Philly's 7th Ward

Finding solutions for all Philadelphia students

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Plus
  • Blog
    • Accountability
    • Belief Gap
    • Higher Standards
    • School Choice
    • Let’s Talk About It
  • About Sharif El-Mekki

Category - Higher Standards

  • Accountability
  • Equity and Justice
  • Higher Standards
  • Let's Talk About It

9 Things Educators Can Do to Liberate the Minds of Black Children

April 13, 2019
by Sharif El-Mekki
10 min read
3 Comments

We must be about the business of liberating the minds of Black children. In order for that to occur, the minds of all Blacks who interact with them must also be liberated. There is no other way. – Bobby E. Wright Recently...

Continue reading

  • Equity and Justice
  • Higher Standards
  • Let's Talk About It

If You’re Still Wondering Why We Have to Teach Social Justice, Here’s Your Answer

February 16, 2019
by Kelisa Wing
4 min read
Add Comment

If you’re not already aware, right before the new year a Black man was arrested at a Huntington Bank in Cleveland, Ohio, for cashing his check. Let that sink in. For cashing a check he earned, he was arrested. Over the course...

Continue reading

  • Accountability
  • Belief Gap
  • Diversity
  • Equity and Justice
  • Higher Standards
  • Let's Talk About It

An Open Letter To the ACT Exam Proctors Who Attempted To Marginalize Black Students

August 8, 2018
by Sharif El-Mekki
6 min read
Add Comment

Robert Parker, a veteran educator, calls out college exam proctors for attempting to marginalize some of his students. In this open letter, Robert confronts the proctors and challenges them to improve their mindsets about Black...

Continue reading

  • Accountability
  • Belief Gap
  • Equity and Justice
  • Higher Standards
  • Let's Talk About It

When Students Aren’t Proficient in Reading or Math, It Isn’t a Shame, It’s Violence

August 6, 2018
by Zachary Wright
3 min read
Add Comment

I’ve written about teacher accountability before, but I recently read a few things that got me thinking. The first was a report out of Los Angeles that showed that nearly half the teachers in Los Angeles’...

Continue reading

  • Accountability
  • Belief Gap
  • Higher Standards

It’s Not Standardized Tests That Educators Hate, It’s Accountability

July 31, 2018
by Citizen Stewart
6 min read
Add Comment

Education Week likes to frustrate me in the morning. Reading their article today about the retreat of the anti-testing suburban opt-out movement, I should have been happy, but a few word-bytes in it are restating flimsy...

Continue reading

  • Accountability
  • Belief Gap
  • Equity and Justice
  • Higher Standards
  • Let's Talk About It

I’ve Got Some Extra Teacher Appreciation for Those Teachers Who Are Uplifting Our Black and Brown Students

May 11, 2018
by Sharif El-Mekki
4 min read
2 Comments

This week was Teacher Appreciation Week, one of my favorite weeks. After all, it honors a profession that should be considered one of the most important vanguards of our communities. They have one of the hardest and most...

Continue reading

  • Equity and Justice
  • Higher Standards
  • Let's Talk About It

It Would Be So Easy for Me to Stop Caring About Race. But Then That Would Be Stupid.

May 10, 2018
by Tom Rademacher
6 min read
Add Comment

It would be so easy to stop caring about race. Yes, I can only say this because I’m White. Yes, I can only say this because I’ve been so tempted so many times. It would be so easy, and I wouldn’t even have to make a big...

Continue reading

  • Accountability
  • Belief Gap
  • Higher Standards
  • Let's Talk About It

I’ve Taught in a School With Zero Accountability, It’s Terrible

March 2, 2018
by Zachary Wright
6 min read
1 Comment

By last December, the fall of my ninth year of teaching high school, I had been observed by teacher coaches, visitors from educational non-profit organizations, principals and assistant principals, no fewer than 15 times. Each...

Continue reading

  • Belief Gap
  • Equity and Justice
  • Higher Standards
  • Let's Talk About It

Do You Know This Hidden Figure? Meet Legendary Resister, Dr. Anna Julia Cooper – A Black Educator Hall of Famer

March 3, 2017
by Sharif El-Mekki
4 min read
Add Comment

“The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class-it is the cause of human kind, the very birthright of humanity.”  A multitude of hidden figures silently loom in our shadows, yet those...

Continue reading

  • Accountability
  • Higher Standards
  • Let's Talk About It
  • Teacher & Principal Pathways

Teacher Colleges, We Need You to Step Up

December 14, 2016
by Sharif El-Mekki
5 min read
Add Comment

“After 30 years of doing such work, I have concluded that classroom teaching…is perhaps the most complex, most challenging, and most demanding, subtle, nuanced, and frightening activity that our species has ever invented. The...

Continue reading

1 2 Next
Copyright © 2021. Created by Meks. Powered by WordPress.
  • Blog
    • Accountability
    • Belief Gap
    • Higher Standards
    • School Choice
    • Let’s Talk About It
  • About Sharif El-Mekki
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Plus
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
%d bloggers like this: