Black to School: The Rising Struggle to Make Black Education Matter

A world where Black lives matter and Black education is empowering will not come easily. It won't be funded by benevolent philanthropists. It won't be promoted by corporate lobbyists or legislated by the politicians they own. It will only happen with an uprising beyond even the scale and militancy of the last century's civil rights and Black Power movements. The contradictions of unhinged police murder of Black people in the "land of the free," coupled with corporate education reformers' racist schooling policies enacted in the name of "closing the achievement gap," are already producing large-scale, renewed social unrest. The question of how powerful this movement grows is up to us.

“The reforms are introduced with blood”–A Oaxaca teacher on the life and death struggle against the testocracy

The teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico have been setting the international standard for social movement unionism and the defense of public education for many years. In her 2005 release of Granito de Arena, my friend, award-winning Seattle filmmaker Jill Freidberg, captured the story of hundreds of thousands of public schoolteachers in Oaxaca who have built a powerful …

Continue reading “The reforms are introduced with blood”–A Oaxaca teacher on the life and death struggle against the testocracy

“More Than a Score” TEDx Talk: Jesse Hagopian on the uprising against high-stakes testing and for a meaningful education

I recently gave this talk titled, "More Than a Score," for the TEDx  Rainer event at Seattle's McCaw Hall theater.  In this talk I advocate for the great uprising against reducing our children to a test score and I make an argument to opt in to authentic assessments--not only because it will better engage students, …

Continue reading “More Than a Score” TEDx Talk: Jesse Hagopian on the uprising against high-stakes testing and for a meaningful education

Gentrifying Black History

City blocks in prime locations aren’t the only things gentrified. It is also happening in our classrooms and books, pushing out the past, erasing the lives and struggles of African Americans from our collective memory.

“It’s about collective struggle”: Interview with Jesse Hagopian on education & the movement for Black Lives

As the one-year anniversary of a Seattle police officer pepper spraying me on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day approaches, I sat down with the Seattle Weekly reporter, Casey Jaywork, to discuss ongoing struggles for social justice. Here are my reflections on police brutality, the intersection of race and class, and disrupting the school-to-prison-pipeline. --- Teacher …

Continue reading “It’s about collective struggle”: Interview with Jesse Hagopian on education & the movement for Black Lives