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No Excuses: Race and Reckoning at a Chicago Charter School

No Excuses: Race and Reckoning at a Chicago Charter School
Illustration by Rachel Sender for APM Reports

An audio documentary from APM Reports.

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No Excuses: Race and Reckoning at a Chicago Charter School
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August 9, 2022

Producer DJ Cashmere spent seven years teaching Black and brown students at a Noble Street charter high school in Chicago. At the time, Noble followed a popular model called "no excuses." Its schools required strict discipline but promised low-income students a better shot at college.

After DJ left the classroom to become a journalist, Noble disavowed its own policies — calling them "assimilationist, patriarchal, white supremacist, and anti-black."

In this hour, DJ, who is white, revisits his old school as it tries to reinvent itself as an anti-racist institution. And he seeks out his former students to ask them how they felt about being on the receiving end of all that education reform, and what they think now about the time they spent in his classroom.

"No Excuses" is one of two audio documentaries this fall from the Educate podcast — stories about education, opportunity, and how people learn.
PRODUCER
DJ Cashmere
EDITOR
Catherine Winter
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
Anna Canny
CONSULTING EDITOR
Alden Loury
MUSIC/SOUND DESIGN
Chris Julin
ENGINEERING
Craig Thorson
FACT CHECKER
Betsy Towner Levine
DIGITAL EDITOR
Andy Kruse
SPECIAL THANKS
Neel Dhanesha
Sean Mayes
Dan Harris
Stephen Cashmere
Christine Peralta
Chris Worthington
Lauren Humpert
Dave Mann
Madeleine Baran
Samara Freemark
Sasha Aslanian

Support for this program comes from Lumina Foundation and the Spencer Foundation.


Resources
  • Complete documentary transcript

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