The War Report on Public Education, October 25, 2015
The War Report on Public Education with James Avington Miller, Jr., Ph.D and special guests Dr. Denny Taylor and Dr. Ricardo Rosa, on the road with, The People's Story
Guest, Denny Taylor PhD
Denny Taylor is Professor Emeritus of Literacy Studies at Hofstra University and founder of Garn Press. She began teaching in 1968 in the East End of London; there were 43 children in her first kindergarten class. She has been continuously engaged in ethnographic literacy research since 1977 and was inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame in 2004. She has written thirteen books and published 40 articles and chapters on literacy in family, school and community settings.
Dr. Taylor regards art, literature and science inseparable. She is a lifelong activist and scholar committed to nurturing the imagination and human spirit.
Dr. Taylor is also the director of the International Center for Everybody’s Child at Hofstra University, which provides assistance to teachers and children in the aftermath of catastrophic events, supports international educational projects, and maintains an international network of teachers, doctors, social workers, and mental health professionals who can assist teachers working with children in crisis. Her ethnographic research focuses on the impact of catastrophic events on the lives of children and the social response of the educational community to mass trauma. Her field work includes research in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. She provided first response support in the Gulf Region in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One of her most recent publications, The Kate Middleton Elementary School: Portraits of Hope and Courage, published by Scholastic, provides support for teachers who are first responders following a catastrophic event.
Guest, Ricardo D Rosa PhD
Dr. Rosa is a member of Save Our Schools, United Opt-Out, and the Badass Teachers Association. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at the University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth, an activist, writer, and researcher working with youth. He serves on a number of boards and works with several organizations both locally and nationally whose work is ultimately concerned with the healing of humanity.
Ricardo Rosa's current research centers on emerging articulations of educational privatization and its effects on organizational behavior in educational settings and possibilities for transformative leadership. His research also focuses on curricular theory and praxis within and beyond the boundaries of normative schooling.
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.
