The War Report on Public Education, May 25, 2014
The War Report on Public Education with Dr. James Avington Miller, Jr. and special guests, Dr. Lois Weiner and Mary Compton
Guest, Lois Weiner PhD
On Sunday, May 25, 2014 - Professor Lois Weiner, PhD will be back - but from England - with her guest, Mary Compton, President of Teacher Solidarity to continue speaking about the global assault on teaching, teachers and their unions.
About Teacher Solidarity - see more at: http://http://www.teachersolidarity.com
"Education in almost every country in the world is subject to the grip of neo-liberal education 'reform' which is slowly starving out public schooling, promoting privatisation, destroying teacher professionalism and aims only to produce a minimally educated workforce, which can read instructions and advertisements but is discouraged from thinking critically about the world.
Teachersolidarity is an independent website which records the resistance to such reform of teachers, their unions, communities and researchers, who are fighting to defend public and democratic education. It aims to bring such people together, through sharing experiences, learning from one another and giving and receiving solidarity."
Lois Weiner is a professor of education at New Jersey City University, where she coordinates a Master's degree in Urban Education for experienced teachers. She has published widely on urban teacher education, school reform, and teacher unionism and is a past president of the Special Interest Group on teachers' work and teachers unions of the American Educational Research Association. She taught high school for 15 years, in California and New York, and was an activist in the teachers union. Currently she is a member of the New Politics editorial board and maintains a website with information about the global project to de-professionalize teaching.
Her Story: "Throughout my work life, as a classroom teacher and union officer, then college professor and researcher, I’ve believed that teachers need to work with parents as respectful partners and stand up for social justice. I think transforming teachers unions is an essential part of that project. When teachers unions live up to their potential, they plant the seed of democracy in the schools, giving teachers voice. That’s one reason the unions are being attacked so viciously in the media.
But democracy at the school place also means sharing power with parents, community, and students. As a former teacher and parent of a child in the NYC schools, I’ve seen the inequality of the system and the marginalization of critics. It’s easy under these conditions for parents to blame teachers - and vice versa - for what are actually the system’s failings. That’s what occurs in New York City, and it’s a dynamic we have to stop. Teachers Unite, from its inception, has been committed to bringing teachers, students, parents, and community together as allies in fighting for social justice in the schools and in our city.
Today more than ever we need to create mutually respectful relations between teachers unions and communities who want quality schools for their children. Many teachers are fearful of speaking out for kids. Others are just starting to realize the extent of the danger facing us. We need to build a social movement that pushes back on reforms that use the rhetoric of equal opportunity to privatize our schools, increase competition for scarce resources, and worsen conditions for the vast majority of students.
Teachers Unite embodies my goals for education, and I am proud to have served on its Board of Directors. I think its work is so essential to New York City that I make it the recipient of the royalties from my new book, “The future of our schools. Teachers unions and social justice.” We need to work fast and smart to save public education in NYC, and I think Teachers Unite is one of our best hopes to do that."
Lois Weiner, Professor
Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education
Coordinator, MA in Urban Education/Teaching and Learning
New Jersey City University
2039 Kennedy Blvd.
Jersey City, NJ 07305
201.200.2432
email: drweinerlo@gmail.com
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.
