H.E.A.L. (Honest Education Action & Leadership) Together is building a movement of students, parents, and educators in school districts across the United States who believe that an honest, accurate, and fully funded public education is the foundation for a just, multiracial, and pluralistic democracy. This H.E.A.L. Together toolkit shares why the recent controversies around CRT and education deemed divisive are showing up in your school district. This toolkit equips you with strategies not just to respond to these manufactured controversies but to also organize students, parents, and educators on making your schools and community more equitable and inclusive. This is a living document and will be updated to include the lessons learned from campaigns and to share examples of other efforts from communities across the country.

Teaching for Black Lives grows directly out of the movement for Black lives. We recognize that anti-Black racism constructs Black people, and Blackness generally, as not counting as human life. Throughout this book, we provide resources and demonstrate how teachers connect curriculum to young peoples lives and root their concerns and daily experiences in what is taught and how classrooms are set up. We also highlight the hope and beauty of student activism and collective action.

Emdin argues that being ratchetdemic, or both ratchet and academic (like having rap battles about science, for example), can empower students to embrace themselves, their backgrounds, and their education as parts of a whole, not disparate identities. This means celebrating protest, disrupting the status quo, and reclaiming the genius of youth in the classroom.

The Culturally Responsive Curriculum Scorecards were developed collaboratively by NYC parents, students, educators and researchers, as a tool to help determine the extent to which English Language Art, Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) curricula are (or are not) culturally responsive. The tool was spearheaded by Black and Latinx public school parents with the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice, who were organizing to push the NYC Department of Education to provide their children with a culturally responsive education and wanted to know if their childrens curriculum perpetuated racism and other forms of bias. Together, parents and researchers developed and piloted the Scorecard, which has now been used in hundreds of schools and districts across the country and internationally.

In Cultivating Genius, Dr. Gholdy Muhammad presents a four-layered equity framework-one that is grounded in history and restores excellence in literacy education. Muhammad's Historically Responsive Literacy Framework is essential for all students, especially youth of color, who traditionally have been marginalized in learning standards, school policies, and classroom practices. The framework promotes four learning goals-or pursuits: Identity development; defining self; making sense of one's values and beliefs Skill development; developing proficiencies through reading and writing meaningful content Intellectual development; gaining knowledge and becoming smarter Criticality; developing the ability to read texts to understand power, authority, and oppression When these four learning pursuits are taught together-through the Historically Responsive Literacy Framework- all students receive profound opportunities for personal, intellectual, and academic success. Muhammad provides probing, self-reflective questions for both teachers and students as well as bibliographies of culturally responsive text and sample lesson plans across grades and content areas.

A foundational aspect of this work was the development of the CEAR Lesson and Unit Plan Templates. Fellows met weekly for several months, studied the work of critical educational scholars, and engaged in professional development with organizations committed to anti-racist education. From these meetings, Fellows developed a template to create the CEAR curriculum.

A foundational aspect of this work was the development of the CEAR Education Project Principles and Practices. Fellows met weekly for several months, studied the work of critical educational scholars, and engaged in professional development with organizations committed to anti-racist education. From these meetings, Fellows developed a set of principles and practices that were used to guide the curriculum design.

A foundational aspect of this work was the development of the CEAR Lesson and Unit Plan Templates. Fellows met weekly for several months, studied the work of critical educational scholars, and engaged in professional development with organizations committed to anti-racist education. From these meetings, Fellows developed a template to create the CEAR curriculum.

Young People and Environmental Justice

Grade Level: 5

Subject: Science

Young People and Environmental Justice is a unit designed for fifth grade students where they will explore how to fight for environmental justice to protect the earth's resources and their communities. The unit is developed around videos and texts that explore environmental injustices, such as the differential impact of pollution based on race and wealth, and highlight youth activism for environmental justice. Importantly, environmental injustices are defined as the result of systemic policies and practices, not individual behavior. Students interview leaders in local CBOs and create action plans using resources and strategies shared by CBOs to hold communities accountable to the law and to protect BIPOC communities in the state of New Jersey. The integrated unit meets core content standards for Science.