From NOEBIE.net
The Trump campaign is producing an alarming level of fear and anxiety among children of color and inflaming racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom. Many students worry about being deported, according to a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
My own daughter has related that some of her classmates are worried about their families being deported.
Lee Sustar looks at the dynamics of the one-day Chicago teachers strike on April 1 while Chicago teachers, unionists and community members explain why they’re taking part in the day of action.
Read the article: What we’re fighting for on April 1 | Socialist Worker
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has released a special report on its year-long investigation into charter schools spending in the United States. You can access the full report “Charter School Black Hole” here.
The report reveals that over the last twenty years, $3.7 billion has more or less evaporated, with no transparency or accountability.
Pensions providing secure and stable retirements for teachers, administrators, and public school personnel are under attack. Here are the facts about pensions, from the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund.
Source: Public School Teachers’ Pension and Retirement Fund of Chicago
Dianne Feeley writes for Solidarity.
Since the state of Michigan took over the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) at the end of the 1990s, the system has lost more than 100,000 students. The state’s “efficient management” built up a $483 million debt.
Read More: A Recipe for Killing a School System | Solidarity
Eric Ruder breaks down how Chicago officials are using a budget “crisis” to help out their banker friends and advance their strategy of restructuring public education.
Now the underhanded logic of Rahm’s re-election campaign should be plain to see. When he said that he was the only one with the necessary experience to get Chicago out of its looming budget crisis, he meant that he had experienced friends in the banking sector who would benefit from revolving the city’s debt and continuing massive borrowing at high interest rates–and he had enemies in the public sector to punish by making cuts in school budgets and teachers’ compensation.
Read the Article: How Chicago schools went broke on purpose | SocialistWorker.org
Here are some links of interest that I ran across this week.
Rauner, Public Unions Not Close On Contracts
The contracts for more than 40,000 Illinois state workers will expire at the end of the month, and their unions and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s negotiating team apparently aren’t close to agreeing on new ones. The impasse has gotten more public attention in recent days, with union members staging nearly 100 protests throughout the state to rally public support to their calls for fair contracts. With the potential for a far-reaching strike or lockout looming, here are things to know.
What Would a Sanders Administration Do on K-12 Education?
The most progressive candidate in the 2016 race has some interesting ideas on public education.
Right-to-Work’s big moment | TheHill
People can reasonably debate the merits of unions or how labor law should balance the interests of employers, employees and labor organizations. But the contemporary push for Right-to-Work, like its historical predecessors, doesn’t do this. Today it is being used to burnish the credentials of aspiring politicians on the right and as a blunt instrument to defund a political adversary. The well-being of employees has always been much further down the list.
The Real Meaning of Obama’s Trade Defeat | Robert Kuttner
The real story here is a deep and principled split between the Congressional wing of the Democratic Party, most of whose members are still fairly progressive, and a presidential wing that has been in bed with Wall Street at least since Bill Clinton and Bob Rubin (who among his many other roles is the mentor and patron of Obama’s top trade official, Mike Froman).
To be an anarchist | Adbusters
When an “entire society,” i.e., almost everything around you, seemingly to the smallest detail, reflects assumptions contrary to your most deeply held convictions about what the world is and can be, merely to persevere in imagining and acting on the assumption of the possibility of another kind of world is, in itself, a monumental and continual effort of resistance.
Over the years, we have had to move away from what we know is right for kids to what we are told we must do in order to prepare students for the tests.
Read More: First Grade Teacher: How Common Core Tests Affect My Students | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Middle school military programs are younger cousins of the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC), a Pentagon program taught by retired military officers and present in more than 3,500 high schools nationwide. There are strong similarities with JROTC— military-style uniforms, close-order drills, a curriculum that emphasizes patriotism and military history.
A review of programs in more than a dozen states found that there are at least 97 public middle schools currently offering military-style education.
Read more: America’s Tween Soldiers – In These Times.
“DOWN OUTRIGHT MURDER”: A COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE SHOOTING OF MICHAEL BROWN BY DARREN WILSON | Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept
A State-by-State Look at TANF | The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities
A generation jeopardized by obsession with testing | Wendy Lecker, The Stamford Advocate
WALL STREET IS TAKING OVER AMERICA’S PENSION PLANS | Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept
The war on giving | Jessica Hansen-Weaver, Socialist Worker
How Police Use Military Tactics to Quash Dissent | Aaron Cantú, Alternet
Wal-Mart’s Bottomless Greed: Dodging Billions in Taxes, Scheming to Avoid Billions More | Steven Rosenfeld, Alyssa Figueroa, Alternet