Latest News and Comment from Education

Saturday, August 2, 2014

8-2-14 the becoming radical EMPATHYEDUCATES! | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness by P. L. Thomas, EdD


THE BECOMING RADICAL

EMPATHYEDUCATES!


the becoming radical 
 A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness 
by 






James Baldwin, “Unable to Believe” Edu-Refomers
O, but if James Baldwin were here to respond to Campbell Brown, Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, or Michelle Rhee … Let’s imagine …
James Baldwin at 90: “‘I can’t believe what you say,’ the song goes, ‘because I see what you do’”
January 1, 2000, exposed a truly baffling phenomenon about most humans: A silly fascination with numbers that end in zero that completely renders those humans irrational. In the land of the arbitrary where people fear that arbitrary dates can spawn the Apocalypse, the irrational can’t even manage those arbitrary dates as January 1, 2001 (not 2000), was the turning point of the millennium. And so
Critical Studies of Southern Place: A Reader, William Reynolds, Ed.
Critical Studies of Southern Place: A Reader William Reynolds, Ed. [See "Look Inside" here.] Critical Studies of Southern Place: A Reader Peter Lang USA synopsis: Critical Studies of Southern Place: A Reader critically investigates and informs the construction of Southernness, Southern identity, and the South past and present. It promotes and expands the notion of a Southern epistemology

JUL 30

SC’s Zais Mistake
Public education has been under assault and misrepresented by political leaders, the media, and the public since (at least) the mid-1800’s. Over the past couple of years, I have documented numerous times the key role mainstream media have played in the failure of accountability-based education reform driven by (ever-new) standards and (ever-new) high-stakes tests. So I am putting aside my skeptici

JUL 29

“Students Today…”: On Writing, Plagiarism, and Teaching
Posted at Maureen Downey’s Get Schooled, college instructor Rick Diguette offers a grim picture of first year college writing: Once upon a time I taught college English at a local community college, but not any more.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m still on faculty and scheduled to cover three sections of freshman composition this fall.  But it has become obvious to me that I am no longer teaching “colle

JUL 25

Kristof, How Much Inequity Is the Right Balance?
I started simply to ignore Nicholas Kristof’s An Idiot’s Guide to Inequality, but I was pulled back into it by Russ Walsh’s Hope, Poverty, and Grit. First, the rush to celebrate Kristof’s acknowledgement of Thomas Picketty, inequality, and (gasp) the implication that capitalism is failing seems easy to accept. But that urge to pat Kristof on the back feels too much like the concurrent eagerness to


19 Things Black People Need to Know About Racism Today
By Tiffanie Drayton | Originally Published at Clutch Magazine. July 29, 2014 Since the post Civil Rights Era, the Black community has largely abandoned its collective struggle against continued racism and discrimination. Gone are the demands for justice and an end to inequality. They have been replaced […]

JUL 31

Why We’re Wrong About Affirmative Action: Stereotypes, Testing and the ‘Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations’
(Photograph Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images) By William A. Darity Jr., Alan A. Aja, , Darrick Hamilton | Originally Published at Huffington Post. July 28, 2014 5:04 PM Updated 5:59 PM EDT Earlier this month a divided Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the University of Texas’ right […]

JUL 30

The Charter School Profiteers – Leaving Children So Far Behind Some Cannot Be Found
Photograph; Credit Beth Fertig / SchoolBookBy Allie Gross | Jacobin. July 28, 2014 This is the second installment in our two-part series looking at charter schools in New Orleans and Detroit. The juxtaposition is no accident — these two cities have the highest percentage of charters in […]

JUL 29

Recover the Recovery School District – Return the Schools to the People
A crowd of about 50 showed up for the charter board meeting. photo: Della Hasselle Introductory Essay By Raynard Sanders, Ed.D. The failure of the corporate education reforms in New Orleans has been clearly documented. Of all the school communities the Recovery School District has destroyed none […]
Children Have Been Coming to America Alone Since Ellis Island
It’s hard to say exactly how many of Ellis Island’s child migrants were unaccompanied, but a leading historian says they were in the several thousands. National Archives By Tasneem Raja | Originally Published at Mother Jones. July 18, 2014 6:00 AM EDT An unaccompanied child migrant was […]

JUL 28

Pimping Diversity
By John Fitzgerald Gates, Ph.D. | Originally Published at Huffington Post Business. July 24, 2014 12:49 pm EDT It has been said, “diversity management is a racket.” Regrettably, there is a great deal of truth in this statement. In fact, “diversity management” has become a thriving industry […]

JUL 24

On the Journey For Justice Newark Parents Cheer Federal Investigation Into Controversial School Plan
Parents and advocates gather at Newark City Hall after U.S. Department of Education opened a civil rights investigation into the city’s school reorganization plan. By Peggy McGlone | Originally Published at New Jersey Dot Com. – The Star-Ledger. July 24, 2014 at 6:00 AM, updated July 24, […]
What Happens When a City’s Public Schools Vanish? Colonialism Lives
Photograph; Lafayette Academy, the experience of a charter group with the profit-making company it hired to manage instruction offers a cautionary tale of how well-meaning trustees can easily stumble, and of how privatizing management is often far from a panacea | Tim Mueller for The New York […]