Katie Harper
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kharper.bsky.social
Katie Harper
@kharper.bsky.social
150 followers 340 following 84 posts
here to keep learning about health equity and k-12 ed, get book recs, and share what I hope is helpful.
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kharper.bsky.social
The impact of Title I funding in North Carolina:
Screenshot from ed law center dot com: “If these Title I programs are reduced by 100%, North Carolina will lose $534,465,395 in federal revenue. For North Carolina to maintain all programs funded through these Title I allocations, the equivalent of 12,558 entry-level teacher positions would be lost.”
February 10, 2025 at 3:04 PM
kharper.bsky.social
As sad as many are that Americans chose Trump, a lot of us are also grieving the end of a social movement, the extended cumulative shock of a pandemic and the end of Barack Obama's multiracial coalition. That's not just grief; that's something akin to what sociologists call anomie. That's a collective sense that a social contract - the norms on which we rely to navigate the vicissitudes of society - is broken. Anomie is a shared experience. It happens because the hallmarks of identity that we rely on to give us the safety to go to work, to make families and to trust strangers have eroded. A lot of Black Americans, especially, feel as if a promise was made when this country elected President Obama. They sensed a fulfillment of King's vision of multiracial liberal democracy. I fear that we forget how King saw that multiracial liberal democracy coming to pass. It was not only a project of moral remediation of this nation's racism. It was also always a project of this nation's fundamental crises, including inequality and militarism. That King is not the white liberal fantasy of a man obsessed with content of character. It is the harder truth of King the mobilizer and the organizer, who saw poverty as a twin evil of racism. That King is the one we need to remember today. Because that King would not have been surprised that people scared of poverty would find a racist leader palatable. Trump and other Republicans will likely remember King today the way we have come to expect disingenuous actors to do so: by focusing on "I Have a Dream" and ignoring his dream for fair housing, economic redistribution and anti-imperialism. In that, Trump's party has something in common with a lot of Democrats who do the same. But that is not the King who can comfort those of us today who are living in the grief of social abandonment, with the anomie of shifting sands beneath our sense of selves. In every crisis there is a disaster, but there is also an opportunity. Maybe this year is a chance to find an opportunity to memorialize the real King, the one who wanted more for us than just self-care.
January 20, 2025 at 2:59 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Feeling too impatient to wait for the gift link to drop.
NYT opinion article by Tressie McMillan Cottom: Left unresolved, the inherent conflicts of democracy will produce its extremes Donald Trump will be inaugurated today, on the federal holiday that commemorates Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. The moment feels portentous. A president arrested not for justice but for fraud, who ran on promises to export "illegals," christened "Black jobs" and made punching down a political art form, will officially preside over the nation's memory project for the man who tried to make his style of racial politics an ancient artifact. The juxtaposition of King and Trump, a president who thinks of himself as king, feels very American. The two figures embody two different visions of this country. One rehashes our nation's racist repositories of demagoguery and isolationism. The other organized and mobilized to make the Bill of Rights a working document, governed and governable by living up to the full franchise for all Americans. A lot of people still seem stunned, dismayed and despondent by the start of a second Trump presidency, but it feels oddly right to me that these two visions of America meet, after the nation chose a president who promises to Make America Great Again by turning backward to an America that only ever existed for a few, mostly white, male citizens. When you do not resolve the inherent conflicts of democracy, you will produce its extremes. A lot of my peers, especially, are mourning today. I received an email from someone asking me about my self-care plan for the day. That person expects Trump's second installment to be so personally devastating to me that I should have a mental health strategy. That belief matches the mood of coverage that followed the 2024 election. Black Americans - especially Black women - were said to be divesting and dissociating from politics. We had organized and hustled and played by the rules. Some of us felt abandoned by white voters and Black men and Hispanic men. Some of us felt betrayed by the Democratic Party and caricatured by the Republican Party. The former first lady Michelle Obama is sitting out the inauguration. A lot of Black women see it as a silent protest from a woman who bore the brunt of the racist, sexist stereotyping that Trump turned into his political brand. They also see it as a model for how the rest of us should approach this second Trump administration. I don't have a position on that, except my belief that Obama has done enough. If she doesn't want to sit on the dais with a man whose rhetoric likely inspired his acolytes to make racist, sexist attacks on her character, that seems fine. Laudable, even. It certainly shows she has more sense of worth than the many Republican candidates now playing footsie with Trump after he insulted them, their wives and their mothers. I do have a position on the grief that so many voters are feeling today. And I do believe that it is grief. That's why there are appeals to self- care. "Self-care" is the term we now have for managing big emotions, because we do not have collective means of caring for our mental health. But I don't think self-care is going to cure what ails us.
January 20, 2025 at 2:59 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Now available for preorder through 2/11/25:
The Licensing Racket by Rebecca Haw Allensworth
“A bottom-up investigation of the broken system of professional licensing, affecting everyone from hairdressers and morticians to doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, and those who rely on their services.”
Book cover of The Licensing Racket by Rebecca Haw Allensworth, available now for preorder
December 23, 2024 at 7:20 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 20
Book cover: The Bone People by Keri Hulme.
December 21, 2024 at 3:09 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 19
Book cover: East of Eden by John Steinbeck
December 12, 2024 at 10:23 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 18
Book cover: Fire Keeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley
December 9, 2024 at 10:19 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 17
Book cover: Trust by Hernan Diaz
December 8, 2024 at 4:08 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 16
Book cover: The North Woods by Daniel Mason
December 7, 2024 at 12:51 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 15
Book cover: The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee
December 5, 2024 at 7:53 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 14
Book cover: My Own Country by Abraham Verghese
December 4, 2024 at 10:09 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 13
Book cover: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
December 2, 2024 at 1:53 AM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 12
Book cover: The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
December 1, 2024 at 2:43 AM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 11
Book cover: The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
November 29, 2024 at 2:17 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 10
Book cover of Grieving by Jerusha Hull McCormack
November 28, 2024 at 1:19 AM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 9
Book cover of Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
November 25, 2024 at 9:21 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 8
Book cover: The Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne
November 24, 2024 at 4:21 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 7
Book cover: Paula by Isabel Allende
November 22, 2024 at 3:44 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 6
Book cover: The Overstory by Richard Powers
November 20, 2024 at 5:28 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
Day 5
Boole cover: Hiding in Plain Sight by Sarah Kendzior
November 19, 2024 at 6:52 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
4/20
Book cover: Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams
November 19, 2024 at 12:14 AM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
3/20
Book cover of Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy by Tressie McMillan Cottom
November 16, 2024 at 3:30 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
2/20
Book cover: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
November 15, 2024 at 8:31 PM
kharper.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge
1/20
Book cover: Heavy by Kiese Laymon
November 14, 2024 at 2:13 PM