NANCY BAILEY: Truth to Power: Facing the Disruptors with Courage and Resolve

Truth to Power: Facing the Disruptors with Courage and Resolve

Truth to Power: Facing the Disruptors with Courage and Resolve

We live in troubling times, reflected in the longtime attacks on one of our most sacred democratic institutions, public schools. But Americans have a fierce fighter for those schools in Diane Ravitch. The historian, in her new book Slaying Goliath, reminds us of the dangers facing schools, but also the hope we have in a resistance movement that has fired up across the country.

It is on this which we can rely, and there’s no better way to learn how to be Davids then by reading the history of this resistance, how it came to be, and where it’s headed.   

The resistance movement involves teachers, parents, and students from across the country, marching in the Red for Ed movement against the reforms that are damaging their schools. It includes bloggers and authors who passionately expose the troubling attacks on our public educational system.

Diane is a master weaver showing how this resistance is ever evolving. She names names and explains how billionaires steal local control of public education.

She calls those who seek to do harm to this institution, “disruptors,” scoffing at their use of the words “status quo.”

…they control the levers of power in federal and state governments. They write the CONTINUE READING: Truth to Power: Facing the Disruptors with Courage and Resolve

Then Nothing Has Worked in Education - Teacher Habits

Then Nothing Has Worked in Education - Teacher Habits

Then Nothing Has Worked in Education

A common refrain from critics of American public education is that we continue to spend more money on it while getting the same disappointing results. The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board, in an article titled, “America’s Schools Flunk,” wrote,

“The results from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is administered to students around the country every two years, were published on Wednesday. There isn’t much to cheer. Only 35% of fourth graders rated proficient in reading, which is about the same as in 2009. Worse, students have backslid in reading over the last two years.” 

The Cato Institute published this handy graph showing how profligate our spending has been relative to our students’ performance:

Legislators have used the data to argue that we should spend far less, since spending more hasn’t worked. In a 2015 Facebook post, Representative Dave Brat wrote,

“Our own government statistics show that over 30 years, CONTINUE READING: Then Nothing Has Worked in Education - Teacher Habits

Shawgi Tell: Charter Schools Have No Valid Claim to Public Property | Dissident Voice

Charter Schools Have No Valid Claim to Public Property | Dissident Voice

Charter Schools Have No Valid Claim to Public Property

Public facilities and infrastructure are produced by the working class and people and belong to the public. They exist in order to serve the common good and to contribute to the extended reproduction of society.

This collectively-produced wealth must not be handed over to competing owners of capital who are only concerned with maximizing profit as fast as possible, regardless of the damage caused to society and the environment. Socially-produced wealth must be off limits to narrow private interests. The aims and purposes of the private sector and public sector are not the same.

Non-profit and for-profit charter schools are not public entities. It does not matter how often they are called public, the fact remains that they are inherently privatized arrangements owned-operated by unelected individuals and companies. Yet they siphon billions of dollars a year from public schools and seize billions more in public facilities and assets. Most state charter school laws are deliberately set up to facilitate this massive transfer of pubic wealth to narrow private interests. Charter schools have long functioned as pay-the-rich schemes masquerading as “schools” that “benefit kids.”

Charter school owners-operators have never stopped piously demanding that public school facilities worth millions of dollars be freely and automatically handed over to them. They righteously declare that they have an inherent right to public facilities produced by the working class. The consequences, of course, are disastrous for public schools and the public interest. For example, a new report shows that in 2018 more than $100 million was spent by New York City alone on charter school facilities.¹ This is wealth and property that CONTINUE READING: Charter Schools Have No Valid Claim to Public Property | Dissident Voice

Black kids and suicide: Why are rates so high, and so ignored? – Raw Story

Black kids and suicide: Why are rates so high, and so ignored? – Raw Story

Black kids and suicide: Why are rates so high, and so ignored?

Teen suicide rates among black youth are increasing. In 2016 and again in 2018, national data revealed that among children age 5-11, black children had the highest rate of death by suicide. For the years 2008 to 2012, 59 black youth died by suicide, up from 54 in the years 2003-2007.

Also, the 2015 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey reported that, compared to non-Hispanic white boys, black high-school age boys are more likely to have made serious suicide attempts that require medical attention.

I am a professor of psychology and also director of the culture, risk and resilience research laboratory at the University of Houston, and I recently co-authored a study that suggests that new risk profiles may be needed

for better suicide prediction in African Americans in particular.

Comprehensive suicide awareness

Suicide has become a leading cause of death in the U.S. among all age groups, but particularly in youth and young adults. It is the second leading cause of death among 10- to 34-year-olds. Parents, teachers and professionals must be able to both talk about it and understand the risks for vulnerable children of any race. But those of us who work CONTINUE READING: Black kids and suicide: Why are rates so high, and so ignored? – Raw Story

Has the Common Core Failed? and, if so, What’s Next? Has Anyone Considered Asking Teachers and Principals? | Ed In The Apple

Has the Common Core Failed? and, if so, What’s Next? Has Anyone Considered Asking Teachers and Principals? | Ed In The Apple

Has the Common Core Failed? and, if so, What’s Next? Has Anyone Considered Asking Teachers and Principals?

Ten years ago 46 out of 50 states adopted the Common Core (CCSS) and embarked on a voyage to improve student outcomes by adopting more rigorous standards. Ten years later three researchers express opinions on the question: Has the Common Core Failed?

This is especially important in New York State as the state begins to examine Graduation Measures, aka graduation requirements. Over the next few months dozens of regional meetings will be held to garner public opinion followed by the convening of a blue ribbon commission followed by the creation of a draft policy statement, more public comment and finally adopting new high school graduation requirements: a two year process.

A decade after the adoption of the Common Core researchers disagree over the efficacy of adopting the Common Core standards: “A decade later, has the Common Core failed.”

Morgan Polikoff, associate professor at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California; Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and an executive editor at Education Next; and Tom Loveless, past director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings CONTINUE READING: Has the Common Core Failed? and, if so, What’s Next? Has Anyone Considered Asking Teachers and Principals? | Ed In The Apple

CURMUDGUCATION: Trump, Prayer and School

CURMUDGUCATION: Trump, Prayer and School

Trump, Prayer and School

Donald Trump yesterday took the very Trumpian action of solving a problem that didn't actually exist until he made it up, in this case involving religion and education (two things in which he appears to have no actual interest). But hurray-- after today, students and teachers are free to pray in schools, which they were also free to do yesterday and last week and last year, etc etc etc. That's why accounts have said it "updates" or "reinforces" the rules-- because it doesn't actually change a thing. There is one new wrinkle in today's decree-- school's now have to provide a means of officially complaining if someone thinks their right to pray has been stomped on.

This will have next-to-zero effect on my neck of the woods. A neighboring school district was the subject of a lawsuit from an atheist student years ago aimed at keeping them from having a school official offer a Christian prayer at graduation. They folded, of course, and even that close encounter has had little effect on how schools do business in my neck of the woods. We never stopped having a Christmas concert. My former superintendent would open sixth grade graduation ceremonies with a Jesus prayer. At graduation ceremonies, most schools did turn to having a student offer prayer, with some folks thinking they were cleverly pulling a fast one rather than simply following the rules. When it comes to school prayer, folks really have trouble understanding that praying in school is, and always has CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Trump, Prayer and School

"We Are All Reformers" (Part 4) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

"We Are All Reformers" (Part 4) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

"We Are All Reformers" (Part 4)

Taylor Allderdice was a six-year secondary school (it is now a high school). We lived about a mile away and I walked to school daily—but not in the 7th grade. Because of polio, I missed 27 days according to my high school transcript. When I returned to school, my Dad drove me. Breakfast was drinking down a raw egg each morning—doctors said it would strengthen me—and eating a bowl of oatmeal. Then my Dad would drop me off.

Overall, during the six years I spent at Allderdice, I was an average (mediocre?) student racking up “C”s galore. Only in history and science courses did I receive scattered “A”s and “B”s. In English and math, mostly “C”s and “D”s.  I do remember particular teachers. Seemingly, the rhetoric of Progressive policies and pedagogy had not trickled down to these classrooms since I recall during the school day—five subjects plus lunch, physical education and home room guidance– frequent lectures and occasional whole group discussions, oral reports, reading texts, and doing homework in class.

My eighth grade English teacher, Miss Bowlin*, was strict in keeping the class orderly and disciplined in what she taught. We diagrammed sentences and read novels and poems. For example, every student had to memorize a poem and recite it in front of the class without notes. I do recall being assigned the poem CONTINUE READING: "We Are All Reformers" (Part 4) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Cannabis in a historical context. Hitting Left with the Klonsky Brothers with Anton Seals Jr. – Fred Klonsky

Cannabis in a historical context. Hitting Left with the Klonsky Brothers with Anton Seals Jr. – Fred Klonsky

CANNABIS IN A HISTORICAL CONTEXT. HITTING LEFT WITH THE KLONSKY BROTHERS WITH ANTON SEALS JR

While Chicago community organizer Anton Seals Jr. has an infectious laugh, he is dead serious about economic development and equity for the city’s south side and west side African American communities.

He grew up in South Shore of activist parents. His Dad was a south side field organizer for the Harold Washington campaign.

“I got dragged from meeting to meeting as kid,” he shared with on on Friday’s Hitting Left with the Klonsky Brothers. “I was an Operation Push baby.’

Currently he is Lead Steward, or Executive Director, of Grow Greater Englewood.

I love the title of Lead Steward.

As a union guy  when I think of the title of steward I think of the union representative, union steward, or shop steward that represents and defends the interests of they’re fellow employees.

When Seals came up with the title he was talking about a steward and care taker of the land.

Cooperative farming is a central aspect of Seal’s community organizing.

When he talks about the development of cooperative farming on the hundreds of acres of open land in Englewood, Seals draws a clear historical connection to the African and African American experience as stewards of the land, even in slavery, and the forced CONTINUE READING: Cannabis in a historical context. Hitting Left with the Klonsky Brothers with Anton Seals Jr. – Fred Klonsky

Confronting Aaron Hernandez, Big Time Football, and Toxic Masculinity – radical eyes for equity

Confronting Aaron Hernandez, Big Time Football, and Toxic Masculinity – radical eyes for equity

Confronting Aaron Hernandez, Big Time Football, and Toxic Masculinity

If you focus too intently on Aaron Hernandez in the new Netflix documentary, you will miss the larger complicated story. And you will have done exactly what the major players involved in Hernandez’s life wanted all along.

Jose Baez and Aaron Hernandez in Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez (2020)

For example, one of the most disturbing and damning moments in the documentary involves Hernandez’s high-profile college coach, then at Florida, Urban Meyers. Here is what Meyers wants everyone to believe:

 “We knew that every time he went home — every time he would go to Connecticut, I’d have players on my team say, ‘Watch this guy,’” said Meyer on an old episode of HBO’s Real Sports. “So we would try not to let him go back to Connecticut.”

Yet, as the documentary details:

Hernandez quickly made an impact at the University of Florida, but he struggled off the field. The talented 17-year-old, who began acquiring an impressive array of tattoos, didn’t quite fit in with clean-cut quarterback Tim Tebow or coach Urban Meyer, and he began to rely on painkillers to bypass injuries. “For real, weed and Toradol. That’s all you need, baby!” Hernandez said on one recorded phone call with former teammate Mike Pouncey.

Hernandez’s behavior started to become increasingly erratic. One CONTINUE READING: Confronting Aaron Hernandez, Big Time Football, and Toxic Masculinity – radical eyes for equity

NYC Educator: Please Affirm You Will NOT Be Drunk and on Drugs During the Field Trip

NYC Educator: Please Affirm You Will NOT Be Drunk and on Drugs During the Field Trip

Please Affirm You Will NOT Be Drunk and on Drugs During the Field Trip

The ghost of Michael Bloomberg is a heavy presence in the hallowed halls of Tweed. He lives on in DOE Legal, often as not the bane of my very existence. Wanna give some teacher five preps? Go ahead, says legal. Wanna tie your chapter leader up for years in grievances over black letter regulations? No problem. Legal okays it on the spot.

This week, a lot of members have come up to me and asked about a new brand spanking new field trip form, one in which you are required to say you've read Chancellor's Regulation A-670, which is right here, and that you agree not to be drunk and on drugs during said field trip. At first I thought it was something the principal had invented, but it turns out this is yet another innovation of DOE Legal. Since DOE Legal is essentially a clown car, its most recent creation is absurd on multiple levels.

Personally, I'd assume you'd simply know not to be drunk and on drugs when on a field trip and supervising children. It's common sense. In Spanish, though, they say common sense is the least common of all the senses. It's certainly not something I expect from Bloomberg's remaining minions.

Predictably, DOE Legal, in its infinite wisdom, has determined you are such a hopeless galoot you need to be specifically reminded and sign an agreement. Now here's the thing--whether or not you sign this form, you are always responsible to follow Chancellor/s Regulations, and CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Please Affirm You Will NOT Be Drunk and on Drugs During the Field Trip

CURMUDGUCATION: Six Stories To Watch For In 2020

CURMUDGUCATION: Six Stories To Watch For In 2020

Six Stories To Watch For In 2020

I made these predictions about three weeks ago, and now that we're halfway through January, I still stand by them. It's a cheap writer's game-- we won't know if I'm right until December, and I predict that nobody will remember what I predicted. So here are my guesses wise predictions about six stories that will heat up in 2020.

Ed Tech Will Try To Grow Its Market

Tech companies are sure that education presents a great growth opportunity, and they have products to push. Personalized Learning! Artificial Intelligence! Machine Learning! Learning Management Systems! Integrating all sorts of data and making life easier for teachers! It will all be promised, multiple times, in the hopes that folks have forgotten all the failures of the recent past.

When reading ed tech stories about the Next Big Thing, always remember that when a tech company says “This is what’s coming next,” they mean “This is what we’re betting on. This is what we have a vested interest in pushing.” Ed tech’s crystal ball is a marketing tool, not a prognosticatory device.

Student Surveillance Will Be On The Rise

This is part and parcel of the rise of ed tech; any data that passes through a computer can be CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Six Stories To Watch For In 2020

Welcome to WellVille: 'Educators Can't Forget to Take Care of Themselves'

Welcome to WellVille: 'Educators Can't Forget to Take Care of Themselves'

Welcome to WellVille: ‘Educators Can’t Forget to Take Care of Themselves’

Rich Glasheen, a math teacher at Ward Melville High School on Long Island, New York, usually spends around 10 to 15 minutes, sitting in the zero-gravity chair, maybe drinking a cup of tea and reading while listening to calming music.

Special education teacher Katherine Jimenez is also partial to the zero-gravity chair but she relaxes to the ambient sounds and images emanating from the 65-inch flat-screen television bolted to the wall. Alyssa Ward, who works in Ward Melville’s attendance office, likes to spend a little time in the oversized massage chair. Speech pathologist Kathryn Fenigstein found a recent “lunch and learn” session with a nutritionist particularly helpful.

Zero-gravity chairs, soothing music, aroma diffusers, yoga, visiting nutritionists. You might ask, what kind of staff room is this?

Actually, it’s not any kind of staff room. This is “WellVille,” a wellness center designed for staff in the Three Village School District. Part of the district’s wellness program, WellVille is a reconfigured classroom inside Ward Melville High School. It’s open to CONTINUE READING: Welcome to WellVille: 'Educators Can't Forget to Take Care of Themselves'

Bruce D. Baker NEPC Review: California Charter Schools: Costs, Benefits, and Impact on School Districts (Center on Reinventing Public Education, May 2019) | National Education Policy Center

NEPC Review: California Charter Schools: Costs, Benefits, and Impact on School Districts (Center on Reinventing Public Education, May 2019) | National Education Policy Center

Bruce D. Baker NEPC Review: California Charter Schools: Costs, Benefits, and Impact on School Districts (Center on Reinventing Public Education, May 2019)

Reviewer: 

Bruce D. Baker

May 30, 2019

Publication AnnouncementPress CitationsLearn More:NEPC Resources on Charter Schools

The Center on Reinventing Public Education recently released a series of three policy briefs on the financial impact of charter schools on nearby school districts in California. The briefs are intended to inform ongoing debates over charter school financing and expansion in the state of California. This review finds that the briefs fail to accurately or fully apply the relevant research and data. They are useful only in pointing to some important issues that policymakers should consider; their analyses of those issues are, however, generally superficial and misleading.

NEPC Review

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Document Reviewed:

California Charter Schools: Costs, Benefits, and Impact on School Districts (Center on Reinventing Public Education, May 2019)

Robin Lake, Ashley Jochim, Paul Hill,
& Sivan Tuchman

Center on Reinventing Public Education

NEPC Review: California Charter Schools: Costs, Benefits, and Impact on School Districts (Center on Reinventing Public Education, May 2019) | National Education Policy Center

Race and charter schools: Why Bethlehem superintendent Joseph Roy raised the issue of racism - The Morning Call

Race and charter schools: Why Bethlehem superintendent Joseph Roy raised the issue of racism - The Morning Call

Paul Muschick: Bethlehem superintendent knew he would take heat for talking about race and charter schools. Here’s why he did anyway.

Bethlehem schools Superintendent Joseph Roy knew he was going to be criticized for his remarks last month about race and charter schools.

That’s because it wasn’t the first time he’d said in a public forum that some parents send their kids to charters so they won’t have to go to school with “kids coming from poverty or kids with skin that doesn’t look like theirs.”

Roy told me he took heat for it the previous, time, too. But he dove in anyway when he was asked at a Dec. 5 news conference why students choose charters.

“This is a real thing and we shouldn’t be afraid to talk about it,” he told me in his first CONTINUE READING: Race and charter schools: Why Bethlehem superintendent Joseph Roy raised the issue of racism - The Morning Call

Peter Greene: Diane Ravitch: Why Education Disruption Is Losing

Diane Ravitch: Why Education Disruption Is Losing

Diane Ravitch: Why Education Disruption Is Losing

Diane Ravitch was an education historian, who entered government work under the first Bush administration and continued to serve in the Department of Education, where she was an early supporter of charter schools and accountability, and one of the voices of support No Child Left Behind. Then in 2010, she changed course. Watching how the policies of choice and accountability played out, she reached a simple conclusion: “that effort has failed.”

Her switch from supporter of modern education reform to critic quickly made her the most visible member of the resistance to ed reform policies. Her blog, where she posts many times every day, has become a veritable Rick’s Cafe; spend enough time there, and you will meet most of the important figures of the resistance. Nobody has done more to amplify the voices of parents, teachers and activists than Ravitch.

You can also meet many of these folks in Ravitch’s new book Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools. The book is a history of the modern education reform movement told from the point of view of the people CONTINUE READING: Diane Ravitch: Why Education Disruption Is Losing

CATCH UP WITH NEWBLACKMAN (IN EXILE)

NewBlackMan (in Exile)

CATCH UP WITH NEWBLACKMAN (IN EXILE)

Sanborn Sessions: Kandace Springs

by Mark Anthony Neal / 10h

'The Season Premiere of Sanborn Sessions : Kandace Springs , joins legendary saxophonist Dave Sanborn and the band for song and conversation at Sanborn's home studio in New York.'

Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn: Diasporic Archives vs. Colonial Archives

by Mark Anthony Neal / 10h

Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn, Black Atlas 'Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn answers Léopold Lambert ’s questions about the way she interprets or/and constructs various kinds of archives through her artistic work. The first part of the conversation addresses diasporic archives through her project The Making of an Archive (2014-now), which undertakes to digitize photographs from immigrant families in Canada and

Beyond Capitalism or Socialism: On Generalized Precarity and Subversive Pragmatism

by Mark Anthony Neal / 13h

'Theorist Albena Azmanova examines the dynamics of post-2008 precarity capitalism, the left's long failure to strike through capitalism's competitive production of profit, and explains why radical change for the precarious multitude is possible without a revolutionary break - but through subversive pragmatism. Azmanova is author of Capitalism on Edge: How Fighting Precarity Can Achieve Radical Ch

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith's Poetry Road Trip Across America

by Mark Anthony Neal / 13h

' Pulitzer prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith spent a year traveling the country as U.S. poet laureate. Who did she meet — and what did she learn — about a nation that seems at odds with itself?'

Reginald Dwayne Betts Reads from 'Felon'

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

' Reginald Dwayne Betts discovered poetry while in solitary confinement, during a prison sentence for a carjacking that he committed when he was sixteen. He was tried and sentenced as an adult, and finished high school and began writing poetry while in prison. He went on to graduate from college, and then from Yale Law School, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. Connecticut contested his admission

A Landmark Study of Sexual Assault on Campus

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

'Jennifer S. Hirsch , professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia and co-director of the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT) at Columbia, and Shamus Khan , chair of sociology at Columbia and co-head of the ethnographic team of SHIFT, join All Of It to discuss their new book, Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus.'

Rapper Killer Mike on the Political Issues that Matter to Him in 2020

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

' Michael Render , better known as Killer Mike , has been rapping for decades, coming up in the Atlanta music scene of the early 2000s alongside peers like Outkast and Goodie Mob. Today, he’s one half of the rap duo Run the Jewels. But activism has also been a central part of Mike’s life since he was a teenager. He told The Takeaway , "It's not like I had a choice. My grandmother was active civic

Why Martin Luther King, Jr. Was A "Master Television Producer"

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

'Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is often memorialized as a great public intellectual, orator, and civil rights leader. But the important skills that don't often make headlines — his mastery of political and media strategy — are some of the most important. The 1960s civil rights movement took place just as television news was coming into its own. Alexis Madrigal, staff writer for The Atlantic , says t

JAN 14

Faculty Bookwatch: Charles Piot: "The Fixer: Visa Lottery Chronicles"

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

' Duke Franklin Humanities Institute 's Faculty Bookwatch featured Duke Professor of Cultural Anthropology and African & African American Studies Charles Piot and his recently published, The Fixer: Visa Lottery Chronicles . In this book, Professor Piot follows Kodjo Nicolas Batema , a visa-broker known as a "fixer" in the West African nation of Togo, as he helps his clients apply for the U.S. Div

JAN 12

A Conversation Between Friends: Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham and Sharon Harley

by Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

'A conversation with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham , Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and of African and African American Studies, Harvard University and Sharon Harley , Associate Professor of African American Studies, University of Maryland. Moderated by Emily Owens , Assistant Professor of History, Brown University.' -- Brown University

Slick Rick: What's In My Bag?

by Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

' Slick Rick goes shopping at Amoeba Music in Los Angeles. The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick (30th Anniversary Edition) is available from Def Jam Recordings.' -- Amoeba

How Miles Davis Recorded "Kind of Blue"

by Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

' Miles Davis didn't provide sheet music for his musicians during the recording of his iconic album Kind of Blue . He said that "I didn't write out the music for Kind of Blue . But brought in sketches 'cause I wanted a lot of spontaneity in the playing".' -- American Masters PBS

Sea Levels Are Rising In Miami, Turning Little Haiti Into Hot Property

by Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

'While the city’s famous beaches will eventually be submerged by rising sea levels, Little Haiti sits on a ridge far above these properties. Its location has made it a hot spot for development, and Haitians say they are being forced out.' -- AJ+

Where is the Funk? How Prince Created the Minneapolis Sound (feat. Jellybean Johnson of The Time)

by Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

'The electro-funk style known as the Minneapolis Sound took over pop music in the 1980s and 90s. LA is in Minneapolis to meet with Jellybean Johnson of the Minneapolis Sound pioneering band, The Time, to find out how Prince and 

Sanborn Sessions: Kandace Springs

by Mark Anthony Neal / 10h

'The Season Premiere of Sanborn Sessions : Kandace Springs , joins legendary saxophonist Dave Sanborn and the band for song and conversation at Sanborn's home studio in New York.'

Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn: Diasporic Archives vs. Colonial Archives

by Mark Anthony Neal / 10h

Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn, Black Atlas 'Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn answers Léopold Lambert ’s questions about the way she interprets or/and constructs various kinds of archives through her artistic work. The first part of the conversation addresses diasporic archives through her project The Making of an Archive (2014-now), which undertakes to digitize photographs from immigrant families in Canada and

Beyond Capitalism or Socialism: On Generalized Precarity and Subversive Pragmatism

by Mark Anthony Neal / 13h

'Theorist Albena Azmanova examines the dynamics of post-2008 precarity capitalism, the left's long failure to strike through capitalism's competitive production of profit, and explains why radical change for the precarious multitude is possible without a revolutionary break - but through subversive pragmatism. Azmanova is author of Capitalism on Edge: How Fighting Precarity Can Achieve Radical Ch

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith's Poetry Road Trip Across America

by Mark Anthony Neal / 13h

' Pulitzer prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith spent a year traveling the country as U.S. poet laureate. Who did she meet — and what did she learn — about a nation that seems at odds with itself?'

Reginald Dwayne Betts Reads from 'Felon'

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

' Reginald Dwayne Betts discovered poetry while in solitary confinement, during a prison sentence for a carjacking that he committed when he was sixteen. He was tried and sentenced as an adult, and finished high school and began writing poetry while in prison. He went on to graduate from college, and then from Yale Law School, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. Connecticut contested his admission

A Landmark Study of Sexual Assault on Campus

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

'Jennifer S. Hirsch , professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia and co-director of the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT) at Columbia, and Shamus Khan , chair of sociology at Columbia and co-head of the ethnographic team of SHIFT, join All Of It to discuss their new book, Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus.'

Rapper Killer Mike on the Political Issues that Matter to Him in 2020

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

' Michael Render , better known as Killer Mike , has been rapping for decades, coming up in the Atlanta music scene of the early 2000s alongside peers like Outkast and Goodie Mob. Today, he’s one half of the rap duo Run the Jewels. But activism has also been a central part of Mike’s life since he was a teenager. He told The Takeaway , "It's not like I had a choice. My grandmother was active civic

Why Martin Luther King, Jr. Was A "Master Television Producer"

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

'Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is often memorialized as a great public intellectual, orator, and civil rights leader. But the important skills that don't often make headlines — his mastery of political and media strategy — are some of the most important. The 1960s civil rights movement took place just as television news was coming into its own. Alexis Madrigal, staff writer for The Atlantic , says t

JAN 14

Faculty Bookwatch: Charles Piot: "The Fixer: Visa Lottery Chronicles"

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

' Duke Franklin Humanities Institute 's Faculty Bookwatch featured Duke Professor of Cultural Anthropology and African & African American Studies Charles Piot and his recently published, The Fixer: Visa Lottery Chronicles . In this book, Professor Piot follows Kodjo Nicolas Batema , a visa-broker known as a "fixer" in the West African nation of Togo, as he helps his clients apply for the U.S. Div

JAN 12

A Conversation Between Friends: Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham and Sharon Harley

by Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

'A conversation with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham , Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and of African and African American Studies, Harvard University and Sharon Harley , Associate Professor of African American Studies, University of Maryland. Moderated by Emily Owens , Assistant Professor of History, Brown University.' -- Brown University

Slick Rick: What's In My Bag?

by Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

' Slick Rick goes shopping at Amoeba Music in Los Angeles. The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick (30th Anniversary Edition) is available from Def Jam Recordings.' -- Amoeba

How Miles Davis Recorded "Kind of Blue"

by Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

' Miles Davis didn't provide sheet music for his musicians during the recording of his iconic album Kind of Blue . He said that "I didn't write out the music for Kind of Blue . But brought in sketches 'cause I wanted a lot of spontaneity in the playing".' -- American Masters PBS

Sea Levels Are Rising In Miami, Turning Little Haiti Into Hot Property

by Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

'While the city’s famous beaches will eventually be submerged by rising sea levels, Little Haiti sits on a ridge far above these properties. Its location has made it a hot spot for development, and Haitians say they are being forced out.' -- AJ+

Where is the Funk? How Prince Created the Minneapolis Sound (feat. Jellybean Johnson of The Time)

by Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

'The electro-funk style known as the Minneapolis Sound took over pop music in the 1980s and 90s. LA is in Minneapolis to meet with Jellybean Johnson of the Minneapolis Sound pioneering band, The Time, to find out how Prince and 

NewBlackMan (in Exile)