COVER STORIES•Still Fighting For All Our Children
Free Editorial • Blowin’ in the Wind
By the editors of Rethinking Schools
We’ll need everything we’ve learned and built in the past 25 years to keep fighting for
social justice education.
Free The Birth of Rethinking Schools
By Bob Peterson
An excerpt from the autobiography of one of Rethinking Schools’ founders.
Rethinking Schools and the Power of Silver
By Christine Sleeter
A teacher educator reflects on the impact of Rethinking Schools.
Free For or Against Children?
The Problematic History of Stand for Children
By Ken Libby and Adam Sanchez
Originally an organization of parents fighting for better school funding, Stand for
Children has made an alarming U-turn. What’s up?
Free Trigger Laws • Does Signing a Petition Give Parents a Voice?
By David Bacon
Trigger laws are sweeping the country as a new strategy for bringing in charter schools.
This investigative report follows the trend from its California origins.
Patterns and Punctuation • Learning to Question Language
By Elizabeth Schlessman
A 5th-grade teacher adapts student-generated science inquiry to punctuation. Her goal:
to help students see punctuation as part of the creative process, not a series of rules to
memorize.
‘Before Today, I Was Afraid of Trees’ • Rethinking Nature Deficit Disorder
By Doug Larkin
A high school chemistry teacher takes his students to a city park to tap maple trees for
syrup. How can we build student comfort with the natural world without seeing city-
raised students as “deficient”?
Why the Best Kids’ Books Are Written in Blood
By Sherman Alexie
The award-winning author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian answers
critics who want to X-rate his young adult fiction as too violent.
What Do You Mean When You Say Urban? • Speaking Honestly About Race and Students
By Dyan Watson
“Urban” has become one of a series of euphemisms for African American and
Latina/o students. What preconceptions hide behind the language?
It’s OK to Be Neither • Teaching That Supports Gender-Variant Children
By Melissa Bollow Tempel
The everyday experiences of a 1st grader push a teacher to confront gender issues in the
classroom.
The New Model of Teacher Evaluation • How Would Ms. Frizzle Fare?
By Marni Barron and Leigh Dingerson
Remember The Magic School Bus? According to D.C.’s new teacher evaluation system,
even a teacher who takes her students to the moon is “less than effective.”
COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS
Free A Letter to Our Readers
By Bill Bigelow
ACTION EDUCATION • SOS March Builds Pushback to Corporate Reform
Stan Karp
Free GOOD STUFF • Keywords
By Herb Kohl
Free RESOURCES
Compiled by Bill Bigelow and Deborah Menkart
