Portside

Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.

Three things that could become illegal in my Philadelphia classroom if Pennsylvania House Bill 1532 becomes law: analyzing the original text of the U.S. Constitution, reading Martin Luther King Jr.’s writing, and discussing inequitable school funding

Charter schools don’t improve education outcomes. But they do funnel taxpayer money into the pockets of unscrupulous — often criminal — school operators. It’s a national disgrace that needs to end.

If race is largely a social construct, then teaching children about it will only perpetuate racism — right? Wrong: Studies show precisely the opposite.

A world unraveling amid smoke and death and how one teacher and her students dealt with it. The pandemic served as a stark reminder of at least two things: that the nuclear family is not enough and that schools can’t be its sole safety net.

The data analysis was conducted before a new, more contagious strain of the coronavirus had been documented in the U.S.

I sincerely plead with my colleagues, to surrender the artificial constructs that measure achievement and greet the children where they are, not where we think they “should be.”

For all women who have lost their jobs during this pandemic, Black women and Latinas who perform the bulk of essential work during lockdown, for all Black and Brown elders who have lost their lives, capitalism is their preexisting condition.