Monthly Archives: May 2012

Are You Being Served? This was the title I used when I originally posted about a year ago in my column at The Examiner. However, it seems fitting to repost it here, again, a year later as the heat on higher education is being turned up. I share this post in honor of Barbara Madeloni,Continue reading “Barbara Madeloni got “served”-Are you being “served” next?”

The National Common Core Standards (NCCS) are coming to a school near you.  While the name might sound familiar, what do parents (and often even teachers) really know about the Common Core. Who wrote it? Where did it originate? Who owns it? What’s in it? Most parents concerned with their child’s nutrition read beyond theContinue reading “Even Snow White Would Know Better than to Bite into this Rotten Apple (Common) Core”

On Thursday May 17th I was a participant in two media events. The first was a teleconference sponsored by Margaret Spellings, adviser to the US Chamber of Commerce in tandem with The Institute for a Competitive Workforce   and the National Chamber Foundation, affiliates of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The goal was to rollContinue reading “All Quiet on the Media Front-even the ones we hope are on our side!”

Medieval scientists sought to turn base metals into gold, creating wealth for themselves and their rulers. Likewise, modern science, harnessed by capitalists, seeks to turn fresh water into gold. While the former failed in their explicit goals, they set out a path leading to the field of chemistry. The latter group, led by transnational corporationsContinue reading “Like Water for Education”

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE EXAMINER  March 21st– You know how the television station always post those emergency broadcast system alerts saying “this is only a test?” Well, for our democratic rights and the future our public education and all children—this is not a test. Or, more aptly-it’s ALL a test. This is going down, andContinue reading “THIS IS NOT A TEST”

I felt an urgency to write this post before Friday in order to coincide with Teacher Appreciation Week because this quasi “event of recognition” must remain close on our radar well past this Friday.  Never mind that this gesture is being erased by the first annual…gag…National Charter School week … gag again. On Monday MarkContinue reading “Public School Teachers: The next endangered species?”

“Creative solidarity is the necessary act of forward motion, in a collective movement.  At this precise moment in our history it demands of us that we search for new and emerging structures of feeling, for languages and ideas for doing our work, for new ways of being with each other, for ways of forging newContinue reading “quote for the day”

Today while visiting my mother-in-law, we somehow got on the conversation of her childhood growing up in Scranton PA during the 1950’s and 1960’s. She recalled how many people’s homes collapsed into sink holes because of the miles and miles of mining tunnels that had been dug underneath the town.  According to her, the minersContinue reading “Robbing the Pillars”

Library

Most people think of the “arts” as something they do once a week in a special class or that fun activity a teacher pulls out on a rainy Friday afternoon. But the importance of encouraging creativity and imagination through artistic or play based experiences (to name only two) goes well beyond Howard Gardner’s application ofContinue reading “The Closing of the Creative Mind”