Bettina L. Love

New York

Co-Founder at Abolitionist Teaching Network

Opinion Contributor at Education Week

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Articles

Generation Alpha Is Defined by Tragedy

2 months ago | edweek.org | Bettina L. Love

My wife and I have twins born in 2010, members of the generation dubbed “Alpha” (born from 2010 to 2025). It’s the first generation to grow up fully immersed in and consumed by digital technology. When our kidswerejust 2 years old, Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman for, as many believe, being Black.
Education Is an Afterthought in This Election. That’s a Problem for All of Us

Oct 4, 2024 | edweek.org | Bettina L. Love

For nearly the last 40 years, presidential candidates have made K-12 education policy centerpieces of their campaigns. They promised bold and ambitious solutions to fix an American public school system rife with inequalities. The difficulty actually delivering on these promises has never stopped presidential hopefuls before now. “I want to be the education president,” then-presidential candidate George H. W. Bush told a crowd of New Hampshire high school students in 1988.
Project 2025 Might Feel New, But Its Roots Reach Back Decades

Sep 20, 2024 | edweek.org | Bettina L. Love

Willard E. Goslin, a tall, unassuming white man with the appearance of a made-for-TV principal, began his life and teaching career in rural Missouri in the early part of the 20th century. He earned a reputation as a progressive educator who championed the rights of African American children, supported school integration, and advocated sex education.
The Failed Promise of 'Brown v. Board' (Opinion)

May 16, 2024 | edweek.org | Bettina L. Love

Editor’s note: For additional perspectives on the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, Education Week Opinion Contributor Bettina L. Love invited R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy to contribute an essay for a brief series on the U.S. Supreme Court decision. Ten years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., while speaking at The New School in New York City, told the crowd: “The Negro had been deeply disappointed over the slow pace of school desegregation.
What March Madness Can Teach Schools About Equity

Mar 20, 2024 | edweek.org | Bettina L. Love

March Madness, the annual single-elimination tournament where the nation’s top women’s and men’s college basketball teams compete to determine the national champion, is one of my favorite times of the year. As a former Division I college women’s basketball player, I have fond memories of traveling around the country, eating endless slices of cold pizza, drinking gallons of Gatorade, and enduring the screams of die-hard fans who seemed to love the game more than any player on the court.
What I Wish I Knew About Teaching Black History Before I Left the Classroom

Feb 12, 2024 | edweek.org | Bettina L. Love

In schools across the country, Black History Month is 28 days packed with the acknowledgement and celebration of Black icons whose inventions, speeches, social movements, writings, poetry, philosophical teachings, and athletic and artistic abilities changed the course of the United States and affected people worldwide. I remember my days as a Black elementary school teacher—eyes beaming with joy, proudly introducing students to a new Black icon each day in February.
"School Choice" Is No Choice At All for Black Children

Oct 13, 2023 | time.com | Bettina L. Love

IdeasOctober 13, 2023 7:00 AM EDTLove is the William F. Russell Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University and the author of the New York Times bestseller Punished For Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal. To understand why Black children only get the scraps of school choice, we need to interrogate what the phrase “school choice”has meant in the years between the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling in 1954 and today.
How Public Education Nearly Killed Hip Hop in the Cradle

Sep 22, 2023 | thedailybeast.com | Bettina L. Love

In the last two months, I've read many stories celebrating the 50-year anniversary of Hip Hop. Stories of how teenagers who grew up in New York City harnessed nothing but their talent to create a cultural phenomenon that captivates the globe. Hip Hop's cultural power is undeniable, but the story people don't know is that the children who created this global juggernaut attended school in the shadow of the school reform movement that punished them for the very creativity they expressed in Hip Hop.
Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal

Sep 12, 2023 | bookshop.org | Bettina L. Love

(Author) FORMAT Hardcover$29.00$26.97(English) Buy new or used from an indie through our partner Biblio: Price Condition Seller NOW A NEW YORK TIMES AND A USA TODAY BESTSELLER"I am an eighties baby who grew to hate school. I never fully understood why. Until now. Until Bettina Love unapologetically and painstakingly chronicled the last forty years of education 'reform' in this landmark book. I hated school because it warred on me.
American Education Hurt Black Students. We Deserve Reparations

Sep 5, 2023 | edweek.org | Bettina L. Love

My generation, the Black children of the 1980s and 90s, grew up on the shoulders of the civil rights generation. They were our mothers, fathers, uncles, aunties, and grandparents. We shared the dream of integration that our parents had fought to make real for us, but education reform merged with crime reform to put targets on our backs.