THE BECOMING RADICAL
EMPATHYEDUCATES!
the becoming radical
A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness
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AlterNet: News Flash: Failed Education Policies Will ALWAYS Fail Our Children
News Flash: Failed Education Policies Will ALWAYS Fail Our Children
Endgame: Disaster Capitalism, New Orleans, and the Charter Scam
The horror of 9/11 in 2001 and the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 captured both the 24/7 media attention and cultural consciousness in the U.S. In the wake of both, however, the impact of disaster capitalism has remained mostly ignored and unchallenged. This is the U.S. response to 9/11: Memories, by Ted Rall, Universal UClick How to monetize and what will the market bear are the guiding
In the U.S., Where the Female Nipple Is More Dangerous Than a Gun
Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez are back with the long-awaited Sin City sequel, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. The films are both based on Miller’s graphic novels—with the graphic novels and films sharing distinct visual impacts on readers and viewers. So it is fitting that the first released poster for the second film is visually provocative: Eva Green in the Sin City poster banned by the MPAA.
MAY 29
SC, Choose OK, Not FL: Failing Students with Failed Policy
What do third-grade retention policies based on reading tests, charter schools, tracking, and parental choice have in common? First, across the U.S., they all have a great deal of public and political support. Second, the research base on all of these policies (among many other popular policies) have shown repeatedly that they do more to fail students than to achieve any of the lofty goals advocat
MAY 28
Maya Angelou, RIP
With the death of Maya Angelou, I offer a few intersections between Angelou and James Baldwin. James Baldwin and Maya Angelou At 80, Maya Angelou Reflects on a ‘Glorious’ Life: Angelou says author James Baldwin, whom she considers a brother, had a covert hand in getting her to write “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” Acting on Baldwin’s advice, Angelou’s editor tried a little reverse psychology an
If The Onion Gets It … : “when the mist distorts the outline of the cypress trees”
The power of ideology makes me think of those dewy mornings when the mist distorts the outline of the cypress trees and they become shadows of something we know is there but cannot really define. The shortsightedness that afflicts us makes our perception difficult. More serious still is the way we can so easily accept that what we are seeing and hearing is, in fact, what really is and not a distor
MAY 27
What’s Really Wrong with Advanced Placement Courses and College Board?
“Fraudulent schemes come in all shapes and sizes,” asserts John Tierney, adding, ” To work, they typically wear a patina of respectability. That’s the case with Advanced Placement [A.P.] courses, one of the great frauds currently perpetrated on American high-school students.” Tierney calling the A.P. program from the College Board a scam seems at first to be at best hyperbole and at worst, baseles
MAY 26
Memorial Day 2014: A Reader
If we could find a space to honor peace, to honor peace by taking action so that peace was the norm of humanity… 21st century “Children’s Crusade”: A curriculum of peace driven by critical literacy, P. L. Thomas Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut “All the King’s Horses,” Kurt Vonnegut Whom Will We Honor Memorial Day?, Howard Zinn At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border, William Staff
MAY 25
Misreading the Never-Ending Drop-Out “Crisis”
Prompted by Peter Greene’s Why Students Drop Out, further evidence that evidence doesn’t matter for the Obama administration of Secretary Duncan, I post below an entry for the Daily Kos from 4 February 2012. The political and public concern about high school graduation rates must be placed in two contexts: the historical reality of drop-out rates in the U.S. and the misleading use of “crisis” disc
Chris Christie Can’t Afford To Pay Public Teacher Pensions… But Still Hands Education Megacorp $82m In Subsidies
By David Sirota | Originally Published at PandoDaily. May 27, 2014 Last week, Gov. Chris Christie announced he will take $2.4 billion owed to New Jersey’s public pension system and use it instead to balance the state’s current budget. To hear Christie tell it, he has no […]
YESTERDAY
On the “Success” of a 100% Charter Recovery School District
By Dr. Mercedes Schiender | Originally Published at deutsch29. May 29, 2014 On May 29, 2014, Lindsey Layton of the Washington Post wrote this article on the conversion of the state-run New Orleans Recovery School District’s (RSD) conversion to charters. I would like to clarify a few […]
MAY 29
In Defense of Healthy Food
First lady Michelle Obama exercises with children from Chicago Public Schools, in her hometown of Chicago, as she makes a major announcement helping to bring back physical activity to area schools, while celebrating the third anniversary of her ‘Lets Move’ program. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green) Introductory Essay […]
MAY 28
Do Drivers Discriminate Against Minorities at Crosswalks?
Perhaps, if we are to truly understand what we see in our schools, we must learn from the streets. We know that societal norms enter the classroom. What is implicit can often be seen. Witness what occurs at crosswalks and ask yourself, is education policy borne out […]
New Civil Rights Suit Calls School Closures Discriminatory
By Julianne Hing | ColorLines. Schools & Youth. Tuesday, May 27 2014, 7:20 AM EST Sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, schools are still both separate and unequal. Community and civil rights groups say they’ve identified a key force that’s aggravated the inequity: school closures. […]
MAY 26
For the First Time, Public Education Revenue Decreases in 2012, Census Bureau Reports
Public elementary and secondary education revenue declined in fiscal year 2012 for the first time since 1977, when the U.S. Census Bureau began collecting public education finance data on an annual basis. According to new Census Bureau findings released today, public elementary and secondary school systems received […]
MAY 25
Junk Food Industry’s New Ploy: How They’re Secretly Making School Lunches Even Grosser
Photographic Credit: Flickr/Judy Baxter By Jim Newell | Originally Published at Salon. May 22, 2014 During the Democrats’ productive 2010 lame-duck session of Congress, one of the major legislative items they were able to pass was the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, a.k.a. “Michelle Obama’s child nutrition bill.” […]
MAY 24
How a ‘New Secessionist’ Movement Is Threatening to Worsen School Segregation and Widen Inequalities
Photo Courtesy of Don Harder, CC2.0) By Susan Eaton | The Nation. May 15, 2014 A new secessionist movement, anchored in the South, provides yet another reminder that “separate” still means “unequal” when it comes to the racial dynamics of the nation’s public schools. The small middle-class […]