Takes up: a whitewashed required curriculum for introductory sociology in Florida’s 28 public community colleges; a loan-limit policy by the Federal Student Loan Program that could have disastrous implications for the medical field; and implications of Trump’s âOne Big Beautiful Bill Actâ in Indiana colleges.
In Oklahoma, Maine, Florida and Chicago, Van Gelder gives us a view of battles in defense of public and higher education. The rightist moves against state and local K-12 school districts and even individual teachers, staff, parents and students attempts to instill fascism and Christian Nationalism from the cradle.
A view of the educational situation in several states of the U.S., from budget cuts and ideological repression to language discrimination and the introduction of AI in classrooms.
Columbia University acquiesced to the Trump administration which restores their federal funding and grant money but agreed to punish students exercising their free speech against the genocide in Gaza. In addition, Columbia will have to pay $221 million to the federal government. This “is a disaster for higher education,” says Todd Wolfson, National President of the American Association of University Presidents.
Muhammad Adel Zaky argues that neoclassical economics aims to produce knowledge devoid of humanity, conflict, or memory. Schools and universities have become a theater of indoctrination. To liberate political economy and education from this prison is a civilizational emergency.
The Trump administration has doggedly tried to destroy public education by cutting its funding, barring children of undocumented parents from Head Start, sabotaging school lunch programs, as well as what is taught. His national school voucher program continues the attack.
DOGE is slashing grants, contracts and jobs in federal agencies. Especially Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility, climate change, education and food safety. Resisting fascism means looking for ways to fight for real reform as steps toward revolutionary development by and for humanity.
Rumors about ICE are spreading in Southwest Detroit. In a school, student absences are already elevated. Meanwhile communities are gathering resources and planning activities. The sooner we gather, more people can be helped.
Facing Trumpist attack on public schools, teacher Susan van Gelder traces history of the struggle in the U.S. for free education, from Reconstruction to the present. She highlights what we must fight for and the forces of retrogression.
In this essay, originally published in the March 1985 N&L, Erica Rae takes up the new kind of education arising in the 1871 Paris Commune. She focuses on the role of women during this historic turning point, especially the revolutionary educator Louise Michel.
As youth, woman, and educator, Erica Rae (Erica Sufritz) made many contributions to News and Letters Committees since she was a teenager. We will miss the comrade who loved music passionately and sang with the North Shore Choral Society and who cheerfully worked alongside us for revolution for her whole life.
San Diegans defended books about sexual orientation and gender identity when queerphobic Amy Vance and Martha Martin removed almost all the books from Rancho Penasquitos library.
On June 30, after 18 days of protests, the government of Ecuador sat at the negotiating table with the leaders of the Indigenous movement. A representative of the Catholic Church asked reluctant Indigenous leaders to sign the agreement prepared by the government.
Readersâ Views on: Philosophy vs. Capitalism; Education for What?; Homelessness and Humanism; Religious Oppression; Voices from Behind Bars
Critical piece on a “parents’ bill of rights” requiring schools to post online every piece of instructional material that will be used for the school year.
The opposition to âcritical race theoryâ is an old idea in new clothes, whitewashing U.S. history based on a mythical past. We canât find a way out until we face the horrors of reality, not just in history but in life.
The divide between âreopen schools NOWâ and âreopen schools SAFELY ASAPâ mirrors the class divide in U.S. education.
Two weeks of chilly weatherâincluding a little late-spring snowâcombined with increasingly dangerous Presidential âleadership,â a quarter of Michiganâs workers claiming unemployment, and more deaths of friends and relatives has cast a pall over the city and state.
Youth in action column on the Valentineâs Day’s Fridays 4 Future and Climate Strike protests, and the student group Teens Take Charge’s actions against segregation in New York schools.
A U.S. teacher reflects on the article âTeachers debate how to oppose âreformââ in Mexico and its connections with the world-historic movement of an education for freedom.
Teachers in a study circle on the book “MĂ©xico: represiĂłn, resistencia y rebeldĂa” speak on teachersâ resistance in Mexico. Translated from Praxis en America Latina.
Queer notes on Delaware’s anti-Transgender legislation; Gay asylum seeker and detainee Udoka Nweke; Lesbian activist Constance Kurt; Aryman Menem, founder of Tea and Talk for Syrian LGBT; and Baltic Prideâs Pride Parade in Riga, Latvia.
Santa Barbara’s jail system and sheriff are sued; Texas caps the number of students who can receive special education services; people with disabilities criticize Esther McVey, the Work and Pensions Secretary in the United Kingdom.
Puerto Rico is devastated by hurricanes, with climate change a factor, and by the administration’s racist malign neglect, atop an existing debt crisis the masses did not create. Real solidarity came from below. .
Report on the the 25th Anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion on April 29, 2017.
A participant reports on the actions on April 29, the 25th Anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion, when over 500 Latino, Asian, and Black and white mostly youth marched through the streets starting from Florence and Normandie, where the Rebellion began.
Report on the resistance against the closure of “low quality” schools in Detroit, Michigan.
Readers’ Views on Hegel’s dialectic and today’s retrogression; Why read N&L?; La Raza unida; Education and freedom; Racism in Burma and U.S.; Voices from behind the bars
Report of the âEmergency Community Meeting on School Closingsâ in Detroit, MI, taking up and condemning Gov. Rick Snyder’s plan to close 38 schools, most of them in Detroit.
Reports from the huge Women’s March from participants in Chicago, Ill., Detroit, Mich., Oakland, Calif., Nashville, Tenn., Memphis, Tenn., Los Angeles, Calif., and New York City.
Teachers, parents and their supporters hold a national strike, protesting Mexico’s so-called “educational reform” and working for education that truly serves society.
Readers’ Views on: Racism and Revolt Put U.S. on Trial; Life and Death Under the Class Divide; Environmental Struggles; War and Atrocities; and Women’s Lives at Stake.
Readers’ Views on: Environment, Labor, Race and Philosophy; Queer Liberation; Black Lives Matter; Bolivian Social Movements; Trumperyâs Fascism & Racism.
Upsurge of workers’ struggles in 2015 in Mexico, from field workers in San Quintin, Baja California to maquiladora workers in Ciudad Juarez along with ongoing opposition to government educational “reforms” by teachers in the autonomous union CNTE, demonstrate workers’ resistance to the plans of capital and its state. How can organizations of activist-thinkers meet what workers have achieved in our own organizational response?
Detroit public school teachers and students win some needed school building repairs, but all Detroit schools need regulation, ideas and political will so that all students receive a high-quality education.
An article by a formerly incarcerated person who gives a critical review of a conference on the criminal (in)justice system that leaves out the heart of the issue because it leaves out those most impacted by incarceration.
Pasadena schools deny equal education to students with mental health needs; Florida prisons deny disabled prisoners access to wheelchairs, canes, sign language interpreters and hearing aids; and a proposed rule requires federal agencies to work toward more workforce representation of the disabled.
The last quarter of 2015 was marked by a national campaign against racism at campuses across the U.S.
Colorado student-teacher-parent walkouts lead to recall of reactionary school board members; Oxford students campaign to remove images of racist imperialist Cecil Rhodes; student activism sweeps South Africa.
Article highlighting the continued dismantling of Detroit public schools by Gov. Rick Snyder as well as the taking away any power of Detroit parents to have a say in the education of their own children.
The expansion of charter schools comes at the expense of unionized teachers, students and public education. It is a money making venture for the few while destroying public education in the process for the many.
Excerpts of videos of Sandra Bland speaking for herself. She made the videos in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Bland died in Waller County, Texas, after being thrown in jail there for a manufactured traffic violation.
The National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) has been struggling for autonomy, new labor relationships and a non-capitalist educational model. In September 2013, tens of thousands of peopleâteachers outside the CNTE, students, parents and activistsâdemonstrated throughout Mexico to show their rejection of the government’s privatizing educational reforms.
Readers’ thoughts on “Srebrenica, Bosnia, 1995; Europe and the World, 2015”; “Struggles against Racism”; “After Cecil, People Are Next”; “Teachers and Children”; “Workers, Customers Pay.”
In acquainting readers with coverage of the forces of revolution in News & Letters over its first 60 years, we present âContinuing Magnolia Jungle terror exposes reality of âGreat Society,ââ written by Charles Denby in February 1965, in the midst of the bloody campaign for voter registration in Selma, Alabama.
From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters
Readersâ Views, Part 1
WOMEN FIGHT RAPE, HARASSMENT AND ABUSE
When I voted, many posters reminded folks that within 100 feet of the polling place you may not âinterruptâ a person, nor âharassâ nor even speak about your political views. [=>]
From the July-August 2014 issue of News & Letters
New YorkâMore than 300 teachersâas well as education personnel, parents, students, and community leaders and supportersâfrom New York City and other parts of the tri-state area concerned about education inequalities rallied outside New York Cityâs City Hall.
In a âTake Back Our Schoolsâ rally, we [=>]
Suddenly, a generation of new radicals was born to replace “the silent generation” of the 1950s. By winter 1964 a new form of revolt, with a new underlying philosophy, called itself the Free Speech Movement. It becomes necessary to view the moment when the student revolt culminated in a mass sit-in.
Rallies and protests were held at over 30 New York City schools on the first day of state-enforced mandatory standardized English language testing.
Mississippi pro-discrimination law; Gay rights in India’s election; sexual and gender diversity classes in Nepal.
