The Way Out Is Back Through

Send us Fan Mail 50 years ago in 1976, Raleigh City Schools and Wake County Schools became one. But the merger was anything but inevitable, and creating one school system was not the same as desegregating its schools. In this episode we revisit the struggles over race, geography, and political power that shaped the Wake County Public School System. Through interviews with local experts like Carmen...

Send a text Seventy years after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education , we find ourselves at a pivotal moment: How far have we truly come? While our schools today are more diverse than ever, recent studies reveal a harsh reality—they're still deeply segregated. Educational equity is not just an ideal; it's both an outcome and an action that we've ma...

Send a text Join host Keiyonna Dubashi as she sits down with Dr. Ronda Taylor Bullock of We Are (Working to Extend Anti-Racist Education) and how she is thinking about what it will take to move our institutions in North Carolina toward more anti-racist outcomes, particularly in our schools. 

Send a text We’re doing something a little different for the next few episodes. I’ll be stepping aside while my friend Keiyonna Dubashi, founder of Profound Ladies , temporarily hosts the podcast and shares some conversations from the Profound Ladies Equity Pledge series that took place last spring. Profound Ladies is dedicated to recruiting and retaining Black and Indigenous Women of Color and eq...

Send a text All instruction is culturally responsive. The question is: to whose culture is it responsive? The idea that public schools should focus on nothing but "the basics" of reading, writing, and arithmetic is not only wrong morally, but it's wrong scientifically too, because the research is crystal-clear: feeling seen, safe, and affirmed in the classroom is literally a prerequ...

Send a text Asian Americans have long occupied a precarious position in American society; they are just as likely to be valorized as the so-called "model minority" as they are ostracized and seen as perpetual foreigners. During this episode, we take a deep dive into how we got here, and provide perspectives on ways teachers need to see, understand, and interrupt anti-asian stereotypes. W...

Send a text The Washington School is likely the oldest continually-operating public school in the city of Raleigh, since we can trace it's beginnings all the way back to the 1860s. During Part 1, we learned about the school's origins and the critical community organizing that took place in order to establish Raleigh's first Black High School in 1923. Today, Washington is a Gifted an...

Send a text Full Episode drops Tuesday January 11th! 

Send a text The Washington School is now an elementary magnet school within the Wake County Public School System, but the origins of Washington go all the way back to the late 1860s.  The building that stands today was built in 1923 and was Raleigh's first public Black high school, but the school first began as one of North Carolina's earliest schools for African American children and wa...

Send a text North Carolina has more Rosenwald Schools than any other state but today, Rosenwald Schools are something of an endangered species. Many of them have been destroyed and most that are still standing remain in disrepair. How many of us are standing on top of history that we just don't know? What impact might that have on our teaching and school leadership? Today we dive into the inc...

Send a text Renowned educator Gloria Ladson Billings who mainstreamed the idea of culturally responsive pedagogy doesn’t talk about the so-called achievement gap. She talks about the education debt , and she’s right to do so. What is owed to the schools and the communities that have been historically and deliberately divested and marginalized? I don’t have an answer to that question, but I believe...

Send a text Determining what our kids learn in schools can be a hotly contested and controversial process, and politics almost always have a way of influencing the outcome. This week, we'll dive into student perspectives on creating more relevant, socially conscious, and community-responsive curriculum in North Carolina, and what forces currently stand in the way. Middle Creek High School Stu...

Send a text What does it mean to be community responsive and why does it matter for educators and school leaders? In this episode we'll ground this project in place and purpose.  Join host Michael Parker West, Assistant Principal in Wake County, North Carolina on a journey of learning and unlearning what it means to be effective students of our students and their families. Special thanks to o...

Send a text Lessons on Place, Context, and School Leadership