Media Advisory August 17, 2020 For more information, contact: Chris Danforth (501)912-0168 Arkansas Public School Communities Funeral, Sponsored By: Grassroots Arkansas, the Central Arkansas Democratic Socialists of America, Arkansas Community Organizations, the National Association of Social Workers in Arkansas, and Arkansas Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival Little Rock,
In an ambitious effort to restart safe schooling, Superintendent Austin Beutner announced the launch of a massive program of testing and tracing for students and staff in Los Angeles. Laura Newberry and Howard Blume report in the Los Angeles Times: The Los Angeles Unified School District on Sunday said it was launching an ambitious coronavirus testing and contact tracing program for all students
Anette Carlisle, public education advocate in Texas, describes how State Commissioner Mike Morath, a non-educator, bought into the anti-democratic strategy of killing local school boards and privatizing public schools. He swallowed whole the disruption program of the Center for Reinventing Public Education, one of the Gates-funded think tanks that call for the abandonment of public schools. Despi
This article appeared in the Wall Street Journal in August 14. Unlike the U.S., European countries first controlled the virus by strict measures, then reopened schools. And Europe, unlike the U.S., does not have a significant portion of the population that refuses—as a matter of principle—to wear masks or practice social distancing. BERLIN—European countries are pushing ahead with reopening schoo
The Washington Post published a story about the millions of students who are effectively denied an education during the pandemic because their family can’t afford to pay for access to the Internet. The Post called the situation “a national crisis.” It is. The Internet has become as essential as free water and air. Why isn’t it a public utility, regulated by the FCC and free to all? When you turn
This morning I posted Gary Rubenstein’s post revealing that Success Academy agreed—after five years of litigation—to pay $1.1 million to parents whose children with disabilities were on the SA “got to go” list. Leonie Haimson has more on the story. SA never produced the documents demanded by parents. They never paid the attorneys’ fees. Here is the August 2018 decision by the US District Court Ju
Whether Trump wins or loses in November, it will take months or years to repair the damage he is inflicting on the United States Postal Service. Read about “Trump’s War on Christmas.”
Trump is obsessed with the U.S. Postal Service. He is certain that the U.S. mail is his enemy. One of his aides told him that he lost the 2016 popular vote because of mail fraud, and he’s ranted about the USPS ever since. He openly admitted in a recent news conference that he wants to block mail-in voting in hopes of cutting Democratic votes. Trump forced out the career professional who was runni
Alexandra Petri is a humorist for the Washington Post. She explains here that Trump, Pence, and DeVos are offering the nation’s children a chance to be heroes by forcing them to return to school without safety measures in place. She writes: Wonderful news this week for those children who have long envied essential workers and sacrificial-economy grandparents their plaudits and wished that they, t
Samuel Jayne Tanner and Ben Stasny write a satirical posting for a middle-school English language arts teacher that appeared in McSweeny’s. Area School District is looking for a Language Arts Teacher/ Cheerleading Coach/ Custodian/ Nurse to help lead our COVID-19 and anti-racism instruction during this unprecedented moment. The Language Arts Teacher/ Cheerleading Coach/ Custodian/ Nurse/ COVID-19
Katherine Stewart, a scholar of rightwing evangelicals, writes in The New Republic about Betsy DeVos’s brazen transfer of public funds to private schools during the pandemic. Stewart is the author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. Stewart surveys the generous distribution of federal funds to private and religious schools, far more generous than the fede
Gary Rubinstein writes here about a lawsuit filed by parents of children on Success Academy’s “got to go” list. The celebrated charter chain settled for $1.1 million. The corporate chain fought the lawsuit for 4.5 years, refused to turn over documents but finally settled. Gary writes: Success Academy is the largest and most controversial charter chain in New York. By one measure — state test scor
According to CNN, the Centers got Disease Control was ”blindsided” when Trump announced today that he was dispatching teams fron the CDC to help schools reopen safely. He didn’t mention sending money to equip schools to reopen safely. CDC blindsided by Trump’s statement it could deploy teams to
