By Morna McDermott McNulty This is post eight in the No Art Left Behind series. See an overview and links to the rest of the series here. “Struggle is par for the course when our dreams go into action. But unless we have the space to imagine and a vision for what it means to fully realize our humanity, all the …
By Anthony Cody. There is less than a month to go before the third annual Network for Public Education conference in Raleigh, North Carolina. These are always special events, but this year will be especially significant because of the focus on civil rights. The full conference schedule is online now here. Here are …
By Anthony Cody. With her ill-informed remarks on school closures, Hillary Clinton set off a bit of a firestorm among education activists. Her full remarks have been posted by Valerie Strauss, so there is no question what she said, and as Peter Greene points out, context does not help much. She clearly thinks …
By John Thompson. While I disagree with PBS’s ombudsman, Michael Getler, I believe we should take his statement on John Merrow’s News Hour finale as a learning experience opportunity for education activists. Then we can make it a teachable moment for the non-education press. Merrow closed his illustrious …
By Anthony Cody. The shocking video of an African American high school girl being violently grabbed and slammed to the ground has been seen and shared millions of times over the past few days. Most are sickened by what we see. This incident is sparking a much needed discussion over the use of police to respond to …
greBy Christine Brigid Malsbary. Several days before writing this blog post, I visited a 12th grade class that I have been following since the beginning of their 11th grade year. I am a researcher and I study how education policy affects teachers and students in their daily lives. The youth I work with are all …
By Michelle Gunderson. The hunger strike for Dyett High School ended this morning on day 34. Once again I headed to the south side to be with my friends and fellow education fighters known as the Dyett Twelve. Education activists had been told that the hunger strikers would have an announcement this morning, and …
By Michelle Gunderson. We sit under the trees at Dyett High School yet again on Sunday night. The Dyett 12 hunger strikers sit in a tight circle while a crowd of over a hundred of Chicago’s activists listen in. I know almost every face in this crowd. They are people who understand struggle and know what the word …
By Michelle Gunderson. A circle of ten people sit outside Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office demanding a meeting with the mayor. They have not taken solid food for 12 days. The Dyett hunger strikers ask that a decision be made regarding their proposal to keep the only open enrollment high school in the Bronzeville …
By John Thompson. The famed novelist, Toni Morrison, writes: I’ve been wondering who might fill in the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died. Clearly it is Ta-Nehisi Coates. The language of Between the World and Me, like Coates’s journey is visceral, eloquent, and beautifully redemptive. …
