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Subject: Rethinking Schools on "Democracy Now!"
Dear Rethinking Schools friends,
Rethinking Schools editor Bob Peterson was on the TV-radio show "Democracy Now!" with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez this morning. Bob was asked to speak about the Obama administration's education strategy, especially its approach to charter schools. As Bob points out in the interview, "we need to challenge the notion that charters are the engine of reform." Listen to or watch the segment at http://www.democracynow.org/2009/6/23/education_secretary_arne_duncan_pushes_to
Other recent Rethinking Schools-in-the-news items:
Peterson's work with a multiracial community-educator coalition to demand alternatives to biases in the Houghton-Mifflin textbooks is featured in Gloria Alter's Educational Leadership article, "Challenging the Textbook." The article also includes photos from former Rethinking Schools managing editor, Barbara Miner.
Stan Karp was recently interviewed by Janine Jackson on CounterSpin, a radio show that monitors the media and is syndicated on about 145 stations across the country. Karp discusses NCLB at http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3778.
In April, Rethinking Schools editor Larry Miller was elected to the School Board in Milwaukee, Wisc.
Our Spring 2009 editorial was adapted by Wayne Au, Bill Bigelow and David Levine and distributed by the Progressive Media Project as "Schools Are Not Businesses" to media outlets and newspapers around the world. It was published on sites ranging from commondreams.org to the Tallahassee Democrat to The Gulf Times in Qatar.
Linda Christensen is featured in the spring issue of Lewis and Clark College's "The Chronicle Magazine." Read "Word Warriors" at http://legacy.lclark.edu/dept/chron/wordwarriorssp09.html. And of course, check out Linda's fabulous new Rethinking Schools book, Teaching for Joy and Justice at www.rethinkingschools.org/publication/tfjj.
Bill Bigelow was quoted in a front page New York Times article ("A Cautionary Video About America's 'Stuff'"), about the inadequacies of textbook treatment of environmental issues. Bigelow is on the community board of "The Story of Stuff," www.storyofstuff.com, the student-friendly video that has been viewed on the web over 6 million times.
And in the no-publicity-is-bad-publicity category, this spring The Washington Times dubbed Rethinking Schools, "the nation's leading publication for social-justice educators." Finally, we're in agreement with The Washington Times.
Thanks for your support.
Michael Trokan
rsmike@sbcglobal.net
Rethinking Schools magazine
www.rethinkingschools.org
