Untold Stories: Bringing Class into the Classroom
By: Adj Marshal and Betsy Leondar-Wright Students often respond with confusion to questions about social class—not surprising given the common assumption that the US is... Read More
Happy Day Before Payday!
While summer 2018 has been a scorcher, the high for February 1st and 2nd made it to 11º in Kari Fisher’s hometown in Minnesota, and single... Read More
Trump’s First Year: Did the Working-Class Benefit?
Donald Trump ran for president on a populist and inclusionary platform. As he campaigned across the country, he appealed to increasingly larger numbers of Americans... Read More
At What Price Common Core?
In the Kindergarten Classroom For decades, five-year-olds have been entering kindergarten with varying levels of academic proficiency. Some might be able to read. Others may... Read More
Mental Health Diagnoses
Through a Classist Lens
Many people believe that you’re born with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). As a person who has been diagnosed with ADHD myself and treated with Ritalin... Read More
Classism: Not Exactly Sporting
Cheering, Chanting, and Clapping – for Classism? My daughter went to public schools in Milton, Mass, which is an economically diverse suburb right outside Boston.... Read More
A Hard Lesson about Free Money
“Congratulations, you have been awarded a scholarship by your high school foundation. You are invited to attend awards night and be recognized for your achievement,”... Read More
Is That What They Would Say?: Home Knowledge vs. School Knowledge
Two incidents from my school years illustrate the clash between home experience and school assumptions. In second grade, I was drawing in my Alice and... Read More
Privatizing Driver’s Ed: a Lesson in Disenfranchisement
When I went to high school in Wisconsin, Driver’s Ed was a required course, first in the classroom where we learned in-depth about rules and... Read More
The Unlevel Playing Field of High School Sports
I grew up thinking that even if some people were born to great privilege and others were born into much more challenging circumstances, there was... Read More
Summertime and the livin’ is (not always) easy
In many classrooms across the country this fall, students will be asked to respond to the age-old prompt, “What did you do on your summer... Read More
Humiliation at School Should Be a Thing of the Past
Dozens of children at a Utah elementary school had their lunch trays snatched away from them before they could take a bite last month. Salt... Read More
“Bring Enough for Everyone”: What We Lose When We Lose Public Education
Did your schoolteachers say, “Don’t bring [candy, toys, coveted items] to school unless you bring enough for everyone”? Mine did. Maybe they recognized how incapable... Read More
Philly School Crisis Meets Pushback
While a group of determined teachers, parents and community activists rallied a small crowd in front of South Philadelphia High School on a rainy weekday,... Read More
Louis Vuitton & Me
I came home one day and saw my apartment number posted on the “parcel received” board. I said to myself, “that’s weird, I didn’t order... Read More
Wealthy Kids Pulling Away: Accelerating Privilege, Compounding Disadvantage
How does the system of class advantage reproduce itself, generation after generation? Let me count the ways. I have an article in the latest issue... Read More
Class & My Identity as a Woman of African Descent
Class was a confusing issue for me. Despite that, I never doubted for a moment that my race intersected with my class in a profound... Read More
Roadblocks and Detours: Classism En Route to Drivers Ed
I was shocked when a well-known environmentalist criticized my students’ campaign to make drivers education accessible to low-income students. The campaign ran into a lot... Read More
Leaving the Cafeteria: an Outsider’s Perspective on Intercity Students
One of my greatest privileges of my high school and college education was not the fact that I went to accredited institutions, nor the fact... Read More
A Small Fish in a Big Pond
Junior year of high school, I was informed, was the most crucial one in laying out the roadway towards college. As one who was raised... Read More
Inciting critical thinking in 8th graders: An inspiring ‘Created Equal’ story
“The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot. And then, just possibly, hopefully, it goes on.” — Audre Lorde A deep conversation about... Read More
Shame, School Lunch, and Passing
When I was in sixth grade, my family was eligible for free school lunches. I attended a small country school, without much class diversity, mostly... Read More
New classism book holds the keys to movement-building
Barb Jensen was a rebellious teenager. When she tells her own stories in her new book Reading Classes, readers can vicariously enjoy her mouthing off... Read More
The Dreams of Poor and Working-Class Students
I was half-listening to the radio last week when I heard an interviewer ask a question that made me pause in my work to listen. ... Read More
Class Reproduction by Four Year Olds
I watched how class played out in a preschool classroom, creating disadvantages for the already disadvantaged and privileges for those born into privilege. I spent... Read More
Hiding the lunch ticket
I was an outsider at my junior high school. Why was I ashamed of my family’s poverty? When my family lost its small business and... Read More
Remember When It Was Poster Board?: Computer Technologies and School Disadvantage
Remember when it was the poster board? I do. I remember my elementary school classmates—Russell, Missy, Jake—who could never afford it, who would raise their... Read More
A 4th of July Declaration of Dependence
It’s no small irony that on the 4th of July weekend our nation’s largest union surrendered a chunk of its independence. At their annual meeting... Read More
Moving the Bar
At first glance, I thought that it was just another article about disappointing test scores. I almost didn’t click through to read it, in part... Read More
From a Teenage Class Action Fan
My name is Liora and I’m fourteen years old. I’ve attended public schools my whole life except for the last year and half when I... Read More
Learning about Class in Private School?
Like parents everywhere, we wanted to give our teenage daughter advantages we never had. High on our list was to provide her a much clearer... Read More
Class in the Classroom
There is a loud silence about social class in U.S. public schools. The silence was deafening on the first day of the course I recently... Read More
Visioning Our Way to Justice
I grew up in poverty, the daughter of a tenant farmer. I thought people were privileged if they lived in a house, had running water... Read More
Defending my vibrant neighborhood
Recently four people were killed about ten houses away from where I grew up in Mattapan, a neighborhood of Boston. The neighborhood was maligned by... Read More
Why don’t schools do more to stop bullying?
I have been reading (I am sure you have too) about the many cases of bullying and the awful consequences of being a target for... Read More
The Bus Stops Here
I have two little boys; they are very bright, good boys. They have never had a babysitter and maybe I have been a little over... Read More
A Wealth of Whammies for Youth in Poverty
It is unjust enough that scores of young people in the United States are denied basic human rights; that even in a country which paints... Read More
The Politics of “Waiting for Superman”
I fidgeted throughout the film Waiting for Superman, through the bells and whistles, the graphs, the close-ups of the five cute kids and their caring... Read More
Beware of Cabinet Officers Bearing “Gifts”
“We already have the privatization of the military…; we’ve seen the privatization of the prison system. Well, the next step is the privatization of public... Read More