Education Radio

Racism, Class and the Attack on Public Education: A Talk by Brian Jones

2012-03-03T17:43:00.012-05:00

In this episode we spend the hour listening to a talk by Brian Jones titled “Still Separate, Still Unequal: Racism, Class and the Attack on Public Education.” He was speaking to a group of teachers and parents in New York City this past February as part of Black History Month.

Brian Jones

Brian has worked as an elementary school teacher in Harlem and is currently a fourth grade public school teacher in Brooklyn, NYC. Brian participated with the Grassroots Education Movement, GEMNYC, to produce the documentary An Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman in 2011. This documentary was a response to the widely publicized film Waiting for Superman, produced by Participant Media, which also produced An Inconvenient Truth. Education Radio episode 5 “Exposing the Myth of Education Reform” from September of last year highlighted Jones’ work on this documentary and can still be heard on our blog.

In his talk, Brian draws connections between attacks on labor and attacks on public schools. He suggests education reformers’ emphasis on test scores, teachers and outcomes is about “excellence” (using their words), but not equity. Brian addresses the increasingly undemocratic process by which these neoliberal reforms are being implemented, and the potential power of true solidarity between parents and teachers.

You can down load mp3s of this program here:
Audioport (podcast)
Internet archive

High-stakes testing, segregation, and the undermining of democracy: OCCUPY the DOE

2012-02-26T11:55:00.001-05:00

Across the country, educators and activists are organizing to stand up and fight back against the corporate controlled education reformers. In this week's show we speak with teachers, teacher educators, students, parents and community members who are part of a growing movement to opt out of and demand an end to high stakes testing.

We begin at San Jose State University, where professor Roberta Ahlquist talks about the ways high stakes testing damages our students, our schools, and our understanding of the kinds of people and communities we want to make. Professor Ahlquist, co-editor of the book “ Assault on Kids: How hyper-accountability, corporatization, deficit ideologies and Ruby Payne are destroying our schools” helps us understand how high stakes testing is part of larger ideology that is leaving us with schools that are more segregated and that deny the human potential of all students.

Next we hear from Aisha Daniels, a high school junior from Florida, who opted out of the state tests about why she opted out, and the response from teacher, schools, administrators and classmates. Aisha's mother Ceresta Smith is an organizer of United Opt Out, an organization whose purpose is to draw attention to the devastating impact of high stakes tests and to offer guidance, support and solidarity for students and parents who choose to Opt Out.

The Opt Out movement will be in Washington DC March 30- April 1 to OCCUPY the DOE and demand an end to high stake testing. In the last part of this week's show, Education Radio producer Barbara Madeloni joins the organizers of Occupy the DOE at one of their weekly skype meetings to talk with them about how they came to the movement, how they understand what is happening in education, and what we can do to resist. She speaks with Morna McDermott, associate professor Towson University, Ceresta Smith, 23 year veteran National Board certified teacher, Laura Murphy, community member and charter member of the Save Our Schools march, Tim Skelar, associate professor Penn State Altoona, Peggy Robertson, former public school teacher, parent and blogger at pegwithapen, and Shaun Johnson, assistant professor at Towson University and host with Tim Skelar of at the chalk face.

Listen and join us to OCCUPY the DOE in DC, March 30- April 2, 2012.

Get more information about Occupy the DOE.

You can down load mp3s of this program here:
Audioport (podcast)
Internet archive

Educating for Obedience: The disastrous impact of education reform on young children

2012-02-12T10:16:00.004-05:00

Nancy Carlsson-Paige

In this weeks program we talk to Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Professor Emerita of early childhood education at Lesley University where she taught teachers for more than 30 years. She is also a respected author and the founder of the University's Center for Peaceable Schools.

Nancy discusses how schooling can meet the developmental needs of school-age children; and how current corporate education reform policies are harming young children's social, emotional, cognitive and physical development.

She talks pointedly about how current standardized curriculum and testing regimes and the privatization of public education causes great harm to young children's development; exacerbates inequality and undermines the human potential to engage in social change.

Nancy also talks at length about the horrendous impact virtual schools have on the lives of young children.

Click here to learn more about Nancy Carlsson-Paige

You can download mp3's of this program here:
Program 20: Pacifica Audioport (podcast)
Program 20: Internet Archive

Audit Culture: Snuffing the Life out of Teacher Education

2012-02-05T10:28:00.001-05:00

In this week's program Education Radio looks at how audit culture is being used to undermine and privatize teacher education, decoupling it from higher education and turning teacher development into technical training.

Speaking first with Christine Sleeter, Professor Emerita, California State University, we look at how the assault on teacher education connects to the larger neo-liberal effort to privatize public spaces. We then examine the specific measures being used to devalue, de-humanize and undo the democratic the work of teaching and teaching teachers.

Ann Berlak, of the California State system, helps us understand the technical rationality behind the current push for a national teacher performance assessment. Celia Oyler, Associate Professor of Education at Teachers College Columbia University, brings us into the absurdities of the National Council on Teacher Quality's grading' of school of education, and the dangers of privatization found in the new Relay Graduate School of Education, founded by educational management companies Achievement First, Uncommon Schools and KIPP. Finally, we speak with Julie Gorlewski, from State University of New York New Paltz, as we examine how teacher educators can respond to this assault by naming it for what it is and making spaces to fight back and claim the liberatory potential of our work.

You can download mp3's of this program here:
Program 19: Pacifica Audioport (podcast)
Program 19: Internet Archive

Audit Culture, Teacher Evaluation and the Pillaging of Public Education

2012-01-21T20:34:00.019-05:00

In this weeks' program we look at the attempt by education reformers to impose value added measures on teacher evaluation as an example of how neoliberal forces have used the economic crisis to blackmail schools into practices that do not serve teaching and learning, but do serve the corporate profiteers as they work to privatize public education and limit the goals of education to vocational training for corporate hegemony. These processes constrict possibilities for educational experiences that are critical, relational and transformative. We see that in naming these processes and taking risks both individually and collectively we can begin to speak back to and overcome these forces.

In this program we speak with Sean Feeney, principal from Long Island New York, about the stance he and other principals have taken against the imposition of value added measures in the new Annual Professional Performance Review in New York State. We also speak with Celia Oyler, professor of education at Teachers College Columbia University, and Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, about the impact of value added measures on teacher education and the corporate powers behind these measures.

You can sign on to support Sean Feeney and the New York principals at
http://www.newyorkprincipals.org/

You can download mp3's of this program here:
Program 18: Pacifica Audioport (podcast)
Program 18: Internet Archive

Fighting tuition hikes and mobilizing for free public higher education

2012-01-15T00:54:00.018-05:00

In this edition of Education Radio, we report on world-wide student resistance to the attacks on public higher education, along with the story of neoliberalism as it threatens the future of public higher education in the U.S. Emerging from the Occupy movement, advocates calling for a student debt strike that includes the vision of free college tuition will present their case.

The first part of the show, features reports from Puerto Rico, the UK, and Chile, where sustained, mass mobilizations of youth have sought to halt enormous tuition hikes.

We next hear from labor activist and UMass academic Max Page, co-author The Future of Higher Education, who deconstructs the mechanics of a corporate-governance, privatization mentality that is squeezing the quality of and access to public higher education.

For the last part of the hour, speakers from Zuccotti Park, including Anya Kamentz, Pamela Brown, and Andrew Ross, link the Occupy movement to the crisis of growing student debt in the U.S. Each outlines the reasons for a national debt strike for college loan forgiveness and free public education.

A good part of the material for this show is collected from YouTube. Using simple free capture software, in this case MacTubes, short videos were downloaded. These video mp4 files were then converted to an audio file (WAVE) using free audio conversion software called Switch. It's an amazing resource that allows access to direct information about resistance movements that we would never see through mainstream corporate media.

You can download mp3's of this program here:
Program 17: Audioport (podcast)
Program 17: Internet Archive

Teachers Fight Back with Courage, Solidarity and Organizing

2012-01-08T11:55:00.002-05:00

In this weeks show, we bring you interviews with four activists educators who are working within their communities and unions, local and national, to actively speak back to and resist the neoliberal structures and paradigms being imposed on us. Their stories remind us of the necessity and power of organizing and of finding courage in solidarity.

The assault on public education is multi-faceted and strategic. Here on Education Radio we have explored the ways that politicians, corporations and individual financiers manipulate the discourse, bully educators, intensify the disempowerment of low-income communities, and purchase access with the goals of privatizing education and feeding their profits from the public trough. The forces of neoliberalism, which aim to privatize and commodify every aspect of our lives, are powerful and organized. For those of us who see education as a place for the building of a democratic and just society, for transformation and human freedom, understanding the magnitude of the struggle can be overwhelming. But there are numerous spaces of resistance and groups coming together to speak back to the dominant discourse and claim a new way of knowing ourselves as teachers, educators, union members, students, parents and community members.

We begin by speaking with Shaun Johnson, assistant professor of education at Towson University, blogger at The Chalk Face, and organizer of Opt Out of the State Test, a grassroots organization that encourages and supports parents and teachers to refuse to participate in standardized testing.

Karen Lewis

We then speak with Karen Lewis, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union and former classroom teacher, about how she and other Chicago Public School teachers formed the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) to take over union leadership to ensure that the Chicago Teachers Union represented the best interest of teachers, students and low income communities in the fight against corporate education reform.

Yvette Felarca

We also talk with Yvette Felarca, an English and history teacher at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkley, CA. She also a founding member and organizer with BAMN - Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary. We talk with Yvette about her activism within teaching as well as with BAMN.

Simone Harris

We finish by going to Santa Rosa California to speak with Simone Harris, high school English teacher, union organizer and blogger at theedutalk.blogspot.com about her union’s decision to not only endorse but to plan an action with Occupy Santa Rosa. Simone’s activism reminds us that our struggles as educators are shared struggles, against the same forces and for the same hopes, as those of our students, the poor, working people, and the planet.

You can download mp3's of this program here:

Program 16: Audioport (podcast)
Program 16: Internet Archive

Looking Back with Williams, Kozol, Fine, Meiners and Ayers

2011-12-23T16:59:00.053-05:00

Patricia Williams

On this week's program we take a step back to reflect on the first six months of Education Radio. During this time, we at Education Radio have had the opportunity to talk with a wide-variety of educators, students, parents and scholars who are engaged in the important work of resisting current neoliberal education reform efforts by actively working to disrupt the dominant narrative of education reform and fighting to create truly accessible and justice-based public schools and classrooms. It has been an inspiring and moving journey thus far. So, in this show we take some time to revisit a selection of the many voices and stories that we have shared thus far.

Featuring Patricia Williams, Jonathan Kozol, Michelle Fine, Erica Meiners, and Bill Ayers

Jonathan Kozol

You can download mp3's of this program here:

Tim Scott with Erica Meiners

Program 15: Audioport (podcast)
Program 15: Internet Archive

Deborah Polin with Bill Ayers

Stand for Children or Stand for Profit?

2011-12-16T18:23:00.018-05:00

On this week’s show we take a look at Stand for Children, an organization that defines its mission as one of grassroots advocacy for public education. According to a recent Rethinking Schools article by Ken Libby and Adam Sanchez:

“Stand for Children was founded in the late 1990s as a way to advocate for the welfare of children. It grew out of a 1996 march by more than 250,000 people in Washington, D.C. The aim of the march was to highlight child poverty at a time when Congress and the Clinton administration were preparing to “end welfare as we know it.” Jonah Edelman, son of children’s and civil rights activist Marian Wright Edelman, co-founded the group and continues to serve as CEO. Stand’s first chapter was in Oregon, but the group now operates in eight additional states: Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington.”

Stand for Children’s claim, that they are a grassroots organization that stands for access to quality education for all students, is appealing to many parents and educators. A closer inspection, however, reveals a very different agenda, one that is driven by vast amounts of corporate money and dangerous, ideology-driven notions of education reform. In this program we take a close look at Stand for Children and their controversial activities.


David Love

We hear stories from two Massachusetts school committee members who were former Stand members, but who left when they saw a significant shift in Stand’s approach: Roger Garberg (Gloucester) and Tracy O’Connell Novick (Worcester). We hear from the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, Paul Toner, on a controversial ballot initiative that Stand is pushing in the state. We also share a clip of Jonah Edelman, Stand co-founder and CEO, candidly speaking at the Aspen Institute about Stand’s true agenda to destroy the power of teachers unions. Then, we talked with the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, Karen Lewis, about her reaction to this clip and to Stand for Children.


Karen Lewis

Finally, we feature Deborah Polin and Tim Scott's interview with David Love, former Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus and current Executive Director of Witness to Innocence, an organization that works with death row exonerees, about the larger social justice implications of Stand for Children’s activities. David is also the Executive Editor of The Black Commentator.

We'd like to note that Education Radio contacted Stand leadership in Massachusetts to request an interview. Stand is staffed by many people who consider themselves education activists, and we were genuinely interested in their take on what we were finding out about the organization. However, after initially being receptive to our request and scheduling an interview, they then presented some conditions and let us know that one Stand staff member would be speaking with us while another would be on the phone for support, and could stop the interview at any point. We agreed to these conditions, only to have them pull out a few hours before the interview was to take place. We can only surmise this is due to the fact that it would have been a difficult, and controversial, conversation.


Tracy O'Connell Novick

You can download mp3s of this program here:

Stand for Children or Stand for Profit? on Audioport (podcast)

Stand for Children or Stand for Profit? on Internet Archive

For more information about what you hear on today’s program, please see the following links:
Transcription of Jonah Edelman’s remarks at The Aspen Institute
Stand for Children, A Hometown Perspective on it’s Evolution by Susan Barrett

Profiteering and Union-Busting Repackaged as School Reform by David Love

Billionaire Education Policy by Robin Rogers

Stand for Children Loses Debate, about SFC in Chicago by George Schmidt
More on Stand's Massachusetts ballot initiative

Educational Technology: Tool for Capitalism or Democracy?

2011-11-26T01:32:00.000-05:00

This week on education radio, we examine educational technology in the current climate of neoliberal education reform – particularly in regard to socioeconomic inequalities – and explore other possibilities for its use that support more democratic, creative and collaborative constructions of knowledge.

The relationship between education reform, technology, and socioeconomic inequalities is multilayered and complex, and our hope in this first in a series of shows on technology and education is to raise some of the larger political and ideological concepts framing how technology actually gets used. We also examine the current market for educational technology and its impact on educational practices.

We hear from Dan Schiller, Communication scholar at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and author of the book Digital Capitalism; Martha Fuentes-Bautista, Commuication and Public Policy scholar at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Patricia Burch, Associate Professor at the USC Rossier School of Education/author of Hidden Markets, The New Education Privatization; and Stephen Krashen, Professor Emeritus at the USC Rossier School of Education.

Program #13 on Internet Archive

Program #13 on AudioPort (podcast)

Multicultural and Anti-Oppressive Education: In theory and practice

2011-11-21T19:28:00.009-05:00

In this week's show we speak with James Banks and Kevin Kumashiro, two prominent figures in the field of multicultural and anti-oppressive education.

James Banks

James Banks is often referred to as the founder of multicultural education in the United States. He is a professor of education at the University of Washington. Over the past four decades, Banks has constructed a body of knowledge designed to disrupt curriculum based in dominant group norms by including perspectives from marginalized groups as a way to enable students to develop knowledge, attitudes, and skills to become active citizens in a multicultural nation and a diverse world.

A son of black farmers who grew up in Jim Crow south, James Banks became the first black professor in the College of Education at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle where he is also founding director of UW’s Center for Multicultural Education. In addition to writing over 20 books, Banks has served as a consultant to school districts, professional organizations, and universities throughout the United States and around the globe.

Kevin Kumashiro

Kevin Kumashiro is professor of Asian American Studies and Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and president-elect of the National Association for Multicultural Education. His research and teaching span the field of anti-oppressive education, and include issues in teacher education, the “common sense” of schooling and the praxis of social justice education.

Kumashiro has taught in both elementary and secondary schools as well worked with student teachers, and has written numerous books and articles. He is simultaneously a researcher, teacher, and activist in the field of anti-oppressive education. In our interview, we hear from Kumashiro about what has led him to the work that he does. He talks about the purpose and function of schooling, as well as the “common sense” of education and education reform.

You can download mp3s of this program via the following links:
Program #12: Multicultural and Anti-Oppressive Education: In theory and practice
Program #12: Multicultural and Anti-Oppressive Education: In theory and practice (podcast)

On the road with Patricia Williams and Bill Ayers

2011-11-11T21:35:00.005-05:00

In this weeks program we speak with legal scholar and critical race theorist Patricia Williams and education scholar and activist Bill Ayers. We caught up with both of them in Chicago in November 2011, at the National Association for Multicultural Education's annual conference, for which they were both keynote speakers.

Patricia Williams is a legal scholar and was a pioneer in critical race theory.
Critical Race Theory developed in the 1980 s as a result of the desire of many black legal scholars in the U.S. to develop a critique of liberal civil rights discourse, which embodied ideals of assimilation and integration. Critical Race Theory analyzes the way that white supremacy and racial power is reproduced over time and the role that law plays in this process. Patricia Williams is a professor of law at Columbia University and writes a column for The Nation magazine called Diary of a Mad Law Professor. In this program, she shares her perspective on race and inequity in the U.S. education system.

Bill Ayers is a distinguished professor of Education and Senior University Scholar in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago where his work has focused on teaching for social justice and issues in urban education. His involvement in education reaches back decades, and includes primary school teaching and work in early innovative urban education reform efforts. Bill is well-known for his leadership in militant resistance groups during the Vietnam War, within Students for a Democratic Society, the Weathermen and Weather Underground. We spoke with Bill about resistance and hope in the movement to transform our society and our schools.

Music by Lupe Fiasco - Words I Never Said

You can download mp3s of this program via the following links:
Program #11 On the road with Patricia Williams and Bill Ayers on Internet Archive
Program #11 On the road with Patricia Williams and Bill Ayers on Audioport (podcast)

Learn more about National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME)


Patricia Williams http://madlawprofessor.wordpress.com/


Educations Radio's Deborah Polin with Bill Ayers at the NAME conference http://billayers.org/

Educations Radio's Tim Scott getting fresh with Bill Ayers at the NAME conference

We are the 99%: Fighting for the "Public" in Education

2011-10-25T07:15:00.015-04:00

In this week’s program, we feature the Occupy Together movement; also referred to as the 99% movement. We share testimony of educators, parents, students, and teacher union organizers who are participating, and we reflect on the time we spent at Occupy locations in New York, Boston and Amherst, Massachusetts. We also explore the deep connections between this movement and the fight for equity in public education.

We are living in a time when banks and corporations responsible for the most recent economic collapse received massive government bailouts, many of which are now thriving more than ever, and corporate profits on a whole are at an all time high. Military spending is higher now than at any point since World War II as a means to build and maintain a much-despised empire abroad, and despite a major recession, the wealthiest Americans have grown even richer.

Consequently, massive and extensive unemployment is making a bad situation worse for many, especially African Americans and Latinos who are experiencing further declines in employment rates, rising poverty rates, falling homeownership rates, and decreasing health insurance and retirement coverage. Additionally, the overall number of people living in poverty has reached the largest number in the 51 years for which poverty estimates are available; and the income gap between the top 10 percent and the bottom 90 percent has reached a level higher than any other since 1917, which includes the “Great Depression” of the 1930s.

Set against this context, we at Education Radio have been inspired by the 99% movement – and see ourselves not as outside of it as neutral bystanders, but as deeply connected to it, with a responsibility to use the platform we have to continue to disrupt the dominant narrative. So a group of us spent a few days down at Occupy Wall Street, observing, participating, and documenting the range of participant voices, specifically those who are invested in public education.

You can download mp3s of this program via the following links:
Program #10 We are the 99% on Internet Archive
Program #10 We are the 99% on Audioport (Podcast)

Also, find out more about the 99% Movement and the Teacher Activist Groups you heard about in this program here:
Occupy Wall Street
New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCORE)
New Jersey Teacher Activist Group
Occupy the Hood
People of Color Working Group at OWS
Cornel West on Democracy Now
Ira Shor

Unconditional Positive Regard: Can Radical Love Survive Strict Accountability Structures? (Part Two of Two)

2011-10-16T17:55:00.001-04:00

The Peck Full Service Community Schoo l – which is part of a district under threat of corrective action by the state -- is attempting to create aschool community where engagement, voice, shared decision making, and caringare understood to be central to student achievement. In this second part of a two-part episode, we return toPeck Full Service Community School to examine the complexities of how itadheres to its two core values -- ‘student achievement’ and ‘unconditional positive regard’ -- within thecurrent climate of high-stakes testing and strict accountability structures. As Education Radio has come to know the people and practices of Peck, wefind ourselves raising questions about not only how, but if, school communitiescan be remade to be more human and democratic under the narrowing andoppressive pressures of our current accountability systems.

In this episode we again hear from Paul Hyry-Dermith, Principal of the Peck Full Service Community School, as well as two teachers at Peck, Katie Silva and Justin Cotton. We also spoke with Alan Bloomgarden, a community partner and Peck Access Coordinator.

Use the following links to download this show as an mp3:
Program #9 on Audioport
Program #9 on Internet Archive

Family Voice and Engagement in a High Needs Public School: Radical Caring as School Reform (Part One of Two)

2011-10-07T13:22:00.001-04:00

Community schools, wrap around schools, and full service community schools are all names used to describe a growing trend that sees school –community partnerships as a means to address the issues of poverty- homelessness-hunger-lack of health care-that must be attended to before students can be expected to focus on learning. The connection between poverty and poor school performance is real and well documented. While the neo-liberal discourse dismisses the impact of poverty on student learning and even suggests, in the twisted manipulations of language that mark its narrative, that to attend to a child’s poverty is to somehow diminish the student’s potential, going to school hungry, living with insecurity about shelter, and struggling to meet basic needs like heating, health care, vision and dental care severely impact children as they begin the school day.

For this week's program, Education Radio went to William Peck Full Service Community School in Holyoke Massachusetts to find out how they understand, and practice, what it means to be a full service community school. At Peck, located in Holyoke, one of the poorest communities in Massachusetts, we discovered a school community where discourses of caring, of relationship, and of humanness dominate - and are seen as essential to student achievement. At Peck family engagement equates to voice, decision making, and active participation in the day to day life of the school.

This program features several different voices and perspectives at Peck - we hear from Principal Paul Hyry-Demith, Project Director Megan Harding, Family Engagement Coordinator Maria Luisa Arroyo and teacher Justin Cotton. We also hear from Peck parents and Family Leaders Gloria Aquino and Raphael Torres as well as a Peck student.

This program is the first part of a two-part series.

To download an mp3 of this show, please follow these links:

Education Radio Program #8 on Internet Archive

Education Radio Program #8 on Audioport

For more information about what you hear on this program, please visit the following:

William Peck Full Service Community School

The Reality of Virtual Schooling

2011-09-30T19:48:00.006-04:00

In this week's program, we explore the proliferation of virtual schools. Virtual schools offer on-line education to primary and secondary school students without the added expenses associated with brick and mortar structures and unionized teachers and support staff.

We hear opinions on virtual schools from well-known education scholars Jonathon Kozol and Diane Ravitch. We investigate one such virtual school, the Massachusetts Virtual Academy in Greenfield, Massachusetts. We talk with the superintentendent of schools, Dr. Susan Hollins, who was the driving force behind the opening of that school in 2010, and we also speak with two Greenfield School Committee members, Maryelen Calderwood and Andrew Blais, who opposed it. Finally, we turn to early childhood education scholar Nancy Carlsson-Paige, who talks about the vitally important social, emotional and cognitive needs of young children that are in danger of not being met by virtual schools.

We also explore K12 Inc., a for-profit publicly traded technology-based education company that touts itself as the largest provider of proprietary curriculum and online education programs for primary and secondary students in the United States. It is also one of the fastest growing operators of virtual charter schools worldwide. K-12 Inc. was founded in 1999 by Michael Milken and William J. Bennett, a former Reagan Secretary of Education and Bush senior drug czar. We take some time to talk about the background of these men, along with several others involved with this company.

Follow the links below to download this show as a podcast:

Education Radio Program #7 The Reality of Virtual Schooling on Internet Archive
Education Radio Program #7 The Reality of Virtual Schooling on Audioport

To learn more about virtual schools and about what you hear on this program, visit the following links:
Education According to Mike Milken by John Hechinger
Virtual Schools Expand Students' Network by Laura Insensee
Outsourcing Information: The Rise of Virtual Schools by Nancy Hanover
The Massachusetts Virtual Academy
Susan Ohanian on K-12

Troy Davis’ Letter to Supporters

2011-09-22T21:59:00.003-04:00

Here is the letter that Troy Davis penned to supporters:

I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to Human Rights and Human Kindness, in the past year I have experienced such emotion, joy, sadness and never ending faith. It is because of all of you that I am alive today, as I look at my sister Martina I am marveled by the love she has for me and of course I worry about her and her health, but as she tells me she is the eldest and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.

As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see first hand. I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing Joy. I can’t even explain the insurgence of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all, it compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis, this is a case about Justice and the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail.
What you can do in his name here and here.

For more information, go to: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/22/democracy_now_special_report_from_troy

Meeting the Needs of Children in the Data Driven Classroom

2011-09-22T10:14:00.001-04:00

In the movement for equity in public education what is often missing is a nuanced understanding of what students' lives are like inside the classroom - what are the social, emotional and cognitive impacts of decades of inadequate schooling and damaging education reform policies on students and student learning and what are the potential long term consequences - both on students and for society?

In this weeks program we hear from Nancy Carlsson-Paige, early childhood education scholar and author who talks about what the developmental needs of school-age children are and how they aren't being met by the current system. Instead, young children experience classrooms that are increasingly devoid of things like play, due to policies that promote an individualistic rather than collaborative climate and aggravate the differences between affluent and under-resourced schools. We also hear from Pauline Lipman, a Professor of Policy Studies in the College of Education, University of Illinois-Chicago about what is needed in order to address the challenges facing public education.

Follow the links below to download this show as a podcast:
Education Radio Program #6 on Internet Archive
Education Radio Program #6 on Audioport

And find out more about the voices in this show:
Nancy Carlsson-Paige
Pauline Lipman

Exposing the Mythology of Education Reform

2011-09-16T09:05:00.009-04:00

In this week's program we take some time to explore the dominant narrative shaping so-called liberal education reform - how did this narrative evolve, what kinds of messages are being communicated, how does the on-the-ground experience of many teachers and students expose contradictions, and what does it look like to uncover a counter narrative?

Sut Jhally

We hear from media scholar Sut Jhally, as well as teachers Julie
Cavanagh, Alev Dervish & Brian Jones and parent & community member Lisa Donlan: four of the filmmakers of the Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman, a critical response to the heavily publicized and corporate backed 2010 film Waiting for Superman, a movie that further propagandizes ongoing education reform efforts that are influencing public perceptions and education policy in the U.S. The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman is just one example of grassroots efforts to deconstruct the myths that are upheld in the dominant discourse in the U.S. around public education.

Follow the links below to download this show as a podcast:
Education Radio Program #5 on Internet Archive
Education Radio Program #5 on Audioport

Follow the links to find out more about the Grassroots Education Movement and about The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman.

For further reading on education reform, see Education Radio Producer Tim Scott's paper: A Nation at Risk to Win the Future: The State of Public Education in the U.S.

Education Radio Program 4: Jonathan Kozol: Inequality and Education Reform

2011-09-07T18:27:00.007-04:00

Recounting his early days in education, remembering the importance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and continuing the fight for equality in our nation's public schools, Jonathan Kozol delivers an impassioned and inspiring speech to a group of educators. Take a little time out of your busy day to listen to this tireless activist, educator, author and brilliant raconteur. When it is over you will be inspired to take action, hug a teacher and share his message with loved ones.

Follow the links below to download this show as a podcast:

Education Radio Program #4 on Audioport

Education Radio Program #4 on Internet Archive

Next weeks show will focus on the film The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for “Superman.” This film exposes and interrupts the dominant narrative within the film “Waiting for Superman” which serves as another catalyst for the privatization of public education by hedge fund millionaires and corporate interests. As the filmmakers put it: Public Education is not for sale!

My favorite tweet of the week

2011-09-05T08:59:00.004-04:00

Diane Ravitch: 20 years from now, historians will write about this era in education and wonder how and why policymakers lost their way.

in reply to ↑

Sahila ChangeBringer: policy makers are not lost; they're doing bidding of their masters, the oligarchy. Until you accept that, nothing will change

Education Radio Program 3: Diane Ravitch: No Child Left Behind & Race to the Top

2011-08-31T11:38:00.005-04:00

This week's show features Diane Ravitch's keynote address from the Save Our Schools Conference that took place in Washington D.C. in July, 2011. In this keynote, Ravitch presents arguments against NCLB and Race to the Top, within a larger critique of federal education reform.

You can download our show as a podcast via the following two links (Google Chrome users please use Internet Archive):

Education Radio Program #3: Diane Ravitch: No Child Left Behind & Race to the Top at Internet Archive
or
Education Radio Program #3: Diane Ravitch: No Child Left Behind & Race to the Top at Audioport

A Professor of Education at NYU and an education historian, Diane Ravitch is a former neoliberal education reform advocate and Bush I Assistant Secretary of Education who has since made a remarkable about face to become a leading critic of NCLB and RTTT. She is now an aggressive advocate for public education to be the primary engine for democratic citizenship.

From 1991 to 1993, she was Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. She was responsible for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education. As Assistant Secretary, she led the federal effort to promote the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards. From 1997 to 2004, she was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal testing program.

Study Finds Metal Detectors More Common in High-Minority Schools

2011-08-29T12:43:00.001-04:00

Read the Ed Week story here, and then check out our Program #2 Interview with CUNY Graduate Center's Michelle Fine to hear specific stories of the impact of high security on students in NYC public schools.

Diane Ravitch challenges NCLB and Race to the Top on Democracy Now!

2011-08-26T18:10:00.001-04:00

“Poverty Is the Problem”: Efforts to Cut Education Funding, Expand Standardized Testing Assailed

www.democracynow.org

As millions of students prepare to go back to school, budget cuts are resulting in teacher layoffs and larger classes across the country. This comes as the drive towards more standardized testing increases despite a string of cheating scandals in New York, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and other cities...

Tune in next week to Education Radio to hear Diane Ravitch's keynote address to the Save Our Schools conference held at American University in Washington D.C.

Diane Ravitch on why education reform is doomed to failure

2011-08-24T23:27:00.001-04:00

The Reform Movement Is Already Failing
By Diane Ravitch

Aug 23, 2011

Reuters invited leading educators to reply to Steven Brill’s op-ed on the school reform deniers.

She writes, "In my nearly four decades as a historian of education, I have analyzed the rise and fall of reform movements. Typically, reforms begin with loud declarations that our education system is in crisis. Throughout the twentieth century, we had a crisis almost every decade. After persuading the public that we are in crisis, the reformers bring forth their favored proposals for radical change. The radical changes are implemented in a few sites, and the results are impressive. As their reforms become widespread, they usually collapse and fail. In time, those who have made a career of educating children are left with the task of cleaning up the mess left by the last bunch of reformers."

Ed Radio Program 2: Stories of Struggle, Stories of Hope

2011-08-24T06:39:00.001-04:00

Welcome to Education Radio's second show!

We continue our Save Our Schools report featuring several more voices from the event – voices that relay both stories of struggle and stories of hope. Michelle Fine, a faculty member at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, discusses the complicated ways that education reform is playing out within several New York City schools. Tabrian Joe is a Detroit public high school student organizer who led student walkouts to protest the city’s school closings. Sabrina Stevens Shupe, a former Denver Public Schools teacher and the public relations coordinator for Save Our Schools shares her story of being forced out of a teaching position for taking a stand against her principal’s vision of school reform.

This installment of Education Radio can be downloaded at:
Education Radio 2: SOS Conference Stories on Internet Archive
or
Education Radio 2: SOS Conference Stories on Audioport

(Google Chrome users must use Internet Archive)

Next Week: Diane Ravitch, former assistant secretary of education under George H.W. Bush, education reform leader and supporter of No Child Left Behind; who has since transformed into a staunch opponent of high stakes testing, charter schools and school privatization.

Education Radio's Debut Show!

2011-08-16T13:52:00.009-04:00

Education Radio is pleased to announce that our debut show is up and ready to go!

This show features an exclusive interview with Jonathan Kozol. It also includes a compilation of voices and testimony from youth, teachers, administrators and education activists from around the country (including Matt Damon) during the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action that occurred on July 30th, 2011 in Washington DC.

Currently, the two best ways to download the show are through (please click on either to link to the show).
Education Radio 1: Kozol Interview/SOS Rally & March on Audioport

Education Radio 1: Kozol Interview/SOS Rally & March on Internet Archive . If you use Google Chrome as your browser, you will need to use Internet Archive.

Please let us know if you have any difficulty accessing our show.

Jon Stewart's address to teachers at the SOS rally

2011-08-12T17:45:00.001-04:00

Preview of our upcoming show!

2011-08-10T10:04:00.000-04:00

For a taste of what's to come, check out the preview of next week's show:

Education Radio 1: SOS Rally & March

The Latest from Wisconsin

2011-08-10T08:17:00.000-04:00

We're not done yet!

Wisconsin voters on Tuesday tossed two Republican state senators out of office in recall elections, sending a message that they won't tolerate the politics of extremism. Although the recall elections fell short of the goal of turning over control of the State Senate, we’re not done yet – and we’re not going away. The grassroots nature of what’s happening across our state will lay a foundation for future elections, resulting in a stronger democracy that represents the voice of working families. We have made astonishing gains in an uphill battle!

Wisconsin Education Association Council | August 10, 2011

Anti-Union Law Fuels Massive Voter Turnout For Historic Wisconsin Recall
Democracy Now!

WI Recall Marks Labor Win; Election Money Raises Question of U.S. as "Democracy or Dollar-ocracy?"

Democracy Now!

Wisconsin Recalls Replace Two Republican Senators in a Rebuke to Governor's Anti-Labor Agenda John Nichols | The Nation

Quotes of the Week

2011-08-04T22:20:00.000-04:00

"I believe that teachers in our public schools are not as the White House seems to think: merely the technicians of mechanical proficiency. I believe our teachers are warriors for justice, working on the front lines in the struggle for democracy."

Jonathan Kozol
Save Our Schools Conference
July 28, 2011

"Public education... is the largest shared experience we all have... so if we don't have strong public schools, we will not have a strong society... its just not possible."

Sabrina Stevens Shupe
Save Our Schools
July 28, 2011

More pictures from the rally and march

2011-08-04T14:24:00.000-04:00

Education Radio reporter Tim Scott interviewing Matt Damon

Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action

2011-08-04T14:17:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I traveled to D.C., with fellow field reporter Tim Scott, to cover the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action. We spent two days at the S.O.S. conference, participating in sessions with students, teachers, education scholars that dealt with a wide range of issues around inequity in public schooling. We interviewed Jonathon Kozol, Diane Ravitch, Michelle Fine, Diane Levin, the Brooklyn teachers/filmmakers behind “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman,” as well as students and teachers from across the country. We heard personal testimonies of what is happening in schools, in classrooms and in unions around the nation, and we left each day both frustrated and inspired by the stories we heard.

We then joined the rally and march on the Ellipse on Saturday – interviewing more teachers (as well as Matt Damon – and if you haven’t seen this fun clip from the media tent at the rally, be sure to check it out here).

We have returned from the event, not only armed with hours of insightful and passionate testimony – but with renewed conviction and energy to continue the fight for equitable public schooling for all children and fair labor conditions for teachers and staff.

In the next few weeks, we will debut our first show, which will focus on the rally and march. The second show will emerge from the material we gathered at the conference. The rest of our tentative topic line up is as follows:

3. Jonathon Kozol’s keynote from the S.O.S conference
4. Diane Ravitch’s keynote from the S.O.S conference
5. The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman…interview with the filmmakers and the movie profile
6. Virtual Charter Schools
7. Peck Full Service Community School in Holyoke

Please stay tuned for more information on where to find our shows! Also, please feel free to contact us at educatradio@gmail.com with comments and suggestions.

Education Radio Blog Launches!

2011-07-25T20:41:00.000-04:00

Stay tuned for more information about upcoming shows...our debut show will focus on the issues, people and events of the July 2011 Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action.