Progressive Forum: Sacramento

Selling Schools Out | Corporate Accountability | The Investigative Fund

2012-01-09T20:20:00.000-08:00

Selling Schools Out | Corporate Accountability | The Investigative Fund

Occupy Colleges Now: Students as the New Public Intellectuals | Truthout

2011-11-21T19:32:00.000-08:00

Occupy Colleges Now: Students as the New Public Intellectuals | Truthout
Henry Giroux

Progressive Forum. Spring 2012

2011-11-21T19:29:00.001-08:00

Giroux.

But there is more. It is also crucial not toallow casino capitalism to transform higher education into another extension ofthe corporate and warfare state. If higher education loses its civic purposeand becomes simply an adjunct of corporate and military power, there will bepractically no spaces left for dissent, dialogue, civic courage, and a spiritof thoughtfulness and critical engagement. This is all the more reason tooccupy colleges and use them as a launching pad to both educate and to expandthe very meaning of the public sphere. Knowledge is about more than the truth;it is also a weapon of change. The language of a radical politics needs morethan hope and outrage; it needs institutional spaces to produce ideas, values,and social relations capable of fighting off those ideological and materialforces of casino capitalism that are intent in sabotaging any viable notion ofhuman interaction, community, solidarity, friendship, and justice.
http://www.truth-out.org/occupy-colleges-now-students-new-public-intellectuals/1321891418

Technology for students in Brazil

2011-10-19T19:05:00.001-07:00

Watch In Brazil's Slums, Economic Inequality Tackled With Technology on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

The men who crashed the world - Meltdown - Al Jazeera English

2011-09-24T20:15:00.000-07:00

The men who crashed the world - Meltdown - Al Jazeera English

Budget crisis

2011-07-11T21:29:00.001-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Teach in April 5- National effort-local effort

2011-03-22T14:02:00.001-07:00

I am contacting you on behalf of Frances Fox Piven and the Fight Back organizing committee regarding the national Fight Back Teach-In on April 5th. The Fight Back Teach-In is going to feature a live-stream and focus on Austerity, Debt, Corporate Greed and What You Can Do About It. Hosted by Frances Fox Piven and Cornell West.
tentative; Foothill Suite. U. Union. CSU -Sacramento.
11 Am - 2 PM.

Speakers for the teach-in include:

Corporate Greed (Jeffrey Sachs -- wealth transfers, income inequality)
Debt (Heather Mchee of demos -- federal mortgage, student loans etc)
Austerity (Richard Trumka via remote; and then 3 activists 1) Wisconsin student, 2) Anti-forclosure homeowner, and 3) UFT teacher)

Closing Frances Fox Piven will close by directing local teach-ins to move toward strategies for action.

This is a very exciting time as students and workers are rising up and uniting for justice in the face of manufactured austerity.

Thank you and in solidarity,

The Fight Back organizing committee
Sacramento DSA. Sacramento Progressive Alliance.

The local part of the event will focus on the California budget cuts and the CSU budget.
Plus preparation for the April 13 Day of Action. on campus.
More detail is up on our Progressive Alliance blog; http://sacramentopa.blogspot.com/
and on our Sacramento DSA web site.

Why a Teach in?
The format of a teach in was developed during the U.S. War in Vietnam. The problem was we were at war and almost no one knew why. Further, our universities offered little or no research nor insight. So, teach ins developed as a way to offer needed important background information rather than slogans. The idea was that activists should be well informed.
A parallel situation exists today. A substantial part of our university scholarship and our political system refuse to be honest with the voters.
David Harvey, the author of The Enigma of Capital and the Crisis of Capitalism, 2010) commented at the 2009 World Social Forum on why particularly economists, so called political scientists, and finance professors ( among others) failed to see the economic crisis coming.
“The current populations of academicians, intellectuals and experts in the social sciences and humanities are by and large ill-equipped to undertake the collective task of revolutionizing our knowledge structures. They have, in fact, been deeply implicated in the construction of the new systems of neoliberal governmentality that evade questions of legitimacy and democracy and foster a technocratic authoritarian politics. Few seem predisposed to engage in self-critical reflection. Universities continue to promote the same useless courses on neo classical economic or rational choice political theory as if nothing has happened and the vaunted business schools simply add a course or two on business ethics or how to make money out of other people’s bankruptcies. After all, the crisis arose out of human greed and there is nothing that can be done about that! “
So, we have a teach in to break through the paralysis of much analysis.

This will be our Spring Forum.
The Progressive Forum seeks to bring together scholars, students, social justice and union activists, and policy makers. The forum is created to nurture a new kind of conversation from within the campus and the social movements. We seek to move beyond the overly fragmented movements each competing with each other to find ways to cooperate and support each others work.
This gathering aims to enhance personal and organizational ties between those engaged in ongoing workplace and community organizing efforts, issues organizing and students and scholars.. The forum should become a place where the diverse movements gathers their energies and where activists learn from internal dialogue. This is an initial step toward elaborating, discussing and debating our visions and ours strategies.

Class Action on April 13

2011-03-07T17:24:00.000-08:00

The California Faculty Association asks you join us on April 13 to Taking Class Action for Quality Education.

Public Higher Education in California is in crisis. A large proportion of qualified students will not get the opportunity to attend a CSU or UC next year because of over-crowding and increased costs. Students are now paying for more than half the costs of their education out of their own pockets…not the way it’s supposed to be at a public university. And while costs go up, students are seeing fewer course offerings, wildly crowded classrooms, overworked professors and inadequate facilities, hurting working class students and students of color the most.

On April 13th Faculty, Students and Staff at all twenty-three CSU campuses are organizing to bring state and national attention to this issue. There will be rallies, demonstrations, teach-ins and similar activities on all of the 23 CSU campuses. Other colleges, around the state and nation, are pledging to participate. Considering what’s happening to public workers in the Midwest, our actions are all the more important. We call on all unions, student groups, parent groups and community organizations to join us.

Demands for April 13….CALIFORNIA NEEDS….

• Affordable, Accessible & High Quality Public Higher Education is essential to our state’s recovery and must be adequately funded! Every applicant who qualifies for the CSU (or CC or UC) should be granted the opportunity to attend at an affordable cost. Education is an investment, not an expense. One of the best ways for California to move forward is to educate our people for tomorrow’s economy.
• New Revenues. Support an Oil Extraction Tax and CSU Transparency Legislation. California doesn’t tax oil coming out of the ground, but every other oil state does. It’s time to close this loophole to fund higher education. Support legislation to guarantee education funding gets spent on services to students.
• Rein In The Bloated CSU Administration. CSU management should put its money where its students are, not in the pockets of overpaid administrators. For example Chancellor Charles Reed receives $451,500 in yearly salary and car allowance…plus a free house!
• Fair Contracts for CSU Faculty and Staff Unions. Fair treatment of employees is essential to providing quality education. No takeaways of union rights. This is not Wisconsin.
__________________________________________________
From the Progressive Alliance

We need to build the promise of California. That promise is a good job for all, the opportunity to have a rewarding career, and the chance for a good education. The tax and budget cut mania does not promote quality education, good jobs, nor rewarding careers. It only digs the hole deeper. Cutting k-12 and higher education makes matters worse.
So, we need to put teachers, firefighters, nurses, police back to work and stop cutting these jobs. Then, they will buy groceries, gasoline, pay rent, buy houses, and create private sector jobs. It is called demand. You can’t cut your way out of the recession. Cutting jobs makes the recession worse. Just look at the current situation of Ireland and Great Britain. You can see what a budget cut approach produces- stagnation.
See my post here “An Open Letter to Governor Brown “ http://choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com/2011/01/response-to-gov-browns-state-of-state.html providing a list of revenue sources to allow California to grow needed jobs.
Sign up with the Progressive Alliance to join us in building the April 13 event.
www.sacramentopa.blogspot.com
WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN OUR EMAIL/MEMBER LIST?

Please contact Paul Burke at paulb1221@sbcglobal.net

Immigration policy forum

2011-02-15T10:19:00.000-08:00

Draft.

Immigration Policy Forum.
Immigration policy and practice are hotly contested subjects made even more controversial by the current California budget crisis and jobs crisis at the state and national level.
This year’s Progressive Forum will concentrate on immigration policy and practice- what we can do to participate in developing a reasonable and rational approach to immigration, and defense of working people’s rights.

Presentation. 20- 30 minutes.
What is the current situation?
What do you recommend for addressing the central issues?
We welcome your development of important related issues.
March 30, 2011.
12 Noon.- 2 PM.
Hind Auditorium. CSU – Sacramento.
Note: March 31, 2011, is a state holiday in recognition of Cesar Chavez. Any comments or references to the history of the UFW are welcome.

5 days until the election

2010-10-27T10:15:00.000-07:00

There are just 5 days until the election: This is not a time when progressives can stand on the sidelines.

Participate in the Progressive Election Forum by the Progressive Alliance on Oct.28.
Can the student vote make a difference ?
Is there a difference between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman on jobs? On tuition?
Is there really a marijuana initiative on the ballot? What about Propositions 23 and 25? and more.
Progressive Election Forum; Oct.28, 2010. Orchard Room. U. Union 12 -2PM.
Professor Jim Shoch, Dr. Ami Bera, students, and more.
If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.
Sponsored by the Faculty Progressive Alliance, Sacramento Progressive Alliance. www.sacramentopa.blogspot.com, the Sac State Coalition, CFA-Capitol Chapter, and Capitol Area Progressives.

In a week most pundits are predicting massive Republican victories in the mid-term election. These poll-based predictions assume a model of a very different electorate than turned out in the 2008 election. What the pundits don't tell you is that if they are wrong about who turns out to vote next week, their predictions will also be wrong.

Frankly the stakes could not be higher. A Republican takeover of the House of Representatives or the Senate would put an end to any chance of meaningful reform until after the 2012 election. More over the limited gains of the last two years would be put at risk. Republicans have made it perfectly clear that their primary goal is to repeal all of the legislation --from health care reform to student loan reform to the modest reforms that were intended to rein in the Wall Street speculators who were the primary cause of the economic crisis that we still suffer from today-- that the current congress passed and the president signed into law.

Such a result would further diminish the prospects of restoring the economy and would legitimize the campaign of obstruction, vilification, and mendacity that they have carried out for the last two years. Further, a Republican wave would bring into political office a new class of political extremists representing the worst elements of the right-wing fringe.

This group would immediately join with other Republicans and Democratic deficit hawks to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. Some think that nothing can be done, but each of us can take steps between now and the election to change the character of the electorate and push back against the right.

4 things you can do now!

Friends don't let friends forget to vote

We are counting on you to spread the word far and wide that getting up early or staying late at the polls on November 2 matters. Make sure all of your friends and associates know that you are not standing on the sidelines in this election and they shouldn't either. You can use the forward to a friend button at the very bottom of this email message to let others know what you think.

Use your FACE BOOK page (or other social media) and friends list to spread the word. Here is a link to some ICONS that you can post on your page to let others know why you are voting.

Join with others in local efforts to turn out progressive voters.

In most communities there are progressive and labor efforts to get the progressive vote out. In states where early voting has begun there are efforts to get progressives to the polls early as well.

Participate in the Progressive Election Forum by the Progressive Alliance on Oct.28.

Work from your home to help turn out progressive voters in other areas.

VOTE

Progressive Election Forum

2010-10-20T13:25:00.000-07:00

Concerned with

the Nov. 2 Election ?

Can the student vote make a difference ?
Is there a difference between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman on jobs? On tuition?
Is there really a marijuana initiative on the ballot? What about Propositions 23 and 25? and more.
Progressive Election Forum; Oct.28, 2010. Orchard Room. U. Union 12 -2PM.
Professor Jim Shoch, Dr. Ami Bera, students, and more.
If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.
Sponsored by the Faculty Progressive Alliance, Sacramento Progressive Alliance. www.sacramentopa.blogspot.com, the Sac State Coalition, and Capitol Area Progressives.

2010 Forum to focus on Immigration

2010-07-09T14:33:00.000-07:00

We believe everyone deserves the opportunity to achieve the American Dream — a secure job, a safe home, and a quality education — but banksters and corporate lobbyists have made off with trillions of public dollars while small businesses can’t get loans and cities are laying off teachers, police, and firefighters.
In this time of economic crisis, it is easy for fear-mongerers to pit groups against each other and to find convenient scapegoats for the problems that plague us.
ONE NATION seeks to transcend our superficial differences and bring us together in a common quest for equal opportunity and justice for all.
http://onenationworkingtogether.org/
We plan our fall Progressive Forum for 2010 to focus on immigration and the Arizona immigration law. The date has been rescheduled to Winter/Spring 2011. Watch this site for more.
Forums are usually held at CSU -Sacramento.

Top Ten Tips

2009-12-08T11:43:00.000-08:00

I would have preferred to present this as a link. However, the owner took down the link.

new Media, new Tools …
and a new educational resource

Edutopia wanTs To help you make the most of the latest technologies and innovative ways to use them as we settle into the 2009–10 school year, so we’ve put together this brand-new resource for you containing ten of the best tips and resources on how to bring new media into the classroom.
Full of succinct and practical ways to prepare our students for 21st-century success, this guide will educate and inspire you to embrace the new-media frontier and embark on a new learning adventure. From “Breaking the Digital Ice” to “Working Better, together” each tip provides succinct and practical ways to turn your classroom into an environment for learning with new media. And each tip includes a wealth of Web sites and additional resources to help you deliver the relevant and meaningful education all students deserve.
—suzie Boss
Journalist and Edutopia blogger edutopia.org/suzie-boss
visit edutopia.org
#1
Break the Digital Ice
#2
Find Your Classroom experts
#3
Get Off to a Good start
#4
think Globally
#5
Find What You need
#6
Make Meaning from Word Clouds
#7
Work Better, together
#8
Open a Back Channel
#9
Make It Visual
#10
Use the Buddy system

Break the digital ice

iceBreakers are a TiMe-honored TradiTion for starting the new school year. Scavenger hunts, name games, and other introductory activities help teachers and students get acquainted so they can start building a positive learning community. Give this important classroom tradition a 21st-century makeover by integrating digital tools.
VoiceThread (voicethread.com) is one example of an online resource that can help you and your students get better acquainted. VoiceThread allows users to combine photographs or other visuals with written or audio comments. This collaborative, Web-based tool is easy to use, which means students will be spending class time actively participating rather than awaiting instructions.
For elementary school students, introduce VoiceThread with a whole-class activity. Using a projector or an interactive whiteboard, share a short digital album to introduce yourself. Invite students to record their own audio comments in response to your prompts. Then expand the activity by adding photos of students. Invite them to add comments to help you learn more about them—and each other.
With secondary school students, consider using a VoiceThread prompt to encourage goal setting for the new school year. What do students look forward to doing in your class? What interests them about this subject? What image can they share that captures how they are feeling at the start of the new school year? Students’ individual VoiceThreads can be useful artifacts for reflection later in the year. Add your own encouraging comments to their digital albums, modeling how to give positive feedback.
By introducing a collaborative tool like VoiceThread early in the year, you’ll be letting students know that your classroom is a place for productive conversation where everyone’s voice matters.
related resources:
➔ “100 Ways to Use Voicethread in education” (voicethread.com/#q. b26224.i145977), a teacher-created Voicethread about Voicethread.
➔ “Voicethread extends the Classroom with Interactive Media Albums” (edutopia.org/voicethread¬interactive-multimedia-albums), from edutopia.org.
• Voicethread for educators (voicethread.ning.com), a social-networking site for teachers, with more than 880 members.
• In a short video (secctv.org/video /?p=461), Gail Desler, a technology-integration specialist for the elk Grove Unified school District, in elk Grove, California, explains the power of using Voicethread in a history classroom.

experts

ManY of TodaY’s digiTal kids spend their free time producing videos, posting to social-networking sites, and text messaging their friends. You can take advantage of their technical know-how in the classroom, too, if you know where to look for help.
Early in the school year, survey your students to find out about their digital smarts: Who are your classroom experts when it comes to graphic design, podcasting, or video editing? Who knows how to make animations? Any Teen Second Life experts in the group? Do students own any gear they would be willing to share for a special project?
Cast an even wider net for technical expertise by surveying parents. Even better, have your students survey their family members. Don’t overlook other experts in your school community. After-school technology clubs, as well as instructional-technology staff, media specialists, and other tech-savvy colleagues, are all likely sources of expertise.
Online survey tools like Survey Monkey (surveymonkey.com) make information gathering quick and easy. Many online survey tools offer free basic accounts. Once you have gathered the raw data, create a spreadsheet so you can easily identify your classroom experts when the need for specialized help arises. Better yet, ask your resident spreadsheet gurus to help you.
related resources:
➔ Online-survey tools besides survey Monkey include profiler prO (profilerpro.com) and Zoomerang (zoomerang.com). Most offer a free basic account.
➔ Generation Yes (genyes.com) is a program that encourages students to help teachers use technology in the classroom. read about one school’s successful program in the edutopia.org article “California Kids Use—and teach—Digital storytelling” (edutopia.org/economic-stimulus¬education-technology-california).

get off to a good start

The sTarT of a new school Year is the perfect time to help your students get organized. Spend some time on self-management strategies now, and your investment will pay off all year long.
A wide array of Web tools can help students get better at managing their own learning. As you consider which ones will offer the most value for your students, think about the kinds of activities your students will take part in this year. Will they need to work with multimedia resources? Manage deadlines? Collaborate with team members on various projects? Dig into research? Help students manage these various activities with an online site that accomplishes multiple tasks.
The most basic online organizer, appropriate for all grade levels, is a public Web site that serves as a teacher-generated information hub. Use it to post resources, assignments, and messages for students—and to keep parents informed, too. Include a calendar for tracking upcoming milestones. Add a photo stream or embed a video to open a window into classroom activities or showcase student work.
If you use blogs or other interactive tools for learning, link to them from your public page (using password protection as needed for privacy concerns). Share your contact information so students or parents can get in touch with questions or comments. For an example of one teacher’s online hub, check out the site managed by Georgia teacher Vicki Davis (westwood.wikispaces.com).
To make management more individualized, encourage students to set up their own personalized pages. Start pages such as iGoogle (google.com/ig) can serve as their virtual desktops, keeping their digital tools in one handy place. Users can customize their start pages with the widgets they need, such as calendars, notepads, or news feeds. (You can preselect these add-ons if you want to narrow students’ choices.) Students can access their personal start page anytime, from any connected computer—at home, at school, or in a library.
For a ready-made project-management site, check out theThinkQuest (thinkquest.org) learning platform. Available at no charge to K–12 schools around the world, it features an online environment where teachers and students can collaborate.
related resources:
• examples of personalized start pages besides iGoogle include netvibes (netvibes.com).
• photo-sharing sites include Flickr (flickr.com) and picasa (picasa.google.com).
• thinkQuest, sponsored by the Oracle education Foundation, offers a project-management portal for organizing collaborative projects, and sponsors an international competition for students.

Think globally
TUrn YoUr classrooM inTo a gaTewaY for learning about the world. By using online resources and new media tools for connecting, you will help your students see themselves as global citizens.
One of the fastest ways to expand your students’ horizon is simply to connect your class with students who live somewhere else

in the world. You can find willing partners on social-networking sites that cater to educators, such as Classroom 2.0 (classroom20.com) and the Global Education Collaborative (globaleducation.ning.com).
Once you find a partner, host informal get-acquainted videoconferences between your classes using Skype (skype.com) and a webcam. Tools like Google Earth (earth.google.com) will give students a street-level look at each other’s neighborhoods. With TagGalaxy (taggalaxy.com), you can turn photos from your distant communities into a visual representation of the world you share.
Go deeper with global learning by taking part in a more formal international project. An organization called ePals (epals.com) offers a classroom-matching service along with an online language translator. Journey North (learner.org/jnorth) connects classrooms from the northern and southern hemispheres for inquiry-based projects that deal with seasonal migration. Rock Our World (rockourworld.ning.com) is an international project in which students on every continent collaborate to compose original music, make movies, and meet each other in live videoconferences.
Collaborative tools can also help your students take advantage of distant experts. Through the Global Citizens Corps (globalcitizenscorps.org), an initiative of the Mercy Corps (mercycorps.org), students can connect with other youth who share their interest in tackling global poverty, or pose questions to field experts working in hot spots around the world.
related resources:
➔ Cyberschoolbus (cyberschoolbus .un.org) is a global education project of the United nations. Interactive games, WebQuests (webquest.org), and other resources promote global citizenship.
➔ the Center for Innovation in engineering and science education (ciese.org/collabprojs.html) sponsors global, collaborative projects in which students act as citizen scientists. projects involve gathering, analyzing, and contributing real data from around the world relating to everything from household water usage to schoolyard habitats.
➔ “Global education on a Dime: A Low-Cost Way to Connect” (edutopia.org/global-education¬international-exchange), from edutopia.org, offers more ideas.

Making YoUr classrooM inTo an inviTing space for learning can be an expensive proposition. Teachers typically invest $500 or more each year on school supplies and furnishings. Instead of digging into your own wallet, take advantage of online tools and community resources to find what you need—for nothing.
One of the best-known programs is DonorsChoose.org (donorschoose.org), a national initiative that has generated more than $36 million for 90,000-plus school projects since 2000. Here’s how it works: Public school teachers post a specific request on the Web site. Citizen philanthropists choose which requests they want to fund. Kids follow up with thank-you notes. What gets funded? Everything from musical instruments to picture books to classroom technology.
If you need materials for a specific project, look locally for reusable goods that might otherwise wind up in the landfill. For example, SCRAP (www.scrapaction.org)—the School and Community Reuse Action Project—based in Portland, Oregon, keeps 50 tons of reusable materials out of the waste stream each year and provides a workshop space where teachers can share creative reuse ideas. Freecycle (freecycle.org) takes a similar approach. The Web site is your first stop for connecting to a Yahoo Group in your community where you can browse donation opportunities or post your own requests for free stuff.
Free classified ads offer another route for finding good stuff. Use your class Web site or newsletter, too, to let the community know what you need, too. No harm in asking, right?
related resources:
➔ For more ideas about finding free supplies, check out “How to Get Complimentary teaching Materials” (edutopia.org/free-school¬supplies-fundraising-donation), from edutopia.org.
➔ programs besides DonorsChoose.org that match willing donors with teacher requests include supply Our schools (supplyourschools.org) and iLoveschools.com (iloveschools.com).

Make Meaning from word clouds

wheTher TheY’re MasTering scientific vocabulary, writing poems, or analyzing presidential speeches, students are immersed in words. Encourage lively conversation about words with the help of tools that turn text into visual displays.
Wordle (wordle.net) is a free tool that turns a block of text, or simply a list of words, into a cloud pattern. Words that are used most frequently are displayed most prominently. You can play with layout, font, and colors to change the appearance or highlight certain vocabulary.
Teachers across subject areas and grade levels are finding good uses for this simple-to¬use tool. For example, as a prereading activity, you might use Wordle to highlight key vocabulary. Are there unfamiliar words here that students will need to understand? Patterns to pay attention to while they are reading?
Students can create Wordle displays using their own writing, too. They will gain new insights into word choice. Are they using certain words too often? Or is their word repetition deliberate? This information can lead to more productive writing conferences and will help them as they move on to the revision stage.
Some teachers recommend Wordle as a tool for reflection. By combining students’ reflective entries into one Wordle display, you can see at a glance what students are thinking about. Their “hot topics” can be the jumping-off point for a lively classroom discussion.
related resources:
• to hear how teacher Clarence Fischer uses Wordle for year-end reflection, read this post on his blog, remote Access (remoteaccess.typepad.com /remote_access/2008/06/ending¬the-year-with-wordle.html).
• terry Freedman offers five good reasons for using Wordle in the classroom in this post on the educational technology site: ICt in education (terry-freedman.org.uk /artman/publish/article_1511.php).

work Better, Together
collaBoraTion is a skill your students will need for the future. To help them work better together today, try using collaborative workspaces in the classroom.
Google Docs, part of the Google for Educators toolkit (google.com/educators /tools.html), is one example of a secure, online place for managing work in progress. Once you help your students set up free accounts, they’ll be able to access their spreadsheets, documents, and presentations anytime, from any connected computer.
That means no more misplaced assignments. It also means you can see what students are working on—and provide timely, formative feedback—while their projects are still under way. Students can use Google Docs to view and respond to one another’s work in progress. That’s useful for collaborative tasks like peer review, sharing notes, or developing a project presentation together.
Wikis offer similar benefits, with the added option of instant publishing. Team members can add content (including text, videos, or photos) or edit content that others have added. Changes are tracked automatically, which lets a teacher see at a glance who’s contributing what. Discussion pages allow for more conversation and idea sharing. Privacy controls let you determine who has access.
Encourage your colleagues to use collaborative tools, too, and you can reap the benefits of teaming up for project planning and professional development.
related resources:
➔ read how one middle school in the Bronx increased collaboration—and raised student achievement—by incorporating Google Docs into learning and professional development
(sites.google.com/site/339dottodot /about-is-339).
• teacher Louise Maine changed her teaching practice when she introduced students to the power of the wiki for creating and sharing content. read more in the edutopia.org article “Wiki Woman: How a Web tool saved My Career” (edutopia.org/whats-next¬2008-wiki-technology).
• Wetpaint Wikis in education

(wikisineducation.wetpaint.com)
is a useful starting place for building a classroom wiki.the site includes examples of wikis for class projects, global collaborations, and peer professional development. technical advice and classroom insights will help you make the most of this powerful tool for collaboration.

Think aBoUT how conversaTions play out in your classroom. Do all students take part, or do just a few voices dominate? And how do comments travel? Do they go primarily from teacher to student (and back), or do they ping around the room? Are there students who never seem to speak up during a whole-class discussion?
Creating a back channel is one strategy for inviting everyone into the conversation. Think of a back channel as a private chat room just for your classroom. Using an instant-messaging tool like iChat or Twitter for microblogging (twitter.com), students can pose questions, make observations while watching a video or student presentation, or share a dissenting viewpoint. To spark conversation, you might pose a prompt that students respond to in the back channel. The archived chat offers a valuable artifact that can help you understand what your students are thinking.
A back channel for your classroom quickly disrupts the old model of teacher as expert. Of course, creating a collaborative learning environment takes more than technology. You’ll want to set a high bar for expectations. Students used to text messaging with friends outside school will need to think about what’s appropriate for in-class messages. Inappropriate comments in the back channel could quickly turn into a distraction (like old-fashioned note passing). But teachers who are using the back channel for valid academic purposes report that the benefits far outweigh the challenges.
related resources:
➔ tools for creating a secure back channel for the classroom include Chatzy (chatzy.com) and edmodo (edmodo.com), which is designed especially for educational use. CoveritLive (coveritlive.com) is a live blogging tool.
➔ Veteran edublogger Jeff Utecht shares his thinking about back channels in this post on the thinking stick (thethinkingstick.com/the-purpose¬of-a-back-channel-necc09).
• Longtime educator peter pappas uses a Hollywood movie to get teachers thinking about the information flow in their classrooms. read his post on the Copy/paste blog (peterpappas.blogs .com/copy_paste/2009/06/classroom¬discussion-techniques-that-work¬try-this-hollywood-classroom¬walkthrough.html).

Tools for sharing photos, video clips, and other illustrations with students have expanded in recent years. From document cameras to projectors to interactive whiteboards, these technologies make it easier than ever to use visuals to inspire curiosity, generate brainstorming, and engage diverse learners.
Across grade levels and subject areas, good visuals help students build background knowledge as they tackle new concepts. You can use images to set the stage for a story set in a remote place or a far-away time. Primary sources from the vast Library of Congress (loc.gov/teachers) archives, for instance, help students “see” the time period for a story set during World War I.
Visuals also show connections between math or science concepts and real life. As they watch a video clip that shows the mysterious optical phenomenon known as the green flash, for instance, students are primed for a conversation about light waves. Videos that show real-life examples of change over time illustrate that algebra really does exist outside the textbook. (For great examples, plus teacher discussions, check out, on creative teacher Dan Meyer’s blog, his series of Graphing Stories (blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=213).
Encourage students to be active viewers of the media you share. Tee up a short video clip with a prompt that encourages them to watch for key information. Foster critical thinking by asking students to consider whether an image has been manipulated by lighting or special effects. Stop videos at key points to encourage more discussion. These strategies will build students’ media-literacy skills along with their understanding of the content.
Your visual library will grow as you keep an eye open for good illustrations.
related resources:
• the sIte screening room, from the society for Information technology and teacher education, provides teacher-created videos for specific content areas (site.aace.org/sitevideo).
• teacher tube (teachertube.com), often described as Youtube for teachers, includes a growing collection of how-to videos.
• the Futures Channel (thefutureschannel.com) offers a collection of videos designed to build a bridge between scientists and other visionaries and today’s students.
• photo-sharing sites like Flickr (flickr.com) allow you to search through thousands of images. Using the Advanced search tool, look for photos licensed under Creative Commons.
• Youtube offers a vast and ever-growing collection of streamed videos. save the clips you want—without potentially inappropriate comments—by using screen-capture software such as Keepvid.com (keepvid.com/?url) or a browser extension like Video DownloadHelper (addons.mozilla .org/en-Us/firefox/addon/3006).

sTUdenTs aren’T The onlY ones who benefit from collaboration and shared problem solving. Teachers can take advantage of a variety of communication tools to share ideas and strategies with colleagues.
Where do you turn first for brainstorming? The faculty room offers one spot for face-to¬face conversation, but you can expand your options by joining social networks that meet your professional interests.
Classroom 2.0 (www.classroom20.com) appeals to both new users of Web 2.0 tools and more experienced practitioners. It’s a good place to throw out a question and get some quick answers. Tapped In (tappedin.org/tappedin) is an online community of educators that sponsors regular online forums. Teachers Teaching Teachers (teachersteachingteachers.org) produces a weekly webcast, including a back channel discussion, that delivers exactly what the name promises. The popular microblogging tool Twitter (twitter.com) lets you stay up-to-date with your personal network from a mobile device or a connected computer.
If you are collaborating with colleagues to research a particular topic or develop a project together, social-bookmarking tools like Delicious (delicious.com) enable you to organize, comment on, and share noteworthy resources. You can see what others are bookmarking, too, and learn from the wisdom of the crowd. Diigo (diigo.com) offers additional tools for collaboration, such as sticky notes to make comments or highlighting to call attention to important passages. Diigo also allows users to set up groups, with additional features such as forums, to take conversations even deeper.
related resources:
➔ Learn how your colleagues are using social-media tools in a set of short videos from edutopia.org (edutopia.org/digital-generation¬new-media-classroom-tips).

visit us at edutopia.org

Beyond the Text

2009-12-08T11:38:00.001-08:00

Beyond the text : Technology

Just as it can be argued that a student’s access to a higher quality of life is enhanced or hindered based upon their ability to read and understand print (a literacy divide), so too a student’s access to the economy and a higher quality of life is enhanced or hindered based upon whether or not they have the skills to access and utilize computer technology and the Internet (a digital divide). It was this belief that drove the United States to invest heavily in the 1990s to place computers into schools and to connect those schools to the Internet.
There was a belief by some in the early years of the 21st.century that placing computer technology into schools and connecting schools to the Internet would somehow bring equal opportunity to the classroom, it would level the technological playing field.. This view ignored a critical tenant of truth regarding public education - all schools do not begin with equal resources.
In 1980 Jean Anyon wrote in Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work that in working class neighborhoods, school knowledge was rigidly defined and learning occurred in a rote fashion, with little choice or discussion. Knowledge was construed and delivered as individual chunks with little connection made between the various pieces of knowledge presented. Knowledge in the working class school meant learning the basics primarily through repetitive practice. In wealthy neighbors schooling was quite different. In these schools knowledge was seen as fluid. Learning involved interaction between teacher and student. Students were often asked to express what they thought and supported in critically thinking about connections between various portions of the curriculum (Anyon, 1980) Today, unfortunately, technology can be used in either manner. Most middle class schools are preparing their student for technology literacy- and most poor schools are not.
Technology is shaping the world, from the internet to iphones, to cell phones, and it is shaping the business and trade world. Those who are well prepared will prosper, those who are not well prepared will fall behind. The future economic prosperity of our nation depends upon decisions we are making now. Our students will either gain access to technology, will learn to learn with technology, or they will have computers in their classrooms used primarily for low level tasks such as drills, keeping grade books and recording attendance.
The problems of using technology to move beyond the limited textbooks help to form a new awareness that the use of computer and the Internet needs to be combined with support for faculty to develop technological skills and quality educational practices (Goldstuck, 2000, Technology Counts, 2008).
Every student, every school, should have access to the skills to use technology and to access the vast media world around us, from libraries, to data bases, including Youtube and others. Henry Jenkins of MIT in an important paper written for the MacAuthor Foundation in 2006 says,
“Educators must work together to ensure that every American young person has access to the skills and experiences need to become a full participant ( in our democracy), can articulate their understanding of how media shapes perceptions, and has been socialized into the emerging ethical standards that should shape their practices as media makers and participants in online communities….
Fostering such social skills and cultural competencies requires a more systemic approach to media education in the United states. Everyone involved in preparing young people to go out into the world has contributions to make in helping students to acquire the skills they need to become full participants in our society.” (Jenkins, 2006)

Moving in this direction requires a revolution in how teachers use their time and resources.
The wide use of technology and the internet will interest some students and motivate some students to remain in school. The materials on the web including museums, libraries, and special collections such as the Martin Luther King collections at Stanford, can provide students with excellent, interesting material, urgent and relevant to their lives.
Technology is already changing our world and our schools. Our challenge is to be certain that all our students join in this development rather than be left behind by a new form of tracking where the middle class and the elite have technology, and the students of color and language minority students have electronic worksheets and test preparation drill material.

Teachers working together and accessing the internet can find and create useful materials for their classrooms. Access to the Internet and the World Wide Web has revolutionized our ability to find exciting, interesting, and accurate information and to move dramatically beyond the limits of current textbooks. Look on the Web for the Hmong home page (http://www.hmongnet.org/), for example, where you will find links to a variety of information. Native American, Latino, and Asian resources on the Web are seemingly limitless. Each group has its own news services, which can be found using search engines. There are Web pages and resource guides for all. (The Web changes rapidly, and pages listed here may become out of date. You need to use a search engine and look for materials.) There are more than 100,000 lesson plans on the Web. Good places to start are www.rethinkingschools.org and www.nea.org. The problem is not lack of material, but developing the skill of selecting good material.
Students need to learn the skills of locating relevant information and evaluating information in order to use the web as a data source. Teachers should use a search engine such as Google, and teach their students to use the search engines well. As an initial step teachers can provide pre screened useful sites. It is difficult and disheartening for student to simply look up a topic. They will get 2000 plus hits and little guidance to valuable sites as opposed to weak or worthless sites. You can start with some mega sites such as Paul Gorski’s Multicultural Pavilion, and the Discovery Channel and PBS.org. as well as web sites listed in professional journals. Web quests provide a particularly engaging process and now there are over one thousand web quests (www.webquest.org). They even have a web quest on evaluating web sources. By engaging in project based learning ( see glef.org) students develop technological literacy while producing their own materials.
Teachers can use cooperative learning strategies to assist students in a one computer classroom or if you have a bank of computers. It is helpful to identify which of your students can assist you as computer experts. Give these students the responsibility for the care of the computer and teaching others to use it well.

After weeks and months on the web, students can begin to record and to create their own stories. The video of students producing their own stories at http://www.edutopia.org/san-fernando-education-technology-team on the Edutopia site provides excellent examples of this work. The Edutopia mega site is a great place for additional lessons and learning modules on technology use and integration. Students can record their own stories and pass them along to the next class. A group of students in Los Angeles designed and implemented a research project on tracking in their high schools. Once created and presented as a multi media project – such research can become the basis for the next semester’s research or the next year’s. Students can learn from, build upon, and extend each others’ work – each year improving on research and presentation skills.
When students create multimedia projects such as those above, and make interesting presentations of their own work, they are learning skills valuable for both college preparation and workforce preparation. Students living in poverty are less likely to have internet access at home or to have only a dial up access. School use of the technology and the internet is even more important for these students to learn important communication and presentation skills.
Teachers benefit from using technology as a resource in preparing and improving lessons. There are thousands of lesson plans and resources on the web. Useful starting points include universities, Kathy Schrock’s guide, the Multicultural Pavilion and Social Justice net (http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/ )and textbook web supplements.

Teachers working to promote positive relationships with students, and teachers working to promote multicultural education, need a positive, supportive work environment. Critical is having an environment of support and feedback for teachers. The internet can assist to provide this by providing networks of similar teachers on discussion boards and blogs. We can discuss and learn from each other – as well as from the students. This will make us better teachers and more satisfied people: more creative, more imaginative.

Using the extensive resources of photos, virtual field trips, and lessons teaches can develop their own materials and share them with others. After brief presentations on the issues of copyright, students can assist in developing lessons and web resources. There is a possibility of the development of open licensing of some text books and other educational materials so that schools and teachers could freely use quality materials now on the web. There are already interesting opportunities to use such material using Google Books.

THE MULTICULTURAL CURRICULUM ALTERNATIVES
Whereas all groups accept the education goals of mastering the English language and acquiring work skills, advocates of multicultural education reject the thesis that it is also a school’s function to force cultural assimilation on students.
The multicultural worldview insists on preparing students for participation in a democratic society and requires that students develop a more comprehensive and inclusive view of history, the social sciences, literature, and the humanities than has been presented in curricula thus far. The domination of the language and literacy curriculum by researchers familiar only with the macroculture has led to teaching strategies that fail many students (Taylor, 1998). The majority of strategies and materials used for language arts instruction were developed based on assumptions of working with English-dominant students even though large numbers of these pre-readers are English Language Learners. (Au, 1993, , Crawford and Krashen, 2007, Garcia, Kleifgen & Falchi, 2008). Knowledge is required for self-identity (King 1995; Ladson-Billings, 2003; Gay, 2000, Banks, 2008). The existing curriculum rests on the ideological position that experiences of the European American male adequately represent all of our history and culture.
Dr. James Banks, a leader in multicultural education, proposes a perspective on how to integrate ethnic studies content into the elementary and high school curriculum (Banks, 2002). See Figure 12.1.

Economic Crisis

2009-09-28T15:44:00.001-07:00

Campus Progressive Alliance
Proudly Presents
The 3rd Annual Progressive Forum

The Economic Crisis, The Budget &
The University
Be a part of the solution.

Panalists: Prof Paul Burke, Co-Chair Sac. Progressive Alliance; Dr. Duane Campbell, Democratic Socialists of America; Sandra Folger, Grad Student; Kristina Lee, Pres. Campus Prog. Alliance; Kevin Wehr, Pres. CA Faculty Association

Tuesday, October 13, 2009
1:30pm - 3pm
Orchard Room, CSUS University Union

Info: Duane: 916-361-9072 or campd22702@pacbell.net
Co-sponsors: Faculty Progressive Alliance, Democratic Socialists of America, Campus for Obama, and California Faculty Association (Sac State), AFL-CIO

Texas adds Huerta, Winfrey, drops FDR

2009-08-20T22:12:00.001-07:00

Texas adds Huerta, Winfrey, drops FDR

Posted using ShareThis

Don't Face School Reform Alone: Organize

2009-02-09T15:15:00.000-08:00

Don’t’ face school reform alone; organize
An organizing model for school change.

Dr. Duane E. Campbell
Feb. 2009
Prepared for 15th. annual Multicultural Education Conference. Sacramento

Progressive forces in the U.S. have won a major victory with the defeat of the Bush/McCain administration and the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency. Victory was created by an unprecedented mobilization of Black, Latino, White, Asian , union members, youth and other progressive forces- some of whom participated in elections for the first time. The election victory was a result of many forces including well organized volunteers, organized labor, systematic mobilizations in the Black community ( including its churches), the Latino community and other progressive forces.
The Obama campaign was a broad coalition of forces uniting progressives and middle groups (moderates) to win a clear and decisive victory. This coalition includes major conservative and financial establishment forces. The campaign won in part by expanding the electorate. Obama won among all major demographic group except White men, and even there the organized union vote reduced the usual preference of white males for Republican candidates.

The campaign began with a focus on the anti war sentiment in the country, organized a youth vote, and grew into a well financed campaign of over 3 million participants. The Obama economic and foreign policy team is compromised largely of global capitalists U.S. capitalists. The old capitalist power centers are still very powerful and are securing important policy positions throughout the Obama administration.

There are many campaign innovations to be studied, but paramount ones include the community organizing training and focus, the systematic efforts to include rather than exclude volunteers, and the use of technology both for fundraising and for organizing. In spite of the divisions in organized labor during the primaries, the two sides funded and mobilized a significant pro Obama effort in the general election.
The agenda of organizing in education.

Currently, our schools work for some students and do not work for others. As Berliner and Biddle well demonstrated in The Manufactured Crisis, (1995) schools for middle class Black, Latino and European American children fundamentally fulfill their purposes. But the schools for poor African American, Latino and European American children fail. And while this failure effects all children, it disproportionately impacts the children of African Americans and Latinos. Fully half of all their children are in failing schools.
In 2005 on the NAEP assessment, nationally over 58% of Black and 54% Latino children score below Basic in Reading levels in 4th. Grade. (Reading Report Card of the National Center for Educational Statistics.(2005) Differences in math scores are similarly stark.
That is to say, we do not have a general education crisis in the nation, we have a crisis for Black, Latino, Asian and poor white kids. We are not providing these children of the new majorities with what W.E. B. du Boise called ," a fairness of a start which will equip them with such an array of facts and such an attitude toward truth that they can a real chance to judge what the world is and what its greater minds have thought it might be."
We have an unjust and unequal society. While the rich get richer the working people barely hold on to their jobs and housing. Richard Rothstein concludes,
“If as a society we choose to preserve big social class differences, we must necessarily also accept substantial gaps between the achievement of lower-class and middle class children. Closing the gap requires not only better schools, although those are certainly needed, but also reform in the social and economic institutions that presently prepare children to learn in radically different ways. It will not be cheap.”
(Rothstein, 2004)

Rather than facing the inequality issue , major corporate sponsored school reform efforts stress standardized testing as the driving force behind schooling at the k-12 level, particularly in low income districts. The testing measures small bits of memorized information. It can not measure critical thinking skills nor commitment to a democratic community. Teachers’ minimal and inadequate in service preparation is directed at improving test scores, not at improving educational opportunities.
The testing has not improved schools, improved school funding, nor improved teaching. This low level testing tells us what we already know, students in low income schools do poorly. The schools do not usually make up for the inequality in our society.
(Rothstein, 2004)

There are more than 14,900 school districts in the nation, and almost one thousand in California, yet researchers and advocates can not identify more than a handful of districts that have achieved substantial improvement in student achievement. We can find a school or a grade level, but seldom an entire district. Part of the reason is simply mathematical. At least half of the districts serve primarily middle class students and do not need reform.. But, what about the other half?
Nationally, some 40 % of students are eligible for free or reduced price lunch , a standard measure of poverty. And, 38 % of African American and 39% of Hispanic 4th. Graders attended a school that was at least 90 % minority in 2003. (NCES, 2004). These are most often the schools needing reform.
Studies of thirty year trends in achievement in math and reading by the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that over this long time line on average there has been remarkably little change in achievement by students in our nation’s schools. (1)
Since there are only a few reformed school districts ( and these may be cooking the books), after twenty years of so called school reform, it is reasonable and legitimate to say that the current school reform efforts are not working. Hundreds of consultants and experts are writing about school reform in the professional literature, but very few are producing reformed schools and reformed systems.
Let us be clear. A progressive teacher working in a school is good: but it is not school reform. One activist teacher in a school is not school reform. A progressive activist teacher will improve the education of 30 students, or 100 students, and these are significant contributions. But, one or two activists are not school reform. One progressive principal is not school reform.
The success of individual schools serving low income neighborhoods indicate that schools can improve, children in poverty can be provided with high quality schooling. Individual schools which have improved their performance are valuable islands of hope for reform. And hope is a vital ingredient in working for change.
Few, or none of the superintendents of major school systems – and their staffs- have reformed their schools to produce equal opportunity. Reform will occur when groups of teachers work together to create a new, more democratic school system to better serve all of the students. Real School reform requires substantive change.

Teachers as change agents.
We need to develop a new role for teachers as change agents for those teachers committed to civil rights and the success of their students. This potential role is under developed. We need active and activist teacher leaders to guide and direct change to a more democratic and a more equal school system. In most school districts administrators are not promoting democratic reform and perhaps their positions prevent them from promoting democratic reform.
There currently exists a number of leadership roles for teachers. They fill positions such as lead teacher , grade level leaders, host teaches, mentor teachers, student advocates, curriculum specialists, teacher organizers, language specialists, union leaders and change agents.
Teachers leaders are needed to provide a teacher voice and advocacy for quality education within the school reform efforts. Teacher organizers are in particular need when schools are under some form of re-constitution or re-organization to improve achievement

What does a change agent do? In Doing Democracy: The MAP model for Organizing Social Movements, the authors list the roles of change agents as including:

Organizing people power and engaged citizens for the common good.
Educates and involves the majority of the citizens on the issues.
Involves pre-existing grass roots and parents organizations, networks, unions.
Places the issues on the societies agenda.
Promotes alternatives.

For teacher activists the first group to organize is other teachers. First you need to find one ally, then two. We know from organizing that relationships matter, so you need to develop positive on-going relationships with a number of teachers in your school site. Indeed, this will make your own work life more interesting and bearable.
Parents are a second important component of organizing. With large scale immigration there is no reason to limit your organizing to citizens, parents are more appropriate partners. It will help to keep in mind those activities which all adults can participate in and those limited to citizens (such as voting).
An important task is to plan an educational agenda. School talk is often mystifying to parents. And, since so much professional talk is used, parents can be mislead to pursue anti democratic projects. Parents have been recruited and used in the anti bilingual political campaigns and often used in divisive campaigns over reading.
Teachers should look for a community based organization in their area and work with it. Several community based organizations such as those affiliated with the IAF, or PICO, or ACORN, work on school reform and prepare parents to become community leaders. Parent organizing can provide the power needed for sustained change in the power structure of a school district. Teachers, parents, and educational activists need each other. The first step is building relationships of trust among these constituencies.
We know from experience in several cities that school reform efforts are not sustained beyond the tenure of a superintendent or a principal. And, there has been realistically little improvement in reducing the achievement gap in urban systems.

As soon as you begin to organize for social justice you will encounter other, already existing groups. Perhaps the most frequent encounter will be with a union activist in your building. It is useful to map out the existing groups and interests and conduct some informal research to see which of these groups may assist you. For example a union activist may well encourage you to bring your goals within the union effort. This is a possible approach. Certainly if you can bring the union to support your projects this will assist you. It is important and valuable for teachers to bring their unions along as they pursue progressive change. These are our institutions with staff, money, and resources.
However, a note of caution is needed. Unions have their institutional agenda which usually focuses on the salaries and the treatment of employees. These are important issues. The union agenda is rather well understood. And, whenever possible, you want to work in cooperation with union. However, quite often the invitation to work within the union is actually a recruitment of you to work on the union agenda rather than on your social justice agenda. You can be an activist and will be encouraged to carry out the many valuable service projects of the union. And it is important to have the union with you when you encounter conflict. But it is a real question. Does working within the union allow you to pursue your previous goals? Or, are you quickly recruited to work on the union goals? This is an area of needed continuous dialogue with your allies. After all, the union may have already developed a valuable strategy which supports your work.

Organizing

Organizing for school change always involves bringing in new people to the environment. You may need to recruit new teacher allies. Or you may need to recruit new parent allies. In each case you need to build cooperative working relationships. Organizing occurs when relationships are built upon trust and solidarity- and a commitment to school reform goals.
It is important to note the differences between activism and organizing.
Activism is getting people together to take on some activity. Activism may set the agenda and move a group on to the offensive. Organizing is educating and building a new movement and new relationships. Organizing needs activism, but the two are not the same thing. Organizing involves educational projects and convincing the un convinced that schools can change. And, importantly, organizing involves building new relationships between people. Organizing must have an achievable agenda and a strategy for how to get the changes you are seeking, at least the first steps toward change. Usually organizing involves changing the power relationships in the school such as engaging and nourishing parental participation. For this reason organizing promptly seeks relationships with unions and community based organizations, particularly those which have an organizing orientation themselves.
To build organizations for the long haul of school reform we need a balance of both activism and organizing, each is incomplete without the other.
Effective organizers do not talk over the heads of their allies. They explain things in school and help other partners such as parents understand the intricacies and inter dependent nature of school cultures and structures.

Organize strategically. Choose your targets. Not all change strategies are equal. Some build success, some build relationships, some require much more time to implement. A serious analysis of change opportunities will assist in selecting targets for change efforts.
Usually teachers, parents and other interested parties will support a change when a) they recognize a need to change; b) they understand the change proposed; c) the proposed change will provide greater rewards or less pain than continuing with the present system. These three criteria can be useful in selecting change targets.
Selecting your early targets is an important decision. You should make a list of priorities for change. In this process be certain include the voices of your allies- the parents. What do they see as needing change first? You should also select targets and campaigns which lead to further change. For example, getting the teachers’ lounge painted, or getting computers for teachers may be good tasks, but they do not necessarily develop a culture or process of change while insisting on teacher voice and choice in selecting in-service workshops or initiating cooperative learning groups will set up conditions for further dialogue and change. You wish to select change targets which will generate further dialogue and open future avenues for innovation.

The role of the press and the media.
A major problem with our campaigns is that most of the media has been sold a series of misinformation by the corporate networks. These networks and their access to the media is not likely to change. This requires that often we must craft our preferred reforms within the themes and phrases already popularized by the media.
And, we should expect to be mis understood. Education and explaining will be a constant struggle.
Networks of support exist to assist with refining issues so that they are first understandable and second subject to change. Rethinking Schools. There are a variety of professional advocacy agencies which may assist you such as the MALDEF, NAACP, and economic development projects.

As an example the Harvard Civil Rights Project (currently moving to U.C.L.A.) has conducted both research and media outreach for over a decade on the growing re-segregation of U.S. Schools. Unless some crisis occurs, it may take a long period of time to place your particular issues on the public agenda. And, some people in your cohort need to plan and prepare for influencing the media.

Conflict and change
Substantive change usually involves conflict. There is no escape from controversy and conflict when you are trying to change a well established system like the current distribution of power and decision making in schools. While you probably can not avoid conflict, you can avoid unnecessary conflict.
When there are unjust situations such as the achievement gap in schools the controversy must be faced. When you raise the issues you may be accused of starting trouble or creating conflict. Administrators would prefer to ignore or gloss over differences. They prefer a continuation of the present power distribution-since they are in charge. Becoming a change agent includes
1. early recognition and preparation for conflict
2. avoidance of unnecessary and merely destructive conflict
3. willingness to face the pain an tension of a conflict
4. willingness to make a change in yourself and your views
5. willingness to do the research necessary to promote change.

By setting some clear goals and recognizing progress you can usually keep the conflict manageable. An important practice is to select achievable goals and then recognize your progress toward these goals. Engaging in unnecessary conflict – such as an over emphasis on the personality traits and behavior of an opponent may cost you allies and prevent progress toward school reform.
When you encounter opposition – which you will- your first response should not be to run to the barricades and conflict. You should begin to analyze your opposition.
What are the forces keeping the current practice in place?
How do you opponents usually react to ideas from outside the system?
How would school administrators react to:
a. Criticism at a school board meeting ?
b. Picketing at the school or their office ?
c. A school walkout, strike, or boycott ?
Are there school board members who may be allies? Can your opponents be divided?
Opposition research if vital to victory. If you do not analyze your opposition you may well lose the issue even if you have good reasons and good analysis.
Testing and accountability models are the most common and frequent efforts at reform. Inspired by conservative business interests and advanced by federal and state legislation, school leaders have imposed testing and control of curriculum decisions.
Research on these systems indicate that when they work, they work at best based upon voluntary compliance by teachers – and the effects last for only a few years.
When the reform narrows the curriculum, ignores language minority populations, takes the joy and relevance out of schooling, we should not voluntarily comply. Instead we should resist. There repressive system depends upon our voluntary compliance, instead we should organize for justice and educational equity.

(More on this in a subsequent paper).

Not everything will change at once. And, you can not change the entire national, state and local system this year. It is far easier to initiate and to sustain a change at your school site if the proposed change is understood by students, parents, faculty, administrators and even the media. For example at present most of these groups are convinced of standards based reform. There are significant limits to standards based reforms, but the concept has great acceptance in most arenas.
If you were selecting a change effort such as adoption of the Algebra Project, it would ease your entrance into the change dialogue if you used the vocabulary of standards based reforms and you included references to standards in your proposals. If, on the other hand, you proposed changes which included few opportunities to measure and demonstrate progress your proposal would encounter more resistance and might fail.

Conclusion
WE need to invest in urban schools, provide equal educational opportunities in these schools, and recruit a well prepared teaching force that begins to reflect the student populations in these schools. We must insist on equal opportunity to learn, no compromise. When we do these things, we will begin to protect the Freedom to Learn for our children and our grandchildren, and to build a more just and democratic society.

1. Perie, M., and Moran R. (2005) NAEP 2004 Trends in Academic Progress: Three decades of Student Performance in Reading and Mathematics (NCES 2005-464) U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics. Washington D.C.: U.S. government printing office.

2008-12-14T12:50:00.000-08:00

“Youth Rising – Radical Healing and Activism
in the Post Civil Rights Era”

Saturday, February 21, 2009
8:30am – 2:00pm at
CSUS, University Union
FREE
Admission, Refreshments and Parking

Keynote Speaker:
Dr. Shawn Ginwright

Conference Schedule
Refreshments: 8:30-9:00am
Keynote: 9:00-10:15am
Session A: 10:30-11:30am
Session B: 11:40-12:40pm
DSA Workshop: Organizing for Social Change in the spirit of Barack Obama and Cesar Chavez.
Duane Campbell :

2008-12-11T14:32:00.001-08:00

Forum Schedule 08

2008-09-24T21:47:00.000-07:00

Bill Fletcher
Progressive Forum 2008
Forrest Suite: University Union. CSU –Sacramento
Oct.9 , 2008. 9 Am – 3:30 pm. Free
Join us for a dialogue on current issues facing the progressive movements and their allies in our region. The Progressive Forum seeks to bring together scholars, students, social justice and union activists, and policy makers to nurture a new kind of conversation from within the campus and the social movements.

9 AM.
Bill Fletcher, author . Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice.
David Bacon, author, Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants.
Renee Saucedo; Immigrant Worker Organizing Centers

10:30 AM Dialogue: Organizing Round table :
Kevin Wehr, Eric Vega, Leisa Faulkner, Carlos Rojas, students, Duane Campbell,
Time for interchange.

12 Noon.
Bill Fletcher. Race, Class, Labor and the U.S. Democracy.
Jim Shoch : Government Dept. Elections and the Democratic Party
Bill Durston: Candidate for Congress. Democrat
Leisa Falkner Barnes. Progressive Alliance
Discussion.

1:30- 3:30. In the Summit Room.
The Struggle for Racial Justice in 'Colorblind' America
Race, Ethnicity and Class.

Sponsors:
Bilingual/multicultural Education. CSU-Sacramento, Democratic Socialists of America, Sacramento Progressive Alliance, Progressive Student Alliance., Labor Studies:
Ethnic Studies Department. Campus 4 Obama.

For more information http://www.ProgressiveForum07.blogspot.com
contact Duane Campbell, campd@csus.edu. Parking. Use daily pay lots. Buy a one day pass.

Schedule: 2008

2008-09-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

Progressive Forum 2008
Forrest Suite: University Union. CSU –Sacramento
Oct.9 , 2008. 9 Am – 3:30 pm. Free
Join us for a dialogue on current issues facing the progressive movements and their allies in our region. The Progressive Forum seeks to bring together scholars, students, social justice and union activists, and policy makers to nurture a new kind of conversation from within the campus and the social movements.

9 AM.
Bill Fletcher, author . Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice.
David Bacon, author, Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants.
Renee Saucedo; Immigrant Worker Organizing Centers

10:30 AM Organizing Round table :
Kevin Wehr, Eric Vega, Leisa Faulkner, Carlos Rojas, students, Duane Campbell,
Time for interchange.

12 Noon.
Bill Fletcher. Race, Class and the Elections
Jim Shoch : Government Dept. Elections and the Democratic Party
Discussion.

1:30- 3:30. In the Summit Room.
Race, Ethnicity and Class.

Themes for this year include:
Immigration, the War, the Democratic Party, the Elections, Race, Ethnicity and Class, Political Organizing
Sponsors:
Bilingual/multicultural Education. CSU-Sacramento, Democratic Socialists of America, Sacramento Progressive Alliance, Progressive Student Alliance., Labor Studies:
Ethnic Studies Department. Campus 4 Obama.

For more information http://www.ProgressiveForum07.blogspot.com
contact Duane Campbell, campd@csus.edu. Parking. Use daily pay lots. Buy a one day pass.

Progressive Forum: Fall 2008

2008-09-17T14:31:00.000-07:00

Progressive Forum 2008
Forrest Suite: University Union. CSU –Sacramento
Oct.9 , 2008. 9 Am – 2 Pm. Free
Join us for a dialogue on current issues facing the progressive movements and their allies in our region. The Progressive Forum seeks to bring together scholars, students, social justice and union activists, and policy makers to nurture a new kind of conversation from within the campus and the social movements. We seek to move beyond the overly fragmented movements each competing with each other to find ways to cooperate and support each other’s work. This forum aims to enhance personal and organizational ties between those engaged in ongoing workplace and community organizing efforts.
Confirmed speakers: Bill Fletcher, author . Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice.
David Bacon, author, Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants.
Renee Saucedo; Immigrant Worker Organizing Centers
Kevin Wehr, Eric Vega, Leisa Faulkner, Carlos Rojas, students, Duane Campbell, Jim Shoch, and many more.

Themes for this year include:
Immigration, the War, the Democratic Party, the Elections, Race, Ethnicity and Class, Political Organizing

Sponsors:
Bilingual/multicultural education. CSU-Sacramento, Democratic Socialists of America, Sacramento Progressive Alliance, Progressive Student Alliance., Labor Studies:
Ethnic Studies Department. Sac4Obama.

For more information http://www.ProgressiveForum07.blogspot.com
contact Duane Campbell, campd@csus.edu. Parking. Use daily pay lots. Buy a one day pass.

Progressive Forum : 2008

2008-07-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

Sacramento Progressive Forum
1 day 9 Am- 2 PM.
October 9, 2008. CSU-Sacramento. University Union

All of us together know more than any one of us alone.

Join us for a dialogue on current issues facing the progressive movements and their allies in our region. The Progressive Forum seeks to bring together scholars, students, social justice and union activists, and policy makers. The forum is created to nurture a new kind of conversation from within the campus and the social movements. We seek to move beyond the overly fragmented movements each competing with each other to find ways to cooperate and support each others work.
This gathering aims to enhance personal and organizational ties between those engaged in ongoing workplace and community organizing efforts, issues organizing and students and scholars.. The forum should become a place where the diverse movements gathers their energies and where activists learn from internal dialogue. This is an initial step toward elaborating, discussing and debating our visions and ours strategies.

We build bridges between the city's intellectuals and the general public and facilitate collaborative partnerships between people that might otherwise not meet in order to work towards social change. One particular focus is on strengthening the ties between the city's higher education institutions and its surrounding communities.

The key thematic areas for the Fall 2008 Forum will include:
Immigration
The War
Democratic Party
Media and democracy

Speakers committed: Bill Fletcher, David Bacon, Eric Vega.

Noon;

12- 1;30 PM.
Race, Labor and the Elections.: Bill Fletcher
The U.S. Elections. What is at stake? Jim Schoch . Sac State.

Sponsors:
Bilingual/multicultural education. CSU-Sacramento
Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies
Democratic Socialists of America
Sacramento Progressive Alliance

Labor Studies: CSU-Sacramento

The forum is free and open to the public. For on campus parking, please use one of the daily lots and purchase a daily ticket.
For more information: campd@csus.edu

How the university works

2008-02-17T22:02:00.000-08:00

From the blog How the University Works.

Union balloting

2008-02-13T21:49:00.000-08:00

CFA ballot issues at CSU Sacramento

Ballot Proposition
Please vote Yes on item 3.
This item was placed on the ballot by petition of CFA members. It was presented to the CFA Executive Committee in May and they opposed it.
The proposed addition to the by-laws provides a responsible review and procedural rights for staff hired by our CFA local. At present they do not have these rights. Procedural rights should be given to all workers in all positions.

The reason for the proposition.
In October of 2006, CFA had a staff person working in our office. She was a skilled, competent, mature professional. She was also a student. She provided necessary regularity and continuity within the CFA Exec. Committee, for example she scheduled meetings.
A conflict developed between her and the local CFA Campus President and Vice President (the current President). She was warned that her performance was not acceptable. However, she was not provided with a clear direction for change. The conflict continued. She was dismissed from her position by the local President. There was no process of appeal. Even the CFA Executive Committee was never given reasons nor the opportunity to assist.

Ballot Proposition 3 _ establishes a process for grievances of dismissal – a right which unions fight for. This right should also apply to all working people, including our own staff. Please vote Yes.

I was on the CFA Executive Committee from the early 1980’s when CFA was created by a merger between the prior CFA and the United Professors of California. I was a Vice President of the UPC local. From this perspective of over twenty-five years working with CFA, I ask that you consider these important ballot issues.

I welcome discussion of these issues. If you wish to discuss them, dialogue about them, or argue them, a forum has been established at http://progressiveforum07.wikispaces.com/

You can read discussions there. If you wish to post, you will need to register. Wikispaces is a safe environment. Registration is simple.

Duane Campbell

Presentation: Duane Campbell

2007-10-06T19:22:00.000-07:00

Presentation: Duane Campbell

We gather at a very interesting time.
We are witnessing the apparent collapse of the conservative agenda which has dominated U.S. and often California politics for the last two decades. We are witnesses to the exhaustion of Imperialism in Iraq.

A question for us:
What can we do, what can we create to move a progressive agenda.

The U.S. is one of the most capitalist nations in the world. And, we have the highest level of child poverty of modern nations. And, we are the only modern industrialized nation without a system of health care for all.

My argument is to include a Progressive Economic Agenda within the struggles of the various anti war and political movments.

There are a number of issues for a Progressive Agenda. ( handout)
In the 2: 40 PM session we will hear about health care.

Until we get our democracy back, we will be unable to improve our schools.

I am going to focus on creating a decent public education system.

Currently we have a crisis in some of our schools. K-12.

Quality public education for all is a cause well worth fighting for. We have inherited our present schools from the efforts of prior generations to provide all children with the preparation needed for economic opportunity and active citizenship.
Critics of public education repeat and repeat a message of school crisis. And there is a crisis, but some of our schools are working quite well. More and more of our citizens are completing high school and college than ever before. The percentage of high school graduates completing a core academic curriculum – including four years of English and three years each of math, science and social studies – grew from 14 percent to 57 percent from 1982 to 2000. And, many students in high schools are completing for advanced math and science courses.
The percentage of high school graduates completing advanced math courses climbed from 26 percent in 1982 to 45 percent in 2000. A similar growth has occurred in the sciences. (CEP, 2005, The Condition of Education, 2004.NCES)

Schools are working reasonably well for the middle class and many schools serving the poor and ethnic minorities are in crisis (Kozol,2005). Most urban schools, and some rural schools, as currently organized and funded, are not able to offer an education which will overcome the problems of poverty in our society.
Students in low income areas often have fewer qualified teachers, fewer counselors, inadequate textbooks and teaching materials. Although teaching conditions vary from state to state and district to district, the drop out rates are high and the college attendance rates are low for African American and Latino students. With only a few exceptions, these conditions have remained the same for over thirty years.
We have a crisis in some schools- not all- and it is precisely these low income schools where there are the most openings for new teachers. Lets look into this crisis.
Inadequate funding is a major issue in the school crisis in low incom areas. Governments spent $426.6 billion on public education k-12 in 2005. The problem of funding is well illustrated in the following case from California:

Governors, Senators, and Assemblymembers , and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction have given many speeches, but as of last year they had not provided more funds for the schools. This makes for large class sizes. The results of their budget decisions are in.
The NAEP Reading Scores for California give an average score of 209; we rank right along with Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia.
The NAEP results are important because schools and teachers can drill for the state tests, but NAEP measures against a national standard of whether children can actually read (NAEP, 2007). California has remained with these poverty stricken states for the last 12 years. Remember when the ideologues all claimed that by switching to phonics reading scores were going to go up? Or, others claimed that by eliminating bilingual education would produce dramatic gains. Well- where is the data?

Scores are similarly shameful for 8th. Graders with even Alabama out scoring California.

So, what do you do if you are an elected official, responsible for providing adequate resources but failing to do so? Well, you change the subject. You talk about state tests, where teaching to the test is possible, and the “achievement gap”. Stressing the achievement gap –which is real- places the responsibility and the blame on teachers and parents and shifts the focus away from the resource gap created by inadequate budgets.

This year new money began to be sent to low performing schools. It will take several years of consistently improved funding to overcome the reading deficits imposed upon our children in the last decade.

On the national level, the reading scores are essentially stable for the last decade. That is, there was no progress produced by No Child Left Behind. (perhaps because in part it was under funded by 52 Billion). You have to read the scores carefully since the U.S. Dept. of Education has become skilled at the process of claiming great progress for a one or two point gain. But, compare the scores over the last ten years and you will find very little change.

NCLB.

Forum a success

2007-10-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

Democracy Forum

We held our Crisis in Democracy Forum in Sacramento on October 4. Total attendance, about 150. Great speeches by Jim Shoch, David Dionisi, Paul Burke, Eric Vega, Dolores Delgado-Campbell, and groups of students who had carried out action research in Columbia and students from MECHA. Also, presentations which I did not hear from Jackie Carrigan on working class culture and others.
David Dionisi argued that the U.S. will attack Iran before the 2008 election.

We had a workshop on getting your story into the media that was helpful. Two student panels were outstanding. We had too limited time for dialogue.

Future task: decide whether to continue this style of forum.
Duane Campbell

Progressive Forum: Final Schedule

2007-09-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

Final Schedule : Oct. 4 Event
9 Am. Plenary : Crisis of Democracy Orchard 2 Orchard 3 : CSU-Sacramento
University Union
Announcements
Why the War Threatens our Democracy: David Dionisi : Teach Peace
David Anderson: Government . CSUS.
Duane Campbell: Economic Justice Agenda
Dialogue

10: 30
New struggles for Feminism : Dolores Delgado-Campbell . ARC
The Democratic Party at the end of a conservative era: Jim Shoch: Government. CSUS.
Media and Democracy Cres Velluchi
The New CSU and Betrayal of California's Master Plan. :Jeff Lustig.

11;30 Dialogue
12: Lunch on your own.
Media Workshop; How to do media
Chres Velluchi

1;30 Plenary: Race and Political Organizing : Paul Burk. Sociology
Immigration :Where are we Going : Eric Vega
Dialogue

2: 40: Orchard 2 Working Class Life and culture
Jackie Carrigan. Sociology

The Collapsing Health Care ‘system’ : Manny Gale

Environmental organizing : Kevin Wehr
Student education and activism: Stan Oden. Government. Dialogue
Dialogue

2: 40 PM: Orchard 3

Bananas, Chocolate, and Round Up: Student action research in Columbia.
(David Hurst, Matt Palazollo, and Deseray Franklin) David Anderson, Peace and Conflict Studies

Student Organizing: Margarita Berta-Avila and MECHA students.

Dialogue
Where do we go from here?

Progressive Forum : Schedule

2007-09-15T19:12:00.000-07:00

Final Schedule
9 Am. Plenary : Crisis of Democracy Orchard 2 Orchard 3
Announcements
Why the War Threatens our Democracy: David Dionisi : Teach Peace
David Anderson: Government . CSUS.
Duane Campbell: Economic Justice Agenda
Dialogue

10: 30
The Democratic Party at the end of a conservative era: Jim Shoch: Government. CSUS.
Media and Democracy Cres Velluchi
Corporatization of the Univ.Jeff Lustig.
New struggles for Feminism : Dolores Delgado-Campbell . ARC.
11;30 Dialogue
12: Lunch on your own.
Media Workshop; How to do media
Chres Velluchi

1;30 Plenary: Race and Political Organizing : Paul Burk. Sociology
Immigration :Where are we Going : Eric Vega
Dialogue

2: 40: Orchard 2 Working Class Life and culture
Jackie Carrigan. Sociology

The Collapsing Health Care ‘system’ : Manny Gale

Environmental organizing : Kevin Wehr
Student education and activism: Stan Oden. Government. Dialogue
Dialogue

2: 40 PM: Orchard 3

Bananas, Chocolate, and Round Up: Student action research in Columbia.
(David Hurst, Matt Palazollo, and Deseray Franklin) David Anderson, Peace and Conflict Studies

Student Organizing: Margarita Berta-Avila and MECHA students.

Dialogue
Where do we go from here?

Progressive Forum: Sacramento

2007-09-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

The Crisis in our Democracy:
Sacramento Progressive Forum
1 day 9 Am- 4 PM.
October 4, 2007. CSU-Sacramento. University Union

All of us together know more than any one of us alone.

Join us for a dialogue on current issues facing the progressive movements and their allies in our region. The Progressive Forum seeks to bring together scholars, students, social justice and union activists, and policy makers. The forum is created to nurture a new kind of conversation from within the campus and the social movements. We seek to move beyond the overly fragmented movements each competing with each other to find ways to cooperate and support each others work.
This gathering aims to enhance personal and organizational ties between those engaged in ongoing workplace and community organizing efforts, issues organizing and students and scholars.. The forum should become a place where the diverse movements gathers their energies and where activists learn from internal dialogue. This is an initial step toward elaborating, discussing and debating our visions and ours strategies.

The key thematic areas for the Fall 2007 Forum will include:
Immigration
The War
Democratic Party
Media and democracy
Crisis in public education
Race/ ethnicity and the political organizing .
Corporatization of University/ decline of public universities
Women’s work: Women’s issues
Working class life and culture
The state of our unions
Sponsors:
Bilingual/multicultural education. CSU-Sacramento
Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies
Democratic Socialists of America
Sacramento Progressive Alliance
Student Progressive Alliance
Teach Peace Foundation
Ethnic Studies Department
Labor Studies: CSU-Sacramento

The forum is free and open to the public. For on campus parking, please use one of the daily lots and purchase a daily ticket.
For more information: campd@csus.edu

Progressive Forum: Sacramento

2007-09-03T20:00:00.000-07:00