In my latest op-ed, I wrote an article as an open letter to the Biden administration that harkened back to my Jesuit education (Nativity Mission, Xavier High). Here’s a little bit:
In this way, I’m asking us to live out our stated values politically and spiritually. If God truly lives within each of us when two or more of us are gathered, then we need to make the spaces where we gather our youth the spaces we know serve them. If we know that Jesus of Nazareth arose from squalor, then we have a duty to make our schools in our poorest districts the envy of the world in honor of the poor.
We should eradicate child poverty measures where we see them and address structural racism, xenophobia and other forms of identity oppression in our policies and practice. Yes, we can do so with culturally responsive and sustaining practices, professional development around trauma-informed learning and teaching, lowering caseloads for guidance counselors, social workers and other in-school mental health professionals, and, yes, making every public school a great school.
To read the rest, click here.