The “Spirit” of House Bill 1775

Laws best serve the public interest when the literal reading of the words of any particular piece of legislation accurately reflect the intent behind the authoring of that legislation. The literal reading of the law is sometimes referred to as the “letter” of the law. The intent of the law is sometimes referred to as …

I Was the Ideal Beneficiary of School Choice Policies

I grew up poor and white in the American South in the 1980’s. My dad pastored numerous small rural churches in southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana. We moved on average every 3-4 years throughout my childhood. In December of 1991, we moved from Star City, Arkansas, population 2,000, to Nashville, Tennessee, where I began the …

White Privilege and School Choice Critique

The School Choice Movement undeniably forms the centerpiece legacy of the program of “massive resistance” to school desegregation in the United States in the late 1950s. Any white person advocating for school choice policies today is 1.) ignorant of this history, 2.) acting on implicit and explicit racial bias, 3.) openly taking advantage of the …

Trauma Informed Schools: The New ‘New Paternalism’

In 1997, New York University professor, Lawrence M. Mead, edited a book entitled “The New Paternalism: Supervisory Approaches to Poverty.” Mead’s work, spanning more than 30 years, has been highly influential in the implementation of draconian and ineffective work requirements for government assistance programs. “The New Paternalism” directly inspired noted education reformer, David Whitman, to …

The Schemers, Accomplices, and Pawns of Every Charter School

Charter schools are destined to be viewed by future generations as having been on “the wrong side of history.” But like other current education reforms, on the surface at least, charter schools seem like a good idea to a variety of people. Proponents of charter schools range from conservatives to progressives and from corporations to …

Dos and Don’ts of Teaching American Slavery (for White Educators)

The Southern Poverty Law Center and Teaching Tolerance recently released a report entitled, “Teaching Hard History: American Slavery.” It is essential reading for all teachers; all subjects and all grade levels. The companion podcast series of the same name is equally valuable for educators. For U.S history teachers, like myself, that teach American slavery as …

No Space in Public Schools for Teaching Alt-right Ideology

A recent HuffPost exclusive titled, “Florida Public School Teacher Has A White Nationalist Podcast,” details how a 7th grade social studies teacher in Crystal River, Florida, moonlights under a pseudonym as a podcaster, young adult novelist, and a rather public figure with a considerable presence and following in the alt-right media. The website Angry White …

The Role of White Teachers in Educational Equity

The legacies of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the landmark cases of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and Brown v. Board of Education (1954) tell the complicated history of the love-hate relationship between U.S. law and the word “equality.” Today, through a process known as “resegregation,” it is clear once again that in …

‘Take Your Hood Off’ and Other Teacher Microaggressions

In 2008, David Whitman, future speech writer for early Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan, coined the term “paternalistic school” to describe what we now know as “no nonsense” charter schools. Whitman, a proponent of education reform, chose the word “paternalistic” as a flattering moniker for the movement. In an essay entitled “An Appeal to Authority” …

Where Should White Teachers Teach?

The latest data shows that slightly less than 50% of America’s students are white, while the percentage of white teachers, though slowly trending downward, remains near 80% (USDOE). Combine these numbers with the reality that our schools are more segregated now than they have been in decades, and that means that my situation is far …