Pursuing a college degree--and the open future for young adults it is believed to secure--anchors what it means to be middle class in the United States today. Acting on the conviction that the rising generation can and should do better than their parents is a middle-class inheritance, and getting young adults to and through college is at the heart…

What happens when the outside world begins to affect the classroom? Is the classroom supposed to be neutral, objective, and devoid of feelings? Or is it a space where students and teacher meet for healing, understanding, and critical thinking? From news reports of police brutality to highly publicized acts of racial aggression, students are…

The COVID-19 health crisis has laid bare the structural inequity in the financial aid system. The pandemic has hit the lowest-income students hardest, with many struggling to afford the basic technology for online learning on top of new or exacerbated food and housing insecurity. Federal and state dollars predicated on Pell Grant eligibility, time…

Students come from different socioeconomic levels in society. Thus, they do not come to school with equivalent background experiences. Students from upper and middle class socioeconomic communities do better in test results as compared to those who come from poverty homes. By viewing mandated test results, it is quite obvious that money assists in…

Fueled by optimism and driven to succeed, middle- and upper-middle-class families--and those who aspire to join their ranks--are cherished by public schools. It is easy to see why. Better educated and more affluent, middle-class families tend to send their children to school ready (and eager) to learn. And, as 45% of American voters, middle-class…

"Your Average Nigga" contends that just as exaggerating the differences between black and white language leaves some black speakers, especially those from the ghetto, at an impasse, so exaggerating and reifying the differences between the races leaves blacks in the impossible position of either having to try to be white or forever struggling to…