Thursday, June 30, 2016
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Report Cites Equity Gaps in Public Education
New Report Underscores Serious “Equity Gaps” in Public Education
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2016/06/07/five-eye-opening-figures-from-the-u-s-education-departments-latest-civil-rights-data-dump
Author: Emma Brown
Washington Post
The nation’s public schools suspended significantly fewer students in 2014 than they did in 2012, according to new federal data released Tuesday, but stark racial gaps persisted — not only in the way students were disciplined but also in their access to experienced teachers and advanced math and science courses.
Nationwide, 2.8 million students were suspended from public schools during the 2013-2014 school year, according to the Civil Rights Data Collection, which the U.S. Education Department releases every two years. That represents a drop of nearly 20 percent compared to the 2011-2012 school year.
But black students were nearly four times as likely to be suspended as white students, and nearly twice as likely to be expelled. The same pattern showed up in preschool: Black children represented 19 percent of all preschoolers but accounted for 47 percent of those who received suspensions.
“Fewer suspensions is an important sign of progress,” said Education Secretary John B. King Jr. “But I don’t think there’s any way you can look at this data and not come away with a tremendous sense of urgency about continuing to close our equity gaps.”
Saturday, June 25, 2016
Thursday, June 23, 2016
President Obama Delivers a Statement on the Supreme Court's Ruling on Im...
No change for current dreamers !
For more history see www.antiracism.dsa.blogspot.com
Monday, June 20, 2016
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Thursday, June 16, 2016
How Long Can Big Money Keep Democrats in the Charter School Camp ?
Jeff Bryant
It’s obvious 2016 is an election year when Democratic candidates need to draw a bright line to differentiate themselves from Republican opponents.
With Donald Trump leading the GOP ticket, and most leaders of his party getting in line behind him, it’s doubtful Democrats will find urgent need to “meet in the middle” on issues such as civil rights, women’s reproductive health and equal pay, immigration, minimum wage, gender equity, and climate change.
There may be some issues that still tempt Democrats to collude with conservatives in order to woo mythological “swing voters.” But the number one fear among top Republican strategists is that Democrats will run “a base campaign, directed toward liberals, maximizing that vote, and electing a devastating ticket.”
How then, do you explain the results of the recent California primary?
A Toxic Mix
As Harold Meyerson recently wrote in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, while the Democratic Party’s presidential candidates, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ran on populist platforms denouncing “the corrosive role of money in politics” and “condemning the plutocratic consequences of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision,” many Democratic Party candidates down ticket funded their campaigns with big money from two corporate interests.
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Monday, June 13, 2016
antiracismdsa: Trump, Racism and the Left in 2016
antiracismdsa: Trump, Racism and the Left in 2016: by Max Elbaum, Donald Trump’s Indiana victory and now unstoppable march toward the Republican presidential nomination underscores ...
Friday, June 10, 2016
What Do Californians Do Now ?
Bernie lost. What do liberal Californians do now?
Former state Assemblyman Henry Perea of Fresno, seen above, headed the caucus of moderate Democrats from 2012 to 2015, when he resigned to take a government relations job with Chevron. (Los Angeles Times)
Harold Meyerson
What should California’s Bernie Brigades do now? How should they proceed with the revolution once the Democratic convention formally bestows its nomination on Hillary Clinton?
If Sanders backers (or, for that matter, Clinton supporters) want to involve themselves in politics, there are a number of elections right here in California in which a keystone issue of the socialist’s campaign – breaking the hold that big money has on our system – is effectively on the ballot.
The big winners in California's open primaries: big spenders
For even as Sanders was thundering against the corrosive role of money in politics and Clinton was condemning the plutocratic consequences of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, corporate money was carving an ever larger role for itself in California politics – California Democratic politics.
Over the past two years, oil companies and “education reform” billionaires have been funding campaigns for obliging Democratic candidates running against their more progressive co-partisans under the state’s “top-two” election process. In this week’s primary, independent committees spent at least $24 million, with most of that money flowing to Democrats who opposed Gov. Jerry Brown’s effort to halve motorists’ use of fossil fuels by 2030, and a substantial sum going to Democrats who support expanding charter schools.
Thursday, June 09, 2016
In Defense of Public Education
In just a few weeks, thousands of educators, parents and activists—including many friends and supporters of Rethinking Schools—will gather in Washington, DC for three days of action in defense of public education. Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian will be a featured speaker, along with Jonathan Kozol, Karen Lewis, Diane Ravitch, Rev. William J. Barber II, and many others. We urge all of you who can to support these events:
A People's March for Public Education and Social Justice on July 8
Save Our Schools Activists Conference on July 9
Coalition Summit and Organizing Session on July 10
In an election year filled with daily examples of how desperately our nation and our planet need stronger movements for democracy and social justice, Rethinking Schools is pleased to support the coalition’s call for:
Full, equitable funding for all public schools
Safe, racially just schools and communities
Community leadership in public school policies
Professional, diverse educators for all students
Child-centered, culturally appropriate curriculum for all
No high-stakes standardized testing
These are themes Rethinking Schools readers will readily recognize as part of every issue we have published for over 30 years. We urge you to support these movement-building efforts and to help Rethinking Schools connect with new layers of activists and advocates from across the country.
In solidarity,
Stan Karp
Rethinking Schools
Tuesday, June 07, 2016
Monday, June 06, 2016
School Solutions and Turn Arounds
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California has become ground zero for the national battle over charter school expansion. Some of America’s richest individuals and largest foundations are pouring resources into what critics view as the privatization of public education. Based on six months of reporting and interviews with experts, elected officials, educators and advocates on both sides of the debate, “Failing the Test” is a comprehensive portrait of how charter schools are changing public education.
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Elana Goldbaum was happy working at Burbank Junior High School, a public school located in Los Angeles’ Highland Park neighborhood, until she was let go during the recession in 2008. She now works with what Goldbaum calls “a talented and amazing team” of educators at the Alliance Gertz-Ressler charter school, one of a network of 27 high schools and middle schools spread across the Los Angeles area. She loves teaching history to 10th graders, even though she finds herself embroiled in some of the teacher-management conflicts that have defined charters.
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Thursday, June 02, 2016
Trump University : For Profit Education
Revelations from documents connected to Trump University are generating outrage across the political spectrum, from my colleague Terrance Heath, who called it “a scheme to transfer wealth from people who had little,” to the conservative journal National Review which carried an editorial proclaiming it “a massive scam.”
Much of the commentary has focused on the “playbook” that guided sales reps for Trump U in how to coerce prospective students to sign up for the bogus degree program. A review of the document by CBS News highlights the hard sell tactics Trump U staffers used to push prospects into committing many thousands of dollars – upwards of $35,000 – to a course of study that many of those students now concede turned out to be “useless information.”
The outrage is much deserved, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that making a buck off people’s urges to fulfill their education destinies has become commonplace in American society.
As reports of the Trump U documents were breaking, Politico reported on how the Obama administration is currently engaged in a struggle to rein in the practices of for-profit colleges that lure students into degree programs that plunge them deeply into debt without advancing their financial well beings in the long run.
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