Dear Friends,
As a reminder:
The Rouge Forum will be hosting a booth, a party, and several sessions at the upcoming National Council for the Social Studies Conference in San Diego, this weekend. Here are three presentations that might interest you.
*FRIDAY (8:30 – 10AM) International Assembly: Is It Possible or Desirable to Teach for Democracy Today?
*FRIDAY (5 – 6 PM) World History SD Convention Center 30B
Overcoming High-Stakes Tests: Keeping Our Ideals and Still Teaching
*SATURDAY (2:45-3:45) Experienced k12 Teachers at SD Convention Center 30D
How We Keep Our Ideals and Teach:Progressive Teachers in the Classroom.
Come visit and go on the record abot NCLB and the wars for our video at our booth.
The party is Saturday night. Please rsvp if you wish to attend.
It is easy to witness the madness of our times, the spectacles that lure more than a million people a week to attend NFL gams, Judge Judy tormenting volunteer fools, Reality TV becoming “Not Reality But Actuality TV,” (formerly Court TV) the glaring contradiction of the moment as in 800,000 millionaires in New York City matched by one person in six in the same city going to bed hungry, wars around the world going unreported—and to miss the fact that people do resist.
The Paris uprisings of late run parallel with, and intersect each other. Students protesting the French government’s moves to create a two-tier privatized education system (a la the UC and CSU systems in California) initiated the battles, quickly joined by striking workers. Now the same police that attacked the students are attacking immigrant communities, and being met with a ferocious counterattack. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/world/europe/29france.html?hp
In Russia, workers demanding wage increases and a six hour day have seized a Ford plant outside St. Petersburg (Leningrad).
In schools, educators around the country seek to drive military recruiters off their campuses and to halt the high-stakes exams that strangle freedom and learning. Ethical school workers have nearly reached the limit of their tolerance. Our task is to make sense of resistance that must occur.
On December 8, at Fresno State there will be a meeting of education activists trying to organize testing boycotts. Watch the coming updates for time and place. Our task is to connect reason to power, to try to build a mass based class conscious movement of people prepared to take the risks and make the sacrifices necessary to fashion and sustain an equitable world== toward the consciousness of freedom; the same project of centuries that our great-grandparents took on, that we should pass on to the kids. You are welcome to join us in Fresno.
Meanwhile, the California Teachers Association (NEA) and the California Federation of Teacher (AFT) battle each other to the tune of hundreds of thousands of lobbying dollars. CTA opposes CFT’s proposition 92 which would reduce costs at community colleges and guarantee some cc funding. This cannot be a new low in unionism as the UAW’s recent contract still holds that rank, but it is a highlight in demonstrating that US union executives have nothing but opportunism as a guide. CFA fears that funding community colleges might cut into their k12 teacher pay while CFT’s membership is heavily in the cc’s. To their credit, the United Teachers of L.A. rejected CTA-NEA’s position.
http://www.prop92yes.com/
Our friends in the AFT-D.C. local asked to spread the word about where their dues went, via the criminal AFT president Barbara Bullock. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/04/AR2007110401865.html
Justice in schools and communities demands new kinds of organizations.
Remember the Rouge Forum conference March 14-16 in Louisville. This is the call for papers: www.rougeforumconference.org
best, r
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