Recently, Christina Cross, a Black woman sociologist at Harvard, found her work at the crosshairs of the same person who brought us the bastardization of critical race theory. (Yes, it was.) Many scholars, from her sociology department to the primary investigators of the original study, defended her against his claims of plagiarism, but people jumped regardless. As I observed scholar after acclaimed scholar defending her work, it gave me hope that perhaps we had learned lessons from the last three years of ideological malpractice. Yet, it also made me reticent to uplift this newfound courage c ..read more

Here’s something I never got to tell you. About seven years ago, I wrote this post that went viral. I didn’t expect to see some popular public intellectuals sharing it with their audiences, and other public figures rebuking me publicly, either. Yes, the leader of the schools would try to reach out to me as did a few of his people. (I didn’t respond, but I did write another post about Capital Prep Harlem and another post in response to that.) I did foresee that a fair amount of scandal would follow both the school leader and the mogul. In researching Capital Prep schools back then, I saw how th ..read more

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending my fourth SXSW EDU in Austin, TX. As Ron Reed mentioned before introducing scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw as the opening speaker, the conference has grown significantly since 2011. Whereas in the beginning, it felt more focused on digital learning and ed-tech, this year felt more like it was a hub for relevant education conversations. Thus, organizers implicitly asked participants to choose their own adventure. And that they did. For my part, I partook four events: a multilingual learner and teacher meet-up with Alejandra Vázquez Baur, a mentorship session ..read more

Sometime in the summer of 2020, a small, vocal set of parents and advocates decided that teachers should get back to work. They overshadowed the public praise for teachers and schools in favor of opening up schools all willy-nilly. Of course, studies and polls kept disrupting that narrative, but the narrative persisted. Parents of school-aged children support their local teachers and schools, and much of the narrative came from adults without children. Studies showed that learning loss proponents overstated their claims given that the United States fared better than most industrialized countri ..read more

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the latest celebration of TED-Ed Educator Talks at the TED Headquarters in NYC. For those who are unfamiliar, TED-Ed has created a cohort experience for educators to develop their own TED talks over the last couple of years, and it’s led to a lot of great speeches for educators across the field. A plethora of organizations – including EduColor – have gotten a chance to nominate and advocate for educators from their networks to contribute ideas that can build towards a TED talk. From there, organizations work with TED to elevate their “ideas worth spre ..read more

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend EduCon in Philadelphia, PA. Principal – and friend – Chris Lehmann asked me to participate in the opening panel. Traditionally, the first panel has a set of big picture thinkers around a specific theme. This year, it was human-centered education, appropriate given the ascent of artificial intelligence, social media, and deeper polarization. Later that night, I started to think about the workshops I’d like to attend the next day. For anyone who has seen me do a presentation at a conference, you may know that I also participate in the conference ..read more

The following text is a combination of things that never happened, but may feel familiar. But if they feel familiar, it probably did happen, but I made it up so don’t tell anyone I actually said this. But if it did actually happen, that’s on the system and the actors who perpetuate the system, not on the folks who get mandated to enact wild policy that rarely if ever benefits kids. Please, and thanks. Scene 1: Mr. Vilson’s first official day is rarely the real first day because he spent about five days cleaning out his new room, the tenth time in 12 years he’d had to change classrooms. That’s ..read more

A few weeks ago, I had no intention of doing anything outside of my regular family/work duties. No meetings. No calls. Nothing. But last week, LuzMaria informed me of a special request. An elementary school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan had some student journalists who wanted to interview me about my life and work. I hesitated for a bit because I wanted to barrage her with the usual questions about budget, time, and “Why are you doing that on my birthday WHEN YOU KNOW …” I set that all aside and said, “OK, I’ll do it.” A few days later, I got a Zoom link. Magic. For context, I also felt ..read more

This past Saturday, I was doing some mindless scrolling through Instagram when I saw an announcement from one of my former students. Diamond – yes, a pseudonym – shared a post from her school highlighting that she was going to a great school for psychology. After a week of conducting six in-depth interviews nightly for six days with teachers from across the city, this felt redemptive. As I heard the hopes and travails of current classroom teachers, I too needed to reflect on my middle school teaching work. When I saw the post, I flashed back to a little girl in the seventh grade whose reputati ..read more

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a special professional development session on a snowy and icy day at PS 20 in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York. (Yes, my home neighborhood.) Even though I’ve technically been out of the classroom for three and a half years now, I still have the opportunity to visit schools on a regular basis. For this occasion, I got to see one of the best educators I’ve ever met facilitate a full room session about multilingual learners to teachers from across District 1. (Disclaimer: The facilitator also happens to be LuzMaria, my wife.) I’ve always had ..read more