Diversity
Teaching About Race Does Not Make You Un-American
"The Holocaust was an atrocity." This was the example I gave my eighth graders as we were learning our words of the week. And with one word, I learned that my eighth grade students had no idea what...
California
There's Room in the NAACP to Talk About the Importance of School Choice for Black Parents
I was recently the subject of a hit piece in the Huffington Post, which tried to connect me to the Koch brothers because, as a volunteer in my local NAACP branch in a low-income community in...
student achievement
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. In fact, schools are the most segregated they’ve...
Teaching
When a Student Says, 'The President Is Going to Take My Parents Away'
In my fourth-grade classroom in Houston, Texas, the morning after Election Day 2016 was quiet. As students filed into the classroom, I asked them to make a circle on the rug to talk through the...
