For Teacher Appreciation Week, I interviewed Chris Chatmon, Executive Director of Kingmakers of Oakland. I wanted him to share what makes his program, his Kings and, especially, Black educators special. Kingmakers’ innovative strategies are improving academic outcomes for Black boys and helping them build a sense of belonging in school and community, and an essential part of what makes Kingmakers work is its unwavering commitment to recruit, train and retain a new generation of Black male teachers. My interview, lightly edited, is below. ------Read More

The American public education system has largely failed to foster environments where the innate greatness of Black boys is even acknowledged, much less fully expressed or realized. They are often viewed as problems to be contained, which is evident in the criminalization of their behavior. Black boys are suspended and expelled at three times the rate of white students.Read More

Anyone paying close attention to the field of education and philanthropy’s role in it has noticed a shift in focus over the past several years – a shift I think signals real opportunity for young people.Read More

We all need a great education, but only some of us get it. As Americans, we love to talk about education as the surest way to advance opportunity – particularly if you weren’t born into wealth. However, there is plenty of evidence to demonstrate the disparate outcomes the United States education system perpetuates.Read More

We’re excited to announce the newest member of the Raikes Foundation team, Gisele C. Shorter. Gisele joins us from Turnaround for Children, and her portfolio will include leading the Building Equitable Learning Environment (BELE) Network and our national K-12 school and system redesign work. Gisele brings a wealth of experience to our team and a deep commitment to making a positive impact on the lives of young people, particularly those furthest from opportunity. Read More

Across the country our partners are doing incredible work to research and reimagine American classrooms. The end goal, designing classrooms and schools where every student receives an equitable education, sounds deceptively simple, but it has eluded teachers, school leaders and policymakers for decades. One key finding from this research is that young people need to feel like they are valued and respected in school—like they are vital members of the community, their intersectional identities welcome.Read More

We’ve all been reading the heart-wrenching stories of families being torn apart by the aggressive deportation policies of the Trump Administration and the ongoing saga of what will happen to the “Dreamers”—the undocumented young people brought to the United States as children. Protected for now under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Dreamers’ futures remain uncertain under a president who treats the program like a political football. Meanwhile Congress has failed to step in with legislation to permanently protect the Dreamers.Read More

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day we celebrate the life of a Civil Rights hero who believed in ordinary people’s ability to do extraordinary things. It’s an important day to reflect on his legacy, but too often Martin Luther King Jr. Day is tokenized in schools. When we fail to engage students in meaningful conversations about Dr. King’s legacy and the Civil Rights Movement, we fail to help students understand their own place in the ongoing struggle for racial justice.Read More

Last week, I had the great pleasure of moderating a conversation between Jim Shelton, the Director of Education at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a Judy Diers from the Ford Foundation, and our co-founder Jeff Raikes about our collective excitement in the promise of using the science of learning and development to advance equity in education.Read More

No two college experiences are alike. But there’s also diversity in how students get to college, and how their arrival affects their experiences on campus.Read More