Once in awhile, Medium gets a reading rec right. Thrilled to have found you here. Now:

I consider the “unprepared CHS principal” you mention a dear friend, one who is far smarter and far more empathic than the KIPP dudes (thus, not comfortably conflated with them), and yet I am also nodding and smiling with satisfaction as I read you here — especially when you get to Tough and the NYTimes and their “depressing, unquestioning trust in the powerful.” (This book and I have a tremendously complicated relationship.)

I agree with much (all?) of what you wrote —and I have only ever understood “grit” to be a tremendously dangerous concept, on par with “culture of poverty” in addition to bootstrapping logics — neither of which seem to go out of fashion in the U.S…

Thank you for putting this into circulation here, and I hope it becomes a point of departure for a much bigger conversation — one that didn’t seem to happen in 2013.

Cheers,

DP