Stories

student achievement

Hey Shawnta! Why Do First-Gen Immigrant Students Score Higher Than Native-Born American Students on All Standardized Achievement Tests?

Hey Shawnta! Why do first-generation immigrant students score higher than native-born American students on all standardized achievement tests? I have been asked a version of this question many times...

Black Excellence Must Come Home To Teach

Recently, my daughter, a high school freshman, attended a citywide HBCU college fair with her school’s Black Student Union. Over 20 HBCUs were represented, but only two had long lines: Howard...

How alternative pathways build math confidence, even for non "math kids"

“When will we ever need to know this?” For decades, math teachers have heard students ask this question in classrooms across the country, while teaching algebra, geometry, more algebra and calculus....

Literacy

I Used To Rage At Teachers, But Now I’ve Found My Target

I used to harbor a lot of rage toward my son’s kindergarten teacher. When I first realized that my son, then a first-grader doing school remotely from our living room couch, couldn’t read even the...

ARE TODAY’S “CLASSROOM KARENS” JUST THE CURRENT VERSION OF JANE CROWS - WHITE WOMEN WHO SUPPORTED SCHOOL SEGREGATION?

Provocative Ed Post Series ‘Jane Crow: Then and Now’ Examines the Troubling Activities, Histories of White Women and Our Schools NEW YORK CITY— November 17, 2022 — White women are organizing around...

Here’s How I Taught Critical Race Theory To High School Freshmen

Freshmen love secrets, coloring and affirmation that their suspicions about all the adults being wrong are true. Each autumn, I do a unit on the ways that societal power and hierarchy reveal...