News for educational workers

Radical Teacher, Winter, 2001

STUDENT ACTIVISM

In the wake of the World Trade Center disaster, students across the country organized for peace on September 20, 2001. More than 100 different campuses participated in the September 20 National Day of Action for Peaceful Justice. It started at Wesleyan University when a group of students got together to respond to the danger of war. They reached out to friends and relatives at schools across the country, getting 100 colleges, universities, and high schools to sign on for some form of activity for September 20. (<portside@yahoogroups.com> September 18, 2001)

A Ralph Nader rally was part of a weekend-long convention of the Campus Greens, the student-based political outgrowth of the 2000 Nader/LaDuke campaign. Coming only two weeks after the Green Parry of the United Stares applied for official national parry status, 420 students from 120 universities gathered at the University of Illinois-Chicago for the founding convention of the Campus Greens, which hopes to become the largest student-based organization working for progressive issues. The organization currently includes more than 100 registered campus chapters. (In These Times, October 1, 2001)

At the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) national conference in Chicago, August 2-5, students were walking the picker line in solidarity with striking Teamsters at the V&V Supremo Foods, Inc. plant on Chicago's South Side. The conference's final speaker, Charlie Eaton, a New York University student and USAS organizer, outlined a broad vision for the movement: "Think of the sheer power of the students who produce ideas and the workers who produce essential goods, in a global society that is connected by information and by technology." Eaton urged USAS affiliates to maintain relationships with campus workers, form coalitions with other progressive student organizations and then work together to force the democratization of their colleges or universities, either through conventional means like running candidates for student government, or through direct actions like sir-ins and strikes. (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=woomer20010809)

TESTING

If you want to assign a comparison/ contrast paper in your writing classes, you might want students to read two contrasting articles on unions and public school reform in USA Today, August 14, 2001. One article, "Teacher unions' backdoor attacks undermine reform," accuses unions of nor being serious about accountability and building antitesting campaigns. The other article, "High-stakes tests miss mark," argues that some states are using tests as a sledgehammer" to deny promotion and graduation and spur a dramatic dropout rate among African-American and Hispanic students.

The new national testing plan, which mandates testing in grades three through eight, and a follow-up test in high school, will nor be the educational savior both the Democrats and Republicans are claiming it will be. Children in public schools, especially from disadvantaged backgrounds, will suffer the most. "The Harvard Civil Rights Project has shown that poor and minority children are hurt the most by an excessive reliance on highstakes testing....Exams alone don't motivate struggling students and can even have the opposite effect, according to a Boston College study." (The Nation, July 9, 2001)

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

A Harvard University study by the university's Civil Rights Project has found that classrooms grew more segregated in the 1990s, this undermining the educational prospects of African-American and Hispanic children. According to the study, "a map of schools attended by the average black or Hispanic student would almost perfectly match a map of high-poverty schools," which have greater health problems among students, more transient student bodies, parents lacking political power, fewer teachers qualified in their subject areas, and lower test scores. (The New York Times, July 20, 2001)

"Leveling the Playing Field, but for Whom?" (The New York Times, July 1, 2001) questions whether university affirmative action is helping African-American students enough.

GLSEN

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) strives to assure that each member of every school community is valued and respected regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. GLSEN, the largest national organization working to end anti-gay bias in K12 schools, with over 90 chapters working in communities across the country, held its fifth annual Teaching Respect for All conference in Washington, D.C. from September 21-23. For more information, write GLSEN, 121 West 27th St., #804, NY, NY 10001-6207; or go to www.glsen.org.

K-12

The Center for Health, Environment and Justice (150 S. Washington St., #300, Falls Church, VA 22046) is recruiting members in its Child Proofing our Communities: Poisoned School Campaign. CHEJ produced the 79-page "Poisoned Schools: Invisible Threats, Visible Actions," a trail blazing report that communities, school districts, and parents can use to provide precedent-setting guidelines to identify and dean up toxics in schools, manage pests without dangerous chemicals, and evaluate potential sites before a school is actually built.