Students around the country are taught about America’s glorious victory in Brown v. Board of Education, the seminal moment that undid Plessy v. Ferguson’s separate but equal racial segregation. Desegregation is touted as a...
Tag - ZACHARY WRIGHT
J. Martin Rochester, a professor of political science at the University of St. Louis-Missouri, once wrote an article raising concerns about teaching social justice in schools. Rochester’s problem with teaching social justice...
I am punching above my weight. I am no education policy wonk, nor am I a mover or shaker in America’s larger educational conversation. But a recent blog post by the well-known edu-legends Carol Burris and Diane Ravitch on The...
The room is dimly lit when you enter, a short ramp leading you further into the darkness. Five prison cells await. Old. Wooden with iron bars and solid padlocks. Within, ghostly apparitions come into focus. Old women. Young...
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’...
At Mastery Charter School Shoemaker Campus, I’m not just a teacher; I am a warrior for social justice. Education in America, wherein we have legislated who can learn and with whom one can learn, is inseparable from...
Recently, two Black men were arrested for sitting in a Starbucks here in Philadelphia. They were waiting for a friend who arrived shortly after his friends had been handcuffed. The men were supposedly “causing a...
It’s March, and all over the country, students and their families are waiting anxiously to receive emails and letters about the status of school applications; parents furtively asking one another if they’ve received word from...
Recently, I read an article entitled When White Parents Won’t Integrate Public Schools by Mimi Kirk. It is a thoughtful, honest, relevant piece praising the benefits of integrated schools, particularly for Black and Brown...
This Fall, I had the privilege of teaching Toni Morrison’s Beloved, a novel I’ve read and taught time and again, and one that never fails to overwhelm with awe, silence, and turmoil. Towards the middle of the novel, Sethe, a...