The War Report on Public Education
The format of THE WAR REPORT ON PUBLIC EDUCATION explores one of the most important events in our life time - the total takeover of our educational system by corporate interests. This show is about the 'corporate' war on public education and the rising public resistance movement to the war. Dr. James Avington Miller, Jr. invites guests from all over who join the rising public resistance movement against the corporate greed taking on our public school system. He is interested in growing a grass-roots movement here in the United States and in Europe against the 'corporate interests' that are limiting both teachers and students everywhere.
This October 2015 he is taking his show on the road as he embarks on a very special project. His long awaited project ‘The People’s Story' is an effort to reach out to those individuals whose voices are not being heard in educational arenas everywhere. He will be interviewing, filming and collecting stories from parents, teachers, students and community members in the rural and urban areas of the Eastern United States to include Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Washington D.C. Many lives are being impacted and harmed by the ongoing corporate war on public education that exists today. The consequence of the rapid privatization of our schools is inhumane and devastating to our teachers, schools and most importantly, our children.
His primary mission is to create a documentary/television series for PBS and the Arts & Entertainment Channel that will expose the human cost of man’s inhumanity to man. The objective is to document people’s stories from each state and create a one hour TV Episode for that state evolving into a 30-35 part series. Dr. Miller expects to have the first TV show ready by next summer. This will propel the ‘corporate war on public education’ front and center as a local, state and national campaign issue. Determined to awaken the world on a national level by providing a series of programs that will lead to understanding the whole picture – he hopes to demand an end to the Corporate Elite and their destruction of public education.
Dr. Miller is seeking funding for ‘The People’s Story’ project from friends, family and the public to cover the expenses that this will entail. If you care about the future of education, please support this most important project and be part of history in the making. This has been and will continue to be Dr. Miller's dream to complete and certainly his life's legacy.
Guest, Troy LaRaviere
Teachers—and the culture in which they work—have the most significant impact on student achievement. Teachers must have a deep understanding of instruction; that is, they must (1) understand the principles that govern how the human mind integrates, processes, stores and masters new skills and information, and (2) be skilled in implementing instructional strategies that capitalize on those learning principles.
It is my responsibility to put the most highly skilled teachers in front of my students; to engage teachers in continuous professional learning of effective instructional practices; and to orchestrate and invest in a collaborative adult learning environment that gets groups of teachers working together with purpose and persistence--an environment that respects the infinite intellectual capacity of teachers to identity problems and to work collaboratively to solve them.
At my current school we are in year three of a six-to-eight-year effort to completely transform teaching and learning through a combination of directed professional education, collaborative-teacher directed learning communities focused on problem solving, and the capacity building to bring it all together. Data has a place in our work, but it does not drive our efforts, it informs them. Our efforts are driven by our love for our students, our respect for our profession, and the sense of responsibility and purpose that each of us experiences as we work with our students.
After just two-and-a-half years, our results have been impressive. Some of our achievement information is illustrated below.
Unfortunately, our politicians and their education appointees do not always have an appreciation for--or understanding of--the systems and resources it takes to develop and maintain high performing schools and school systems. As a result, I have engaged in advocacy for our city's public schools
