Publications & Talks
BADER: Review of The Lost Soul of Higher Education
Ellen Schrecker, a history professor at New York City's Yeshiva University, starts "The Lost Soul of Higher Education" with a blunt assessment: "In reacting to the economic insecurities of the past forty years, the nation's colleges and universities have adopted corporate practices that degrade undergraduate instruction, marginalize faculty members, and threaten the very mission of the academy as an institution devoted to the common good."
Original article here... http://www.truth-out.org/the-lost-soul-higher-education-corporatization-...
EDUCATION FOR ALL COALITION: Resources for March 4 Day of Action to Defend Public Education
Resources provided by Education For All Coalition members and coordinating affiliates. We’ve also included flyers, and with each flyer you’ll find a BLANK TEMPLATE version for you to utilize for your own specific purposes.
Free Speech Organizing Toolkit – A helpful handbook on your Free Speech Rights with an emphasis on educational institutions, provided by The Center for Campus Free Speech.
Guide To Occupying Buildings – A help informational guidebook on how to make occupying a building a success.
PRICE: Milwaukeeans vs. the Privatization Pandemic
"In the 21st century countries that out educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow.” Thus spake President Obama in announcing that his administration would award a total of $4 billion to states demonstrating seriousness of commitment to education reform. Imagine that that tired mantra, some fifteen years after NAFTA and the outsourcing of the U.S. manufacturing, service, and information economies, is a proclamation still being rolled out as a constructive commentary on the state of education and pretext, in the name of reform, for ending its public character.
Todd Alan Price is Associate Professor of Educational Foundations and Inquiry at National-Louis University in Chicago, Illinois. He teaches in Illinois and in Wisconsin. In 2009 he was the Wisconsin Green Party candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. He is a Liberty Tree Associate.
PRICE: Ohio. Birthplace of Charter Education ... and Opposition to It
As Ohio education reformers aim ahead toward the new century and prosperity through remaking of the public school system, the Obama administration reform plan takes us back to the “choice,” “free market,” and “small government” mindset of the 1980s, of the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush:
Executive order 12803 issued by President George H. W. Bush, April 30, 1992: Sec. 3. Privatization initiative: To the extent permitted by law, the head of each executive department and agency shall undertake the following actions:
Todd Alan Price is author of The Myth and Reality of NCLB: Public Education and High Stakes Assessment. He is a Liberty Tree Associate.
BERNE: The Showdown at Schottenstein
On May 1, 2009, Michigan's Board of Education, like boards in most of the other states across the U.S., issued a resolution "recognizing that teachers are vital to the very fabric of our society" and declaring the week of May 4-8 Teacher Appreciation Week.
In Part II of this Counterpunch series, Liberty Tree Associate Todd Alan Price reports on his interviews with key players in the battle to which Ted Strickland has dedicated his governorship, to rebuild Ohio public education and stave off the charter phenomenon.
State-by-State Information
Take Action
Law Clinics Under Attack
The New York Times recently wrote an article on a new legislative attack on academic freedom.[1] In two states, Louisiana and Maryland, legislators have introduced bills to restrict the cases and clients that law clinics at public universities can take on. These bills come hot on the heels of two high profile public interest lawsuits filed by clinics at the University of Maryland and Tulane.
Law clinics provide important hands-on training for law students at public universities across the nation. Challenges to the academic freedom of these law clinics are not new. Research from Professor Robert R. Keuhn at St. Louis University found that more than a third of faculty at law clinics expressed fears about university or state reaction to their casework and a sixth had turned down unpopular clients because of these fears.[2] But the two bills currently being considered are the first time that legislators have directly tried to restrict the opportunities afforded law students through these clinics. Both of these bills have been introduced at the behest of industries that have recently been the targets of lawsuits from public law clinics.
In Maryland the state senate tacked a provision onto a routine budget bill threatening millions of dollars of funding for the University of Maryland if its law clinic did not disclose information about its clients and finances. While our allies in Maryland were able to get the state assembly to remove this amendment, some of these provisions appear to have been reinserted in the final draft bill.
In Louisiana, State Senator Robert Adley has introduced a bill to prevent public law clinics from litigating against government entities, corporations, or individuals unless approved by the state legislature. The bill, being promoted by oil and gas companies, comes on the heels of a suit from the law clinic pushing for better enforcement of the Clean Air Act.
Both of these bills are attempts by powerful interests to restrict what amounts to course content and take control of those decisions out of the hands of faculty members. This legislation shows us that while Horowitz and his Academic Bill of Rights may have fallen out of style with the opponents of the academy, the attack on the free exchange of ideas is not over.
California statewide mobilizing conference against the privatization of public education
An all-day conference on April 24 at Santee Education Complex: 1921 South Maple Avenue, Los Angeles, bringing together schools, student organizations, labor unions, committees, coalitions, and parent and community organizations across the state with a call for involvement from all education sectors – Pre-K-12, Community College, CSU, UC, and Adult Education. The conference is intended to follow on the massive March 4 actions in California and natiowide to defend public education.
The organizers write:
The future of public education in this state - particularly for the working class and communities of color, who are being hit especially hard by the cuts - depends on our ability to unify and push forward the struggle in defense of public education.
The purpose of this Statewide Mobilizing Conference is therefore both simple and extremely urgent: to democratically discuss and decide on a unifying political platform and plan of action capable of bringing together schools, student organizations, labor unions, committees, coalitions, and parent and community organizations across the state to deepen and push forward this powerful and broad movement that shook the state and the country on March 4th.
We ask activists, organizations, and mobilized schools across the state to put their full organizational capacity into helping us collectively to build and promote this conference. We ask for maximum participation from all education sectors – Pre-K-12, Community College, CSU, UC, and Adult Education - and regions, and from all organizations of workers, teachers, and students, and we extend the invitation to all mobilized schools and organizations across the country. Get your union, student government or parent-teacher organization to endorse, attend, and participate in the conference.
The decision to call for this conference was made at the Statewide Mobilizing Conference of October 24th, 2009, where over 800 people from all of the sectors of public education decided together to call for the March 4th Strike and Day of Action in defense of public education.
