Winner of the 2020 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award Drawing on personal stories, research, and historical events, an esteemed educator offers a vision of educational justice inspired by the rebellious spirit and methods of abolitionists. Drawing on her life’s work of teaching and researching in urban schools, Bettina Love persuasively argues that educators must teach students about racial violence, oppression, and how to make sustainable change in their communities through radical civic initiatives and movements. She argues that the US educational system is maintained by and profits from the suffering of children of color. Instead of trying to repair a flawed system, educational reformers offer survival tactics in the forms of test-taking skills, acronyms, grit labs, and character education, which Love calls the educational survival complex. To dismantle the educational survival complex and to achieve educational freedom—not merely reform—teachers, parents, and community leaders must approach education with the imagination, determination, boldness, and urgency of an abolitionist. Following in the tradition of activists like Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, and Fannie Lou Hamer, We Want to Do More Than Survive introduces an alternative to traditional modes of educational reform and expands our ideas of civic engagement and intersectional justice.

This inspiring collection of accounts from educators and students is “an essential resource for all those seeking to build an antiracist school system” (Ibram X. Kendi). Since 2016, the Black Lives Matter at School movement has carved a new path for racial justice in education. A growing coalition of educators, students, parents and others have established an annual week of action during the first week of February. This anthology shares vital lessons that have been learned through this important work. In this volume, Bettina Love makes a powerful case for abolitionist teaching, Brian Jones looks at the historical context of the ongoing struggle for racial justice in education, and prominent teacher union leaders discuss the importance of anti-racism in their unions. Black Lives Matter at School includes essays, interviews, poems, resolutions, and more from participants across the country who have been building the movement on the ground.

Black students' bodies and minds are under attack. We're fighting back. From the north to the south, corporate curriculum lies to our students, conceals pain and injustice, masks racism, and demeans our Black students. But it¿s not only the curriculum that is traumatizing students.

How do race and race relations influence leadership practice and the education of students? In this timely and provocative book, the author identifies cultural and unstated norms and beliefs around race and race relations, and explores how these dynamics influence the kind of education students receive. Drawing on findings from extensive observations, interviews, and documents, the author reveals that many decisions that should have been based on pedagogy (or what is best for students) were instead inspired by conscious and unconscious racist assumptions, discrimination, and stereotypes. With applicable implications and lessons for all, this book will help schools and leadership programs to take the next step in addressing longstanding and deeply entrenched inequity and inequality in schools.

Offers practical advice on using and improving assessment for learning in the classroom.

'Brilliant' CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS, author of QUEENIE 'Essential' BERNARDINE EVARISTO, author of GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER 'Hugely important' PAULA AKPAN ____________________________ As a minority in a predominantly white institution, taking up space is an act of resistance. Recent Cambridge grads Chelsea and Ore experienced this first-hand, and wrote Taking Up Space as a guide and a manifesto for change. FOR BLACK GIRLS: Understand that your journey is unique. Use this book as a guide. Our wish for you is that you read this and feel empowered, comforted and validated in every emotion you experience, or decision that you make. FOR EVERYONE ELSE: We can only hope that reading this helps you to be a better friend, parent, sibling or teacher to black girls living through what we did. It's time we stepped away from seeing this as a problem that black people are charged with solving on their own. It's a collective effort. And everyone has a role to play. Featuring honest conversations with students past and present, Taking Up Space goes beyond the buzzwords of diversity and inclusion and explores what those words truly mean for young black girls today. ____________________________ #Merky Books was set up by publishers Penguin Random House and Stormzy in June 2018 to find and publish the best writers of a new generation and to publish the stories that are not being heard. #Merky Books aims to open up the world of publishing, and this year has launched a New Writer's Prize and will soon be launching a #Merky Books traineeship. 'I know too many talented writers that don't always have an outlet or a means to get their work seen, and hopefully #Merky Books can now be a reference point for them to say "I can be an author", and for that to be a realistic and achievable goal... Reading and writing as a kid were integral to where I am today and I, from the bottom of my heart, cannot wait to hear your stories and get them out into the big wide world.' STORMZY

An essential guide to transforming the quotidian communications that feed inequality in our schools—from the award-winning editor of Everyday Antiracism Words matter. Every day in schools, language is used—whether in the classroom, in a student-teacher meeting, or by principals, guidance counselors, or other school professionals—implying, intentionally or not, that some subset of students have little potential. As a result, countless students “underachieve,” others become disengaged, and, ultimately, we all lose. Mica Pollock, editor of Everyday Antiracism—the progressive teacher’s must-have resource—now turns to what it takes for those working in schools to match their speech to their values, giving all students an equal opportunity to thrive. By juxtaposing common scenarios with useful exercises, concrete actions, and resources, Schooltalk describes how the devil is in the oft-dismissed details: the tossed-off remark to a student or parent about the community in which she lives; the way groups—based on race, ability, and income—are discussed in faculty meetings about test scores and data; the assumptions and communication breakdowns between counselors, teachers, and other staff that cause kids to fall needlessly through the cracks; or the deflating comment to a young person about her college or career prospects. Schooltalk will empower educators of every ilk, revealing to them an incredibly effective tool at their disposal to support the success of all students every day: their words.