A Call to Teachers: Don't Be Sheep

By Andrew Biros

Our country is currently swept up in a public education revolution. Change is happening, due in large part to an opportunity gap perpetuated by parents' socioeconomic status.

And yet reform efforts—while necessary and imminent to a more equal future—too often disregard the voices and acumen of classroom educators.

This approach is often paired with a disregard for social structures that exist outside of the classroom that very much infringe upon a student's psychological, emotional, and educational development. Educators have found themselves in the puzzling position of being blamed for the cycle of poverty, while simultaneously not having been invited to the conversation about how to equitably provide effective teaching and...