In Lake Wobegon, all the children are above average, and that’s pretty much the Minnesota motto for everything. We have above average biking cities, above average hipster neighborhoods, and above average funding for public education. Oops — scratch education off the list. NPR’s School Money series just popped that civic pride balloon. Continue reading
Filed under education
Photo by Denise Krebs, published under Creative Commons license.
The Hechinger Report’s three-part series on teacher education programs offers fascinating glimpses inside three classrooms, alongside appalling pictures of first-year teachers’ home lives. Meghan Sanchez has abandoned her teacher training program’s emphasis on ” 100 percent compliance with directions 100 percent of the time” as unrealistic for wiggly 4-year-olds who can’t always sit “criss-cross-applesauce” on command. Michael Duklewski has switched from correcting his middle-schoolers’ negative behavior to pointing out positive behavior, and finds that “I’m just happier, because I’m saying good things all the time instead of harping on bad things.” Amit Reddy engages his eighth-grade science students in pouring liquids into a beaker to determine their density, but worries about the lagging grades of his “chatty” after-lunch class section. And all three of the featured first-year teachers get up before 6 a.m. and collapse into bed at night after working 12-15 hour days. They have little or no time for family life of their own.
A Syrian migrant holds a young girl in his arms upon arriving on a dinghy to the Greek island of Kos, Greece.(EPA/Yannis Kolesidis) (Photo courtesy of Freedom House.
One year ago, I wrote “At least seven hundred people, maybe 900 or more, were on the 70-foot ship that sank in the Mediterranean on Sunday. Almost all of them died.” Last week, it happened again. Another boat packed with refugees capsized and sank, drowning hundreds of refugees. Continue reading
Filed under human rights, immigration
Diving Deeper: Understanding Disparities between Black and White Residents in the Twin Cities Region (Met Council), p. 7
A new report from the Met Council takes a deep dive into statistics, juggling 10 different demographic factors (e.g. age, education, immigration) to isolate one variable: race. The report finds that “underlying demographic differences cannot explain away our region’s disparities in employment, income, and homeownership between Black and White residents.” One factor can explain the differences: continuing institutional and structural racism, which is maintained and supported by conscious and unconscious personal racism. Continue reading
Filed under housing, human rights, race, work
A wall displaying victims of forced disappearance in the office of COFADEH. (Photo: COFADEH via TeleSUR at http://www.telesurtv.net/english/contenidos/2015/05/22/noticia_0027.html)
I remember meeting Bertha Oliva in Tegucigalpa in the late 1980s, the wall outside her small office tagged with graffiti death threats, gunshots in the night bringing an unnatural stillness to the city center, silencing even the dogs and roosters. Decades of human rights defense later, Bertha Oliva told Congress last week that death squads are back in Honduras. Death squads, like the one that kidnapped her husband back in the 1980s. Death squads, like the ones that threatened her and the Committee for the Relatives of the Disappeared throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. Continue reading
Filed under human rights, Latin America
Protest rally after Freeman decision not to charge cops.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman delivered the official story on March 30, along with piles of documents and videos available on his website. According to the official story, a complete investigation resulted in no charges because it’s tough to charge a police officer with anything and there just wasn’t enough evidence. Several people have poked giant holes in Freeman’s presentation, including his misstatements of evidence, his dismissing the importance of eyewitness testimony, his over-statement of the reliability and meaning of forensic evidence, and his use of language and rhetoric that dehumanized and denigrated Jamar Clark. Continue reading
Filed under human rights, police and crime, race
Photo by Wendy Colucci of the CNY Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, republished under Creative Commons license.
The United States signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement in February, but there’s still time to stop the deal that some are calling “NAFTA on steroids” before it becomes law. Signing is only one step: the next step is passage by Congress. In this election year, you can contact your U.S. Senators and Representatives to say a resounding NO to TPP. Here are four reasons to stop TPP, and links to contact information for Congress. Continue reading
Filed under agriculture, environment, food and farming, work
The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder asked me to report on the situation in Glendale Townhomes, the oldest public housing in Minnesota. That article — Mpls Public Housing residents fight redevelopment plan — is now published. In it, I present facts and opinions of the people directly involved in the process. I also have blogged extensively about the current dispute between Glendale residents and the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, and have been generally critical of the redevelopment option that MPHA initially proposed almost a year ago. You can find the blog posts here. Continue reading
Filed under housing
Reverend Ovester Armstrong, Jr. speaks to #StopCCA rally
“They are not building these prisons to stay empty,” Reverend Ovester Armstrong, Jr. told protesters at the Minnesota State Office Building on March 22. “They are building these prisons to fill them up.” Inside, the House Public Safety Committee held hearings on re-opening a private prison in Appleton. The private prison is owned by the Correctional Corporation of America (CCA), the largest prison company in the United States.
“We should help people, not make money off of them,” said Reverend Armstrong. “We should not let someone’s life be held hostage to a dollar bill.” Continue reading
What’s wrong with GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in food production? While many GMO critics say they pose health hazards, I find that argument unconvincing. Instead, I am concerned about:
I support GMO labeling for the same reason that I support other labeling, such as country of origin labeling for meat and vegetables or rBGH labeling for dairy products. I think more information is a positive good, and that consumers should be allowed to make their own choices. For example, while I see no human health hazards in drinking milk produced by cows treated with rBGH, I see very high health hazards to the cows — and a detriment to dairy farming in general. For those reasons, I choose not to buy dairy products unless they are rBGH-free, and I support labeling because it gives me an option to choose. Continue reading
Filed under agriculture, environment, food and farming
Bombing schools and hospitals is a war crime. Deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime. Yesterday’s fulminations from the Führer in the White House go beyond war crimes to announce that he intends genocide: the wiping out of an entire people and civilization.
ICE is only one of the federal agencies surveilling people. Federal surveillance reaches far beyond immigrants. Federal agents use massive databases, facial recognition, cell phone photos, and license plate records. Beyond surveillance, they target and threaten people involved in protests, bringing the full weight of federal power to bear on individuals. Their actions often remain […]
Five years after the violent attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, the attacks on democracy and on elected officials continue. Yesterday, two politicians currently under attack by the Trump administration spoke out with anger and eloquence.
The New York Times today has plenty of coverage of who, how, when, and where the United States illegally attacked Venezuela and abducted its president and first lady. But that’s far from the whole story. A few easily overlooked but essential facts: For informed insights on the consequences of Trump’s attack on Venezuela, see:
50 USC Ch. 33: WAR POWERS RESOLUTION §1541. Purpose and policy (a) Congressional declaration It is the purpose of this chapter to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United […]
Mary Turck