Too old to work, too young to die: The struggle for pensions is the battle for retirement

     Illinois, which has a Democratic governor and a state legislature controlled by the Democratic Party, has just gutted its pension system for public employees.

“Mandela: Was he pushed or did he jump?,” by Patrick Bond

Patrick Bond’s piece “Mandela: Was he pushed or did he jump?,” posted At Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, graphically describes the catastrophic transition from South African apartheid to today’s neoliberalism – a sobering cautionary tale for all fighting for radical democratic change today – in Greece, in the U.S., in the Middle East, and beyond. Even though the neoliberal pressures are enormous, we all need to think about strategic alternatives.

How teachers unions should respond to the PISA test results

            How should we respond to the barrage of propaganda about the latest international test of student achievement, PISA? Test data are (once again) being used to  show that US schools are failing.

Thanksgiving and “identity politics”

Nasty exchanges about “identity politics” in Left circles on FaceBook I’ve glanced at recently haven’t seemed very relevant to my work as a teacher educator or union activist.  This is curious because I know one reason education is so contested is that schools reproduce (or change) the beliefs that underlie the society’s political and economic arrangements. Schools and teachers convey how we make sense of our identity, as a society and as individuals. So why does the debate seem tangential to me?

“Where were you…” Thoughts on John F. Kennedy and his Memory

Hanging from a chain on a roof, that’s where I was. It’s true, as every television and radio station has been telling us over the last several days; those of us my age do remember where we were when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. And, as I think back on it now, I am shocked at the cavalier nature of my response when I heard the news and I wonder at my lack of understanding of the significance of the event.

What do "social movement teachers unions" look like?

One question I’m frequently asked is what “social movement teacher unionism” looks like and how to get there.

Wealth and Power in the U.S Out of Whack

Growing Income Disparities ‘Danger to System,’ says Former Clinton Labor Secretary
(A mixed review of Robert Reich’s documentary ‘Inequality for All’)

Should we “play nice” with the NEA and AFT?

The teacher activist blogosphere has been buzzing about the perfidy of the AFT’s and NEA’s endorsements of teacher evaluation tied to students’ standardized test scores and a new national curriculum, the Common Core.  Both policies are key to the neoliberal dream of a national, privatized system of public education that will synchronize educational outcomes with an economic reality of growing joblessness and underemployment.  (I know these are strong claims and I refer readers who want further verification and explanation to my analyses in New Politics and book.)

Christie's coast to victory was not inevitable

It was clear from the start that teachers had an uphill battle explaining why NJ Governor Christie’s educational policies, his vicious bashing of teachers, were harmful to kids and the state.  One of the most serious obstacles is that media are captive to neoliberal propagandists. Conveying a different message requires concentrated, savvy use of social media.

Capitalism Gone Wild

Review of The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America by George Packer, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013

This American life is a mess, argues George Packer in The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America. It’s a nation fraying, with core institutions from government and finance to housing, jobs and education dysfunctional or “unwound.”