E Wayne Ross

Friends,
Wanted to send you one last email regarding the forthcoming 2008 Rouge Forum Conference.

We are pleased to have over 150 people registered so far, who will join us at various times throughout the weekend of the conference. There is, however, still plenty of room for others, so please feel free to continue spreading the word.

As you know, we’ll be kicking things off Thursday night at the Blue Mountain Coffeehouse (400 East Main St., across from the Louisville Bats Stadium).

Friday morning, beginning at 7:30, we would invite you to be our guests at Breadworks and Heine Bros. Coffee, located in the Douglass Loop at 2200 Bardstown Rd., just two blocks from campus (at the conference website: www.rougeforumconference.org, the homepage has a link to an interactive map of Louisville by clicking on the text, “Louisville, KY” in the description of the conference).

The conference will begin at 8:30 in Frazier Hall in the Brown Activities Center (a map of Bellarmine can be found on the conference webpage.)

Back to back paper sessions will begin promptly at 9:00. We have now posted abstracts for most papers under “Paper session details” at the conference website. I think you will agree that the papers/performances over the course of these two days should prompt some insightful and critical discussion.

Our lunch time will feature Dr. Milton Brown as our speaker. Lunch has been relocated to the Deli at the Douglass Loop, just two blocks from campus. Carpooling will be made available, particularly for our out of town guests.

After lunch, we will have one more paper presentation session before we conclude the afternoon with a panel discussion on revolutionary, radical, (and other?) pedagogies, featuring Dr. Nancy Patterson, Mr. Greg Queen, and Dr. Joe Cronin.

In your conference packets we will make several recommendations for you on dinner locations that will be but minutes from Bellarmine’s campus.

The evening will conclude with a panel discussion on the potential connection between schools and the military, under the title “No child left Unrecruited?” The panel will be moderated by Dr. E. Wayne Ross and will feature Dr. Faith Agostinone Wilson and Dr. Rich Gibson.

On Friday, we would also invite you to visit the Thomas Merton Center, which houses the largest collection of Thomas Merton archives, located in Bellarmine’s library, as well as the opening of Bryan Reinholdt’s (BU grad and RF member) art show in Wyatt Hall.

Saturday’s events will take us to U of L’s campus. (We also have a map of this campus on the conference website.)

The morning will begin at 8:30 with a welcome in the Red Barn, and sessions will start promptly at 9:00.

These first two paper sessions on Saturday morning will also be paralleled by the possibility of professional development for teachers. We have two sessions to choose from: Critical Literacy and Green Education.

At lunch, provided by Tess Krebs in the Red Barn, we will be engaged by a special session of the Saturday Academy. Dr. Blaine Hudson will moderate a discussion about the recent Supreme Court decision which overturned Jefferson County’s student assignment plan. The discussion will feature Ms. Deborah Stallworth, Mr. DeWayne Westmoreland, Mr. John Heyburn, and Dr. Tracy K’Meyer.

After lunch we will have one final session of fine papers before we conclude with two addresses one from Dr. Rich Gibson, the other, our keynote, from Dr. E. Wayne Ross, who will address our conference theme: Education: Reform or Revolution?

Again, for dinner, we will provide a list of local restaurants. And, the evening will conclude with an opportunity to take in some spoken word and music, featuring Louisville’s own Harry Pickens (soulful jazz pianist) and The Uprising (Americana style music inspired by resistance).

On Sunday, we will conclude our conference with one final gathering at 10:00 at the Kentucky Alliance against Racist and Political Oppression HQ, The Braden Center, 3208 W. Broadway.

With over 60 presenters and 30 papers,

3 panel sessions,

3 main addresses,

2 professional developments,

2 cultural events,

and an opportunity to explore two of Louisville’s universities, its locally owned restaurants, and social justice organizations, we hope you find this year’s conference a place to affirm your work, stretch your thinking, and engage in a unique community-building experience.

I want to again thank my partner, Gina Stiens, and friends/colleagues, Mary Goral, Sonya Burton, David Owen, Rich Gibson, and Wayne Ross for their tireless efforts in pulling this conference together.

See you in a week! In solidarity. adam

Dear Friends,

A quick reminder of the upcoming Rouge Forum Conference in Louisville, March 14 to 16. Check out the remarkable schedule.

The rebel Puerto Rico teachers union, conducting an illegal strike for about a week, came under police attack in a recent demonstration and, today, the union was officially “decertified” by the Governor. The illegality of the strike (nearly all school strikes are “illegal,” but really the only illegal strike is one that fails) demonstrates both the partisan role of the government and, perhaps, the power of working people when we act, withdraw our labor, in solidarity, where we have the most power—at our workplaces. The teachers union has been under assault, not only by the police and the governor, but by both US union federations, the AFL-CIO, and the Change To Win coalition, both following in their traditions of seeking to crush nearly every major rank and file job action in union history, from the Great Flint Strike at GM forward. Here is some video.

And, last week, students at Garfield New Jersey High walked out following a 9 a.m. fire alarm in support of their teachers on strike. The teachers have been without a contract since June.

The multidimensional decay involving war, rising oil prices, and stagflation, produces demands for school cutbacks. After thirty years of witnessing labor leaders claim that concessions save jobs, we know that making concessions to bosses (wage or benefit cuts, agreeing to increased class size, etc) does not save jobs but, like feeding blood to sharks, it makes them want more. When they say Cutback, we need to say Fightback.

Here is California educator Joe Lucido writing on “Democracy is Not A Spectator Sport” and Alan Scher asking, “When will no Child be Truly Left Behind?”

Will those on this list who are in California please email Calcare’s Susan Harman and tell her your city and school? Check out the Calcare web site here. Calcare is providing key leadership in the test opt outs this year.

We close with this blithe exchange between George Bush and a reporter:

“Curry: You don’t agree with that? Has nothing do with the economy, the war? The spending on the war?
“Bush: I don’t think so. I think actually, the spending on the war might help with jobs.
“Curry: Oh, yeah?
“Bush: Yeah, because we’re buying equipment, and people are working. I think this economy is down because we built too many houses.”
— George W. Bush interviewed by NBC’s Ann Curry 2/25/08

Thanks to Sean, Adam, Gina, Tommie, Alan S and S, Sally, June C., Della and Jim, Dana Allan, Sandy, Sipho, Candy, Amber, Mike A, Michael, MrJ, and George.

All the best, r

Dear Friends,

The Rouge Forum No Blood for Oil page is updated.

There you will find the latest details about the Rouge Forum Conference, March 14 to 16, in Louisville. It promises to be our biggest and best ever. Thanks, especially, to Adam Renner.

For those who cannot attend the conference, we urge your participation in the many community demonstrations that will take place that weekend and the coming week against the continuing oil wars. Following those demonstrations we believe educator groups and anti-war groups need to convene together to examine the analysis, strategy, and tactics of what is, sad to say, a pair of movements in need of new life. Rouge Forum members have been critical participants in the many anti-war coalitions, as this piece shows. When the anniversary of the war is over, and the demonstrations had, we need to make new and better plans.

Puerto Rico’s school workers are still on strike for wages, benefits, smaller class size, supplies, and in opposition to the privatization of their schools. According to strike leaders quoted today, about 84 percent of children are not attending classes. About 23,000 educators are honoring the strike, 8,000 scabbing. More than half the nation’s schools are closed. Police have repeatedly attacked striker demonstrations but have not been able to halt the massive job action which not only must take on the government but also the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win coalition, the two US labor federations that are, not surprisingly, trying to help smash the strike, in line with their entire histories.

The Puerto Rican teachers’ union plans a major demonstration tomorrow, Tuesday.

Check this LA Times story on massive school cuts projected in California and this current AP story showing there is going to be no pullback in Iraq, in fact the troop numbers will be higher than before the surge began.

As the impact of the empire’s wars comes home in the form of $100 a barrel gas, stagflation, and a massive debt crisis, and school cutbacks, the sanctions set up by NCLB will ratchet up the consequences for school workers, kids, and communities. While it is common for politicians to hype coming school cutbacks in order to set the stage for regressive taxes (as those supported now by the California AFT), the cuts will come and it is reasonable to foresee the collision of booming class size (and the absence of books, supplies, aides, etc) and the NCLB’s preposterous demands for rising test scores.

It is surely possible that government will turn a blind eye to the NCLB sanctions, or a selective eye, when it becomes clear that far too many schools are under the gun, including schools in wealthier areas, but it is equally possible that teachers will be targeted for layoff based on kids’ test scores, simply by closing schools and churning the work force. And, we know in New York City, the AFT already agreed to pay-for-test-scores plans.

The upshot of that over time will be a more divided, and less powerful, work force. Teachers in rich areas will do ok, teachers in poor areas will not. And, as the AFT and NEA both refuse to recognize that an injury to one only goes before and injury to all, school and government bosses will simply slice away until all teacher health benefits are evaporated.

What can be done? Well, surely it is now easy to see a connection between imperialist war and the blowback on the empire’s workers, including its school workers who, for the most part, sold their consciences to NCLB and collaborated actively with the child abuse that it is.

And it is equally easy to see the role that the union leadership played in supporting the wars, and the NCLB. Perhaps now, as the effects of war and the regimentation of knowledge hit people’s pocketbooks, action will be more possible.

However, no one can suggest that the union leadership, mired in the racism, hierarchy, and opportunism that structures the unions, is going to play a progressive role. The best thing the union leaders could do would be to initiate targeted, rolling, strikes during test season, and set up freedom schools to serve the kids who could actually learn something important in a freedom school.

That, of course, will not happen. The unions could demand that no administrator’s salary exceed, say, the top teacher pay—and demand cuts accordingly. But they will not do that. Nor will the unions adopt a plan that their early founder, Dorothy Healy, described as “tax the rich, tax inheritance, tax profits.” Late in life Healy said she did all she could but did not take class war seriously enough. Almost a hundred years later, we should learn from her.

One thing that can be done is to simply nullify the test scores by boycotting, opting out of the tests. Calcare and the Rouge Forum are calling for those opt outs which are hardly premature, but long overdue. We have experience in opt outs in Michigan, Florida, and around the USA. One thing people can do to build awareness is to go to school board meetings, in groups, and speak openly in support of the legal and reasonable right to opt kids out of these tests. Walk away. As in the military, nearly nothing is being done to awols.

But justice demands organization. Let us try to see one another, face to face, friend to friend, in Louisville.

Thanks to Sean, Wayne, Gina, Collie, Duke, Tommie, Bob, Susan(s), George and Sharon, JK in Chicago, Dennis C., Sandy and Sally, Candace, Evan and Ethel, John D (write the book), Alan S, Amber, Perry, Kev, Steve F, Ido and Ofira, Jan Cadwell, Kathryn, the Carlsons, Dennis B., Gil, Alfie, Joe Cook, Isa, Bill, Greg, and Connie Lane.

all the best,
r

Dear Friends,

This week we highlight the schedule of the Rouge Forum Conference coming up on March 14 to 16 In Louisville. The conference schedule is linked here.

This promises to be our best and biggest Rouge Forum to date, drawing education activists, artists, community organizers, students, parents, professors, and independent researchers together in an honest, earnest, quest to connect reason to power. Check out this schedule for a convincer on why it is you should be there and participate.

The wars are still on And the growing debt crisis, in part the result of the military adventures which create nothing of value for most people, hence fanning inflation’s flames, now hits tens of thousands of people whose incomes pose them on the brink of homelessness. Here is Chalmers Johnson on the debt debacle.

And here is Michael Klare demonstrating the central role of oil in these crises.

Meanwhile, the election circus continues with renewed ferocity. There is considerable debate inside the Rouge Forum as to the efficacy of capitalist democracy, elections, and voting itself. Many of us are liberal reformers, perhaps to the left of Clinton and Obama, while others are libertarians, often to the left of Paul, and still others are Greens, or look forward to another Nader run.

Still others see this government as little more than an executive committee of the rich, and their armed weapon. Inside the committee, elites work out their petty differences, then allow the rest of us to pulverize each other over secondary issues like abortion, immigration rights, etc., while the central issues of exploitation, imperialist war, and the connections of inequality and capitalist development go unquestioned. In that context, voting just deepens alienation, serves as yet another quest for a savior when nobody will save us but us.

In good friendship, we will discuss the election and the “What is to be done?” question at our March conference.

Whatever the case, we share a common concern about education and the destruction of reason that we see everywhere, education undermined by regimented curricula, racist anti-working class high stakes exams, and the militarization of schools.

In California, Rouge Forum members, combined with Cal Care led by Susan Harman, plan direct action organized legal opt outs for the coming exam season. Suggestions on how to build the base to do that are always welcome. And you are welcome to join us.

Thanks to Sean, Amber, Wayne, Kev, Elvira, Steve, Perry, Marc, Curry, Sue, SM, Kerry N, Sharon A, Z mag, George and Sharon, Greg, Bill, M and J, Shelly, Alan S, MM, Connie and Doug, Ofira, Candy, RC, :LAM, Maddie, Randy Matthews and Don Alcorn.

All the best, r