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ESPN Reporter Britt McHenry Suspended After Berating Parking Attendant on Video "ESPN reporter Britt McHenry wasn't happy when her car was towed on April 6, and she apparently took out her anger on the parking lot attendant. "Unfortunately for McHenry, the tirade was all caught on video. The video was posted online and went viral on Thursday. "In the minute-long video, a clearly annoyed McHenry is heard saying 'I'm in the news, sweetheart. I will f------ing sue this place.'" "'Do you feel goo... 2

Some Facts And Solutions Regarding Police Shootings IN THE basement of St Gregory's church in Crown Heights, a Brooklyn neighbourhood where kosher pizzerias compete with jerk-chicken shacks for business, the officers of the 77th precinct are giving away colouring books for children. "Police officers are your friends," the book's title proclaims. Around the city, protests at the decision not to prosecute the officer who choked Eric Garner to death suggested that plenty of New Yo...

The Rich Pay State and Local Taxes at Half the Rate the Rest of Us Do Roads are crumbling, bridges require repairs, schools need upgrades and public pension systems remain underfunded. How can states and cities find the money to address any of these problems? One way could be through their tax codes. According to a new report, if the rich paid the same state and local tax rate as the middle class, states and cities would have hundreds of billions of dollars more a year in public revenue.

GOP Governors Slash Education To Grow Their Ignorant Base Americans who have lived longer than 30 years are likely aware that fascist Republicans and their corporate money machine have had enormous success whittling away at the idea that America is a representative democracy despite counsel from a Founding Father on how best to preserve the nation. Thomas Jefferson knew, and said, that "an educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people." However, because Re... 2

Eco-Bricks for an Eco-Friendly Future For the past 14years, Alvaro Molina and Hacienda Merida have been stuffing water bottles with trash and using them in construction. "Its a great way to get around a trash problem" Alvaro has used these "Plastic Bricks" in place of cement in schools, benches, chairs, and a boat dock; cleaning up trash and saving on building costs.

Inconvenient Truth: America's Public Schools Are Among Highest Achieving In The World If something is inconvenient, it causes someone trouble or creates difficulties that annoy them and worse, could interfere with their lust for wealth and power. This is particularly the case if verified or indisputable facts destroy an assertion or idea held by profit-driven cretins selling something founded on lies and misinformation. For the past two decades, at least, so-called "education reformers" in the Republican privat... 1

The Hypocrisy of the Data-Drivers New York principal Carol Burris' latest post is infuriating. In it, she describes the inaccurate data that the New York state Department of Education has published, which fails to show the true number of students attending college. The Department published the faulty data by district alongside the districts' own college statistics report. In many cases, such as in Carol Burris' school, there was a substantial gap that made it ... 1

Believe It Or Not: Real Democracy Is Coming to the U.S.A. It is our right and duty to reform and alter our government so that it will no longer be a Plutocracy ruled by the wealthy but instead will actually be of the people, by the people, and for the people. After all, Thomas Jefferson noted that: "I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves: and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discr... 2

US school districts given free machine guns and grenade launchers School police departments across the US have taken advantage of free military surplus gear, stocking up on mine-resistant armoured vehicles, grenade launchers and scores of M16 rifles. At least 26 school districts have participated in the Pentagon's surplus program, which is not new but has come under scrutiny after police responded to protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, with teargas, armour-clad military trucks and riot gear... 3

Voucher School Tour One day in May, toward the end of the school year, Milwaukee grandmothers Gail Hicks and Marva Herndon loaded up Herndon's RV with a cooler full of water bottles and took two reporters and a state legislator on a tour of Milwaukee voucher schools. [Editors' Note: This article was first published in The Progressive's summer double issue and is being released online in response to numerous requests.] Herndon and Hicks formed a g... 2

Coqualeetza Indian Residential School, From Images

Canada admits the truth Over 50,000 Native Canadian children died in the Residential School system, operated by various churches and endorsed by the Canadian government. After many years of single minded determined work by Rev. Kevin Annett (Defrocked by the United Church in an attempt to cover its criminality) and other individuals and groups; the truth has finally been admitted. 5

State conservative groups plan US-wide assault on education, health and tax The raping of democracy continues. These Kochs are something. They most likely even think they will be taking their wealth with them as they die and wither into the depths of Hell. The problem is they will leave a shambles of a country. "The strategy for the state-level organisations, which describe themselves as "free-market thinktanks", includes proposals from six different states for cuts in public sector pensions, campa... 1

Our Schools, Cut Off From the Web "ON June 6, at a middle school in Mooresville, N.C., President Obama set a goal of high-speed Internet in nearly every public school in America in five years" but today, " half of Americans don't own a smartphone, one-third lack a broadband connection and one-fifth don't use the Web at all and while 'virtually all of America's schools are connected to the Internet today...the question is quality. Children who go to school in p... 1

The Faulty Logic of the 'Math Wars' T"here is a great progressive tradition in American thought that urges us not to look for the aims of education beyond education itself. Teaching and learning should not be conceived as merely instrumental affairs; the goal of education is rather to awaken individuals' capacities for independent thought. Or, in the words of the great progressivist John Dewey, the goal of education "is to enable individuals to continue their ed... 2

Schooling Ourselves in an Unequal America - REBECCA STRAUSSNYTimes.com "Averages can be misleading. The familiar, one-dimensional story told about American education is that it was once the best system in the world but that now it's headed down the drain, with piles of money thrown down after it. The truth is that there are two very different education stories in America. The children of the wealthiest 10 percent or so do receive some of the best education in the world, and the quality keeps gett...

Power to the Preschoolers - Gail CollinsNYTimes.com nothing major is going to happen for early-childhood education without an enormous "nothing major is going to happen for early-childhood education without an enormous groundswell of public demand. This is a cause that's extremely popular in theory. But its advocates have no power to reward or punish. Lawmakers who labor on behalf of preschool programs may get stars in heaven, but they don't get squat in campaign contributions...

Public School Supporters Seek to Shape New York City Education Policy - By SONI SANGHA NYTimes.com As the push to charter schools leaves public schools in the dust, grassroots movements are rising to advocate for public schools. A coalition of public school supporters called A+ NYC, hope to shape positions on the future of the nation's largest public school system. They created a special bus and took it "on a weeklong tour that zigzagged across the boroughs, stopping at schools, offices of participating advocacy groups, a...

The Ignorance Caucus - By PAUL KRUGMAN NYTimes.com Teachers of 'critical thinking skills,' like myself know that the entire process of analysis depends on one thing: prior knowledge. Here is an excellent essay about the GOP effort to create an ignorant public that will accept their misrepresentations and outright lies. " Hillary Clinton said of her Republican critics, "They just will not live in an evidence-based world." Krugman says: These days the GOP " dislikes the whole i... 1

The Secret To Fixing Bad Schools - DAVID L. KIRP NYTimes.com Mr Kirp says: "As someone who has worked on education policy for four decades, I've never seen the likes of this. "Well, if he had been any classroom practice where learning is the rule, and teachable moments is what the professional teacher-practitoner looks for, he would see how genuine teachers faciliate learning when the principals get out of the way and let them teach as in this school. "Cognitive and noncognitive, think... 1

Haaretz: Bloomberg Tells Brooklyn College Critics To Move To North Korea New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a strong supporter of Israel and self-proclaimed "violent" critic of the BDS movement, speaks out on behalf of free speech. He lambasts New York elected officials who have publicly threatened funding to Brooklyn College for hosting a pro-BDS event.

One on one gets the job done | United Federation of Teachers Here is what kids need, not merely a computer and a cubicle. From the Article by a teacher who we all want for our kids. "Too often students sit lost in a sea of other seemingly knowing bodies, afraid to admit they don't get it. As soon as that vacant look appears on a student's face, it's time to discreetly pull him or her aside and ask if help is needed; and if necessary, insist that it is.We all know the cues, and students... 1

Joy Resmovits: George Miller Marks Digital Learning Day With New EdTech Bill Here is how those who profit from education package their message: as Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the senior Democrat of the House education committee, introduced legislation that HE CLAIMS make schools' transition to integrating technology into their lessons and operations a little bit smoother. "Technology provides us an opportunity to tackle chronic education challenges in new ways thanks to increasing use and access, c...

Joel Shatzky: Educating for Democracy: What Do Grades Mean? Joel Shatsky writes a must-read , inspiring factual column at a time when the national conversation is a narrative rant by profiteers and politicians about evaluating teachers, rather than one where genuine educators like Shatsky speak about the criteria for learning. "The trouble is not that we are sorting [grading] students badly -- a problem that logically should be addressed by trying to do it better. The trouble is tha... 1

Clashing Explanations on How Talks With Teachers Union Failed - NYTimes.com When you read this "NY Times" article note that these facts are missing: "Bloomberg, tried to deflect blame by erroneously accusing the union of putting on the table at the last minute a two-year "sunset" clause that he said would have rendered the evaluation system toothless. "A similar sunset clause is included in more than 90 percent of the 681 approved evaluation plans across the state, and even State Education Commissi...

NYPD cops handcuff and interrogate innocent 7-year-old for 10 hours over $5 dispute at school, says his mom - NYPOST.com Alison Silveira, Paralegal, Racial Justice Program, ACLU writes on Leonie Haimison's blog at nyceducationnews:"Playground disputes that once meant a trip to the principal's office have come under police jurisdiction in NYC where over 5,000 agents assigned to the School Safety Division roam public school campuses under the auspices of the NYPD... Nearly 900 arrests were made at NYC public schools during 2011-2012 and 90 pe...

Learning From Research Failure - By SAM LOEWENBERGNYTimes.com "Researchers need to openly discuss their failures, because in a learning process, you get things right by first analyzing why you've been getting them wrong." "Beyond simply doing good, there's an impetus to show success: nongovernmental organizations, contractors and researchers want a good track record, funding officials must show they are spending wisely, and journal editors want to highlight breakthroughs. But "succes...

More Lessons About Charter Schools - NYTimes.com "Despite a growing number of studies showing that charter schools are generally no better -- and often are worse -- than their traditional counterparts, the state and local agencies and organizations that grant the charters have been increasingly hesitant to shut down schools, even those that continue to perform abysmally for years on end. If the movement is to maintain its credibility, the charter authorizers must shut down f... 1

Fact check: LaPierre's Big Fib on the Assault Weapons Ban "There's plenty to digest from today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on guns, but it's worth setting the record straight about a key study that "proved," as two Republican witnesses claimed, that the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which was carried out on behalf of the DoJ by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, led by criminologists Christopher Koper, was a failure. The study did no such thing." ..."To the contra...

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Obama wants to add 1,000 armed guards, counselors at schools, post-Sandy Hook President Barack Obama wants to put 1,000 more school resource officers and counselors in schools nationwide, according to a plan the White House has just released as the president signed 23 executive orders today, mostly having to do with gun control.

Over 1,000 killed in US since last month's Connecticut school shooting New Data Shows: More than 1,000 Americans have been killed in gun-related violence since last month's elementary school shooting carnage in Connecticut that killed 20 young pupils and six staff members.