Policy & Politics – Deborah Chang

Why It’s Not Enough to Not be Racist; Why We All Need To Be Actively Anti-Racist Instead

I once read an article that attempted to highlight people in the education space. Of the people who were highlighted, 0% appeared to be non-white and only 36% appeared to be women. I chose to email my disappoint to the author of the article and founder of the publication. Unfortunately, he was dismissive of my…

5 Surprising Books All Educators Should Read

The following is a list of books that have fundamentally changes the way I view education. They are not titles that will come up in a typical search of “books on education,” some of them don’t even mention education at all, and yet, they’ve undeniably shaped who I am and what I believe as an…

3 Education Blogs You’ll Want to Read

1. Teach for Us is a site where Teach for America teachers and alum post their thoughts on education. It has a fun mix of posts from current Teach for America teachers who are posting about their day to day lives, Teach for America alum who document their (inevitable) change in attitudes and beliefs about…

The First Necessary Ingredient in School Reform is Trust

One of the lessons I learned this year, that I did not realize before becoming a teacher, is that trust is paramount to the functioning of an effective school and school system. I teach at a school, for example, that does not give teacher tenure and that does not use last-in, first-out, to determine who…

Dialogue

I feel, sometimes, that people who care deeply about education often talk past each other instead of engaging with each other at a deeper level to work through disagreements in order to build solutions. It’s like there are two opposing sides just shouting at each other from across an imaginary line drawn in the sand…

Changing School Governance

Charter schools have largely been a niche operation, serving few students relative to the number of students served by traditional public school systems. Successful charter schools have also generally been seen as a specific intervention, a model for another, single, excellent school. However, the conversation has shifted in recent years to charter schools as structural…

Family First

I had been in a funk over the weekend and the first three days of the week. Literally, no desire to work, breaking down if anyone probed me on how I was doing, and basically feeling like nothing was going well. It was the worst I had felt since the first week of school.

Why Teach For America?

My students come on Monday. I am terrified. There is nothing like it, the first day of being a teacher in my own classroom, MY classroom. I have so much to do. My long term plan (LTP) is in shambles, because I may be completely changing the order I’ll be teaching units. My unit plan…