Educational spaces, like the rest of the nation's current policy arenas, have become a contentious terrain where ideological and political battles are fought and particular futures won. This article is written in the aftermath of the atrocity at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, in August 2017, where racism, racial rage, hate, violence,…

Considerable research on African American males (AAMs) in American schools over the past ten years shows that they are underrepresented in every positive measure of educational outcomes, and overrepresented in every negative measure. Many educators have developed low expectations, deficit thinking, and implicit biases toward AAMs and their…

Challenging and confronting educational systems and structures, the vast majority of which come from a place of privilege, is uncomfortable but necessary. Education, from early childhood to post-secondary, should challenge and address the racial inequities that inevitably characterize such systems and structures. Yet, we do not always do this…

Black and Latino men pay a heavy price for the structural inequities they face, such as higher rates of poverty, incarceration, and unemployment. New York City's Young Men's Initiative, a combination of new programs and policy reforms, seeks to mitigate some of the effects of these inequitable conditions on young men of color. The educational…

The Becoming A Man (BAM) program is a school-based group counseling and mentoring program run by Youth Guidance (YG), a community organization that serves children in Chicago schools who are at risk. BAM guides young men to learn, internalize, and practice social cognitive skills, make responsible decisions for their future, and become positive…

Boston Public Schools' system-wide professional development on culturally and linguistically sustaining practices (CLSP) creates consistent expectations for educators to address their biases, build relationships with students and parents, and improve instruction--and gives them the tools to do so. In this article, the authors touch on changes at…

Austin Independent School District (AISD) and the University of Texas's Project MALES began a partnership to design a mentoring system for young men of color in hopes of improving the the matriculation and sustainability of this group in college by addressing the social, economic, and cultural obstacles impacting these young men. This strong…

The authors set out to organize a small convening of educator-researcher teams from across seven districts engaged in My Brother's Keeper (MBK) efforts. Their goals were to gather a small enough number of participants to ensure deep conversation in a convening long enough to foster authentic connections among us, and to include mechanisms to…

The Office of Black Male Student Achievement (OBMSA) of Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), established in 2014, is one of the first in the country. The innovative work of the OBMSA is centered on student voice and student thought. After getting input from parents and families, community members, educators, and young Black males themselves, the…

Following the election of Donald Trump, the author, his wife, and colleagues from the Annenberg Institute for Social Reform (AISR) experienced different forms of apprehension: "anxious" apprehension, which can also be a moment of activist birth that sets the stage for a new level of consciousness to be awakened; "critical"…

The author believe it is clear that Trump has only really one stated goal--to expand choice through charters and vouchers, with a frame around privatization--and that we can look to his own experiences with Trump University's for-profit approach to providing education for some clues. We can anticipate that the framing for the proposals will…

In this article, the author asks the question: what are the real implications of living in a Trump America? He thinks as it relates to public education, people see this as a call to really stand up, and say, "Our schools will be safe places. Our schools will be sanctuaries. We will have good public schools in our communities, and we will…

This article presents an interview with three high school seniors who discuss the highest priorities for their activism, advice they would give to other student and adult activists, and what they would like to pass on to younger student activists right now as they look toward the next four years.

What the election result highlighted for the author is that we definitely need to create broader senses of coalition among many different peoples, whether they be Native American people at Standing Rock, or the Black Lives Matter Movement or our Dreamers--anyone who has been disenfranchised. These are the folks who we need to start building…

Municipal officials know that education is tied to quality of life and public safety; cities are better off when more people are well-educated. Mayors across the country are dedicating staff to focus on key education issues--to work on partnerships between school districts, their colleges and universities, and to create multi-sector partnerships…