Candace Valenzuela is one of the most inspiring candidates in the current election cycle. She won her primary in Texas on Tuesday. Please watch her campaign commercial, in which she describes her difficult childhood, when she was homeless. What saved her was that she always had a “home” at school, where her teachers encouraged her. She went on to finish high school and college, to run for and win
How and when should schools reopen? Here are the choices: 1. To reopen schools fully for in-person instruction, with no additional funding, which is dangerous and ignores the CDC guidelines for safety; this is the option advocated by Trump and DeVos. 2. To reopen schools fully, with the funding needed to protect the safety of students and staff; thus far, neither Trump nor Mitch McConnell has sho
Bob Shepherd reacted to the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn state laws banning public money to religious schools if the state is subsidizing other private schools. Bob lives in Florida, which already funds private and religious schools to the tune of $1 billion a year and has just increased the funding for them. Religious schools in Florida do not take the state tests, do not have to hire
Black students/staff at charter schools fight back on Instagram. Lots of amazing stuff here. @blackatuncommon @_theuncommontruth @dearcharterschool @truecolorsofcharter @blackandbrownatdp @defundcharterschools @beingblackatkipp @survivors_of_successacademy @sa.vanguards
Over 600 faculty and staff at Penn have organized Penn for PILOT S and issued a statement calling on the university to make “payments in lieu of taxes” (PILOTs) to the Philadelphia public schools. As is well known, the public schools in Philadelphia are chronically underfunded, thanks to a hostile Republican legislature, and they are currently facing devastating cuts amid the COVID-19 pandemic. P
Politico reports that the administration is going full-paranoid in an effort to root out potential leakers. THE TRUMP TEST — In the middle of a pandemic and an economic crisis, the White House has an urgent question for its colleagues across the administration: Are you loyal enough to President Donald Trump? The White House’s presidential personnel office is conducting one-on-one interviews with
Last night the Detroit Board of Education, which opened for summer school Monday, voted to unanimously reopen school on the regular first day in August. This happened despite three hours of unified testimony by teachers, parents, and community organizers that the schools should not be reopened until minimum conditions are met. We held a state wide Press conference this morning calling on schools
Contact: Zeph Capo zcapo@texasaft.org 713-670-4348 Texas AFT, Houston Federation of Teachers Fully Support Houston Independent School District Reopen Plan Plan Stands in Contrast to Neighboring Spring Branch ISD Hybrid Plan HOUSTON— Texas AFT and the Houston Federation of Teachers fully support the Houston Independent School District’s reopening plan announced today, which calls for delaying the
Trump is the worst president in American history, not “modern times.” He is an international menace and a threat to all living things. His incompetence and stupidity are equaled only by his arrogance. The New York Times reports: WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday unilaterally weakened one of the nation’s bedrock conservation laws, the National Environmental Policy Act, limiting public revi
The New York Times wrote about Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ sudden turnaround, from champion of local control to heavy-handed advocate of federal threats to reopen schools regardless of local conditions or wishes. Those quoted in the story are DeVos allies, which makes sense, since they must feel a sense of betrayal. *Keri Rodrigues of the Walton-funded National Parents Union; she was a le
Dana Milbank argues in this column that Trump’s overt racism is creating a massive backlash that will unseat him and transform American politics for the better. Here’s hoping and praying he is right. Trump’s racism has stigmatized the Republican Party. Moderates have jumped ship, and the party is now identified with white nationalism and the KKK, all to protect a president who had no party affili
NBCT Teacher Justin Parmenter and epidemiologist Dr. Nan Fulcher write here about North Carolina’s reliance on limited studies to justify reopening schools. A Warning for Governor Cooper: the burden of COVID-19 in NC is far higher than in countries that struggled with school outbreaks after reopening On Tuesday Governor Roy Cooper announced that North Carolina students will return to school for i
Ralph Ratto is a retired teacher in New York State. In this post, he reminds readers of the importance of school ventilation systems, which are seldom in a good state of repair, and the necessity of paying to clean and upgrade them for the safety of students and staff. He asks: Why is Congress willing to fund banks and big corporations but not the health of our nation’s children and their teacher
The following article appeared in the Grio and was co-authored by Dr. Andre Perry, Jitu Brown, Keron Blair, Richard Fowler, Stacy Davis Gates and Tiffany Dena Loftin. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and now Rayshard Brooks — all
