Education

Studying The Venezuelan Approach To Learning

July 1, 2022 Logan Williams, Orinoco Tribune. Create! Bolivarian Process, Education, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela

The merits of the Bolivarian system are plain to see through the country having one of the highest educational progress rates in Latin America and a truly comprehensive system funded by the Venezuelan government led by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. In order to understand the Venezuelan education system, it is necessary to examine both its foundations and the reality of education under the illegal US sanctions. In the decades preceding the successful election of Hugo Chavez, education in Venezuela was not prioritized. Governments effectively abandoned education in the rural and working-class areas for the exploitation of oil in the 1920s and later prioritized a neoliberal economic shift which saw government spending on education fall by 37 per cent between 1990-96 to only $118 dollars per capita.

How Maryland Is Preventing Prisoners From Getting College Degrees

June 30, 2022 Mansa Musa, The Real News Network. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Education, Maryland, Prisoner rights

Education is one of the few rehabilitative options available to incarcerated people, yet all across America prisoners are prevented from pursuing their education. “Atiba” Demetrius Brown, for instance, has been dedicated to improving himself and his post-incarceration prospects by taking correspondence courses while incarcerated in Maryland, but thanks to a draconian new decree by the Department of Public Safety & Correctional Services (DPSCS), Atiba can’t take his exams. In this installment of Rattling the Bars, Victor Wallis joins Mansa Musa to discuss the case of “Atiba” Demetrius Brown and the calculated cruelty of the prison-industrial complex. Victor Wallis is a professor in the Liberal Arts Department at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Title IX Weakened By SCOTUS Roe Ruling

June 29, 2022 Workers World. Educate! Education, Supreme Court, Title IX, Women's Rights

June 23 marked the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the federal legislation mandating equal opportunities for men’s and women’s participation in education, including sports. The very next day, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down another 50-year-old decision — Roe v. Wade — thus denying women and girls protected by Title IX their bodily autonomy to choose when or whether to bear children. Title IX states: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Title IX gave women the opportunities to get scholarships to play sports in college without being saddled with massive student loan debt.

In Looming Teacher Exodus, Who Will Be Left Behind?

June 22, 2022 Veronica Fernandez, Who What Why. Educate! Education, Teachers, Worker Rights and Jobs

In the midst of an ongoing education crisis that disproportionately affects minority students and faculty, more troubling signs are on the horizon. A slew of new research shows that teacher burnout is high and that staff shortages, which were already straining the system in 2021, are likely to increase. The school districts which need the most help are most likely to suffer these effects, and the children who depend on them are the ones most likely to have faced significant learning challenges during the pandemic. “I am emotionally and mentally exhausted,” said Sobia Sheikh, a teacher at Mariner High School in Everett, WA. “For some of us, we’re fighting to just make it through the day.” She is not alone.

The ‘Divisive’ Ban Whitewashing Virginia’s Classrooms

June 15, 2022 Sonia Rao, Scalawag Magazine. Educate! Critical Race Theory, Education, Public schools, Virginia

There's a recent painting that sums up what's happening to public education in Virginia: A white man, white paint roller in hand, is covering up Black historical figures—Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X—their bodies whitewashed, faces stoic. The piece by Detroit artist Jonathan Harris, titled "Critical Race Theory," stuck with Cassandra Newby-Alexander, a professor at Norfolk State University, a Historically Black University, since she first saw it online. Newby-Alexander is the former co-chair of the African American History Education Commission (AAHEC), a group of educators and historians brought together by former Governor Ralph Northam in August 2019 to recommend changes to add more Black history to Virginia's K-12 curricula. The state Board of Education implemented their recommendations in the fall of 2021.

Education Reparation: UC Tuition Scholarships For Natives Are Just

June 13, 2022 Randall Akee, Indian Country Today. Create! Education, Indigenous Rights, Reparations, University of California

The University of California system is one of the largest and most prestigious post-secondary educational institutions in the country. Its beginnings 170 years ago were as fraught as they were humble. The Morrill Act enabled the creation of land-grant colleges, which were resourced by the sale of federal lands. These lands were, in many cases, stewarded by tribes, and they ended up in the hands of the federal government sometimes by treaty and often through seizure. Although a critical driving force behind California’s continued economic and technological successes, UC has not been sufficiently accessible to the very people whose dispossession was core to its founding. In a monumental move, the State of California is looking to correct historical injustice and promote greater inclusiveness of Native Americans, a group that to this day encounters numerous systemic barriers to post-secondary education.

In The Wake Of Uvalde, A Teacher’s Plea For Police-Free Schools

June 11, 2022 Nataliya Braginsky, In These Times. Educate! Education, Gun violence, Police, Public schools

For educators like myself, no matter how far we teach from Uvalde, Texas, the recent mass shooting at Robb Elementary, like so many before it, is still palpable in our classrooms — among students and teachers alike. Two days after the massacre, Toni Wright, one of my students in New Haven, Conn., stood in our high school’s hallway crying. “I couldn’t even make it to school yesterday,” they told me. “I got on the bus, I made it down the street, but I had to get off and tell my mom to come get me. I was so upset that it was physically hurting me to try to go to school.” Toni’s peers might have felt this way too, but many students did not want to talk about the shooting. As Toni explained, “I don’t think anyone knows how to talk about it without being like: ‘it’s so sad, it happened again.’”

Chicago Students Want Police Out Of Their Schools

June 6, 2022 Joe Iosbaker, Fight Back News. Resist! Chicago, Education, Illinois, Police, Youth Activism

Chicago, Illinois - On June 2, 250 students at Little Village Lawndale High School (LVLHS) in Chicago walked out of school to demand “Police out!” They marched through Little Village, which is the largest Latino neighborhood in Chicago, to the North Lawndale neighborhood, which is a Black community. The protest was organized by the LVLHS FightBack student group, which called for “Black and Brown Unity.” Other demands raised by the students included equitable funding for all four schools. They explained there are four separate schools within one building. The school which has a predominantly Black student body receives less funding per student than the other three. They also want an end to punitive policies on students. They explained that they want outreach workers and community violence prevention specialists in their schools.

I Went On Strike To Cancel My Student Debt And Won

June 4, 2022 Ann Bowers, In These Times. Organize! Debt Forgiveness, Education, Student Loans, Victory

This week, former students of Corinthian Colleges — a predatory for-profit school that once boasted more than 100 campuses across the country — received news that their student loans will be canceled. In an announcement, a Department of Education (DOE) press release called the move “the largest single loan discharge the Department has made in history.” As a former student of Everest College, which is a branch of Corinthian, I am overjoyed that everyone who attended the scam school will finally be made whole. The action, announced on June 2, will impact 560,000 former Corinthian students and $5.8 in total student debt will be cancelled. This amounts to a stunning victory for debtors who took collective action to win relief.

Leonard Peltier Shares His Indian Boarding School Story

June 3, 2022 Leonard Peltier, Native News Online. Educate! Boarding School, Education, Indigenous Rights, Leonard Peltier

My name is Leonard Peltier and I am 77 years old. I am a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribe. I am Anishanaabe and Dakota. I was taken to Wahpeton Indian School, an Indian boarding school, in Wahpeton, North Dakota when I was nine years old and did not leave until I was 12. This is my story. When I lost my grandfather in 1952, life changed forever. He was a good and kind man and he was my mentor and knew how to live off the land. But then he got pneumonia and did not survive. I will never forget watching him die from the foot of his bed. Even now, that sad memory comes back to me as I lay in my bunk at night in a federal penitentiary. About a year after my grandpa died, my grandma had to go to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to beg for help for her and me, my sister Betty Ann and cousin Pauline.

Harvard: Students, Activists Protest Garland’s Commencement Speech

June 3, 2022 Assange Defense. Resist! Education, Harvard, Julian Assange, Whistleblowers

On Sunday, May 29, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland gave the commencement speech at the Harvard University graduation ceremony for the class of 2020-21. Harvard students teamed up with Boston Area Assange Defense and other local activists to protest Garland’s speech over the continued prosecution of Julian Assange. Mike Miccioli, class of ’22, explained why he and other Harvard students decided to use the commencement speech to draw attention to Assange’s plight: “The prosecution of Julian Assange violates the First Amendment right to a free press. If Assange’s work with Manning is criminalized, this would open the door for any investigative journalist to be prosecuted for their standard work.

Ohio Supreme Court Should Step In To Protect Student Free Speech

May 30, 2022 Cody Bloomfield, Defending Rights & Dissent. Resist! Education, Free Speech, Ohio, Racism

In 2016, a Black Oberlin College student attempted to use a fake ID to purchase alcohol at Gibson’s Bakery, a long-standing local business in Oberlin, Ohio. Allegedly, the store employee spotted additional bottles of wine tucked into the student’s coat. The employee pursued the student into the street, where the student, employee, and several of the student’s friends got into a scuffle. Oberlin police arrived at the scene and arrested the three undergraduates involved. The next day, Oberlin College students began protesting Gibson’s Bakery, alleging that the incident took place within a longer history of racial profiling and discrimination. Gibson’s Bakery sued Oberlin College. The lawsuit alleged that Oberlin College played a role in defaming the bakery because Oberlin employees spoke at protests, gave credit to students who skipped classes to attend the demonstrations, reimbursed students for refreshments and gloves purchased for protestors, and allowed students to use university photocopiers for free. The protests were controversial, both among townspeople and Oberlin employees. But what came next is far more clear cut: the lawsuit was decided in a way that endangered student speech. Courts held Oberlin College responsible for defaming Gibson’s Bakery. Oberlin College was ordered to pay $11 million in compensatory damages, $33 million (later reduced to $25 million) in punitive damages, and $6.5 million in reimbursement for legal fees.

US Students Walk Out To Protest Gun Violence

May 27, 2022 Jacob Crosse, WSWS. Resist! Education, Gun violence, Mass Shootings, Youth Activism

In response to Tuesday’s massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which left at least 17 people injured, 19 elementary students and two teachers dead, students and teachers across the United States walked out of school Thursday to protest gun violence. Several walkouts occurred at schools where memories are still fresh from their own tragic experience with mass homicidal violence, a routine phenomenon in capitalist America. At Oxford High School, located on the outskirts of the Detroit, Michigan metro region, where a school shooting last December left four students dead, hundreds of students walked out of school and amassed on the football field, where they formed a “U” in support of Uvalde.

Teachers At The Blue Man Group’s ‘Progressive’ School Strike

May 27, 2022 Jeff Schuhrke, In These Times. Resist! Education, union busting, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In its long-running off-Broadway show, the Blue Man Group is known for offering up innovative performance art through creative uses of paint, food and drums. But when it comes to dealing with its workers, the popular theater troupe sticks to the same-old union busting strategies routinely used by corporate employers like Amazon and Starbucks. In the face of these anti-labor tactics, teachers at the Blue School — an independent private school in Manhattan founded by the Blue Man Group — held a one-day walkout on Tuesday to demand that management recognize their union, which won a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)-supervised election earlier this year. “We are striking because we want Blue School to stop abusing the legal process and come to the bargaining table,” said Ari Bloom, a middle school math teacher.

Graduate Student Workers Across The Country Help Each Other Unionize

May 27, 2022 Ella Fassler, Truthout. Organize! Education, Student Activism, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

As a first-year master’s student and associate instructor in the School of Music at Indiana University (IU), Chelsea Brinda was forced to sell her blood plasma to survive. Her stipend of just $9,000 was far below Bloomington’s living wage. Eventually, she stopped selling her biofluids, got her first credit card and took out student loans. Brinda, now a Ph.D. student at IU earning just $16,500 a year for teaching one or two courses a semester, told Truthout that she struggles to balance her own hefty workload as a student with her personal life, the courses she teaches and her part-time job as a COVID tester on campus. “I feel like I’m shortchanging my students. I’m not giving them the best that I could,” Brinda said.

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