THE BECOMING RADICAL
EMPATHYEDUCATES!
the becoming radical
A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness
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By Paul L. Thomas, Ed.D. | Originally Published at The Becoming Radical. Matrch 28, 2014 With Waiting for excuses for the inexcusable, Leonard Pitts Jr. offers us all a watershed moment—one that involves reclaiming the language and the narratives in order to take direct action against the […]
Standing Up to Testing
Photograph; David Rapheal, Brooklyn borough assessment implementation director for New York schools, at a meeting on the opt-out movement on Tuesday | Credit Anthony Lanzilote for The New York Times By Ginia Bellafante | Originally Published at The New York Times. March 28, 2014 In the coming […]
Creativity vs. Quants
Graphic; Creativity by Zyari By Timothy Egan | Originally Published at The New York Times. March 21, 2014 Here’s how John Lennon wrote “Nowhere Man,” as he recalled it in an interview that ran just before he was murdered in 1980: After working five hours trying to […]
MAR 27
Black Preschoolers More Likely to Face Suspension
By Kimberly Hefling and Jesse J. Holland | Originally Published at Assocated Press. Yahoo News. March 21, 2014 WASHINGTON (AP) — Black students are more likely to be suspended from U.S. public schools — even as tiny preschoolers. The racial disparities in American education, from access to […]
MAR 26
Segregation. Integration. Desegregation – NY Schools Most Segregated In America
By Lilly Workneh | Originally Published at The Grio. March 26, 2014 at 12:30 PM A recent study reveals that some states face a deeper racial divide in public schools than others – listing New York as the leading state with the most segregated schools in the […]
How ‘Education Reform’ Perpetuates Racial Disparity
Graphic adaptation by AngertAesthetics based on Inside Story/Al Jazeera America By Jeff Bryant | Originally Published at Educational Opportunity Network. March 26, 2014 America was shocked, shocked, by new data from the U.S. Department of Education last week showing that a child’s education destiny in the nation’s […]
Kiese Laymon, Author of ‘Long Division,’ Speaks Up for Black Boys and Girls
Kiese Laymon at TWF2014 | At the end of the 2014 Tennessee Williams Festival in New Orleans, Kiese Laymon, author of the 2013 novel ‘Long Division,’ says America seems more interested in disciplining black boys than hearing what those boys might have to say. [See and Hear […]
MAR 25
A Common Core for All of Us
Illustration; Credit Giacomo Bagnara The New York Times. March 22, 2014 I COULDN’T get a cab. A sketchy-looking guy hunkering around the entrance of the Grand Hyatt in San Diego showed me his bicycle. “Climb on, lady,” he said. “I’ll take ya.” I thought it over. “O.K.,” […]
Republican Governors Wrestle with Unpopular Common Core Education Standards
Photograph; Second grade students at Horseshoe Trails Elementary study typing in anticipation of new Common Core standards. Photo by David Jolkovski/Washington Post By Bill Barrow, Associated Press | Originally Published at The Rundown | PBS NewsHour. March 24, 2014 NASHVILLE, Tenn. — More than five years after […]
14 Disturbing Stats About Racial Inequality in American Public Schools
(AP Photo/ Jose F. Moreno) By Steven Hsieh | Originally Published at The Nation. March 21, 2014 Comprehensive data released Friday by the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights offers a striking glance at the extent of racial inequality plaguing the nation’s education system. Analysts […]
MAR 24
Colonizing the Black Natives: Reflections from a former NOLA Charter School Dean of Students
Photograph by Lacy Atkins By Griff519 also known as Ramon | Originally Published at Cloaking Inequality. March 24, 2014 Are some charters’ practices new forms of colonial hegemony? When examining current discipline policies and aligned behavioral norms within charter school spaces, postcolonial theory is useful because of […]
MAR 23
Parents Livid Over CPS Investigators Questioning Kids Over ISAT Boycott
Photograph; Drummond Montessori School students were pulled out of class and questioned about the recent ISAT tests Thursday afternoon 3-20-14. | Kevin Tanaka/For Sun-Times Media By Jon Seidel And Mitch Dudek | Originally Published at Chicago Sun Times. March 20, 2014 Furious Bucktown elementary school parents said […]
CNN’s Chicagoland Does No Good For Chicago Public Schools Students
By Ray Salazar, The White Rhino: A Chicago Latino English Teacher | Originally Published at Chicago Now. March 14, 2014 at 12:27 am A couple of weeks ago, I participated in a conversation about Chicago Public Schools with a group that learned about our schools mainly through […]
Don’t Help Your Kids With Their Homework
Illustration; By Jean Jullien By Dana Goldstein | Originally Published at The Atlantic. March 19 2014, 9:06 PM ET One of the central tenets of raising kids in America is that parents should be actively involved in their children’s education: meeting with teachers, volunteering at school, helping […]
College Athletes Academic Cheating a Harbinger of a Failed System
Margaret Atwood’s narrator, June/Offred, characterizes her situation in the dystopian speculative world of The Handmaid’s Tale: Apart from the details, this could be a college guest room, for the less distinguished visitors; or a room in a rooming house, of former times, for ladies in reduced circumstances. This is what we are now. The circumstances have been reduced; for those of us who still hav
YESTERDAY
The Conversation: Relaxing zero tolerance in schools could be Obama’s boldest civil rights reform
Relaxing zero tolerance in schools could be Obama’s boldest civil rights reform
Reclaiming “No Excuses”: A Reader
With Waiting for excuses for the inexcusable, Leonard Pitts Jr. offers us all a watershed moment—one that involves reclaiming the language and the narratives in order to take direct action against the one thing we refuse to acknowledge or change in the U.S., racism. “What excuses will they make this time?” Pitts begins, emphasizing: Meaning that cadre of letters-to-the-editor writers and conservat
MAR 26
Snow Blind: “Trapped in the Amber of This Moment”
What is wrong with the following claims? The rich and successful are rich and successful because of their work ethic. The poor are poor because they fail to take advantage of the American Dream. Women are paid less than men because they choose fields/careers that pay less and choose family over career. Prisons are overwhelmingly populated by African Americans because they are trapped in the cycle
MAR 25
Are We (Finally) Ready to Face Teacher Education’s Race Problem?
The teacher quality and teacher education debates have been absent a fundamental acknowledgement of race in the same way that school quality and education reform have mostly ignored race. Some are taking the recent Office of Civil Rights reports on inequitable discipline policies and access to quality teachers and courses as evidence that education reform may soon confront the race problem in educ
MAR 24
Conditions v. Outcomes: More on What’s Wrong with Teacher Education (and Accountability)? pt. 2
After posting What’s Wrong with Teacher Education?, I received comments and responses that are fairly represented in the comments at the original post from Peter Smyth and psmagorinsky (Peter Smagorinsky). For full disclosure, these two Peters are acquaintances that I respect a great deal, and thus, take their comments quite seriously. To Peter Smyth’s concern (voiced by a few others offering feed
“Grit”: Demanding Superhuman from African Americans, Impoverished
While writing about Black Pathology and the Closing of the Progressive Mind, Ta-Nehisi Coates concludes his piece with a resounding rejection of the “grit” narrative:
MAR 23
The Politics of Misinformation in Education Reform
Appointed and elected officials related to education have some important characteristics in common. Consider U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and South Carolina Superintendent of Education Mick Zais. Neither have experience or education in the field of K-12 education, despite their primary responsibilities being related to K-12 education. And because of their appointed (Duncan) or elected (
