Equity initiatives and critical race theory (CRT) have recently emerged as an urgent agenda for K-12 schools. Jung-ah Choi argues that CRT is a useful framework but that teaching CRT principles to young children may have deleterious effects. In particular, it could undermine two bedrock notions: educational equality and meritocracy. It is not…

In the wake of school shootings, attention invariably turns to how to make schools safer. But many of the strategies intended to secure schools against external threats yield unintended negative consequences for marginalized students, exacerbating racial and other inequalities. Meg Caven advocates for a definition of school safety that centers on…

Schools across the country are grappling with vocal resistance to educational equity efforts, while disparities, including racial disproportionality in school discipline, persist. In this research-practice-partnership project, Adai A. Tefera, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, Ashlee Sjogren, and David Naff learned of the ways educators and leaders across…

There is a cultural mismatch between teachers and students in classrooms across the U.S. that, despite teachers' best intentions, too often leads to student harm. Mentors are uniquely positioned to interrupt conscious and unconscious bias that leads to inequitable practices but often have difficulty holding the necessary hard conversations. Among…

Maine's Portland Public Schools has for years been committed to racial equity, but that commitment has been both an asset and a barrier to making the district hospitable to educators of color. The district's progressive and anti-racist stance led many white educators to assume that their colleagues did not experience interpersonal or institutional…