Table of Contents

ON PERSPECTIVE [AN INTRODUCTION]3
PLEASE PUT YOUR PENCILS DOWN9
PRELUDE TO A HURRICANE20
CAN IT BE THAT IT WAS ALL SO SIMPLE THEN?32
A SYNOPSIS OF THE ROAD LESS WANTED44
FALSE KINGS54
THE ANSWER65
The Post-TFA Assessment72
BLUE MAGIC80
THE HOMEROOM IS A HOME87
SNITCHES OPEN STITCHES96
ON THE REASON WHY YOU DON’T SEE MORE BLACK / LATINO TEACHERS ... YET102
THE FINE ART OF THE CLASSROOM JOKE117
WHAT HAPPENED123
IT DOESN’T MATTER WITH ME NOW132
RACE AND EDUCATION WRITING IN THE 21ST CENTURY139
TECHNICALLY, IT’S CALLED CONVENIENT IGNORANCE147
WHY YOU POST-RACIALISTS GET IT WRONG … AGAIN153
BAND OF BROTHERS159
GOD GOT JOKES (THE CASE OF 702)172
IT’S THE LIFE180
GENESIS OF A NEMESIS187
WHITE NOISE (ON BEHALF OF RUBEN REDMAN)193
GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD198
A CAUTIONARY NOTE TO BURGEONING TEACHER LEADERS [THE EAGLE VS THE HUMMINGBIRD]206
CONSIDER TEACHING211
ON THE STATE OF TEACHER VOICE216
AFTERWORD232

The conversation about turning around failing schools is in the national spotlight, and that spotlight is often focused on schools that black and brown children attend. Certain proposals to improve urban schools generate lots of headlines: expanding charter schools, funding school vouchers, using student test scores to evaluate, promote and pay teachers. But race is seldom considered as a tool for remedying educational woes.

In public schools across the country, students are spending more and more time taking standardized tests--at a cost of untold millions of dollars at a time when schools have been starved of scarce resources. But parents, students and teachers are organizing to resist the testing frenzy.

Our schools remain segregated and bastions of poverty because of economic and social policies that for centuries have prevented adequate access to equal resources. As the nation looks to raise test scores, we should also look carefully at what role teachers have on children’s views of themselves and their communities.