Jesse Hagopian

Jesse Hagopian is a high school teacher in Seattle and has taught for over a decade at Garfield High School–the site of the historic boycott of the MAP test in 2013. Jesse is an editor for the social justice periodical Rethinking Schools, is the co-editor of the books, Black Lives Matter at School and Teaching for Black Lives, and is the editor of the book, More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing. Jesse serves as the Director of the Black Education Matters Student Activist Award, is an organizer with the Black Lives Matter at School movement, and is founding member of Social Equity Educators (SEE).

Jesse is an activist, public speaker, and a contributing author to 101 Changemakers: Rebels and Radicals Who Changed US History, Education and Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation (Haymarket Books), and Why We Teach Now (Teachers College Press). Jesse’s essay on the MAP test boycott and the ensuing national uprising against high-stakes testing was published in Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove’s 10th anniversary edition of Voices of a People’s History of the United States.

Jesse’s commentary has been featured on many local and national news programs including, HBO’s “Problem Areas” with Wyatt Cenac, NBC’s “Education Nation,” and The PBS News Hour with Gwen Ifill. Jesse’s writings on education, the Black Lives Matter movement, Haiti, Palestine, and US politics, have been published at the Black Agenda Report, The Progressive, Alternet, and the National Education Association’s Education Votes blog.

Jesse is the recipient of the 2019 “Racial Justice Teacher of the Year” from the NAACP Youth Coalition and the “Social Justice Teacher of the Year” award from Seattle Public School’s Department of Racial Equity. In 2015, Jesse received the Seattle/King County NAACP Service Award, was named as an Education Fellow to The Progressive magazine, as well as a “Cultural Freedom Fellow” for the Lannan Foundation for his nationally recognized work in promoting critical thinking and opposing high-stakes testing.

Jesse is a graduate of Seattle’s Garfield High School and Macalester College, and obtained his Master’s degree in teaching at the University of Washington.