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- Channeling Collective Fury into Fat Justice Is the Transformational Power We Need: Part 2
- Channeling Collective Fury into Fat Justice Is the Transformational Power We Need: Part 1
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Category: Lift Us Up, Don’t Push Us Out!
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By Christian Coleman | It’s back-to-school season, and the US is still upset by its own sense of identity. James Baldwin knew all about it. In his “Talk to Teachers,” he said that if we changed the curriculum in all schools so that Black students learned more about themselves and their real contributions to US…
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By Brandon Johnson | In 2012 the CTU went on strike for the first time in twenty-five years. We prepared our members to take this step by, first, making the case that we could better protect our profession by defending public education and our children. Second, we put forward a real plan for what schools…
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Fighting for Teachers, Children, and Their Parents: Building a Social Justice Teachers’ Union—Part I
By Brandon Johnson | The moment you sign up to become a teacher in the Chicago public school system you become an advocate, because you’re always searching for opportunities to meet the needs of your students. The system often falls short—from classroom materials, to reading and math support, to social and emotional development. Most schools…
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This summer, the uprisings for racial justice and the marches for Black lives have been heartening. And believe me, we need something to root for during our pandemic timeline. This wake-up call to reckon with systemic racism and to dismantle it—and there have been many before—is ringing loud and clear. Now we need that same…
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A Q&A with Mark Warren by Stephen Abbott | The school-to-prison pipeline refers to a systemic problem that disproportionately affects students in low-income communities and communities of color. It often begins with zero-tolerance discipline, where children, and particularly Black and brown children, are suspended and often expelled for minor behavioral infractions. Once they’re expelled, they’re…
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With the diploma in hand and the graduation cap thrown jubilantly into the air, the question remains: What’s the next step? Graduation heralds new beginnings and transition. But where and how to start? How should we prepare for the future when the world around us changes on a compulsory basis? In his book Don’t Knock…
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By Mark Warren | I am a college professor, but started off as a college dropout. And the story of my rocky road through the academy helps explain why I wrote a book on educational justice movements. I grew up in a segregated community in the ’50s and ’60s—an all-white segregated community, that is. It…
Beacon Broadside 