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Hundreds of Students Walk Out of Schools in Suburban Denver

By Jesse Paul Denver Post
Community members are angry about an evaluation-based system for awarding raises to educators and a proposed curriculum committee that would call for promoting "positive aspects" of the United States and its heritage and avoiding material that would encourage or condone "civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law."

Tidbits - September 18, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments- People's Climate March - climate change, environmental activism, labor unions; Syria, Iraq, ISIS; public education; labor organizing; Zephyr Teachout - Working Families Party, Democratic Party, 2016 elections; Spain, Scotland, Cuba, Gaza, El Salvador; racial bias; worker cooperatives; Announcements - Film Screening African Americans in Spanish Civil War; Mobilizing Against Inequality Book Launch; Southern Tenant Farmers Union celebrates 80th anniversary

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Too Cool for School

Kenzo Shibata Jacobin
Neoliberal education reform is plagued by a contradiction in its commitments — schools need autonomy to be responsive to communities, yet most charters are run by non-educators with no stake in these communities.

Tidbits - September 11, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - Remembering September 11 and The Other 9/11; Fast Food Strikes; Retail Workers Find Better Deals With Unions; Justice Dept. to Probe Ferguson Police; Working Families Party; Death Row; Israel Confiscates More Palestinian Land; One-Third of Israelis Consider Emigrating; Wal-Mart-ization of Education; Wages for Housework; Gluten-free; Eugene Debs and Debs Museum; Charlie Haden; New resource - International Human Rights Law: Violations by Israel; more..

Tidbits - September 4, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - Fast Food Workers; Ralph Fasanella; US-Africa Leaders Summit; School's Back and Growing Inequality; Twin Plagues of ISIS and Ebola; Diablo Canyon Nuke Plant; Brazil's Elections; Argentina; Victory for Market Basket Workers and Consumers; Fed-Ex Workers Can Organize; New Culture on the Left; Call for papers on Harry Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital; Today in History - Paul Robeson Returns to Peekskill; Jewish Woman Among the Interned Japanese

Happy Labor Day, Mom

William Greider The Nation
Impatient hedge-fund billionaires do not attempt to conceal their contempt for the rest of us. They are used to making money—fast. Witness what they have done to large segments of the overall economy. Education does not thrive in those conditions, because there is no standard of perfection in any schoolhouse that can survive brutal suppression of uniformity imposed by clumsy testing. A successful school not only makes room for dissent. It constantly nourishes it.

Back to School, and to Widening Inequality

Robert Reich Robert Reich's blog
American kids are getting ready to head back to school. But the schools they’re heading back to differ dramatically by family income. Which helps explain the growing achievement gap between lower and higher-income children. Thirty years ago, the average gap on SAT-type tests between children of families in the richest 10 percent and bottom 10 percent was about 90 points on an 800-point scale. Today it’s 125 points.

Books: Changing the Ed Reform Narrative

Michael Hirsch The Indypendent, Issue # 199
A review of two important new books that tell a different story about what teachers do, what parents want and what children need.

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Without Tenure...

Peter Greene Curmudgucation Blog
Civilians need to understand-- the biggest problem with the destruction of tenure is not that a handful of teachers will lose their jobs, but that entire buildings full of teachers will lose the freedom to do their jobs well.
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