Personal Investments, Professional Gains: Strategies of African American Women Teacher Educators

As African American mothers and teacher educators, the authors’ investment in teacher education is both personal and professional. The authors’ build upon these personal and professional investments in their teaching practices with primarily White pre-service teachers, in the hopes of better preparing them to teach African American children. This paper outlines pedagogical and curriculum strategies including reflective activities, the use of Black English Vernacular (BEV), and theoretical orientations. These strategies emphasize the a) political nature of teaching and the ways in which teacher positionality matters; b) importance of interpersonal relationships based on care, respect, and recognition of humanity; and, c) experiences students of color have in school and community

Advocating for African American Students: Cultural Perspectives on Best Practices

We are in revolutionary situation, no matter how unpopular that word may be. You must understand that in the attempt to correct so many generations of bad faith and cruelty, when it is operating not only in the classroom but in society, you will meet the most fantastic, the most brutal, and the most deter-mined resistance. James Baldwin, A Talk to Teacher

NEPC Review: Ten Years in New Orleans: Public School Resurgence and the Path Ahead

A recent report published by two organizations, Public Impact and New Schools for New Orleans, reviews the ten years of education reform in post-Katrina New Orleans, and the creation of a &ldquo;portfolio model&rdquo; of school governance. While the report acknowledges some of the critiques of these reforms, it exaggerates improvements and inaccurately downplays the ways that the reforms created and, in some cases, exacerbated inequities. In addition, the report erroneously presents the reforms as the result of a logical and apolitical process that simply recasts the role of government in public education, changing from the manager or operator of schools to &ldquo;a regulator of educational outcomes and equity,&rdquo; with operation turned over to a variety of non-profit organizations. Finally, the report overstates its claims of post-Katrina academic gains in New Orleans, evidence for which is scant and has significant limitations, particularly due to the repeated changes in test-score standards across the decade. For these reasons, the report does little to accurately inform the lay public or scholars about the current state and future of public education in New Orleans or the viability of &ldquo;portfolio&rdquo; districts.</p

Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a body of scholarship steeped in radical activism that seeks to explore and challenge the prevalence of racial inequality in society. Central to CRT is the understanding that race and racism are the product of social thought and power relations. Racism is understood to operate through structures and assumptions that appear entirely normal and unremarkable to most people in society. Scholars of CRT work, therefore, to challenge and expose dominant narratives of race that permit and legitimise the existence of racism

Handbook of Critical Race Theory in Education

This handbook illustrates how education scholars employ Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a framework to bring attention to issues of race and racism in education. It is the first authoritative reference work to provide a truly comprehensive description and analysis of the topic, from the defining conceptual principles of CRT in the Law that gave shape to its radical underpinnings to the political and social implications of the field today. It is divided into three sections, covering innovations in educational research, policy and practice in both schools and in higher education, and the increasing interdisciplinary nature of critical race research. With 28 newly commissioned pieces written by the most renowned scholars in the field, this handbook provides the definitive statement on the state of critical race theory in education and on its possibilities for the future

THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL A CRT Story

This chapter talks about critical race theory (CRT) in educational scholarship more than ten years after the presentation of that initial paper and offers recommendations for scholars interested in building on and moving beyond the theoretical project. Most academic movements are restricted to college campuses, think tanks, policy consortiums, etc. The rapid expansion of digital media in conjunction with the hallmarks of CRT storytelling methodology, legal insights and historical analysis related to racial reform proved a powerful combination. The chapter illustrates that to understand race and how it operates requires an understanding of truth, morality, and in particular, ethics. It expresses that the effects of intergenerational achievement and wealth are vital constructs that will assist scholars of race in fundamental problem solving and thinking related to engineering positive change in schools

Where are We? Critical Race Theory in Education 20 Years Later

This article explores the territory that has been covered since the publication of Ladson-Billings and Tate\u27s 1995 article, “Toward a Critical Race Theory in Education.” We organize our review of the CRT literature is organized around what we are calling CRT “boundaries.” We identify six boundaries for CRT and education: 1) CRT in education argues that racial inequity in education is the logical outcome of a system of achievement presided on competition; 2) CRT in education examines the role of education policy and educational practices in the construction of racial inequity and the perpetuation of normative whiteness; 3) CRT in education rejects the dominant narrative about the inherent inferiority of people of color and the normative superiority of white people; 4) CRT in education rejects ahistoricism and examines the historical linkages between contemporary educational inequity and historical patterns of racial oppression; 5) CRT in education engages in intersectional analyses that recognize the ways that race is mediated by and interacts with other identity markers (i.e., gender, class, sexuality, linguistic background, and citizenship status); 6) CRT in education agitates and advocates for meaningful outcomes that redress racial inequity. CRT does not merely document disparities. We suggest that these core ideas provide a framework for analyzing the work that has been done in education in the past and a way to determine what might be left to do

INTRODUCTION: Critical Race Theory and Education: Singing a “New” Song

The goal of this chapter goal is to map critical race theory (CRT) scholarship in education over the past decade and draw this map with respect to larger conceptual categories of the scholarship on CRT, primarily focusing on the ideas applied from CRT in legal studies. The chapter focuses primarily on the past 10 years and creates “spatial” markers based on the view of significant features in the literature. Some of these markers are whiteness as property, counternarrative, and interest convergence. Others are newly-represented such as microaggressions, intersectionality, and research methods. From the perspective of far too many students of color in schools, we are STILL not saved. While the chapter outlines several recommendations for CRT scholarship to move forward, perhaps the most important recommendation is to collectively seek to ensure that CRT becomes more than an intellectual movement

Down by the Riverside: A CRT Perspective on Education Reform in Two River Cities

In this article, the authors utilize core ideas from Critical Race Theory (CRT) to examine the nature of education reform in two river cities. Similar to other cases of education reform in urban districts, the reforms in the two focal cities reflect at least four characteristics in common: (1) a form of portfolio management; (2) the growth of human-capital organizations; (2) the active involvement of philanthropic organizations; and (4) the role of politics. The authors consider these conditions in light of concepts from CRT and argue that this analysis provides insight into the burden of reform in urban schools