News for Educational Workers
Rent from DeepDyve- News for Educational Workers
The Jena 6
The case of the Jena 6, the six teenage African American students in Jena, Louisiana, who were indicted following the placement of three nooses from a tree in front of Jena High School, has been a grim reminder of the continuing existence of racism in America. For background on the case, see Left Turn, Oct/Nov 2007.
Gary Younge writes in "Jena Is America" (The Nation, October 8, 2007) that "These incidents have turned Jena into a national symbol of racial injustice. As such it is both a potent emblem...because it shines a spotlight on how race and class conspire to deny black people equality before the law...and a convenient whipping boy...because it allows the rest of the nation to dismiss the incidents as the work of Southern redneck backwoodsmen without addressing the systemic national failures it showcases." The latter point was challenged after nooses began to appear in such Northern climes as New York City outside an African American professor's office door at Columbia University.
The Black Commentator (November 8, 2007) not only praises the massive mobilization surrounding the Jena 6 case but also warns that the anger creating that mobilization "must be channeled into a long-term fight for justice."
K-12
As of September 11, 2007, Jonathan Kozol entered his 67th day of a partial fast as his personal protest to what he feels has been the "vicious damage being done to inner-city children" by No Child Left Behind. In The Huffington Post of the same date, Kozol writes about what is wrong with the law and how it undermines education for all, but especially for minority, public school students.
Educator Debbie Almontaser, who is Muslim and ex-principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, a middle school designated as New York's first Arabic public school, was forced to resign after an August 6, 2007, New York Post article erroneously linked her to T-shirts declaring "Intifada NYC." She had no ties to the T-shirt creators, Arab Women Active In the Arts And Media, but merely sits on the board of an organization that provides AWAAM office space.
Student Activism
On November 3, 2007, student leaders from across the United States came together in College Park, Maryland, for the largest youth summit on Global Warming ever. This gathering called Powershift 2007 was a project of Energy Action, a youth founded and led coalition of over forty organizations, and had the goal of ensuring that Climate Change be a central issue in the 2008 Presidential campaign (ZMagazine, December 28, 2007).
More than 50,000 students marched in favor of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's recently proposed constitutional reforms. The student population ranged from 3000 students from the School of Social Work in the Central University of Venezuela to thousands of high school students. The rally also commemorated the student uprising of fifty years ago that culminated in the downfall of dictator Marcos Parez Jimanez (http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/2882venezuelanalysis.com, November 27, 2007).
Over seventy students participated in a sit-in against the Iraq War on November 1, 2007, at Morton West High School in Berwyn, Illinois. To avoid any charges besides cutting classes, the students moved their sit-in from inside the lunchroom to a corner outside the cafeteria. By the end of the school day, however, the school principal had given thirty-seven students ten days' suspension and expulsion papers. Students and parents are filing grievances (The New York Times, November 7, 2007).
In June of 2007, Antioch College's Board of Trustees announced that the college would close down in 2008 and try to reopen in 2012. Current and former students, professors, and townspeople set out to raise money and were so successful that by November of 2007, the Board announced that the college would not close as planned (The Columbus Dispatch, November 4, 2007).
The recently re-formed Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held its second national convention in Detroit in July 2007 and brought together over fifty SDS chapters. The convention's goal was to "agree on a vision, officially endorse national actions and...
