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Education

1934 And Now: History Lives!

Over the first three decades of the 20th century, Minneapolis was the most notorious “open shop” city in the country. An employers’ organization (the “Citizens’ Alliance”) leveraged the power of banks, manufacturers, and local government to resist workers’ attempts to unionize. In February 1934 the city’s truck drivers and coal yard workers organized and struck their industry, winning union recognition in a week. Their success inspired other truckers and warehouse workers to organize and strike twice, in the spring and summer of 1934, facing down the power of police and private “deputies.”

Chris Hedges Report: Surveillance Education

Surveillance tools have become ubiquitous in schools and universities. Technologies, promising greater safety and enhanced academic performance, have allowed Gaggle, Securly, Bark, and others to collect detailed data on students. These technologies, however, have not only failed to deliver on their promises, but have eviscerated student privacy. This is especially true in poor communities, where there is little check on wholesale surveillance. This data is often turned against students, especially the poor and students of color, accelerating the school-to-prison pipeline. When students and teachers know they are being watched and monitored it stifles intellectual debate, any challenging of the dominant narrative and inquiry into abuses of power.

In Times Of Crisis We Need More People Power

Social movements often face a contradiction: To expand and thrive, they need to bring in ever-greater numbers of new participants. And yet, knowing how to effectively absorb new people and plug them into a movement’s work can be very difficult. This is a problem even during normal times, but it grows even bigger during times of political crisis — such as the moment we are facing right now. Imagine that you are an organizer and that you just pulled off a fantastic direct action. A small and powerful protest you held locally generated excitement and made news headlines. The public noticed, and the next day there are 10 people at your office door who saw the demonstration and are excited to get involved.

A Review Of Key 2024 Ballot Measures

In this year’s election, voters given the opportunity to weigh in directly on questions of economic justice showed policy preferences far more progressive than those reflected in many national and state election outcomes. Across the country, voters seized opportunities to approve state or local ballot measures increasing the minimum wage, expanding paid leave, strengthening workers’ rights to unionize, preserving public education, and protecting access to abortion. These ballot measure outcomes reflect a clear ongoing trend of strong voter support for policies that prioritize worker, racial, and gender justice—and illustrate how state and local governments can continue to play important roles in enacting such policies.

Want More Equality Of Opportunity And Social Justice?

This past summer, the Governor of Massachusetts Maura Healey signed a budget bill that guaranteed universal access to in-state community colleges. No matter age or socioeconomic background, irrespective of the degree or certificate sought, the tuition and fees at these fifteen institutions of higher learning are waived. The $117 million public investment allocated to the MassEducate program was made possible two years ago when, in an exercise of direct democracy, Bay State voters defied the tenets of neoliberal ideology. They approved a landmark progressive tax bill – known as the Fair Share Amendment – that imposed a four percent surtax on annual incomes above one million dollars. 

East Los Angeles Community Victory! Extera Charter Project Stopped!

Los Angeles, CA – On October 29, East Los Angeles (ELA) residents, led by the community group Centro CSO, scored a major win against a proposed charter school in their neighborhood. Centro CSO members and residents spoke at a meeting of the LA County Board of Supervisors to oppose Extera Charter School’s plan to build a new facility on Gage and Eastman Avenues. Angelina Chavez, a community member voiced her concerns, stating, “This project will bring constant traffic, noise, and pollution to our quiet street.” At the meeting, Extera representatives brought over 60 parents, mostly mothers in Extera T-shirts, to voice support.

Workers In Greece Mobilize Against Austerity

Strikes swept through Greece in the week of October 21 as workers protested austerity measures imposed by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ government. Workers demanded wage increases, strengthened collective agreements, and the reversal of public service reforms, especially in healthcare and education. Actions across sectors—including in hospitality, metalwork, transport, logistics, and education—built momentum for the November 20 general strike, anticipated to demonstrate the public’s frustration over deteriorating work and living conditions. Throughout the strikes, workers appealed to the community to support them.

Chicago Teachers Are Fighting For A Historic Contract

In 2012, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), along with thousands of supporters, took to the streets in a historic battle with then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel over his corporate education reform and austerity plans for the city’s public school system. That strike helped define the increasingly popular concept of ​“bargaining for the common good,” an approach ​“where unions make demands that would benefit not just members but the larger communities,” as CTU Vice President Jackson Potter explained two years ago on the tenth anniversary of the walk out. Today, the union is in the midst of another struggle over the future of the country’s third-largest public education system.

Why Do Approved American History Textbooks Contain Missing Links

We study American history for important reasons. We study because it helps us understand how events in the past continue to influence the present. We study because American history tells us who we are. Yet teaching a full and honest history is much more difficult than it should be. There are history textbooks that ignore the fact that white elites grew rich off the labor of the enslaved. There are textbooks that continue to minimize extraordinary struggles for universal suffrage. There are textbooks that fail to examine the long-term effects of forcing Indigenous young people into off-reservation boarding schools.

Archiving Ancestral Knowledge To Co-Create New Economic Paradigms

When we think of archiving, the mind might jump to dusty boxes of files, endless rows of cabinets, or shelves weighed down by old papers and books — organized in a way that seems to go on forever. Maybe we even picture the digital world, with its infinite files tucked away in the cloud. Either way, archiving often feels like a dull, lifeless task — far from inspiring or exciting. But here’s the twist: this is exactly the key to it all — the secret behind every colonizing scheme — the meticulous control and management of data, including intellectual property. Reclaming archiving is not just about organizing the past but unlocking potential for new knowledge and endless possibilities beyond colonial modalities of control.

Louisiana’s CRT Ban Continues Long History Suppressing Black Education

As more than 700,000 students across Louisiana recently headed back to the classroom, a troubling reality looms: Black history wasn’t allowed in with them. In an increasing number of states, books on Black history and lesson plans about systemic racism are barred from schools — and Louisiana has followed suit. Gov. Jeff Landry’s executive order in late August bans critical race theory (CRT) — on top of previous restrictions already in place — and makes Louisiana the latest state to pass a law prohibiting antiracist education. Incredibly, laws preventing honest education about race impact nearly half of all public school students in the United States.

Degrowth: Beyond Education For Sustainable Development

Large-scale development projects, innovative green technologies, artificial intelligence, and trips to Mars are often seen as central solutions to the climate crisis leading to diverse socio-ecological and economic implications. Despide their inconsistencies and conflicted outcomes, their influence is so strong that our present approaches and vision for the future seem constrained by them. This short essay aims to explore opportunities and entry points that could mobilise personal and collective transformations in how we think and act, with the goal of fostering a more ecological and socially just response to the climate crisis.

Argentina: Hundreds Of Thousands Mobilize In Defense Of Public Education

On October 2, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Argentina to demand that Javier Milei’s neoliberal government cease its attempts to defund public university education. It was the largest protest to date against Milei’s harsh neoliberal measures, yet the libertarian head of state refused to budge. Several political parties, social movements, unions, and human rights organizations joined students, professors, graduates, and university workers in the streets demanding that Milei not veto the University Financing Law which seeks to increase the university budget given the needs faced by Argentine universities.

School Curriculum Supports The Genocide

Scholasticide. It’s a term coined in 2009, but has taken on new power as the devastation of Gazan schools, universities, and libraries becomes almost total. As Rice University Professor Abdel Razzaq Takriti of Scholars Against the War on Palestine said about the Israeli assault: ​“They’re demolishing universities and schools intentionally. They bombarded and destroyed every single university. They’re using schools as barracks and military stations.” But another facet of scholasticide can be found in our own schools in the United States — erasing Palestinian lives and hiding the history of Palestine-Israel from young people.

Zionist Organizations’ Latest Strategy To Criminalize Palestine Advocacy

Universities welcomed their students back this fall with a set of policies designed to silence pro-Palestine speech and preemptively criminalize protest. Fortified by strategies from the security industry, they provide an administrative alibi for further militarizing campuses. Yet there’s another, more insidious move at play, one belied by the fact that some universities house these new repressive policies under the guise “free speech” and student’s rights. Across the county, universities are employing the right-wing tactic of weaponizing rights to quash dissent. In the process, we are seeing how the pretense of civil rights mobilizes a machinery of repression aimed to eradicate the movement for Palestinian liberation.