Filter by:

Filter by published date

A row of colorful houses in New Orleans.

A Forgotten or Simply Erased History of Organized Labor

After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans replaced all its public schools with charter schools. A new book recovers the decades of work the storm disrupted.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) displays the signed Parental Rights in Education bill, also known as the "Don't Say Gay" law, while surrounded by elementary school students during a news conference on March 28.
partner

Conservatives’ Panic Over Teachers Misses How Little Freedom They Have

Calls for control over educators are manufactured political myths as they’ve never had the power to push an agenda.
Sarah L. Murphy teaches children in a two-room schoolhouse in Rockmart, Ga. on June 23, 1950.

The Ugly Backlash to Brown v. Board of Ed That No One Talks About

The 1954 Supreme Court ruling was hailed as a victory for desegregation. But protracted white resistance decimated the pipeline of Black principals and teachers.
Illustration of a classroom by Joan Yang.

Why Teachers Are Afraid to Teach History

The attacks on CRT have terrified our educators. But the public school system has always made it hard to teach controversial subjects.
Children learning about Thanksgiving, with model log cabin on table, Whittier Primary School, Hampton, Virginia circa 1900.

Fugitive Pedagogy

Jarvis Givens rediscovers the underground history of black schooling.
A class in Public School No. 8 on King Street, in New York City, discusses a book titled “We Love America,” brought to school by one of the pupils.

How Picking On Teachers Became an American Tradition

And why spying on the “bums” has been terrible for schools.
Tracy Ehlert, a substitute teacher, in a classroom
partner

Today’s Teacher Shortages are Part of a Longer Pattern

Until school boards and administrators listen to teachers, they’ll end up with shortages in every crisis.
Picture of the outdoor proceedings of the Scopes Trial in 1925.

Was David Domer Canceled?

A look in on the first evolution trial.
Black children learning in a classroom

What’s Missing From the Discourse About Anti-Racist Teaching

Black educators have always known that their students are living in an anti-Black world and that their teaching must be set against the order of that world.
Drawing of teacher colored red in front of blackboard, teaching two students sitting in desks

Did Communists Really Infiltrate American Schools?

Fears that teachers were indoctrinating kids were rampant in the 1950s. But the reality was more complicated.

Jonathan Edwards, Mentor

When we think of Jonathan Edwards, most probably think first of him as a theologian or preacher. But a new book also shows him as a mentor.
Illustration of money burning

Obituary for a Billion-Dollar Boondoggle

Nearly two decades ago, historians embraced a hugely wasteful federal education program. It’s past time to reckon with that.
partner

The Return of Teacher Power

We've all heard about Black Power, but what about Teacher Power–a teachers' rights movement recently reawakened?
Black and white girls in a classroom.

The Secret Network of Black Teachers Behind the Fight for Desegregation

African American educators became the ‘hidden provocateurs’ who spearheaded the push for racial justice in education.

Teacher Strikes Might Hurt Republicans This Time

Labor unrest harmed Democrats in the 1960s and 1970s. This time the GOP might be the loser.
Carver Junior High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

How to Keep a School Open

Two Carvers and the fight for fair desegregation.
Freedom School students sitting in a circle on the ground.
partner

60 Years Later, Freedom Schools Are Still Radical—and Necessary

The Freedom Schools curriculums developed in 1964 remain urgently needed, especially in our era of book bans and backlash.
First Lady Betty Ford poses atop of the cabinet's conference table.

First Lady In Motion

Betty Ford and the public eye.
At nighttime, the levels inside the Milton S. Eisenhower Library light up the windows, showing stacks of books and the silhouettes of students working at tables and lounging at chairs, from A Level to B Level and M Level at the top, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, 1965.

The Education Factory

By looking at the labor history of academia, you can see the roots of a crisis in higher education that has been decades in the making.
Book cover of Counterrevolution by Melinda Cooper.

A Tax Haven in a Heartless World: On Melinda Cooper’s “Counterrevolution”

Why should taxpayers fund schools that violate their own values, the Moms for Liberty wonder? A new book traces how this kind of thinking about public spending came to be.
Police officer sitting at the front of a classroom of kids.

Police Used the DARE Program to Get Inside of U.S. Schools

It was never very effective at preventing drug use.
Robert Smalls.

What a Teacher's Letters Reveal About Robert Smalls, Who Stole a Confederate Ship to Secure Freedom

Harriet M. Buss' missives home detail the future congressman's candid views on race and the complicity of Confederate women.
A Native American man wearing a cowboy hat.

Abbot Appointee Slams Brakes On American Indian/Native Studies Course

The course was getting a first read after years of review. Then, the Texas Board of Education needed more time to assess it without “drama or controversy.”
Illustration of hands signing the fingerspelling alphabet

Unlocking Reason: How the Deaf Created Their Own System of Communication

Exploring Deaf history, language and education as the hearing child of a Deaf adult.
Fred Dube at a 1981 UN meeting, “South African Women and Labour under Apartheid.”

The Silencing of Fred Dube

Forty years ago, the exiled South African activist dared to teach Zionism critically. A furious backlash ensued.
Children in a kindergarten classroom at the Horace Mann School, Tulsa, Okla., 1917.
partner

Yes, Schools Should Teach Morality. But Whose Morals?

Belief that schools must teach moral values is older than public schools themselves. But whose morals?
Henry Louis Gates Jr., Great Zimbabwe, circa 1996; photograph by Graham Smith.

Finding My Roots

The storytellers who taught me over the course of my career all knew how to bring Black history vividly to life.
An 18th-century building travels Feb. 10 from its location on the campus of William & Mary to Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area.
partner

Schools for Black American Children Predated the Revolution

Efforts in early America to educate Black children offer us a template for addressing educational inequality today.
1961 pamphlet for Florida's "Americanism vs. Communism" course.

The Long History of Conservative Indoctrination in Florida Schools

The top educational priorities in the Sunshine State were apparently reading, writing, and anti-communism.
The author (left) talks with a student at the dedication ceremony for Annette Gordon-Reed Elementary School, October 2022.

A Historian Makes History in Texas

In the 1960s, Annette Gordon-Reed was the first Black child to enroll in a white school in her hometown. Now she reflects on having a new school there named for her.

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person