As one commentator immediately above noted, it would be worth our time to ‘stop and frisk’ our society and try to critically examine what’s causing the social despair, capitulation to “lock-down” policies, calls for military tribunals and the outsourcing of fear to law enforcement. If we don’t, we might find ourselves all locked down in the sweltering serenity of Aldous Huxley’s, Brave New World, if we aren’t already.

By Guest Blogger George,
Many educators feel that the so-called “21st Century Learning” which advocates a more technology based and supposedly student-centered curriculum for the future is the magic bullet of educational reform. In this, they find themselves in perfect agreement with the companies which stand the most to gain from such an approach: those which [...]


Massive school closures in KC to be done by fall:
The politics of ‘compassionate conservatism”
You’ve no doubt heard the dismal news out Wednesday, March 12, 2020.  Kansas City’s school superintendent said he is going to shutter nearly half the district’s schools due to plummeting enrollment and budget deficits.  Perhaps, more grotesque was his comment noting that [...]

In fact, with education itself having little more than ‘exchange value’ for most participants, the new ‘Gold/Grade’ standard was inevitable.

Detroit Teachers point the way forward: Resistance to privatization and racist anti-working class policies of Robert Bobb, aka “Eli Broad’
All eyes should be on Detroit where the poverty and inequality is glaring under the oppressive weight of ‘compassionate conservatism’ but where  the resistance is dazzling  .  [...]

When Ronald Reagan ran for re-election for president in 1984, he declared that it was “springtime for America”. He should have said it was “springtime for Corporate America.” Under his administration and those that followed, Corporate America and the world wide capitalist class increased its domination of the world, seemingly without an equivalent resistance from [...]

Detroit Loses Race to the Top, thank God:  Robert Bobb finally under the gun for ethics violations
According to the Detroit Free Press, Michigan lost in the 1st round of the federal school funding program known as Race to the Top.  However, Detroit teachers and their students know that this is a win for them as [...]

By Guest Blogger XX,
The Rhode Island Massacre in which teachers were all fired due to low math and literacy test scores set off a backlash among teachers and those who seem to support them. While some of the corporate media has exploited this for a good human interest story and even as a fairly obvious example of “injustice”, most [...]

By Guest Blogger XX,
The New York Times reports that Obama has escalated his attacks on “failing schools.”
The Times outlines a recent speech in which Obama “favored federal rewards for local school districts that fire underperforming teachers and close failing schools, saying educators needed to be held accountable when they failed to fix chronically troubled classrooms and curb the student [...]

As Donna Stern and I were finishing up a discussion by phone a few days ago, she and I mused over what is clearly emerging as the billionaire philanthropists’, corporate business elite and giant transnational corporations’ plan for Jamal and his class mates at Frederick Douglass and the other three Detroit High schools – turning public schools into vocational schools, stripping out arts, literature, music in favor of low-paying service jobs where students learn early that they are not supposed to go to college, that their lives have been predetermined by the Gods of capitalism.