Learning from the Global South: Support for Public Education in El Salvador

Allen Hines, at Upside Down World

US-El Salvador: Threats to Privatize Education Meet International Resistance

An excerpt:

"Though El Salvador’s national budget for education is dwarfed by that of United States, the investment in public education has been steadily increasing with the 2009 presidential victory of the leftist party, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), which during the civil war fought against a repressive, US-backed government. With FMLN leaders at the helm of several key cabinets, including health and education, and a slight legislative advantage over the right-wing parties, social investment has increased significantly across the board.  The national education budget has risen from $707 million in 2011 to nearly $828 million in 2012, with a proposed increase to $882 million for 2013. Union leaders like Manuel Mira emphasize the broader social and political impacts of this investment. “Education is a necessity for a country's growth and democracy. To be able to read and write gives a person the tools to be independent, to be able to be free,” he says. “A person can analyze the reality to be able to be an actor and not just a subject in the processes of change.”

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Michelle Rhee’s right turn

Michelle Rhee’s right turn

By Daniel Denvir, at Salon

Karen Rice: Lays out the Truth to the Chicago City Club (Business Leaders)

Speaking to the moneyed people who think they have all the answers about education reform.  Can the truth penetrate hubris?

Arthur Camins/Washington Post: Obama, 'Change your Educ Politics'

A call for President Obama to change course on education

Posted by Arthur H. Camins on November 8, 2012 at 10:00 am

With the election behind us, it is time for the Obama administration to step back from its education policy and access whether its foundation is sound and supported by evidence. It is a moment to summon the courage to change course.

 We have had wars on drugs, poverty and terrorism. Now, depending on perspective, we have a war either for or on education. Certainly, many educators feel under siege. Popular slogans like, “Whatever it takes,” sound like battle cries.  This brings to mind the documentary film, “The Fog of War,” as a metaphor for education reform.... READ MORE

Charter schools thrive in St. Louis : Stltoday

Charter schools thrive in St. Louis : Stltoday

How Teachers Unions Lead the Way to Better Schools - In These Times

How Teachers Unions Lead the Way to Better Schools - In These Times

More on Rex Sinquefield, in the WSJ, lunch with Karl Rove

Meet One of the Super-PAC Men

His name isn't Adelson or Koch, but he's spending millions on politics, hoping to roll back taxes and reform education.

By NAOMI SCHAEFER RILEY  (WALL STREET JOURNAL, OCTOBER 26, 2012)

Liberals who suspect that wealthy businessmen and political masterminds are colluding to hijack democracy might have fainted had they walked into the St. Regis hotel's lobby restaurant in New York the other day. There was Rex Sinquefield, a deep-pocketed St. Louis, Mo., native and big-time political donor, sitting across from the Republican Rasputin himself, Karl Rove. The not-so-vast right-wing conspiracy in plain public view.

Mr. Sinquefield, an index-fund pioneer, has not drawn the fear and loathing that liberals devote to the billionaire Koch brothers and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. Oh, Bloomberg News referred to him as "a new American oligarch," and the New York Times recently painted an ominous portrait of him as "perhaps the most influential private citizen in the state." But no one has picketed his home, Mr. Sinquefield says, or harassed his guests. At least not yet.

He is nonetheless one of the nation's biggest conservative donors in a political year when they are much in the spotlight. So it seems like a good moment to meet one of these princes of alleged darkness in person and see the conspiracy from the inside. It turns out the inside looks a lot like it does from the outside. At age 67, Rex Sinquefield is a successful businessman and conservative who is passionate about his country and wants to turn its policies in a more prosperous direction. He'll even spend lots of his own money to do it.  READ MORE

SEEKING SWF: Teaching jobs in reformist apparatus trending white (edushyster.com)

Another of the effects of the corporate reform agenda, the whitening (and youth-ing) of the education labor force - at least to the extent that these folks stay in the profession for very long. A response to job crises among MBA and recent high-achieving college graduates: seek employment in sectors historically left to others?

From Edushyster.com:

 Single White Female
October 30, 2012 9:07 pm

"Chicago is not the only place where Education Reform, Inc. is quickly reshaping the teaching force into one that is fresher and more innovative younger and whiter. In urban areas across the country, middle-aged, middle class African American teachers are being pushed out  to make room for the flavor of the day: vanilla."
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From:  edushyster2012
http://edushyster.com/

St. Louis panel approves TIFs for apartments and Mercedes dealership : Stltoday

St. Louis panel approves TIFs for apartments and Mercedes dealership : Stltoday

Editorial: New TIFs for high-end retailers drive city in wrong direction : Stltoday

Editorial: New TIFs for high-end retailers drive city in wrong direction : Stltoday

On the History of Education Apartheid and Black Struggle in Chicago

http://www.workingclassheroes.me/?p=1931

Educational apartheid in Chicago and the black teachers revolt of the 1960′s

Bob Simpson is a Social Media/Writer at Webtrax Studio, Studied Urban Education at Catholic University of America, and is a regular blogger at “The Bobbosphere.

”Black teachers did fight hard in Chicago, a city with a violent racial history that included a dangerously repressive political machine and screaming white supremacist mobs. Confronting Chicago’s educational apartheid policies also meant risking one’s career, no small thing, especially for those to whom that teaching position represented the first time a family member had graduated from college and emerged from Jim Crow enforced poverty. READ MORE