Teaching is one of my greatest gifts. Seeing my mother’s life’s work as a teacher in Dekalb County created my blueprint for what the life of a “game-changer” looks like, and the many influential teachers I experienced...
Category - Let’s Talk About It
There are few things as searing as losing a loved one. When that person is one of your community’s most impactful teachers, it hurts. Baba Juhudi was that person for us. His memorial was an opportunity to reflect and...
Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now. –Audre Lorde This evening, the Philadelphia Board of Education will face a critical decision that will impact the lives of hundreds of young people who...
Pennsylvania’s teacher roster is the least diverse in the nation; less than 5 percent of Pennsylvania’s teachers are people of color, according to the state Department of Education. Yet evidence regularly points to the...
Nothing gets gentrifying, suburban dwelling, bridge-toll-paying white folks riled up like the idea of Black and Brown families trying to exercise the traditionally “whites only” parental school choice option. Raymond...
I will never forget the time I attended a teaching job expo in Valley Forge, PA. Districts from around the state had laid out the welcome mat, eager to attract the newest and brightest teachers into their ranks. I stood...
As educators doing antiracism work, we often focus extensively on the impact that white supremacy has on students. But even though we recognize that white supremacy shapes all of our lives and work, we spend little time talking...
We all know that a teacher’s instructional skills matter for students. But a growing body of research shows that their background and life experience matter, too. This is especially important for students of color: while all...
I’ve had the chance to travel a lot in my work as an educator and activist, and frequently I find myself in what I call the “too-expensive-for-Black folks” cities. You know, those cities that present themselves as...
On Monday, white America celebrated the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 91st birthday, even though he was born on Jan. 15 in 1929. And just like white America got the date wrong, it also got MLK himself wrong. Or, better...