More Sad News

Eric Rofes passed away on Monday. Rofes, 51, is best known as an activist for gay and lesbian rights, HIV/AIDS awareness, and gay men's health. He played a critical role in building organizations that responded to the HIV/AIDS crisis in San Francisco and elsewhere in the 1980s, and has written influential books on the AIDS epidemic, gay culture, and the effect of the former on the latter.

Rofes was also a lifelong educator. In the 1970s he was fired from public school teaching for being an "out" gay man, his activism continued his work as an educator in a different context, and in the 1990s he earned a Ph.D. and became a professor of education. His in addition to work on race, gender, sexuality and social justice in education, he also researched and wrote extensively on charter schools. His 2004 book, The Emancipatory Promise of Charter Schools, co-edited with Lisa Stulberg, presents a Progressive argument for supporting increased public school choice and charter schools. I was fortunate to meet Dr. Rofes when he and Dr. Stulberg spoke about their book at the Progressive Policy Institute last year, and was very sad to learn of his death. Charter schools--and Progressive supporters of bold, outside the box thinking about how to realize social justice in public education--have lost an important ally. His family and friends will be in my prayers.