Mark Twain once quipped that schools should not get in the way of educating our youth. When schools and/or districts choose to ignore massive forms of oppression because it is not convenient or comfortable to discuss, another...
Category - Let’s Talk About It
More Black and Brown men have been lynched by the state. It is the American way. And, too many educators look away from and are silent about the carnage. Whether lynchings occur on the trees that led to “Strange Fruit” (sung...
Anti-education reformers are some of the most interesting people I know. They often reminisce about and allude to a time when schools and systems worked for our communities. I try to follow them, but their recollections seem to...
Recently, our School District’s Charter School Office recommended that the School Reform Commission, (Philadelphia’s school board) accepts Shoemaker’s charter renewal application. This means that the Shoemaker Campus’s...
For many years, the School District of Philadelphia, anti-charter groups, and even high performing charter schools, demanded that charters be held accountable for student achievement. They are right to demand this. Just as...
The end of a school year appropriately provokes a lot of reflection. Did we reach our goals? Did we remain consistent? What regrets do we have? How did we start out and were we nimble enough to respond well to real time...
Yesterday, I ended my 24th year working with the youth of our city and my 23rd year working directly in schools. I currently have the honor and privilege of serving as a principal in my own neighborhood-the same community that I...
“Unless we have the wealth to pay for private education, we are compelled by law to go to public school—and to the public school in our district. Thus the state, by requiring attendance but refusing to require equity...
A few weeks ago, I had the honor of participating in and contributing at the 2016 Summit on Teacher Diversity at the US Department of Education. Today, I am in our state’s capitol to provide feedback about Pennsylvania’s...
There has been a much needed focus on why only 2 percent of our nation’s classroom teachers are Black males. The U.S. Department of Education recently held a very important National Summit on Teacher Diversity and released a...