THE BECOMING RADICAL
EMPATHYEDUCATES!
the becoming radical
A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness
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Kristof, How Much Inequity Is the Right Balance?
I started simply to ignore Nicholas Kristof’s An Idiot’s Guide to Inequality, but I was pulled back into it by Russ Walsh’s Hope, Poverty, and Grit. First, the rush to celebrate Kristof’s acknowledgement of Thomas Picketty, inequality, and (gasp) the implication that capitalism is failing seems easy to accept. But that urge to pat Kristof on the back feels too much like the concurrent eagerness to
JUL 24
Evidence Must Trump Idealism: A Reader
Many of us are compelled by idealism, and I certainly entered education as a career over 30 years ago because of my faith in the power of learning (specifically literacy), especially as it has enriched my own life. But evidence must trump idealism, or we are destined to remain trapped in the corrosive patterns of inequity that keep us from achieving the American Dream. As disheartening as the fact
What ‘No New Federal Spending’ Really Means | Alternet
What ‘No New Federal Spending’ Really Means | Alternet
The Charter Sham Formula: Billionaires + Flawed “Reports” + Press Release Media = Misled Public
Late in 2013, I shared my own experience with the disaster capitalism tactics employed by the Walton-funded Department of Education Reform (University of Arkansas), asking: For the Record: Should We Trust Advocates of “No Excuses”? I detailed reasons why the answer is clearly “No”: the funding determines the claims in the so-called reports (see Pulling a Greene: Why Advocacy and Market Forces Fail
JUL 23
The Real “Low Expectations” Problem
I have asked this about the U.S. Secretary of Education: Why Is Arne Duncan Still Pushing the Dangerous Myth of Low Expectations? And a large part of the answer may be because the uncritical mainstream media not only buy that message, but actively perpetuate it. For example, David Leonhardt beats that drum in Principals in U.S. Are More Likely to Consider Their Students Poor: The phrase “soft big
NCTE 2014: “Why do we need the things in books?”: The Enduring Power of Libraries and Literature
[At the 2014 National Council of Teachers of English Annual convention—themed Story As the Landscape of Knowing and held November 20-23, 2014, in Washington DC—Renita Schmidt (University of Iowa), Sean Connors (University of Arkansas), and I will be presenting as detailed below; I offer our proposal as a preview and hope you can join us as we need to raise our voices for both libraries and literat
JUL 21
Papa
As Steve Paul explains, July is an important month for Ernest Hemingway: The month of July brings the anniversary of three defining Hemingway moments: He was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois; he took his own life on July 2, 1961, in Ketchum, Idaho. And on July 8, 1918, while he was serving in the Red Cross ambulance service attached to the Italian army, he was wounded by the explosion
“No new federal spending” Equals “This really doesn’t matter”
Mykoto Rich’s lede sounds promising: President Obama will announce on Monday that 60 of the nation’s largest school districts are joining his initiative to improve the educational futures of young African-American and Hispanic boys, beginning in preschool and extending through high school graduation. But the most important point comes in the fourth paragraph: No new federal spending is attached to
JUL 19
A Brief Meditation on What Has Failed
What has failed in the U.S.? Democracy? No. We have failed democracy. Public education ? No. We have failed public education. The free press? No. We have failed the free press. Capitalism? No. This is exactly how capitalism works–consuming all and laying waste to democracy, human dignity, and equity. Of all that is the U.S., capitalism is working as it is designed to work. And that is our gre
On the Journey For Justice Newark Parents Cheer Federal Investigation Into Controversial School Plan
Parents and advocates gather at Newark City Hall after U.S. Department of Education opened a civil rights investigation into the city’s school reorganization plan. By Peggy McGlone | Originally Published at New Jersey Dot Com. – The Star-Ledger. July 24, 2014 at 6:00 AM, updated July 24, […]
What Happens When a City’s Public Schools Vanish? Colonialism Lives
Photograph; Lafayette Academy, the experience of a charter group with the profit-making company it hired to manage instruction offers a cautionary tale of how well-meaning trustees can easily stumble, and of how privatizing management is often far from a panacea | Tim Mueller for The New York […]
JUL 16
It’s Not Race, It’s Class…And Other Stories Folks Now Tell
By Black&Smart, AKAdemic | Originally Published at Black&Smart July 10, 2014 I have been studying race, racism and its damaging effects for most of my adult life. And I have witnessed the “racial fatigue” of people who don’t have to consciously deal with race. They tell me […]