Jose Vilson's Blog

A few weeks ago, I found myself underneath a dead whale.

For New Yorkers, they know I’m talking about the American Museum of Natural History where the taxidermied mammal hangs above other exhibits in the Hall of Ocean Life. That night, Mayor Zohran Mamdani had invited people from across multiple sectors of the city to celebrate the Black History Month Centennial. Amidst criticisms about the lack of Black deputy mayors, this event felt particularly timely. Attendees heard a mix of singers, poets, historians, and public officials offer slivers of the Black experience in New York City.

Mamdani himself spoke to the history of Black New Yorkers in the formation of the city itself. In an interview with LaToya Coleman, the mayor even apologized for his remarks asserting that “immigrants built this country.” Even his apology felt like a stark departure from previous administrations where moments of sympathy felt sparse.

At the same time, New York City found itself embroiled in yet another school controversy. According to multiple sources, a Black student testified in front of his community education council (CEC) in defense of his school amidst plans to close the school. Allegedly, an attendee uttered some racist remarks virtually. She allegedly said that the student was “too dumb” to know how “bad” their school was. She then mis-cited (yes, I’m making up a word) Carter G. Woodson’s Mis-Education of the Negro and said “If you train a Black person well enough, they’ll know to use the back. You don’t have to tell them anymore.”

Education advocates felt the shockwaves immediately. The professor who allegedly made those comments put out a statement to clarify her intent, but the damage was done. Organizations such as Parents Supporting Parents, multiple CECs from across the city, and other individuals mobilized to correct the harm. To their credit, New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools, of which I am a part, also put out a statement. CEC30 parent leader Whitney Toussaint put up a few informative videos that circulated among many media news outlets decrying the reprehensible behavior.

This incident sent shockwaves across the cities via e-mails and text chains. I know this not because I’m an education advocate, but because I am also a parent within that CEC. And I finally have the words for this.

Over the last decade, I’ve been troubled over how we talk about “parent” voice. Parents, like teachers and just about any group, are not a monolith. As someone who’s listens intently, I find myself sympathetic to multiple groups. I agree that the vast majority of families wants what’s best for their individual child. Parents tend to know what’s “best” for their child depending on a host of factors including value systems and beliefs. This gets even more complex when we attend to identity, particularly race, disability, and gender. Many of New York’s most toxic battles for educational equity rested at the feet of historic and seemingly insurmountable injustice.

Sadly, some New Yorkers bristle whenever education activists have mentioned anti-Blackness as a structural function of our society. But here, my question remains, “What is the role of dignity in our schools?”

Dignity as a framework for understanding education in the United States is at the heart of too many battles. Often, it becomes synonymous with respect, but I would implore us to explore the deeper meaning: worthiness. For me, dignity points to at least three levels in which students deserve worthiness. (Shout-outs and deference to the organization under this name):

the rights of students to be seen as full human beingsthe rights of students to get an educationthe right of students to receive a great education regardless and because of their contexts

In NYC, educational equity depends too much on whether a small powerful group of parents have say over the matter. Whether Black parents sought either integration as shared power or self-determination in the form of community schools, severe resistance came shortly after. Anyone from a public office who points this inequity out faces more tabloid fodder and unceasing pettiness.

In other words, the history of NYC and schools from a racial justice perspective looks similar to all the places we get told are more racist.

But when we use the word “dignity,” we see something more akin to empathy, compassion, and justice. Dignity, in this respect, means that we see value in our students as full human beings. To wit, every racially marginalized group in America has found inspiration from movements led by Black people, particularly women whose labor goes unrecognized. In the policy world, the race-neutral language sometimes meant to advance civil rights gets employed to erase the contributions of Black people in New York historically and contemporarily.

In my lived experience as a Black man has also reflected much of the desires of fellow Black education activists. When I was still teaching, I’d listen to them and others talk up a grounded version of a culturally responsive education. In these conversations, they focused on the idea that, in order for us to truly have a just society, we would both need for every student to see themselves better, but also for them to see each other as full human beings.

In other words, learning about ourselves and each other points to a shared humanity.

Currently, people from the federal government on down continually find ways to subvert such a dignified agenda, but we must persist. To NYC School Chancellor Kamar Samuels’ credit, he has sought to elevate Black studies in K-12 schools. But how long will such a curriculum take effect? How will we counter the effects of repression and fascism on our students? How many people will pay lip service to a culturally responsive curriculum, but rely – again – on achievement scores and such? Will educators drive home the idea that we all deserve to live a life with collective dignity?

As always, the way out of the tunnel may not be a light at the end of it. Within that tunnel, we should look to be that light source, and see the luminosity. Even in a room with a whale of the world hanging over us.

The post On Dignity [On CEC3 And The Racial Justice Work Ahead Of Us] appeared first on The Jose Vilson.

“¿Esto lo que tu queria?”

The scene with Bad Bunny in the Spike Lee-inspired Double Dolly shot was the wink to the audience that pulled his Super Bowl half-time show together. For those who haven’t watched any of Lee’s most prized cinematic works (Malcolm X, 25th Hour, Crooklyn, to name a few), the shot serves an important purpose. Rather than the more passive viewing of the film, the double dolly forces the viewer to sit with the protagonist’s stream of consciousness.

For educators who watched, it might feel difficult to peer through this 13-minute sample of Bad Bunny’s art in this way. As with any piece of this kind, accessibility and cultural translation matter just as much as language translation. In this case, Bad Bunny takes the opportunity to open a window into his process for the show. The violinists break from the raucous “EoO” into a melodramatic “Monaco,” a song in which Bad Bunny discusses the gift and curse of rising to fame. He addresses his fans (“I’m here at Super Bowl 60 because I never stopped believing in myself. You, too, should believe in yourself. It matters more than you think.”) and his dissidents (“Is this what you wanted?”).

But you’re not supposed to turn into Bad Bunny in the classroom. You’re supposed to learn how to see. That’s the difference.

The transition to a wedding singer in which Lady Gaga plays wedding singer for a couple’s nuptials elevates the conceit. The halftime show, akin to Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show last year, was a set of artistic metaphors with his discography as the soundtrack. Unlike Lamar’s, however, Mr. Ocasio took this opportunity to provide more of a framework for the education behind his music. As evidence, it only took 24 hours for educators and historians to interpret the various historical and contemporary symbols on display.

(Notably, Petra R. Rivera-Rideau and Vanessa Díaz wrote an opinion piece related to their book on Bad Bunny’s politics. I saw this carousel from @salsamarii and this well-researched piece from Elisabet Velazquez, too. Melany Centeno also broke down the dancing in this recent YouTube video. Feel free to show them love.)

From the opening interpolation of Antony Santos’ music to the light blue in the Puerto Rican flag, Ocasio presented a Latin America that doesn’t make it into millions of homes in the United States. He showcases multiple influences to his personal and musical sides. He then recognizes the current plight of the Puerto Rican diaspora, and gives a well-placed shout-out to his inner child. Even the various recognizable faces in his show (Ricky Martin, Cardi B, Pedro Pascal) felt like touchstones to different parts of his ambition. The breadth of symbols provide material from which to understand him, but also the people who empathize with him personally and culturally.

In the United States, much of the backlash to his performance parallels the rancor towards culturally responsive sustaining education. Millions have pushed back against censorship laws, but it’s not enough. While policies against inclusive education remain vague, educators and schools have felt the silencing effects. The fear of ending up in a raging fascist’s social media feed or on the cover of a yellow rag is palpable. For the small yet powerful group of pundits, the mere mention of a character misaligned with their version of “normal” is out of bounds.

This cynical and petty view of curricula stands in stark contrast to a praxis that points towards a shared humanity. What would it mean for teachers to ask students, “Who and what shapes your world?”. What if we asked them to create an interdisciplinary project and used this (or Lamar’s) half-time show as a reference for what they include? We have activities similar to this in our art classes for example. This feels like a humanities lesson, but I can imagine these conversations can spark other connections. Bad Bunny’s open critique of LUMA has connections to science, for instance.

As a sociologist, I’m constantly looking at how our personal dimensions connect with the interpersonal, systemic, and institutional layers. Social sciences shouldn’t be limited to higher education, though. In a way, music like Mr. Ocasio’s offers a way to make complex topics palatable and relatable to the masses. “LO QUE LO PASÓ A HAWAII” is an extended allusion to the plight of colonized islands. “DtMF” metaphorically shows his longing for a more utopian Puerto Rico against a politically tenuous backdrop.

How are students wrestling with their dimensions? How do they wish to demonstrate that in our world?

Learning is steeped in identity. The learning will look different, though not lesser, because of who they are. Amidst critical discussions about race, sexual orientation, and disability, we know the role culture plays in learning. Our students deserve arenas where they get to learn as much about themselves as they do about others. As the show progressed in the Bay Area, Bad Bunny tied in communities far and wide by name and flag. This version of diversity, equity, and inclusion creates an environment that feels additive without harming onlookers. It’s an invitation to appreciation without appropriation.

Relatedly, the “other” halftime show headlined by Kid Rock, shot two weeks prior with paid actors in the audience, offered the type of show that told its audience, “You don’t have to go further than this.” The pyrotechnics felt cheap and the lip-synching lacking care for watchers and performers alike. Unfortunately, our schools, plagued by scripted curricula, AI tools, and over-testing, know this dehumanization too well.

By the time the performers paraded the flags of the western hemisphere i.e. South, Central, and North Americas, we got the clarion call from Ocasio to rethink how we understand the function of borders. Armed, masked men terrify (United States of) American citizens with state-sanctioned violence. This fact has remained true since before 1776. However, any semblance of contemporary American democracy has come from the descendants of people who’ve survived America’s worst. Where Lamar represents for many the descendants of chattel slavery, Ocasio represents descendants of historical and contemporary colonization.

Surely, Bad Bunny wasn’t starting a revolution with his performance, not in the middle of a billion-dollar football game sponsored by multi-billion dollar corporations. But mirth and celebration facing up against empire’s worst is not an unfamiliar strand in many people’s histories.

Bad Bunny’s curriculum offers a chance to remember to do better. Again, I ask: will America do better?

The post The Curriculum of Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl Halftime Show appeared first on The Jose Vilson.

Editor’s Note: Thanks again for being part of my community, particularly to those who are paid subscribers. Your sponsorship of this space has allowed me to keep doing my work. I have no plans to move to another platform, so any support, including forwarding this to your friends and family, is always helpful. For you, this one’s a little more personal. Enjoy.

“Don’t go out because you’ll do something you’re gonna regret.”

The year started unpromisingly enough. People in my circle felt the doldrums of what would come from the start. Little did people realize the subtler tone of the second Trump transition (compared to the first one) would strike harder and faster at the country people came to know. While America has always had imperial and colonial aspirations, President Trump the sequel has sought to unveil the niceties of the last few decades. By the second week of his administration, the list of “others” looked less like 2017 and more like 1776. Even more disturbing was the list of “others” who confidently embraced that framework even when no real benefit would ever befall to them.

I felt this even more deeply as I got an urgent phone call from my wife in early February. An outside section of our apartment had just been robbed. The inside portion and all the people in it were safe. By the time the police arrived, she arranged to add extra locks. Our building superintendent helped coordinate next steps. Our landlord did nothing but connect us to the security cameras. The security personnel revealed the “suspects”: two teenagers who looked like the students we served our entire adult lives.

When we took a longer view of the footage, the teenagers paid our outside space a few visits while we were asleep. They smiled at the landlord’s security cameras.

The night of the robbery, I immediately changed our class from in-person to virtual. Suddenly, I was leading an informal security collective within my building, coordinating with the next buildings over including the school and the church, all of whom had similar run-ins with the teens. I set aside some of my passion projects along with their deadlines. I didn’t sleep well for the next few months as we preserved the facade of stability. My closest friends and associates learned of the incident. Even my more radical friends suggested I get my own security camera and I obliged.

In another time, such an incident wouldn’t have shaken me so. But it felt like I and my people were getting robbed on multiple fronts. As a recently certified social scientist and veteran educator, it made me think: “How did we even get here?”

It’s not fair. The three of us – including our son – sat there for hours daily thinking about the choices these young folks made in order for them to feel like coming after us was their only recourse. For every success story I have, I have a few others who didn’t have anyone or anything they could turn to for help. In our neighborhood, food bank lines and churches wrap around the block with elders and young people alike. When we saw them, we first felt anger. But then pity and societal remorse settled in because that’s what educators do. We even considered leaving a note for them to ask politely and we’d arrange for a food pickup instead of the nonsense they engaged in on our block.

Their music and media tells them individualism will pull them out of squalor. The people behind those messages shove the economic ladders from underneath them.

This country has clearly signaled hatred towards people who look like the kids who robbed our hood. Harlem looked super-accessible to their grievances whereas Park Avenue did not. They allegedly fought some elders, some of whom contributed to this neighborhood’s culture for decades. Through the grapevine, I heard their families both depended on their scavenging for food and shelter and disavowed their practices. Young people in the city have found less places to convene and take part in community (yes, some exist, but not enough). Grocery prices rose, and few politicians called out the exploitation of poor people. For too long, the rich would tell people in poverty to have a sense of morals while extracting labor time and again.

At several moments this year, I looked at my personal pain points and asked myself “What am I keeping and what am I throwing away?” I don’t have all the answers. I do have some, though.

After all, I just internalized a lack of safety after spending years restoring it within myself. At times, I found myself acting against my highest self. Who will protect the protector? Who will call the caller? What am I needing from people I interact with daily, whether they call themselves supervisors, friends, or family? At those 2am hours when I would hear the slightest creaks, who else would keep an eye open for me? What does refuge look like in a land that has dedicated itself to revoke its welcome mat?

When one of the suspects appeared on our security camera a few weeks after the initial incident, my wife said “Don’t go out there because you’ll do something you’re going to regret.” I stepped away from the door begrudgingly. But I told myself that I would definitely be outside in other ways.

Rather than wallow in despair, I asked a better question: “How am I contributing to the society I wish to take part in?” I didn’t just meet thousands of people on and offline in 2025. Through EduColor and other organizations, I helped coordinate gatherings of people in mutual care. I fostered community within my classes and invited special guests too, many of whom never get those types of opportunities. Social media helped me reach out to people across time and space to elevate educational equity. The mayoral race took me across the borough and around my neighborhood in hopes of seeing larger changes in the city. As the federal government signaled less empathy and compassion for others, I dug deeper into those values for us and others.

I even got to tell a graduating class of students to take their learning inside so they could be outside. I was learning with them.

This is no “happily ever after.” I’m still my own worst critic, despite the coalitions of haters appearing in my social media and other collectivities. I know 2025 changed us in ways large and small. Powerful people and their followers granted us clarity about ourselves and the communities we wish to build. But also, for those of us who made it to 2026, we have people to free, including ourselves. Young people, including my son, deserve to have adults willing to fight for them and not punt on a better way of being. I do fear that some of us are so entrenched in our silos, we prefer boarded up windows over glass.

But I don’t want to live this way. So I did something about it. But my “doing something about it” doesn’t include harming neighborhoods for a twisted sense of revenge. Even among the indignities I witnessed first and second-hand, I asked my ancestors for something wholly different.

Faith without works is dead. In 2026, I hope our faith guides our works towards a humanity that won’t leave our people behind. We’ll be outside accordingly.

The post 2025: Because We Had To Do Something About It appeared first on The Jose Vilson.

How many synonyms for the word “confusing” are there? I might have used them all as we navigated the NYC high school admissions process over the last few months. Besides all the other hats I wear, I found myself neck-deep in trying to navigate a myriad of recommendations, online reviews, school visits, word-of-mouth, and insider info about prospective schools. To further complicate things, my wife and I both come from Catholic school backgrounds, which has its pros and cons for the type of values we wish to instill in our son. But, at some point after his last entrance exam and the 12th high school choice, I said “NAH.”

Some say “Let go and let God.” I said, “Let go and let there be a better system.”

Over the years, I’ve had serious beef with how we’ve done this amorphous thing we call “school choice.” Fifth and eighth graders and their families choose 12 schools based on factors including ratings, distance, programs, and reputation. (This article does a better job of explaining things better than I can.) When I started teaching, public school students choosing high schools for themselves befuddled me a bit. In my upbringing, I took the Specialized High School Admissions Test and got into one of them, but by then, my mom had already chosen Xavier High School for me.

There was my school choice.

Over the years, as I better understood the process, and as more high schools started “advertising” themselves in specific ways, I said “This can’t be life!”. (“School for This or That.” “High School for All of It And Then Some.” Great, but also why do we need to choose “majors” so early?)

Also, my students deserved better than worksheets that looked like scrolls. Back then, I thought they should all get into their top three choices. Yet, every year, our school had a solid group of eighth graders with great transc not get into any schools. We collectively cried injustice in the auditorium as we commiserated about the systemic foolishness.

But something changed during my doctoral study that shifted my thinking. I stopped wanting good choices for all my students. I wanted every choice to be a good choice for all my students. Let me explain.

In the midst of navigating words like “screened,” “open,” and some hybrid of those, it occured to me how many of these choices were false. My suburban friends shared how their towns only had one elementary school, the one middle school, and one big high school. Through my studies, I saw just how wildly unique New York City was. For suburban and rural folks, the concept that you had “choice” was pretty novel save for the occasional independent exception.

Informally, many of the parents who moved to the suburbs would tell me “Yeah, I moved there because I didn’t have to worry about the schools. Ever.” Some of them worked in the NYC school system.

Some conservative commentators screamed to the rafters about the need for school choice because “equity” or whatever. While we kept arguing about whether children in poverty should have the same options as their wealthier counterparts, I now believe in something wholly different. I wish for every option to be satisfactory. For every child that gets to attend a selective program, the math tells us many more do not. No child should feel disappointed they matriculated into an alternate choice.

In other words, make every school great for the first time.

This country allows test rockets to explode in increasingly toxic skies due to billionaires’ whims and quixotic appetites for all things artificial. This city, much less this country, does not lack for resources. If it was just about my son, I would say we’re fine. But I’ve never based my advocacy as a parent on just my child, but on multiple children. All of our students deserve welcoming learning environments, rich learning experiences, caring and healthy adults to steward all of this.

Educating children well is an investment, not a waste.

Some policymakers and advocates get so steeped in short-term solutions – like school choice in all its forms – that they lose out on opportunities for sustainable, long-term solutions. The grift and short shrift of the public good at the federal level shouldn’t steer our moral and ethical compass. Some may be tempted to share one story about a child who moved from a “bad” to a “good” school. But too many more of schools of children left behind simply due to the composition of the student body. That’s the way we’ve left behind kids time and again.

So, as I’m looking at the school choice platform, I see symbols next to our son’s school choices. These indicators signal the odds of our son getting into a specific school. Factors including my son’s seventh grade GPA, location in relation to the school, and other unseen factors seem to play a role in his grouping. I anxiously laughed. I know what it’s like for parents with way more barriers than us. While some parents have made their child’s school admissions their part-time job, others simply don’t have the luxury to visit the schools they’ll trust their children with.

So while this season’s school choice process may be over, our society will have to learn to make better choices for its schools, preferably before the next season.

Jose

The post Pick A School, Every School (On the NYC High School Admissions Process) appeared first on The Jose Vilson.

A couple of Saturdays ago, I had an existential question that I couldn’t grapple over.

“Do you think I should go canvass?”

My wife, knowing who I was, neither confirmed nor denied my request, but it’s a funny request. I can navigate speeches, protests, rallies, and other large gatherings, but I’m really an introvert. I have a hard time asking anyone for help. Why would I ask someone to vote for anyone … even a candidate like Zohran Mamdani. But over the last couple of weeks, I committed to helping the campaign with its last push in whatever capacity possible. To his credit, Jamaal Bowman would regularly push me to phone bank or contribute. Felicia Singh made canvassing look simple. Sari Beth Rosenberg helped me find a community of folks using their platforms to elevate the movement. A plethora of other education activists demonstrated how to uplift candidates with a strong vision and constructively critique them, particularly on education issues.

So I said to myself, “Well, if I am who I say I am, I have to put my passion to action.” I signed up for two shifts, knowing I could back out whenever I wished. Right after, I hopped into my white hoodie and went to pick up some local Chinese food (the meal for folks who finally got paid).

Just as I was about to cross the street on 116th and 1st, I saw this small wooden desk, the burly security guards, and the folded hands and said, “NO WAY!” It was Zohran Mamdani, the soaring candidate and mayoral hopeful. I mean “hopeful” in multiple ways. After the deflating results of last November’s election, the Mamdani campaign has energized an electorate seeking real answers that neither party addressed.

The assemblymember I met years ago was now a movement unto himself, galvanizing leaders across the city and the country to do better.

I quietly walked over and said, “Are y’all filming the Until It’s Done series!?” They nodded. As an educator, I’ve found it vital for candidates to pair a big vision with a political education. Education is already political, as I’ve documented countless times here. However, few candidates have paired the histories of their constituency with their core issues at this scale. Thankfully, Assemblymember Mamdani has done it so everyone can follow suit.

So yes, I met him and we chopped it up a bit. His people asked me if I’d create a video to encourage folks to canvass, to which my son and I obliged. (Edit: it’s the second time I’ve appeared in a campaign video. The first was a month before the primary and he needed support from the Heights.)

The next morning, while most folks were still asleep, and the marathon volunteers were still setting up, I and a few dozen folks met on 117th and St. Nicholas for our assignments. A few of us made our way to 106 and Madison to encourage people to vote via flyer. A handful of folks bristled at us. One chastised us for encouraging socialism.

But the majority of folks I remember, including several Spanish speakers, were encouraged by our presence near the projects. A Black man told me, “I’ma vote, but my son can’t,” to which I said “Yeah, but you gotta teach them now.” He said, “You right! I like your thinking!” A Black woman said, “You think I want the foolishness I saw upstate to come to Gracie? Hell no!” A white man walked by us and said “It’s time for something different because this ain’t working” while smiling at us. A few Dominicans and Boricuas walked up to me and went from “I’m not sure …” to “Wait, the voting spot is right here? I’m in!” They felt like someone was finally talking to them in their language. I even got a handful of people, mostly younger folks, to vote! The people who I partnered with over the two three-hour shifts were so dedicated and engaging that I could have done another shift.

As I walked home, I saw another large slice of New York City at its highest potential. For the second Sunday in a row, I witnessed the breadth of identities, displays of affection, and warmth that this city has to offer. (The first was at the New York Is Not For Sale Rally in Forest Hills, NY.) Contrary to the many narratives about this complicated place I call home, the ebullient crowd cheering on people they never met felt like a spiritual salt bath for my feet as I walked home. People brought water, snacks, and smiles for runners achieving their personal goals. This citywide ritual that cuts across my neighborhoods provided glimpses of a truly shared humanity.

By the time Zohran Mamdani won the following Tuesday, I felt like I partook in witnessing two marathons as well.

For years, I saw centrist political behemoths run roughshod over the collective will of everyday people. For the former New York State governor, that included everything from cutting funding for public schools to covering up corruption at all levels of government to the benefit of multi-millionaires. The Emmy-winning TV press conferences dissuaded people from believing more than a dozen women and the thousands of preventable deaths during the COVID shutdowns. Weaponizing identity-based hatred for a version of patriotism took over our newscasts and social media. Discarding an old guard that consistently blocked progress felt particularly satisfying.

A week after election results have come in, whole regions of the city will need deep healing and restoration for themselves and the rest of us, too.

But that feels like another battle. The day after Mayor-elect Mamdani walked out to Ja Rule’s “New York,” the New York Times released a block-by-block analysis of the mayoral race. The Lower East Side, El Barrio, Harlem, and Washington Heights all went to Mamdani, all places where I helped to campaign in-person and virtually, all neighborhoods I’ve called home. The majority of people saw what the Trump administration had done to people and institutions and summarily rejected the narratives. The New York City of the folks who built the streets and keep the lights on lives on.

My phone has hundreds of messages bristling with excitement over the results from people across eras, spaces, and ideologies. People wondered why I would dedicate myself to making another man’s vision come true when I have my own audience. I reply that this wasn’t just about Mamdani. It’s about creating a city, and hopefully a world, that reflects my deepest love and aspirations for what our kids and people deserve. I’ll definitely be protesting and engaging if/when polities stray from this larger vision, no matter who’s working in City Hall. Rather than going back to a politics that has never been neutral, I prefer to espouse a politics of compassion, empathy, and justice.

The first step for Gotham is affordability. The next step goes towards a bolder vision for how we live, learn, and love one another. Until we get it done, there’s no reason for me to stop canvassing.

The post Until We Get It Done (On My Meeting with Zohran Mamdani) appeared first on The Jose Vilson.

Yesterday, the MacArthur Foundation named 22 people to their hallowed fellowship program, often referred to as the “Genius Grant.” The foundation awards $800,000 grant to individuals from across different fields who external nominators believe exemplify remarkable creativity and potential future work. MacArthur believes that this no-strings-attached grant would help further their singular pursuits. This announcement comes at a vexing time for those of us working in education policy and practice. For New York City denizens, The Times shook the educational hornet’s nest by asking mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani about gifted and talented programs. When asked, Mamdani said he would end gifted and talented programs for kindergarteners.

Gifted and talented programs are popular among a set of upwardly-aspiring middle and upper class parents. Gifted and talented programs breed segregation and deficit thinking in the nation’s public school system. Both are true at the same time.

Scholars have explored the concept of “genius” in important ways (with deference to Drs. Gholdy Muhammad, Christopher Emdin, Donna Y. Ford, and others). I should also let you in on a secret: for research, I informally review the MacArthur fellowship winners’ biographies. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting them, usually before they won the award. Every time I call them “genius,” they either blush or tell me to “stop it!”. When I ask them why, they pause. Then, after some ruminating, they acknowledge the generous gift they’ve been given and push me to think of their work as a public-facing endeavor.

In other words, the grant helps them advance works that help their communities and, potentially, humanity. They’ll quibble about the source of their creativity. But they see that award as an opportunity to create something larger than themselves.

Interestingly, the vast majority of the winners passed through all the academic filters our system uses to sort students. Many of them probably found themselves at the top of their class at some point. The “genius” unfolds despite and because of their circumstances. All the while, our education systems over the last quarter century have consistently found ways to stifle our students’ creativity, imaginations, and dreams.

The United States left millions of children behind on a bipartisan basis. Policymakers focused so much on test scores, core content areas, and jobs that “haven’t been created.” The third feels more cogent now, as corporations seek to replace skilled people with deskilling algorithms. If K-12 education boils down to a standardized test, then the byproduct is a student body that uses large language models to offload lower and higher order thinking. When teachers receive scripted lessons without enough time, space, and compensation to collaborate and write, teachers follow suit. Schools spent two decades cutting back on arts in favor of tested subjects all for people to write a prompt into a machine that generates renderings for them.

And we confuse the products generated by the machines for art, too. Who does that serve? In this light, children have more opportunities to see education, and life, as meaningless.

Furthermore, thousands of “gifted and talented” programs at multiple levels of schooling screen students for academic aptitude. While the aspects of gifted and talented programs vary district to district, the results are mixed at best. Authors of that study highlight an array of ideas worth bringing into this:

The analysis revealed that internal factors such as motivational, emotional-social, and demographic factors, as well as external factors including environmental perception, family, peers, and socio-economic/cultural factors, play significant roles in the underachievement of gifted students. The study underscores the importance of understanding and addressing these factors in all stages of a gifted student’s educational journey, from screening and assessment to identification, planning, and rehabilitation. It highlights the need for a comprehensive strategy that goes beyond solely focusing on the psychological empowerment of students.

Some bring in their individual stories about children who can read and do math at levels higher than their peers. I won’t debate personal experiences at first. Yet, the adults who’ve gone through these programs as children tell a nuanced story (myself included). From the research, there’s a positive but mixed body of research on those who people consider “gifted.” Some studies show that, generally, those labeled as “gifted” had a positive academic experience, but others show the negative effects of “giftedness” on their adult lives.

Many of my former students never got to showcase their acuity because schooling segmented them immediately. Abbreviations as labels appeared next to their names, which stifled their prospects. Many of my multilingual learners were implicitly not given the opportunity to take higher level algebra. (I taught it anyway.) Others were given individualized education programs and were given an unwieldy list of reasons they couldn’t excel in school. Many of my students, who, through no fault of their own, have bore the weight of a society that has rarely seen them for their most luminous selves. That played into their self-concept to this day.

As a sociologist, I can’t help but to think to why “gifted and talented” programs are such a tenuous issue. Part of it is that parents see their children as special, but also an extension of themselves. That’s natural. But our society confuses “my kid is special and deserves an experiences that matches their abilities” with “no one else’s children should have the type of education mine is getting.” Some parents are looking for any edge that makes their children the beneficiary of market-based odds.

Increasing the odds for one child to get into a problem while advocating to decrease the odds for another child is weird at best, oppressive at worst.

To that end, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, like Mayor Eric Adams, has advocated for expanding gifted and talented programs. But expansion won’t solve the segregation chasm in a city with a student body that’s 85% students of color. Rather than ensuring that every school gets a great education, people prefer the disparities if it means only acceptable children matriculate into those programs. A framework that pushes families to compete with each other gives us an inherently divided school system.

Also, what good is a program in which our schools label children gifted and talented, but don’t give them authentic opportunities to explore their radiance?

All of our children are gifted and talented. A framework in which every child had the largesse of opportunities to thrive would break down barriers, including the idiosyncratic Specialized High School Aptitude Test. The goal is to support students across the academic and socio-emotional spectrum without making any student feel worthless for choosing their own path. Some advocates, including those on the BrilliantNYC committee, have tried to bring this issue to light with research and nuance. We can actually keep expectations high, teach students how to read and do math, and scaffold so every student can climb up their ladder of genius. That takes resources, a concerted effort, and a collective moral will to do so.

As Linda McMahon and those who aspire to her political vision attempt to destroy public education, more people ought to see the wisdom in guaranteeing educational opportunities for our children. I’m not just advocating for personalization. I’m advocating for a complete transformation of why we want children to get an education to begin with.

Surely, the genius we see in our children will hopefully help us build more ingenuity now and in the future. For us all.

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Over the last year, New York City has had a fascinating discussion about teaching math. In particular, NYC Department of Education has started to implement a program called NYC Solves, a parallel program to the lauded NYC Reads initiative. NYC Solves hopes to narrow the math achievement gap through a uniform curriculum for the nation’s largest public school system. On the one hand, a common language with a narrow funnel for support and training feels comprehensive given the vast array of challenges facing our schools. On the other, most vocal math teachers decry diminishing professional autonomy, citing scripted lessons and our schools’ checklist culture.

But while we’re so focused on debates about curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment, we’re missing on two important discussions. The first is about culture, and specifically the norms we’re living in that inform how we’re thinking about schooling. The second is about notions of “outcomes,” and how we’ve had a hard time decoupling achievement scores with academic learning.

To the first, few people blink when another person says “I’m not a math person.” Typically, the person saying it means that they felt left behind along their educational journey. To an extent, that has merit. Even with the progress made to improve math education, schools still serve as a filter for the maths and math-nots. We still cast too many children as capable or incapable of mathematical learning at multiple levels. I’ve heard countless people tell me either “I wish I had someone like you teach me this math because I would have gotten it” or “it took me until I was an adult to get why math mattered.” Both groups have said “I’m not a math person” when someone else asks. That speaks to culture.

Some might argue that this feels like an individual problem. After all, a significant number of people have come out of our schools fully competent in a wide variety of maths. Our schools have made math more widely available than ever before. Yet, one only needs to look at how we understand “individual” to see the issue. It’s not that personalization doesn’t matter. It’s that our society strives to individualize problems because it relieves people of our collective responsibility to teach children well. The fact that people have meme-ified “I’m a math person” as a get-out-of-math pass is perilous especially because we have no such parallel for reading.

Looping back to the city context, NYC Reads is a vastly popular program for several reasons. For one, Mayor Eric Adams used his personal struggles with dyslexia to help the narrative fly. Secondly, the science of reading narrative hit a peak wave across the country at around the same time. Third, the United States, despite its anti-intellectual strain, has pegged illiteracy as a scourge to be condemned. Saying “I’m not a reading person” would look wild for someone to say, even if it’s the top lawmaker in the land.

We’ve rarely seen this multi-lever energy in the country, even at the start of the Cold War. The National Defense Education Act of 1958 earmarked funds to promote math, science, and foreign language across schools. A Nation at Risk, the (in)famous commissioned report of 1983, also pushed forth rigor in the content areas amidst so-called mediocrity. Despite these movements in policy, cultural disconnects remain. Innumeracy, never mind dyscalculia, don’t register in the public consciousness as the former.

This also leads me to the second portion, namely why we’re doing math anyways. Since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, we’ve seen a ramp-up of standardized testing and other neoliberal solutions for our education system’s ills. Now, after almost a quarter-century, we’ve seen some relief of those solutions, but the smell remains. (Sidenote: Maybe shutting down dozens of public schools at the same time across multiple cities wasn’t a great idea!) If policymakers predicate the teaching of math simply for achievement scores (state tests, NAEP, etc.), then we’ve lost the plot. While standardized tests may provide evidence of a flashpoint in learning, it also creates an equivocation of sorts.

Too often, we believe doing well on a standardized test is equivalent to giving students an education.

In too many of our minds, our brightest students are those who’ve calculated their way up to the top, leaving the vast majority of “others” behind. Yet, when I talk to people about what it means to get an education, it’s not about scores. It’s about the breadth of tools a person has to navigate an ever-complicated world. Math as a set of approaches to modeling, making sense of, and building the world around them feels more aligned to people’s aspirations. If “outcomes” strictly means doing well on a standardized test (which is not the only way to assess someone), then we’ve truncated all imagination and possibility.

So, in thinking about NYC Solves, I respect those who feel like we have to do something. There’s also robust debate about whether Illustrative Math truncates or expands on teacher autonomy. However, whether we go with scripted lessons, unified curricula, and similar assessments, we have a big culture issue. Deficit thinking persists not just in NYC, but across American culture. Some vocal dissenters want us to go “back to basics,” to the detriment of our intellectual capacity and the futures we hope to build.

From there, discussing authentic professionalism and student learning becomes infinitely easier. That’s not something NYC can solve alone, but it’s something NYC can solve and start finding some common denominators.

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DC is one of my favorite cities in the country. That’s different than me saying Washington, of course. I’ve visited Washington on multiple occasions in my youth, including trips to the Smithsonian, a youth demonstration in my teens, and a protest related to the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action in 2003. Those were “Washington” trips, focused on the official buildings and monuments people immediately connect to the federal government.

That’s separate from DC, though, a combination of the neighborhoods and people that still call the space Chocolate City. My cousin Vanessa invited me to her new crib in the DMV area in my 20s. I’d hop on the Amtrak quarterly, exploring the cultural institutions that made this place home for millions of Black people. In my twenties, it felt miraculous to eat a fresh meal and pick up a book or 10 at Busboys and Poets. Vanessa also connected me to Malik, who pulled us into the burgeoning underground R&B/soul scene. When the National Museum of African American History and Culture opened a permanent home in 2016, the federal government built a connective tissue between Washington and DC, too.

The geometry of gridded streets mixed with spaces for art and authentic cuisine felt like people playing with shades and hues within a coloring book. The Trump administration has already ripped through the semblances of Washington airs and is now using their power to suppress these DC norms, too.

DC became a favored destination around the time when I began my teaching career. In my classroom, I teetered between using rows and aisles or groupings for seating arrangements. I immediately saw the pros and cons of the gridded seating. During “formal” assessments, I could quickly get a sense of individual learning and behaviors in relation to the content. But as I stood in front of them, I’d get anxious if the classroom was quiet for too long. The classroom needed a little more noise as that’s where the magic actually happens. During learning activities, getting them to learn from each other felt more organic in tables of two or more.

In other words, these rows and aisles helped with a perception of social control, but had diminishing returns for the desired culture of my classroom.

Not enough has been said about how our classrooms can be conduits for the societies we wish to live in. Over the years, we’ve had plenty of conversations about the school-to-prison pipeline, and rightly so. The multiple forms of justice in this lattice include racial, gender, disability, and (economic) class justice. However, we don’t talk about how many of us have been complicit in teaching through autocratic means. Yes, that includes me. It’s humbling in the backdrop of an unapologetic autocracy at several levels of government.

At my best, I sought input from students and families, which provided for the best learning experiences in our classes. I settled disputes with a multitude of techniques well honed by the latter parts of my career (save, perhaps that one year I was under a teacher improvement plan). Kids would debate, if not loudly argue, with each other about math. I’d laugh it off because they were as excited about math as they were about their favorite musicians and sports. I didn’t need to “discipline” or “manage” in the traditional sense, either. I just pushed students to rely on each other and perhaps me to elevate their learning experiences.

However imperfectly, and yes, it wasn’t always perfect.

At worst through my career, it was my way or the dean’s office/after-school detention/dramatic calls home, etc. Sometimes, I thought I was doing right by kids by creating a heavily structured and disciplined classroom. I simultaneously built resentment for not letting them leverage their ways of knowing and talking towards their learning. On a couple of occasions, it created rebellion. When it’s 30 on 1 in our classrooms, the fact that more revolts don’t happen is remarkable.

In those moments, I’d question whether my altruism in teaching gave way for internalized suppression of the people and communities I purportedly serve.

Which makes me think of the pedagogy the Department of Justice is serving the people of DC now. Federal agents are asking people for IDs on their porches, standing in the middle of pedestrian traffic ominously, and posting Black men in handcuffs on official social media accounts. Over the years, some have cheered this type of behavior as necessary for a false sense of safety and security. But as I look at what’s happening in DC, not to mention NYC, Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago, I wonder what would happen if everyone stopped confusing control for security.

For that matter, I wonder what would happen if our governments would simply invest in everyone’s individual and collective well-being? The relationship between schools and society isn’t perfectly parallel. But what would society look like if everyone was shown a better way to be in community, and for governments to support such a vision?

Here’s something that the best teachers know and teach political leaders, too: forcing students to sit in rows and aisles for long periods of time isn’t going to solve your classroom culture issues. It’s, at best, a temporary fix that might grant stillness for a bit. At worst, it reminds students that the classroom isn’t for them.

That’s a lesson America refuses to learn to this day.

jose, who has found new appreciation for John 10:10 …

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I have a story to tell about comfort zones.

In late June, the High School for Environmental Studies invited me to be their special guest speaker for their graduation. As usual, I did my research on the type of talk I wanted to give to high schoolers. Many of the inspirational talks out there are geared towards college students. Mine needed to feel less like I was talking at them and more talking to and with them. I didn’t finish editing my talk until an hour before I needed to go. I hopped into a suit, took a taxi down to Hunter College, and found my way into the auditorium.

Sari Beth Rosenberg, HSES’ famous history teacher, greets me at the secret entrance and I’m immediately reminded that, yes, I had something to say in this moment. The humidity had me parched. I greeted everyone and made a few jokes, but found myself meditating a bit with my eyes open so I could lock in for the task at hand. Somewhere just beyond my discomfort was a set of things I needed to say to everyone.

Before the speech happened, I agonized over giving the students a sense of hope that felt unmerited. I typically roll my eyes at people who wear rose-colored glasses, particularly those who say the Trump administration will simply come and go. American history has revisited and heightened episodes of domestic and international terror within six short months. The Trump administration has already completed 46% of its stated goals as per Project 2025, and the politics seem more daunting than ever. While mass movements have granted us a sense of awakening for many, they’ve also represented a slowing down of Trump’s agenda rather than a complete stop.

With everything going on, who can withstand the decades of collective antipathy baked into the framework of the powerful and shameless?

In these moments, I collect small instances of kindness and empathy along my path. A set of volunteers is helping a long line of elders, unemployed, and/or unhoused people get food and clothes at a local food bank. A group of organizers is handing out water bottles on the hottest day of the year thus far. Individuals and collectives push back against masked men posing as government entities attempting to kidnap innocent people. A set of mamas and aunties are gathering large sets of people for early dinners in their homes. Some teachers are coming together to set up teach-ins beyond the school curriculum.

In the midst of these sets of kindness, I hear a common refrain: “Thank God you were there.” Right now, governments near and far play god with people’s lives and deaths all the same. Maybe it’s time we each play god in a way that points towards the collective empathy we deserve.

So with that, I sit there, looking at this two-tiered auditorium filled with graduates and their families. The people look like a cornucopia against the beige of the walls and lighting. When Sari introduced me, I didn’t know she would read the breadth of my bio. I had the “adult who would pass down wisdom” slot, just after Linda Rosenthal and Gale Brewer, two important policymakers here in New York, gave remarks.

It took me a minute to take the audience in, but I had to get past my discomfort zone, too. I started with a multilingual greeting to everyone in the audience. Just as I was getting into my call-and-response for the students in the audience, a fire alarm went off. My middle school teacher instincts went off and I glanced around the audience. (Afterwards, I found out someone was stuck in an elevator in the building and it took the fire department a while to get them out.)

Some groaned, but I immediately reminded everyone of my educator background. They laughed. I think I stomped my feet twice, gathered myself, and said, “Let’s get it.”

From there, I talked about the preparation they got from the high school they’re in. The theme of the speech was “Outside,” in the sense that they would take the learning they did “inside” and apply it “outside.” It’s also a reference to some of the memes we’ve seen from New York City lore, particularly Sidetalk and Jadakiss. Like I said, this was about the students, not the adults. (To their credit, the adults also participated, including the principal and the politicians there.)

I offered three lessons: remember who you are, life isn’t linear, and think globally but act locally. I interwove jokes from their generation to things the audience could resonate with, too. I sprinkled some reminders of the things their elders went through to get them here. I didn’t have the luxury of my well known GIFs and slides, but I had a vast array of references up my sleeves. Yes, we would be louder than the perpetual (and literal) noise in our ears.

Also of note: I might have squealed when I saw, to my surprise, some of my former students in the audience graduating from high school.

After the talk, people remarked how me pushing through the alarms encouraged them to keep the ceremony going with what otherwise felt disastrous to any ceremony. I nodded with gratitude. Luckily, the alarms quieted down some for the amazing student speeches. I shook hands with graduates. My three former students embraced me, too. Sari asked if I wanted to leave through the secret entrance and I said, “I’d rather be outside!” She laughed. When we exited to Park Avenue, the otherwise quiet block became a site of exuberance, but also a slice of hope. People of multiple shades, cries, and flags all speaking the same language of celebration and gratitude lined the blocks and slowed down traffic over the next hour or so.

Not only were my former students graduating. I also saw some of my former students who were also siblings and their families as well. As the kids say, I was “in my bag,” overwrought with emotions after seeing these little ones now significantly taller. Even as I’m pursuing academic positions and grants to enhance my organization’s work, I’m reminded that my adult foundation has always centered children and the world they deserve.

That night, I couldn’t watch the news. For a moment, I let myself believe that another world was possible. I imagined that we who celebrated the students would be sending our students into a world that embraced their fullest humanity. But then, I also imagined a world where they would join us in a broader collective coalition to do just that.

In this moment, I’ve been uncomfortable with everything surrounding us. On that evening, it was time for me to push beyond that discomfort. I wish for everyone the same.

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“Mr. Vilson, I’m in a doctoral program, just like you.”

One of my former students posted a picture of a quad at an established university. I inquired about her current work there. She said she was studying engineering. As she passed through undergrad, she’d check in about milestones: her applications to big universities, her matriculation into grad, then doctoral programs. By the time Columbia University conferred my degree back in October of 2024, she was well into her doctoral journey.

As I’ve recounted to her a few times, our first interaction back in her eighth grade year wasn’t as heartening. In fact, when she first walked into my classroom, she made a face that even Peppa Pig would consider cross. My deadpan face didn’t give it away, but internally, I did a “Oh, here we go.” After that moment, I recognized she had a preternatural gift for numeracy and making meaning of the math in front of her. I often found her explaining the work to her fellow students. Among gifted students, she shone brightly. I’m glad I kept reading the book beyond the cover, metaphorically speaking.

Furthermore, after she graduated from my class, one of her high school teachers is a good friend and colleague (shout out Sendy Keenan) whose insights pushed my thinking about my doctoral work. I’ve said how academia could do a better job of naming the teachers and other adults who we learn from and publish about. Academics and people with larger platforms have a responsibility to share how they acquired their frameworks. On the one hand, research methods must allow for a level of anonymity and generalizability. Naming people and places introduces all sorts of risks. At the same time, when people name ideas, they often attribute it to the writer, not the practitioner.

But a question: what do we owe students in our funds of knowledge? In particular, how do students teach us about the phenomena we’re putting out in the world?

In my dissertation acknowledgements and here, I’ve named how my teaching is a conglomerate of all the teaching I witnessed as a student, the teaching I observed in my colleagues’ classrooms, and practices I absorbed from my studies. Yet, I’m also a believer in social learning theory i.e. we learn best when we learn with others. As a sociologist, I didn’t just observe other teachers and chose what I wanted to do. I’m also a reflection of how students received my pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment.

I didn’t just learn from a select few students. I learned from all of them in ways large and small.

I’m thinking about one of my first students who couldn’t articulate that he was being bullied outside of my classroom. Me not seeing it didn’t mean it wasn’t happening. Before he left, his mom told me in a mix of fury and frustration that the school had done him a disservice. I was a first year teacher without the tools to address it then. But it taught me about my responsibility as a community-engaged teacher for both the “bully” and the “bullied.”

I’m also thinking to the brilliant student in my fourth year of teaching who’d ask “What does this have to do with real life?”. She had a reputation for whining in the school, but I went home and reflected on it. Over the next few weeks, I decided to work on giving her access to the math. As she arrived at her “oh!” moments, she asked better questions and participated more. I learned to reframe “whining” and to re-ground myself in patience.

I remember when my administration made the decision to move me back “into the classroom” from doing math instructional coaching. Some colleagues complained that I didn’t give them enough materials while others begrudged the idea that they could learn from someone younger than them. When I acquired a new class in November of that year, a few of the students were seen as thugs. People told me to fear the class. Some of those kids just needed a word of affirmation. I learned to assess my students first thing in the morning about their mental health. My door stayed open to them for the rest of that year.

Even in my book where I lay out some of the disasters in my teaching, I recognized places where I’m learning. Those losses were lessons I needed to become a better practitioner.

As the rain came down on us during Columbia University’s commencement, tam and robe drenched, I carried these memories. When I walked across the stage at United Palace Theatre, I gave them a shout-out in my mind, hoping they’d hear me (I taught a mile north of . I opened my phone and saw students who I hadn’t seen in a decade congratulate me, some of whom couldn’t believe I remembered them. I’m older, so I get it.

But I spent the last four years at Teachers College not just studying dead white men tell us about ourselves. (Yay, sociology!) I also spent it reconciling how I as a teacher understand my work against the backdrop of teaching over a thousand students. Then, I worked on how other teachers like me understand their relation to students like mine and perhaps students unlike mine.

I’m still working on learning. I can’t account for every student I’ve ever taught. It’s a miracle that many of them still want to keep contact, really. But I’m infinitely more brilliant by having 30 or so students for long periods of time to bounce ways of knowing off of. That’s culture, too. I wish more of us gave ourselves the opportunity to give credit where it’s due.

It’s funny because I reached out to the aforementioned student for this piece and she wished not to be named. Her journey as a doctoral student isn’t done. Mine is, but my work as an intellectual stewing in these nuances is not.

In that sense, we both have so much more to go. And the rest of us, too.

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