Teaching for Change is a non-profit organization founded in 1989 and based in Washington, D.C., with the motto of "building social justice, starting in the classroom." This organization uses publications, professional development, and parent organizing programs to accomplish this goal.

Programming

Teaching for Change coordinates a variety of programs that aim to encourage teachers, students, and parents to build a more equitable, multicultural society through education.

Civil Rights Teaching

As of 2006, the state of Mississippi "passed the Civil Rights/Human Rights Education in the Mississippi Public Schools Curriculum bill," which mandated "the integration of civil rights and human rights" topics into the curriculum of the K-12 schools under its purview. Accordingly, Teaching for Change worked with the McComb School District and the

Mississippi Department of Education The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) is the state education agency of Mississippi. It is headquartered in the former Central High School (Jackson, Mississippi), Central High School Building at 359 North West Street in Jackson, Mississip ...

for ten years to incorporate lessons on the civil rights movement and

labor history Labor history is a sub-discipline of social history which specializes on the history of the working classes and the labor movement. Labor historians may concern themselves with issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and other factors besides class ...

in the curriculum. The stated intention was to help schools "end a decades-old culture of silence" on difficult historical events in the region. McComb Legacies, an after-school and summer enrichment program, grew out of the partnership between Teaching for Change and the McComb School District. As part of McComb Legacies, high school students work as historians to uncover the history of the voting rights struggle in McComb and

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

. In the spring of 2013, two McComb student projects made it to the national level of the

National History Day National History Day (NHD) is a Nonprofit organization, non-profit which aims to "improve the teaching and learning of history." Its flagship event is an annual competition in which students in grades 6-12 develop presentations about topics in ...

competition. ''The Voting Rights Struggle'', a documentary film created by McComb students, tells the story of the first

SNCC The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and later, the Student National Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emer ...

voter registration drive, which was located in McComb. The film can now be seen at the African American Civil War Museum in Washington, DC. In 2024, Teaching for Change published the second edition of the publication, ''Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching''.

D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice

In 2017, Teaching for Change launched DC Area Educators for Social Justice, a community of mutual support for educators to collaborate on curriculum, professional learning, and activism. Beginning in 2018, DC Area Educators for Social Justice has led the yearly D.C. Area Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action. Beginning in 2015, DC Area Educators brought together local social justice teachers to form a graduate level writing group in a program titled Stories from our Classroom. Some of these stories went onto be published in ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

'', ''

Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers ...

'', ''

Edutopia The George Lucas Educational Foundation is a nonprofit publishing company, publisher that documents and publicizes exemplary K-12 education practices and programs, especially through video. It does this primarily through the Edutopia website. O ...

,'' and other well-known periodicals.

Teaching Central America

In 2017, Teaching for Change launched the website Teaching Central America. The website offers free downloadable lessons, biographies, poetry, and prose from Central American writers such as

Roque Dalton Roque Antonio Dalton García (14 May 1935 – 10 May 1975), known professionally as Roque Dalton, was a Salvadoran poet, essayist, journalist, political activist, and intellectual. He is considered one of Latin America's most compelling poets ...

Rigoberta Menchú Rigoberta Menchú Tum (; born 9 January 1959) is a K'iche' Guatemalan human rights activist, feminist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the rights of Guatemala's Indigenous peoples during and afte ...

Claribel Alegría Clara Isabel Alegría Vides (May 12, 1924 – January 25, 2018), also known by her pseudonym Claribel Alegría, was a Nicaraguan-Salvadoran poet, essayist, novelist, and journalist who was a major voice in the literature of contemporary Central ...

, and

Ernesto Cardenal Ernesto Cardenal Martínez (20 January 1925 – 1 March 2020) was a Nicaraguan Catholic priest, poet, and politician. He was a liberation theologian and the founder of the primitivist art community in the Solentiname Islands, where he lived fo ...

Social Justice Books

Teaching for Change launched the Social Justice Books website in 2017. The Social Justice Book site contains more than 60 carefully selected lists of multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators, along with dozens of book reviews coordinated by the See What We See (SWWS) coalition.

Zinn Education Project

Teaching for Change co-founded the Zinn Education Project with Rethinking Schools in 2008 to provide teachers with free resources to help teach a

people's history A people's history, or history from below, is a type of historical narrative which attempts to account for historical events from the perspective of common people rather than leaders. There is an emphasis on disenfranchised, the oppressed, the ...

including free downloadable lesson plans as a companion to

Howard Zinn Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian and a veteran of World War II. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political science professor at Boston University. Zinn ...

's ''

A People's History of the United States '' A People's History of the United States'' is a 1980 nonfiction book (updated in 2003) by American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn. In the book, Zinn presented what he considered to be a different side of history from the more ...

'' and other classroom resources for educators around the country. Close to a quarter of teachers surveyed in a 2024 study by the

American Historical Association The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world, claiming over 10,000 members. Founded in 1884, AHA works to protect academic free ...

use resources from the Zinn Education Project. Former Programs

Tellin' Stories

The Tellin' Stories program is a process for building parent engagement in schools. This program uses a bottom-up approach, encouraging parents to define what their roles will be. The training plan has four stages: * Community Building: families meet each other and learn about their schools; * Information Gathering: parents analyze the school climate, the facilities, and the quality of teaching and learning at their school; * Identifying and Prioritizing Concerns: parents investigate concerns with schools (using Right Question Project methodology); and * Taking Action: parents determine the action required to achieve desired results and work collectively to promote those actions.

Teaching for Change Bookstore

Teaching for Change founded and operated an independent, non-profit bookstore located inside Busboys and Poets 14th and V Streets location for ten years.Todd Kliman
Rainbow Room: The Busboys and Poets Controversy
''Washingtonian'', December 1, 2005. The bookstore hosted author events and provided selections of books focusing on progressive politics, multicultural lessons for pre K-12, and

. Teaching for Change helped bring noted authors to host readings, discussions and book signings, including

Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was awa ...

Cornel West Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953) is an American philosopher, theologian, political activist, politician, social critic, and public intellectual. West was an independent candidate in the 2024 United States presidential election and is an ou ...

Ronald Takaki Ronald Toshiyuki Takaki (April 12, 1939 – May 26, 2009) was an American academic, historian, ethnographer and author. Born in pre-statehood Hawaii, Takaki studied at the College of Wooster and completed his doctorate in American history at t ...

Michelle Alexander Michelle Alexander (born October 7, 1967) is an American writer, attorney, and civil rights activist. She is best known for her 2010 book '' The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness''. Since 2018, she has been an opinion ...

Melissa Harris-Perry Melissa Victoria Harris-Perry (born October 2, 1973), formerly known as Melissa Victoria Harris-Lacewell, is an American writer, professor, television host, and political commentator with a focus on African-American politics. Harris-Perry hoste ...

John Sayles John Thomas Sayles (born September 28, 1950) is an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor, and novelist. He is known for writing and directing the films '' The Brother from Another Planet'' (1984), '' Matewan'' (1987), ...

Nikki Giovanni Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni Jr. (June 7, 1943 – December 9, 2024) was an American poet, writer, commentator, activist and educator. One of the world's best-known African-American poets, her work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recor ...

, Bob Moses, Juan Gonzalez,

Ralph Nader Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American lawyer and political activist involved in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes. He is a Perennial candidate, perennial presidential candidate. His 1965 book '' ...

Taylor Branch Taylor Branch (born January 14, 1947) is an American author and historian who wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning trilogy chronicling the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and much of the history of the American civil rights movement. The final volume o ...

, Dave Zirin,

Naomi Klein Naomi Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses; support of ecofeminism, organized labour, and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism and Criticism of capitalism, ca ...

Tariq Ali Tariq Ali (;; born 21 October 1943) is a Pakistani-British political activist, writer, journalist, historian, filmmaker, and public intellectual. He is a member of the editorial committee of the ''New Left Review'' and ''Sin Permiso'', and co ...

, Clarence Lusane, Marita Golden, Charles E. Cobb Jr.,

Bernie Sanders Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician and activist who is the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from the state of Vermont. He is the longest-serving independ ...

Edwidge Danticat Edwidge Danticat (; born January 19, 1969) is a Haitian American novelist and short story writer. Her first novel, '' Breath, Eyes, Memory'', was published in 1994 and went on to become an Oprah's Book Club selection. Danticat has since written ...

, Judy Richardson, and

Junot Díaz Junot Díaz ( ; born December 31, 1968) is a Dominican American writer, creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a former fiction editor at '' Boston Review''. Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience ...

. Teaching for Change closed its bookstore in April 2015 and shared its recommendations for books online.

History

In the 1980s, with a growing Central American population and U.S. involvement in the region, 11 committees of educators and community leaders formed across the country to assess how to address the needs of Central American students and increase public awareness about U.S. foreign policy in

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

. These committees convened in Los Angeles to form a national organization, the Network of Educator's Committees on Central America (NECCA) that became incorporated in December 1989History
Teaching for Change website, 2017 Through the early 90s they produced teaching resources on

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

and

El Salvador El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is S ...

and hosted teacher workshops around the country based on the book ''Rethinking Columbus''. In 1993, NECCA won the Humanities award from the DC Humanities Council and in 1994 they launched a mail order catalog for progressive teaching resources. As the organization expanded its focus, Network of Educator's Committees on Central America changed its name to Teaching for Change. Through the 1990s, Teaching for Change organized seminars for educators on social justice education topics and published their own teaching guide, ''Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development''. In 1999, Teaching for Change hosted a seminar for educators in the DC area focusing on "putting the movement back into Civil Rights" history teaching at

Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...

. That seminar led to the production of a teaching guide with the same name, in collaboration with the Poverty and Race Resource Action Council (PRRAC). ''Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching'' won the Philip C. Chinn book of the year award and Teaching for Change won the National Association for Multicultural Education Organization of the Year in 2004. In 2005, Teaching for Change was invited by former board member and entrepreneur Andy Shallal to open a bookstore in Busboys and Poets. In 2008, in partnership with Rethinking Schools, they launched the Zinn Education Project to provide middle and high school teachers with free access to lessons for

’s ''

'' and other people's history resources. In 2014, Teaching for Change was attacked by

Rush Limbaugh Rush Hudson Limbaugh III ( ; January 12, 1951 – February 17, 2021) was an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative political commentator who was the host of ''The Rush Limbaugh Show'', which first aired in 1984 and was nati ...

who said of the organization, "it’s racist, it’s bigoted." Teaching for Change launched the Teach the Beat initiative to bring go-go artists to D.C. classrooms and was among the national recipients of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation Family Engagement Awards in 2014. In 2019, the Zinn Education Project achieved the milestone of 100,000 registered teachers in the program. Also, during Latinx Heritage Month, Teaching for Change began its first yearly "Teach Central America Week" to strengthen students' knowledge of Central America. In 2024, Teaching for Change was selected to receive the UNA-NCA Community Human Rights Award.