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Articles by Maggie Baran
Some educators spend little extra time in the communities where they teach. Doing so can pay real dividends.
Some years ago, as he was concluding his sermon, my pastor asked us in the audience to take that Sunday’s message out into the world and “do life together.” My pastor’s call was a reminder that we do not walk this human journey in isolation. We do so as members of communities created around our faiths, our hometowns, our families — and our schools. The most powerful of those communities are created through daily actions that show care and develop connection.
My teachers mispronounced my name. Decades later, it still stings — and influences the way I coach educators.
Carroll, Gregory, Dionne, Mario: When I was in fifth grade, my class roster included names that my teachers surely had seen before. Yet I can still recall the way they butchered mine. “Dionne” — pronounced Dee-OWN — had a least four variations that included Dee-On, Dye-Own, Day-On, and Dianne. Whenever teachers mispronounced my name, it made me feel they had taken a shortcut and that the added step of learning the correct pronunciation wasn’t worth the effort.
As Chicago’s class size crackdown begins, schools that are ‘overenrolled by choice’ could face admissions changes
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Crowded neighborhood elementary schools aren’t the only schools in Chicago that could face changes to how students are admitted. Now that oversized classes will cost the city, Chicago Public Schools is also taking a hard look at schools that choose to admit so many students that class sizes swell beyond the city’s limits — a move that cushions those schools’ budgets but also leaves students and teachers in classes of 30 or more.
By Yana Kunichoff Verified, Ariel Cheung Verified, Maggie Baran, Patrick Wall Verified, Philissa Cramer Verified
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Chalkbeat
Verified
As political winds shift, no new charter schools apply to open in Chicago
No new charter schools are applying this year to expand or open in Chicago, a sign of the shifting environment for the independently run, publicly funded schools in Chicago and at the state level. Last summer Illinois abolished the state agency hearing appeals of charter school denials. Chicago schools, both district- and charter-run, are experiencing an ongoing drop in enrollment, leaving schools competing for fewer students.
Parent fundraising made my school a great place to teach. I was grateful, until I realized the cost.
“We’re really lucky here. We have it better than most. Our parents are a force to be reckoned with.” That’s what my co-workers said to me as I started out my career teaching in Denver Public Schools. And it was true. We did have fantastic parent groups focused on our school community. We were lucky. The parents made sure that we could afford the necessary supplies for our classrooms — and then some — offering grants of up to $1,000 per teacher per year.
I’m a trans educator who’s had to fight for my place in school. Here’s how you could help, and learn from, teachers like me.
If you’ve heard anything about transgender youth lately, you probably know that they are some of our most at-risk youth. Trans students, who make up 2% of high school students, are disproportionately likely to experience depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and substance abuse. Twelve years ago, that was me — I came out as a transgender boy at age 16 and I struggled to navigate life at home and at school.
My students joyfully tracked my pregnancy. Then they witnessed my very public loss.
This is how the pregnant teacher nightmare begins: I’m standing in front of my students when my water breaks. It’s a dramatic gush and all 25 horrified teenage eyes are on me. Amniotic fluid pools around my feet and I scream. Then my students scream. As a high school teacher, I’d frequently worried about my water breaking in class. Or during a fire drill evacuation. Or while proctoring a state test.
My son didn’t get into any of the schools he wanted. My disappointment made me realize I’d been hoarding opportunity.
When my younger son applied for middle school this spring, we knew things would be different from when his older brother went through the admissions process. Our Brooklyn school district, District 15, had just done away selective middle school admissions as part of a diversity plan, and our son was part of the first cohort to be assigned to a middle school via lottery.
As a New York City teacher, I screened 4-year-olds for gifted programs. Here is what I learned.
When I was a classroom teacher in Brooklyn, I was usually focused on that role. But for two years, I also worked on the weekends to administer tests to 4-year-olds. Those children had parents who wanted to see whether they could be eligible for the city’s system of gifted and talented programs, where admission is generally based on a screening exam given to preschoolers.
I’m teaching science in the era of climate change. Here's how I'm coping — in the classroom and at the climate strike.
Another school year has started. This week, I returned to my science classroom of six years to prepare it for hundreds of children’s explorations of life on earth. Then I began the annual ritual of introducing hundreds of children to my science lab, teaching them routines, and learning names. I’m both relieved and apprehensive to be going back.
It’s still possible to take action on school segregation. Here’s how we’re doing it in San Antonio.
For the last several weeks, Americans have been talking about integration in our schools. For someone who does this work every day, it’s an exciting moment, as the benefits of economic and racial integration — not just to black, Latino, or low-income students, but to all — are increasingly clear. I’ve seen those benefits up close, first as a student of color in a highly diverse school in Los Angeles and now as a school system leader deep in the heart of Texas.
I didn’t get into any of my top high school choices. Then I learned to love my safety school.
New York City’s intense high school choice process ends with students being matched to one of more than 400 high schools — at least most of the time. Here’s one take on the stressful rite of passage from a student who has had time to reflect on it. When I walked into first period art class, I was hit with the question: “Where did you get in?” It was a Monday morning in the spring of my eighth-grade year, and we had all gotten our high school acceptance letters over the weekend.
In contentious interview, Betsy DeVos’ husband Dick DeVos says ‘everybody wins’ with charter schools
The state of Detroit schools will again be in the national spotlight tonight when HBO airs a 14-minute documentary on the influence that charter schools — and the DeVos family — have had on traditional public schools in Michigan. The national media has returned repeatedly to Detroit’s education crisis in recent years, especially in the 18 months since Michigan philanthropist Betsy DeVos became President Trump’s pick for U.S. education secretary.
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