California
Why I Feel Like 'The Spook Who Sat by the Charter School Door'
I am the fly in the school reform buttermilk. An outsider, now marginally on the inside, trying to plot the revolution. Young, gifted and Black, I founded a charter school support organization in...
Poverty
I Was Homeless and In and Out of School. Then I Got Into Ms. Russell’s Car.
I wasn’t supposed to be where I am today. People repeatedly told me, “You ain’t nothin’. You ain’t neva gon be nothin’.” I saw my first murder at age 11, and, by the time I turned 15, I was on my...
Parents
You Can’t Just Trust Your Instincts, You Actually Have to Go Ask the Parents What They Think
“In God we trust. All other bring data.” —W. Edward Demming Right now, our school, Nashville Classical Charter School, is planning to open a middle school in two years. We’re spending a lot of time...
bias
Our Political Leaders Might Be Sleep But My Students Are Woke
Leaders within our new administration seem to be embracing a revisionist narrative of our country’s tortured history with race that is at best uninformed, and at worst, malicious. Take, for instance,...
Poverty
Forget Your Nostalgia for White Picket Fences, Suburban Schools Need to Accept the New Reality
There’s a myth that persists in education for both parents and teachers: That heading to suburban schools somehow insulates you from hardship, instability and academic failure. So, not only are...
Poverty
This Rural Town Shows the Real Costs of Our Broken School Funding System
These days, the small town of Sandoval, Illinois, is mostly known for being a few miles away from Patoka, where the famed Keystone XL pipeline ends after making its way south from Canada. Located...
