As a parent, I cannot imagine the frustration, anger, and hopelessness of waking up your child every morning to attend a failing school. But what about the students? What does it mean to walk into a building every day thinking the school is failing not because of teachers or administrators, nor a sociopolitical history of dark communities being intentionally destabilized, terrorized, and put into a carceral state, but because of your dark skin? A good number of my students in Homestead, especially those whose second language was English—language being a critical component of a person’s
...more
