When I became principal of Ranson IB Middle School in 2011, one of the first challenges I faced as principal was one that never came up in my training: There was a power outage on the first day of...
Take a moment and think back to when you were 12 years old. See life through the eyes of your 12-year-old self. What were you most excited about? What did you dream about, what were your hopes and...
I’m starting a new thing here called “Hope and Outrage.” A lot of us wake up every morning with the goal of rallying people to fight for better educational options for our Black and Brown youth. When...
On March 14, students across the country will walk out of school to demand action on gun violence. They are telling elected officials, “Enough!” They are saying what most people know but are reticent...
There is a growing body of evidence that Black students perform better when they have a Black teacher. It is a problem, then, that only 6 percent of teachers in Illinois are Black, while 17 percent...
As a teenager on the streets of Chicago’s South Side, Darrell Cannon learned not to trust the police—a lesson that continues to resonate for young Black men today. “They abused their...
