Social movements 2.0

Originally posted on November 11, 2011

Technology is changing the ways in which people communicate their thoughts and experience their surroundings. Augmented reality apps, for instance, add layers of information to places like museum exhibits and sporting events. Twitter connects individuals to trends. Social networking sites provide quick access to information about nearby places including parks and movie theaters.

In their new book Net Locality: Why Location Matters in a Networked World, Eric Gordon and Adriana de Souza e Silva explore the implications of location-based technologies and information. They write, “The street is no longer limited to the perceptual horizon of the person walking down it. A network of information that is accessible through a mobile device augments it. The provinciality of the small town, physically isolated from the rest of the world, is potentially cosmopolitan because of the integration of information into its streets” (p 3). In short, we are now living in a blended world of physical and digital realities.

In high school, my history teacher described globalization as a sweeping force. The economies of nation-states intertwined. Capitalistic forces subsumed entire political and cultural systems. And, McDonalds restaurants ended up in once-rural African villages. Sitting at my desk with a textbook that stopped at the fall of the Berlin Wall, I remember thinking that the globalization process seemed to contain equal parts mystery and magic. I couldn’t connect my small-town experiences with the reality of a globalizing world.

Technology and connectivity, however, have transformed everything. We live in a world where the relationship between local and global is changing. Need proof? Consider the rebellions in the Middle East or Occupy movements across the globe. Social media now makes social movements both possible and effective; control of information flows equates to social, cultural, and political power.

Net Locality is a timely book that reimagines the relationship between the physical and digital and highlights the promise and peril of location-based technology. Just think: The same technology that allows you to know your friend just checked-in at a nearby restaurant may facilitate a widespread social movement to end concentrated poverty.

Adaptive strategies and underground economies in the 21st century

Originally posted on November 01, 2011

I.

In 1974, Carol Stack published All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community. The groundbreaking ethnography chronicled the adaptive strategies of poor African American families. Stack provided thick descriptions of women struggling to raise their children. In doing so, she indicted poverty as pathology and inadequate public policies.

Since then, ethnographers have continued to explore adaptive strategies, including underground economies. Sandra Smith’s Lone Pursuit: Distrust and Defensive Individualism Among the Black Poor, for instance, studies the affects of joblessness among African Americans in Michigan. Sudhir Venkatesh’s Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor examines the creative methods residents in the Southside of Chicago use to make money. These books, and many others, illustrate the effects of social inequality on marginalized populations.

But, considering adaptive strategies, what is the role of technology? From my current study, initial findings indicate that teenagers from low-income households are using technology in sophisticated, entrepreneurial ways. I present two snapshots to illustrate my point.

II.

Chuck, a seventeen-year-old senior at a traditional high school in South LA, lives with his grandmother. He has a 1.9 grade point average. He loves skateboarding and dancing. Every few weeks, he invites his “cameraman,” who is also his friend, to tape him as he jerks in the driveway. Chuck, with tattoos covering his arms and chest, moves rhythmically with the music. Afterwards, they upload the video to YouTube. Chuck, who has over 2,300 friends on Facebook, later tells me, “I have my friends advertise for me, especially the girls. It’s important to have a big network.” By the end of the week, the video has over 5,000 hits. Chuck meets his quota. In a few weeks, he will receive shirts and shoes from his sponsor.

Mario, an eighteen-year-old senior at a continuation high school in South LA, lives with his mom and dad. He has a 2.0 grade point average. He loves drawing and tagging. At night, he cleans office buildings with his father. On weekends, he travels from house to house to groom dogs. He received a credential from a local community college. I ask him if he will come out to Culver City: “Yeah, no problem. I’ll go wherever. It’s $10.” Mario also plans and promotes parties. He finds a house, gets a DJ, and then advertises on Facebook. His profile picture is the latest party he’s promoting. I ask how much he makes. “A lot,” he says.

III.

Chuck and Mario receive free or reduced lunch and live in a low-income neighborhood. They are average to below average students. Chuck may gain acceptance to a California State University campus through the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP). Mario, who has not met all of his high school requirements, will have to attend community college or a trade school. By most standards, their academic achievement has been lackluster. And yet, both are digital entrepreneurs. They exploit the creative possibilities of technology to earn goods or money. They re-define adaptive strategies in the 21st century.

After-school activities improve college access and save lives

Originally posted on October 04, 2011.

Last Friday, I sat in a trailer at Madison Continuation High School, one of my field sites in South Los Angeles. Teachers and administrators in the district call the school an “emergency room.” “Once the students get to us,” said the principal,” they’re in desperate need of some love and care.”

In front of me was a thick binder with student schedules. For the past 15 minutes, I received bad news as the teacher’s assistant reported that student after student was absent. Mrs. Rainard, an all-purpose administrator, said, “Oh, I should have told you: A lot of students don’t come on Fridays. Who’s next on the list?”

“Alberto Morales,” I said.

“That boy is a pot-head. He’s also as old as water,” joked Mrs. Rainard.

A few minutes later, Alberto walked through the door. I met Alberto once before to explain my study. He was skeptical of me and in a daze. As I began the interview on Friday, however, he was friendly and lucid.

I asked Alberto, whose GPA was around 1.8, about college: “Oh yeah, I want to go to college. I take classes right now. Silk screening. I made this shirt.”

He excitedly took his backpack off to show me the back: a woman smoking a bong.

Over the next 30 minutes, he told me about his life. I heard stories about fights, tagging, and beefs with gangs: “My crew, we do graffiti,” he said. “Sometimes gangs get pissed when you tag in their spots.” Throughout the interview, Alberto never mentioned after-school activities like soccer, academic decathlon, or student government. Silk screening, as it turned out, was his only extracurricular. “I’ve been trying to make something of myself,” he admitted. “I don’t want to get in any more trouble with the cops.”

I’ve conducted nearly 30 interviews for my dissertation. I’ve met a lot of amazing young men. I count Alberto in that group. One fact, however, is alarmingly clear: after-school activities are critical to success for teenagers in low-income neighborhoods.

All students benefit from after-school activities. That’s true. But, all students don’t need after-school activities to keep them off the streets and save their lives. These young men do.

Across the country, reformers are creating extended-learning opportunities to keep young men engaged. Get students in early. Keep them late. Charter schools, for instance, often have longer school days. USC’s Neighborhood Academic Initiative (NAI) is another example. The pre-college program supplements the school day with classes before and after school.

Unfortunately, without external funding or the support of universities, such reforms are unlikely to occur in money-strapped urban school districts. After-school activities, however, offer a cheap alternative. Often, with at-risk students, administrators and teachers require less, not more, when the students begin acting out. For instance, they go from honors to general level classes. That’s wrong. At the moment students disengage, schools need to demand more. If we are serious about getting teenagers like Alberto to college, we need to offer more after-school activities and we need to make them part of their required coursework. Otherwise, we have no chance against, what Alberto called, “the pull of the streets.”

Whose culture matters? Part II

Originally posted on September 27, 2011.

A few weeks ago, I discussed culture in classrooms. While some scholars argue for a core curriculum using a standardized canon, I suggested a focus on student literacy and critical thinking, reading, and writing skills. This week, I address a similar question:  Whose culture matters in neighborhoods?

I have pondered this question often since beginning my academic career. First, as neighborhood-based reforms such as Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) replicate across the country, their successes also raise some questions. In particular, consider HCZ’s Baby College. During this nine-week parenting seminar, parents learn how to read and discipline their children. Anyone versed in early childhood development literature will attest to the value of proper literacy and disciplinary practices. The question I often ask relates to the basic assumptions of the program. How does this program differ from the acculturation programs that occurred at the turn of the 20th century in New York? To be sure, there are differences. But, reformers cannot take for granted that, because they have some technical knowledge, it is the right knowledge.

Second, my dissertation relates to the diversity of cultural beliefs and practices in low-income neighborhoods. As such, I am always asking, “Whose culture matters, and how?” In particular, I investigate the role of culture to education outcomes in the short term and social mobility in the long term.

Renowned French theorist Pierre Bourdieu provides one answer: culture reproduces class positions. In other words, there is a dominant culture, and an individual’s knowledge and deployment of dominant culture will correlate to and maintain his class position. For instance, a teenager from a middle-class family will know to shake someone’s hand at an interview for an internship. Even more, he will know (or his parents will tell him) to apply for an internship rather than work at McDonalds.

Bourdieu’s argument is compelling and controversial. His goal as a theorist was to undress commonly accepted beliefs about society. In the United States, he shows that meritocracy is not the whole story. Although his writing is sometimes long-winded and sometimes confounding, the success of his theoretical argument—which is supported by his popularity—is that, after hearing only a brief description of social and cultural capital, most people will nod their head and murmur something like, “Ok. I get it. That’s interesting.” Not all scholars, however, agree with Bourdieu. If a dominant culture exists, they argue, so too does a non-dominant culture. If you recall my last blog, the argument is similar. Shakespeare is great, but so is Anansi. Why don’t we respect both?

Community cultural wealth is one response to Bourdieu’s singular focus on dominant culture. Each low-income neighborhood, the argument goes, has a unique set of non-dominant cultural practices. In relation to schools, educators ought to build on the capabilities of the students. The concept is particularly useful for developing policies and curriculum for school districts. It is also a response to the deficit-model of schooling. Instead of looking at what students’ lack, let’s look at what they have.

Both perspectives are helpful for understanding culture in neighborhoods; however, I suggest a hybrid solution. Like last week, literacy and critical thinking, reading, and writing are crucial. E.D. Hirsch’s most popular book is entitled, Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. In the spirit of Bourdieu, it should probably read, “What Every American Needs to Know to Know to Be Socially Mobile.” Admitting the flaws of dominant culture makes it no less important to success. While not fair, students from non-dominant cultural backgrounds need to be conversant in a number of cultural styles to be successful. As a result, the most successful students are, what Prudence Carter terms, culturally flexible.

We will not solve the culture riddle anytime soon, if ever. The question, “Whose culture matters,” depends on who is asking and who is replying. However, educators can provide students with the literacy skills to read and write in a number of cultural registers.

Whose culture matters? Part I

Originally posted on September 06, 2011

Whose culture matters in classrooms? Since I began teaching English at a school with a diverse population of students, I have thought about this question often. While reading difficult, centuries-old English literature, students frequently asked, “Do we have to read this?” Or, “Why are we reading this?” To the first question, I invariably responded, “Yes!” To the second question, I usually paused and thought. Why do students have to read Canterbury Tales? If you are E. D. Hirsch, the answer is because the bawdy tales are part of a canon that “every American needs to know.”

It doesn’t take long to realize Hirsch is wrong on two levels. First, to say there is a stock of cultural knowledge that all should know, sounds like a worthy claim. The problem occurs when one group tries to define that core. Classical texts do not occur a priori. Their creation and the possibility of their creation is sociohistorically determined. So too are the criteria used to judge them. I have an irrational love for Shakespeare’s writing; however, who’s to say there was not a woman with equal talent during Elizabeth’s reign (for a richer discussion, read Virginia Woolf’s thought-provoking essay, “Shakespeare’s Sister”). Even more, we know there were rich oral traditions occurring on continents across the globe during the 16th century. I’m not arguing that Romeo and Juliet isn’t beautiful. Mercutio’s monologues are nonpareil. I’m arguing that beauty is subjective. By legitimizing one work of art, we de-legitimize another. Beowulf is great, but so are Anansi and Ramayana.

Second, and possibly more to the point, the core knowledge argument is misplaced, especially in the 21st century. Students don’t need to have read a list of books. They need to be literate and critical. Literacy includes print and non-print sources. Being critical includes thinking, reading, and writing skills. In essence, the text—whether it’s Shakespeare or Bashō or a YouTube video—is just a venue for literacy practice. By emphasizing student literacy, we empower them to become better consumers, critics, and producers.

Next week, I will continue this blog, asking “Whose culture matters in neighborhoods?”

Technology and the interstices of qualitative research and policy

This post was originally published February 22, 2011

Now is an exciting time to be a researcher. Technology and digital media allow quantitative and qualitative researchers to explore new territories. The internet allows qualitative researchers to interact with research subjects in new spaces as well as collect and present data in new ways. With new methods comes new data. But, is new always better? The answer is yes and no.

At one point, technology was going to save education. Millions of dollars spent on computers later, most acknowledge that technology is not a replacement for teachers; it’s a tool to help. The same point applies to research. Technology is another way to increase the rigor of research. It is also a way to persuade audiences and convey immediacy. I, for instance, can spend 15 minutes at an AERA symposium discussing a paper about a high school student living in poverty. Depending on my presentation, I may convince some people of something. Alternatively, I can show a 60 second clip  of that student’s neighborhood that was captured and narrated by him with a Flip cam. It’s not a stretch to believe that the video would be far more compelling and moving than my talk. That’s an application of qualitative research and technology that can also inform policy.

Qualitative researchers, for good reason, have not always pursued a life in public policy. Certainly, exceptions exist. But, if we take a wide view of the qualitative landscape we see a lot of activity in a lot of different directions. Much of it is creative, inspired, and progressive. It also has little currency in policy design. The reasons for this are legion, but since my space is limited, I will leave the explanation for another day. Needless to say, quasi-experimental methods have been the favored child of funders and other highly influential people; qualitative methods have been the ignored step-child. And, like most ignored children, qualitative methodologists have gotten used to doing things on their own.

What’s my point? First, I believe qualitative research has a central role in policy design. Qualitative and quantitative research are complimentary, not incompatible. Second, to qualitative researchers, use technology to fill the spaces between research and policy and to create joint spaces for quantitative and qualitative researchers. There are at least two directions qualitative researchers using technology will go. First, methodologists will disappear down a rabbit hole, exploring the limits of and deconstructing research and knowledge. This direction conforms with much of the avant-garde work that has already been done, which is interesting to some qualitative researchers and irrelevant to most policy-makers. Second, methodologists will use technology to make research more significant to policy design. This direction creates a new path for research and policy design; one that I hope becomes a reality sooner rather than later.

Horatio Alger lives! Blame and the culture of poverty

This post was originally published on January 21, 2011.

Horatio Alger, a 19th century author, wrote novels about poor, downtrodden boys who go from rags to riches. They succeed due to dogged toil. The story is ingrained in the fabric of mainstream America. Fathers tell their sons, “If you work hard, you can make it.” That’s the American dream.

The rags to riches story works in concert with the culture of poverty argument. It goes something like this: a group of people develop a set of beliefs, actions, and perhaps excuses that inhibit them from succeeding in life. Over 40 years ago, when Oscar Lewis introduced the concept and Patrick Moynihan’s report popularized it, some parts of academia reacted strongly. William Ryan, in his book Blaming the Victim, retells a comedic sketch where Zero Mostel acting as a senator from the South wonders about the origins of World War II. At the end of the skit, the senator booms out, “And what was Pearl Harbor doing in the Pacific?” Ryan uses this to illustrate his point: the culture of poverty blames individuals for being the victims of unfair and deleterious structural conditions.

The culture of poverty often evokes two responses. First, some believe the culture of poverty is absolutely wrong and become indignant. Second, others believe the culture of poverty is absolutely right and become indignant. I worry that both sides, being so emotionally charged, are hindering us from having meaningful conversations about how to improve the conditions of economically impoverished people. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your opinion, there is no right answer.

The culture of poverty is a flawed concept, not because it doesn’t exist but because it is too simple. As Sharon Hays, a sociologist at USC, points out in her book Flat Broke with Children, to assume that there is a culture of poverty is neither wrong nor the whole story. Why is it outrageous to think that a young African American male or Latino has developed a series of behaviors to cope with his bleak surroundings? The school experiences and reactions of Primo and Caesar in Philippe Bourgois’ In Search of Respect provide an excellent example of this. What is wrong is to assume that there is only one culture of poverty and that it applies to all. Culture is not abstract. It is everywhere but also mutable and embedded in context.

At the same time, there is a common refrain among academics: culture and poverty are back and open to research (see the May 2010 issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science). While that is true, scholars also know that the culture of poverty has remained a popular shibboleth among mainstream America. Moving forward, academics must not only create a more appropriate vocabulary to explore and describe multiple cultures of poverty but also to communicate the import of understanding the myriad cultural and structural conditions that lead to the generational reproduction of poverty.

Dr. King, Civil Rights, and Education

This blog was originally published on January 18, 2011.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has said that education is the civil rights issue of our time. While provocative and well-intentioned, the Secretary’s sentiment isn’t entirely true. That is not to say I disagree–education is part of the issue–but to target education as the last stand for civil rights is short-sighted. Poor education outcomes are a symptom of insidious, far-reaching, and unequal conditions and government policies.

We now live during a time when the distribution of wealth is astoundingly unequal. Not only do the top one percent control the majority of wealth in the United States, but the top decile of the top one percent, according to scholar David Harvey, are accumulating capital at unprecedented rates. Relatedly, spatial segregation occurs in cities across the United States, a result of changing labor markets as well as government sanctioned initiatives and policies such as freeways and redlining that have caused unfair conditions for specific groups based on race, class, and gender. Couple grotesque class inequality with segregation and government retrenchment regarding key civil rights issues such as education, housing, healthcare, and job opportunities and a more complex picture of the conditions causing poor education outcomes arises.

Since Dr. King’s famous speech, we have progressed. We have laws that ban segregation and discrimination. More people believe in equality and justice for all, so much so that an African American won the popular vote in a presidential election. And yet, as Dr. King noted, progress is not linear: “All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.” Just this year, anti-gay bullying led to the suicides of multiple teens; Arizona enacted stringent immigration laws that have endangered the basic human rights of both documented and undocumented immigrants; a proposed inter-faith mosque and community center to be built in Manhattan caused a groundswell of opposition and anti-Muslim animosity; and, despite comprising a minority of the population, African Americans and Hispanics occupied the majority of prison cells across the country. Indeed, our generation faces new challenges to overcome in order to achieve civil rights and social justice for all. Racism, classism, and sexism have transformed, becoming sometimes overt, sometimes covert, but just as pernicious.

Let’s celebrate the accomplishments of Dr. King and fellow civil rights activists, but also acknowledge that the dream is unfulfilled and we have work to do.

The problem with education jargon

This blog was originally published on October 19, 2010.

Language is a contradiction. It both liberates and constrains. Consider a toddler learning English. Her understanding of and command over the world expands as she learns words like food, mom, and dog. Similarly, an art student’s perception of space changes as he learns about concepts such as line and plane. But, language also restricts. As much as a toddler’s notions of the world expand as she learns new words, she also limits herself. When she observes a dog, she tries to categorize it. Is it an Australian shepherd or a collie or, maybe, a mutt? Likewise, when she grows up and tells their partner “I love you,” is she adequately conveying the emotion she feels? Just as important, does the parter understand love the same way she does?

In education, reformers face a similar conundrum. In our attempts to identify social groups and create conditions for equity and diversity, we often wrongfully categorize students and perpetuate our own biases. The use of ostensibly aseptic terms to describe historically marginalized students is at an all-time high, and a greater awareness of and skepticism towards the words we use is necessary by all.

Words like “at-risk” and “underprivileged” are seemingly innocuous; yet, they carry with them the imprint of hegemony, a term defined by Antonio Gramsci as meaning the process during which subordinated classes consent to their own domination from the ruling class. At-risk, for instance, victimizes students, whereas a term like underprivileged may ignore the cultural assets of a students family, favoring instead the lack of resources they ought to have in comparison to students from a dominant class. Think about a ninth-grade student who recently arrived from El Salvador with her mother, who makes $15,000. It is easy to see how such conditions may contribute to labeling the student as at-risk. Yet, such a stance ascribes poor educational outcomes to the student and her family and ignores the strengths of her family and culture.

As I said earlier, language is a contradiction. Words like underprivileged acknowledge inequities and argue for the redistribution of resources; but they also serve to reproduce institutional prejudices. These terms are the result of the political correctness movement. We successfully removed race and ethnicity from our vocabularies, and I am afraid we have created an even more malicious, insidious system for domination and oppression.

The social construction of change: Why deliberation matters

I originally published this blog on July 17, 2010.

Collaboration and stakeholder involvement are catchphrases frequently bandied about during policy design. The words connote democracy and shared decision-making. True deliberation, unfortunately, rarely occurs. Instead, we are entrenched in an age of symbolic rhetoric, not authentic participation, when talk about participation far exceeds actual involvement.

Never more has the inclusion of varied participants been more important: Communities are increasingly diverse, but also segregated. Educational outcomes are abhorrent for students belonging to non-dominant groups.  And amidst a 100-year blitzkrieg of ineffectual education trends and reforms, the likelihood for educational change is dubious. True deliberation, however, provides the opportunity for innovative and meaningful reform, reform that influences numerous target populations.

The core of public policy design is problem identification, which introduces several issues. First, how do we identify problems? And second, once identified, how do we obtain and allocate limited resources in order to mollify the problem?

The identification of social problems is complex and political. Problems do not exist a priori; they are not independent of individuals. In general, three factors impact problem identification: Indicators, focusing events, and feedback (Kingdon, 2003). First, indicators are most often concrete evidence of a problem; consider, for instance, graduation rates, unemployment rates, or the percent of working poor in a city. All are indicators of some social problem. Second, focusing events can occur in numerous forms and at unexpected times. September 11th, for example, spurred a focus on terrorism. California’s Prop 8, which bans gay marriage, caused a widespread polemic about civil and constitutional rights. Third and last, feedback can occur in formal modes, such as program evaluations, or informal, such as citizen feedback. Of the three factors, feedback is the most useful for citizen involvement; it is also the least influential in the education policy process.

In a policy context, problem identification alone is insufficient. Action is necessary. The War on Poverty was a response to the nation’s high poverty rate. After 9/11, with a changed national tenor, the Bush administration created the Department for Homeland Security and enforced strict border control policies. In each case, politicians leveraged the national mood as well as their own political cache to instantiate change.

How do social construction and deliberation relate to policy design? Through a discursive process, social construction influences the ways in which individuals perceive and interpret social problems. Politics and power are critical factors to the identification of and reaction to social problems. However, power is not equally distributed and decisions do not always represent all. Up until now, policy design has mostly included dominant groups, which has resulted in mis-representative and poorly conceived policy.

Social construction occurs differently at various levels and is dependent on social hierarchies and positions. The way I understood welfare when I began teaching at a school in an impoverished community was not the same way many of my students’ parents understood welfare. Similarly, the way a policy-maker understands the needs of a community may differ from the way a community understands their needs. To assume one viewpoint is right and the other is wrong is mistaken. Like looking at a hologram from different perspectives, no two angles provide the same view; no one angle, however, is right. Similarly, no two individuals view problems or create solutions in exactly the same way. Through the inclusion of multiple parties involved in recursive dialogue, we may be able to approximate more accurately truth and, in doing so, socially construct change that benefits all.

Katy Perry, you’re awesome; Tom Jefferson, you need a makeover.

I originally posted this blog on September 21, 2010.

High school students know who Katy Perry is. She’s a socialite. She has a song, “I Kissed a Girl.” She dated the tattooed guy from Gym Class Heroes and now is engaged to  the funny guy from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Teenagers could, I’m sure, also fill-in-the-blanks for numerous other pop culture figures: T-Pain, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, etc., etc…

And yet, in spite of a mandatory civics class, most students don’t know who Thomas Jefferson is. Sure, some could tell me he was a president or signed the Declaration, but they don’t know about his political beliefs; they don’t know about inalienable rights. The same goes for most other political thinkers, like Thomas Hobbes or Aristotle or John Locke or John Rawls.

The fact that they are all white old guys who belong to a traditional Western canon is important, but isn’t my purpose for today. I am certainly not a Great Books fan, but I do see value in most of these authors’ texts. After all, many African American writers and activists learned about concepts such as inalienable rights and social justice from the classics. My purpose for today is what we ask teachers and students to do or not to do in schools.

The government will announce this morning the winners of the Promise Neighborhood planning grant competition. I have been clear from the start about my hopes and reservations for the initiative, which is modeled after Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ), as well as community-based reform. Such a “holistic” policy perspective, using acclaimed sociologist William Julius Wilson’s words, importantly targets both structural and cultural factors.

And yet, reforms in education seldom last. It seems short-sighted that policy-makers frequently place so much stress on structural changes with little discussion of cultural factors. HCZ is largely successful because of the parent academy, which provides parenting skills and knowledge to the fathers and mothers of the students in the schools. Such reform, hopefully, creates sustainable change.

The next logical step is raising a generation of learners as well as politically engaged citizens. Some readers may argue that perhaps we should first focus on getting a student to read a book or pass a test. I agree, but also think raising good human beings isn’t a zero-sum game; we can encourage multiple purposes of education. Others may worry that I am advocating for jingoism or inculcation. That is absolutely not the case. I am arguing for students who will question, problemetize, and contest.

In some classroom in Los Angeles, a teacher is creating a dialogue with her students about Thomas Jefferson, civil rights, and social movements like the Justice for Janitors campaign or the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union. That teacher is empowering her students by asking them to envision a better society. Hopefully, the Promise Neighborhood winners will dare to create the necessary conditions for lasting change too.