By Susan Dufresne and Anthony Cody. In the past 13 years of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top test-driven education policies, art has been pushed to the margins in our schools. Students have lost countless hours for creating art, music and dance that expresses themselves. But artistic expression is like the …
By Anthony Cody. Under President Obama, the federal Department of Education offered several billion dollars in Race to the Top money and waivers from NCLB to states and school districts across the country in exchange for redesigning teacher evaluation processes. The feds required that a significant portion of …
By Anthony Cody. In May of 2011, as the NEA and AFT participated in planning a major protest of the Obama administration’s education policies, the NEA leadership announced they were endorsing President Obama for re-election, more than a year prior to the election in November, 2012. It was never revealed …
By Michelle Gunderson. The hunger strike for Dyett High School ended this morning on day 34. Once again I headed to the south side to be with my friends and fellow education fighters known as the Dyett Twelve. Education activists had been told that the hunger strikers would have an announcement this morning, and …
By Michelle Gunderson. We sit under the trees at Dyett High School yet again on Sunday night. The Dyett 12 hunger strikers sit in a tight circle while a crowd of over a hundred of Chicago’s activists listen in. I know almost every face in this crowd. They are people who understand struggle and know what the word …
By Michelle Gunderson. A circle of ten people sit outside Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office demanding a meeting with the mayor. They have not taken solid food for 12 days. The Dyett hunger strikers ask that a decision be made regarding their proposal to keep the only open enrollment high school in the Bronzeville …
By Michelle Gunderson. Twelve people sit in a circle under the trees outside Dyett High School in Chicago on a hunger strike. They share stories of their experience with Chicago schools – teachers they have loved, principals they have battled, the times they have been arrested fighting for equity in our schools. …
By Michelle Gunderson. Twelve people sit in a circle under the trees outside Dyett High School in Chicago on a hunger strike. They share stories of their experience with Chicago schools – teachers they have loved, principals they have battled, the times they have been arrested fighting for equity in our schools. …
By Monty Neill. Testing resistance and reform activists can help determine the result of the House-Senate conference committee that will write a compromise bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, now named No Child Left Behind). Both houses of Congress took important steps to end …
By Susan DuFresne. I was there. I was there to hear Bernie speak at Westlake in Seattle yesterday. To get it out in the open, I am a white ally and still learning, still reflecting, still processing what happened yesterday in Seattle, when Black Lives Matter (BLM) protestors took over the stage at the Sanders …
