Every year, the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting feels like coming home. This year in Los Angeles marked my 23rd AERA, and I am reminded again why this gathering continues to matter so deeply in my life and work.

Exciting news! Looking forward to joining the Society of Senior Ford Fellows Annual In-Person Meeting in Atlanta this June. I’m especially excited to engage in conversations about reclaiming our future, defending opportunity and diversity, and the role we each play in shaping more just institutions.

When You’re Joking, You’re 70 Percent Serious? I recently had a colleague who liked to joke about inappropriate topics in executive meetings, often in ways that made the room tense, or at least made me uneasy. The comments were always framed as…

When You’re Joking, You’re 70 Percent Serious? cloakinginequity.com/2025/12/21/w...

What Rick Hess Got Really Wrong about Teachers and Education Rick Hess recently published a satirical post about education, schools, and teachers that quickly circulated through policy and media circles. The piece featured a recognizable figure and advanced …

What Rick Hess Got Really Wrong about Teachers and Education cloakinginequity.com/2025/12/18/w...

Getting People Where They Have Not Been Cesar Chavez once observed, “The job of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.” At first, the sentence feels familiar, almost predictable, as if it belongs…

Most people think leadership is about titles, offices, or formal authority. Cesar Chavez understood something different. He believed leadership begins in the quiet moments when one person helps another step into territory they never imagined possible. cloakinginequity.com/2025/12/09/g...

The Tongue Has No Bones, But It Crushes All the Same Most people assume harm requires force. We think damage comes from fists, objects, or physical impact. But the truth is that some of the deepest injuries people carry are not the kind that ever bru…

The Tongue Has No Bones, But It Crushes All the Same cloakinginequity.com/2025/12/08/t...

Success Doesn’t Define You. What You Do Next Does. Every now and then, a moment arrives that shows you exactly why culture matters. Last night in Detroit, Western Michigan won the MAC Football Championship for the first time since 2016, and I could…

Success Doesn’t Define You. What You Do Next Does. cloakinginequity.com/2025/12/07/s...

The Song That Can Fuel Your Purpose I remember hearing “This Little Light of Mine” long before I truly understood it. I was a small child in a church in the early 1980s, surrounded by families who carried both joy and heaviness in th…

The Song That Can Fuel Your Purpose cloakinginequity.com/2025/12/03/t...

Great insights here @professorjvh.bsky.social

Wicked: For Good ★★★★☆ — The Truth Behind Oz, Power, and the Villain We Were Taught to Fear Wicked: For Good delivers a cinematic experience that deepens the mythology of Oz in powerful and unexpected ways. Seeing the film in 3D this past week heightened the magic and the emotional stakes…

Wicked: For Good ★★★★☆ — The Truth Behind Oz, Power, and the Villain We Were Taught to Fear cloakinginequity.com/2025/11/29/w...

Why are we“Big Stupid”? We are living through a moment that feels heavier than a cultural trend. Esquire recently described this period with unsettling accuracy by calling it an age of “Big Stupid.” The description is blu…

Why are we“Big Stupid”? cloakinginequity.com/2025/11/28/w...

AI Code Red: Smartness— Old, Wrong, or Automated We live in a world that worships smartness. Smart phones. Smart cars. Smart policies. Smart people. The word itself is a magic spell, used to make anything sound advanced, modern, or right. But her…

AI Code Red: Smartness— Old, Wrong, or Automated cloakinginequity.com/2025/11/26/a...

Be the Rainbow: Maya Angelou and the Work of Hope in Hard Times When I stepped down as provost, I knew it would come with uncertainty. The role had been a privilege, one that few faculty members ever experience. Most vice presidents, when they leave their posts…

Be the Rainbow: Maya Angelou and the Work of Hope in Hard Times cloakinginequity.com/2025/11/21/b...

Coming Home to Possibility Recently, I had the honor of delivering the keynote at the Michigan College Access Network (MCAN) Conference in Lansing—and in many ways, it felt less like a speech and more like coming home. Not j…

Coming Home to Possibility cloakinginequity.com/2025/11/20/c...

There are moments in American history when silence becomes complicity, and higher education is standing in one of those moments right now. Educators are being monitored, pressured, and sometimes punished for speaking truths that institutions find uncomfortable.

When the Dutch Become America’s Conscience About Black Veterans In the Netherlands this week, a quiet act of erasure exposed a loud truth about America. When two panels honoring Black World War II veterans disappeared from the Netherlands American Cemetery in M…

When the Dutch Become America’s Conscience About Black Veterans cloakinginequity.com/2025/11/12/w...

All 31 Moms for Liberty candidates lost their 2025 elections!

We’ve Entered the Whipsaw World We have entered the whipsaw world. What does that mean? It means that once Project 2025 is fully enacted—an agenda designed to consolidate federal control, politicize civil service, and remake educ…

We've Entered the Whipsaw World cloakinginequity.com/2025/11/07/w...

The Falling Leaves: When to Banish the Past and When to Make Peace with It Forgiveness is one of humanity’s oldest moral instincts. Philosophers, teachers, and communities across time have recognized it as a release, a way to set down the weight of anger and disappointmen…

The Falling Leaves: When to Banish the Past and When to Make Peace with It cloakinginequity.com/2025/11/03/t...

Julius Caesar: “Sometimes You Get Outmaneuvered Badly” Julius Caesar knew power better than anyone of his time. He crossed the Rubicon, reshaped the Republic, and stood at the height of Roman glory surrounded by men who once called him friend. Yet, on …

Julius Caesar: "Sometimes You Get Outmaneuvered Badly" cloakinginequity.com/2025/11/02/j... @joyannreid.bsky.social

What Will Our Era Be Called? Naming the Age of American Reckoning History always gives names to moments that once felt impossible to define. We talk about the Roaring Twenties, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Great Depression as if they wer…

What Will Our Era Be Called? Naming the Age of American Reckoning cloakinginequity.com/2025/10/30/w... @marcelias.bsky.social @carolburris.bsky.social @dianeravitch.bsky.social @keithboykin.bsky.social @joyannreid.bsky.social

The Unsung Architects of Greatness I was watching a TED Talk by Kevin Rutherford recently when his story about LeBron James stopped me in my tracks. Rutherford reminded the audience that LeBron didn’t win championships in Miami unti…

The Unsung Architects of Greatness cloakinginequity.com/2025/10/29/t...

No Kings in Our Schools: What Texas Teaches the Nation About Right Wing Power and Public Education Texas Governor Greg Abbott has forcibly taken over Fort Worth ISD. In October 2025, the Texas Education Agency officially booted Fort Worth’s democratically elected school board and replaced it wit…

No Kings in Our Schools: What Texas Teaches the Nation About Right Wing Power and Public Education cloakinginequity.com/2025/10/27/n...

😕

We are all paying for this vanity project

Rebellion!: Americans Are Refusing to Cross Redlines Donald Trump wants to send troops to Oregon, California, and Illinois to quell an imaginary rebellion that he claims gives him legal justification to deploy the military on American soil. Speaking …

Rebellion!: Americans Are Refusing to Cross Redlines cloakinginequity.com/2025/10/20/t... @marcelias.bsky.social @keithboykin.bsky.social @dianeravitch.bsky.social @carolburris.bsky.social @bertisdowns.bsky.social @joyannreid.bsky.social

Sunlight on the Shadows: What a Leaked GOP Chat Reveals about the Party’s Future For seven months, in a private Telegram chat, Young Republican party officials and activists from New York to Arizona exchanged racist, homophobic, and antisemitic messages so vile they could have …

Sunlight on the Shadows: What a Leaked GOP Chat Reveals about the Party's Future cloakinginequity.com/2025/10/18/s... @adamkinzinger.substack.com @marcelias.bsky.social @dianeravitch.bsky.social

Working with Crazy Geniuses If you have ever worked with someone like Doc Brown from Back to the Future, you already know the thrill and exhaustion that comes with proximity to brilliance. The brilliant, unpredictable mi…

Working with Crazy Geniuses cloakinginequity.com/2025/10/14/w...

The Uppity Minority: What ‘s Learned After Refusing to Play the Game A university president I respect recently recommended that I revisit Derrick Bell’s book Confronting Authority: Reflections of an Ardent Protester. The timing could not have been more precise. The …

The Uppity Minority: What 's Learned After Refusing to Play the Game cloakinginequity.com/2025/10/13/t...