Kerry Woodward

Child Welfare Reckons With the Harm of Investigations Agencies are confronting new evidence that child protective investigations are used far too often and leave damaging effects.

getting investigated by CPS is often experienced as traumatic. investigations are invasive and incredibly high stakes; family separation is on the table. this editorial from McCarthy and Kohomban captures the problem well and points to good directions forward: imprintnews.org/opinion/chil...

So grateful to have had Michael Burawoy as my mentor and advisor. No one has shaped my teaching, mentoring, or scholarship more. The world has lost an incredible human, scholar, and advocate for justice. Love you, Michael.

American Children’s Reading Skills Reach New Lows (Gift Article) With little post-pandemic recovery, experts wonder if screen time and school absence are among the causes.

Adding to the bad news and fear about the future, since this is only going to get worse now.

www.nytimes.com/2024/12/16/o...

Black Student Enrollment at Harvard Law Drops by More Than Half After a Supreme Court decision ended race-based admissions, some law schools saw a decline in Black and Hispanic students entering this fall. Harvard appeared to have the steepest drop.

“Harvard Law enrolled 19 first-year Black students, or 3.4 percent of the class, the lowest number since the 1960s, according to the data from the American Bar Association.”

www.nytimes.com/2024/12/16/u...

Writing is thinking.

It’s not a part of the process that can be skipped; it’s the entire point.

Promo code: NYUAU30 at nyupress.org

Book cover for Policing Not Protecting Families: The Child Welfare System as Poverty Governance.

Excited to share that the volume Jennifer Randles (jrandles.bsky.social) and I edited will be out in March! @nyupress.bsky.social

One way we control poor populations, particularly Black and Native communities, while spending far more money on punishment than we would need to spend if we chose to house and feed instead.

No surprises here, just more data.

Chart showing that in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic, there were 1,732 gun deaths among U.S. children and teens under the age of 18. By 2021, that figure had increased to 2,590.

The number of children and teens killed by gunfire in the United States increased 50% between 2019 and 2021.
www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

Why "Fund Students, Not Systems" Is a Recipe for Disaster When the "Race to the Top" becomes winner take all, students are the big losers. And as the stakes grow higher and higher, public education falls further behind.

This is a few months old--and much scarier now than it was then.
I spend a lot of time complaining about our public education system. Not having one at all would be far worse. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

To dismiss the value of talking to our own is to fail to see that the utility of conversation, like that of preaching, goes far beyond persuasion or the transmission of information. At its best, conversation is a means of accomplishing many subtle and indirect things. The painter Rudolf Baranik, who died twenty years ago, once told me a story about a ferry ride he took in New York City on a bitter winter day in the late 1930s, soon after he had arrived as a refugee from Eastern Europe. “It is very cold, is it not?” he said in his formal English to a black man standing next to him on the deck. “Yeaaahh, man,” his fellow passenger replied. “Why is that man singing?” Baranik wondered. The moment remained with him — the unfamiliar musicality of the New Yorker’s intonation had made memorable what was otherwise an ordinary exchange. Why comment to a stranger about the weather, when the conditions are obvious to both of you? Because it’s an affirmation that you exist in the same place, that no matter what else might separate you, you have this in common. And because it’s an opening, if not to understanding, then at least to the place where it might begin.

To dismiss the value of talking to our own is to fail to see that the utility of conversation, like that of preaching, goes far beyond persuasion or the transmission of information.

Fascinating. Also disturbing.

Florida Tries a Subtler Way to Curb Progressive Ideology: Cut Sociology Conservatives in Florida have moved from explosive politics to subtler tactics to uproot liberal “indoctrination” in higher education by removing subjects like sociology from core requirements.

Most of the folks interviewed are in my department. But what the piece doesn’t reveal is that this reactionary regime of censorship is working hand-in-hand with an assault on shared governance, fully enabled by each respective campus administration.
www.nytimes.com/2024/11/21/u...

And California voters rejected Prop 32 to raise the minimum wage--because that's what would increase raise prices and and hurt small businesses. 🤦‍♀️

Since there seem to be a lot of new professors on Bluesky, I'll re-share this link to the AAUP's "Organize Every Campus" campaign. This is a critical time for faculty to organize in defense of our students, ourselves and co-workers, and the institutions we believe in. Join us!

TY to the 18 senators who voted for Sanders's first resolution!

Durbin
Heinrich
Hirono
Kaine
King
Lujan
Markey
Merkley
Murphy
Ossoff
Sanders
Schatz
Shaheen
Smith
Van Hollen
Warnock
Warren
Welch

‘Race,’ ‘equity’ removed from UNT course titles to comply with Texas DEI ban, faculty say The University of North Texas changed class titles and descriptions with some citing the state’s DEI ban though officials deny that’s the cause.

Seems to line up with reporting from Dallas Morning News www.dallasnews.com/news/educati...

Of misogyny, Musk, and men Women are not okay. We're furious.

I was getting very frustrated by the male-dominated punditry about the election, and very little space being given to women, and the rage that so many of us feel right now. So I wrote something: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Wondering if undocumented immigrants pay taxes? We’ve got the scoop at ITEP.org