On his second day of teaching at Wheatley High School in Houston, former food influencer Darius Williams faced a problem that has plagued U.S. classrooms for decades: his students couldn’t read or write on grade level. But he didn’t call a colleague or email a district literacy specialist. Instead, ...

After Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey was released in theaters, Elon Musk declared he would use Grok to create a more “historically accurate” version of the ancient epic poem. The uproar over the film’s supposedly woke casting has been loud and sustained, but the people most upset have ignored a pre...

"What did Black people do to this administration that has allowed it to really stigmatize folks of color?" Whoopi Goldberg asked Vice President JD Vance last week, when he joined The View to discuss his new memoir. Rather than answer the question, Vance's first response was to feign ignorance. But h...

Earlier this month, the United States celebrated Teacher Appreciation Week, the one week during the year when a Starbucks discount is supposed to stand in for respect. This week is often filled with corporations praising teacher sacrifice, but the Department of Education had a different idea. Across...

When the Trump administration announced the Patriot Games, many people laughed. Selecting two children per state for a nationally televised sports competition looked too much like Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games to take seriously. But that instinct, to laugh rather than look closer, is one the Capitol...

Stop Building Ballrooms, Start Building Policy: The Missing Will for Gun Reform.

Late February brought two stories that most Americans filed under separate categories. In Kansas, the state government invalidated the driver's licenses and birth certificates of transgender residents, erasing legal identities with the stroke of a pen. In New York, a Columbia University neuroscience...

Gospel, this verse novel’s protagonist, is a Keeper in the Leaving Room, a space between life and death where she guides recently deceased children...

Banned Books Week just ended, but the fight it highlights continues every other week of the year. This year’s theme was Censorship is So 1984: Read for Your Rights, invoking George Orwell’s famous novel to warn against the dangers of banning books. It was a powerful rallying cry. But now that the we...

Democratic citizenship requires intellectual courage: the willingness to encounter perspectives that challenge our assumptions.

Rampant calls to avoid sharing the video of Charlie Kirk’s death have been swift and emphatic across social media. “We need to keep our souls clean,” journalists plead. “Where are social media’s content moderators?” “How did we get so desensitized?” The moral outrage is palpable; the demands for hum...

I have a BS in English Education, an MS in Curriculum & Instruction, and a PhD in Language and Literacy Education—degrees that taught me to decode complex texts, meet students where they are, and train future teachers to think critically.

In this verse novel with a basis in Caribbean folklore, fifteen-year-old Marisol and her mother, Lourdes, have recently emigrated from the Caribbean...

The images emerging from Los Angeles this week tell two very different stories. In one version, federal troops are maintaining law and order in response to dangerous disruptions in immigration enforcement. In another, peaceful protesters defending

The words Donald Trump and his underlings use for immigrants strip away their humanity and reduce them to dangerous caricatures worthy of fear rather than constitutional protection.

What once seemed like literary hyperbole has transformed into pedagogical reality as my students and I navigate an increasingly restricted intellectual landscape.

President Donald Trump has issued an executive order targeting the federal agency that provides critical support to libraries nationwide.

In a recent letter posted on the Department of Education website, newly appointed Secretary Linda McMahon claims, “there is nobody more qualified than a parent to make educational decisions for their children.” In addition to the latest layoffs of

Schools must be a place where students can question, debate, and think critically about the world around them. But the White House's K-12 executive order pushes the education system in the opposite direction.

Growing up in New Castle, Pennsylvania, where every public school received extra federal support due to the city’s high poverty levels, I saw the importance of governmental assistance. New Castle Area School District, one of the poorest in