- By R Jennings
Nothing shocks me too much anymore about online abuses of privacy. It is hard to know just who you can trust online these days. We are being asked "Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes". Well, it appears my eyes haven't been lying too much lately...
Mostly, the work of social change is a slow process. It involves patiently building movement institutions, cultivating leadership, organizing campaigns and leveraging power to secure small gains. If you want to see your efforts produce results, it helps to have a long-term commitment.
All institutions are the mirror image of the motivations that make them work. So when politics and economics are based on the worst aspects of human nature, the inevitable result are societies riddled with inequality and violence.
It is an old question in social movements: Should we fight the system or “be the change we wish to see”? Should we push for transformation within existing institutions, or should we model in our own lives a different set of political relationships that might someday form the basis of a new society?
Raising children in today's world is much more challenging than it was in the Fifties. Many parents, whether in intact families, single-parent families, divorced families, or remarried families with stepchildren and half siblings, are crying out for help. The role of public schools needs to be expanded and revamped...
Research study compares traditional lectures with active learning in science, engineering and mathematics. Traditional lecture-based courses are correlated with significantly poorer performance in terms of failure rates and marks.
- By Robert Reich
More Americans than ever believe the economy is rigged in favor of Wall Street and big business and their enablers in Washington. We’re five years into a so-called recovery that’s been a bonanza for the rich but a bust for the middle class.
The girl behind the checkout counter at the Shop Rite supermarket sighed deeply and pushed her manager call button. “WIC,” the checkout girl said, turning the three letters that stand for the government-funded supplemental nutrition program in the USA into a long whine...
Good education for children cannot be deleted from tight budgets or thwarted by religious zealots without a country’s prosperity and very existence suffering. Because this is true, I’m going to tease you with some unique ideas that are already in use and achieving incredible results...
The fact of an ageing society isn’t new; it has been proceeding quietly across all developed countries for 174 years: data on female life expectancies starting in 1840 reveal an increase...
In her new book, Diane Ravitch — one of the leading thinkers behind the controversial Bush-era law — explores how the faulty logic of high-stakes testing, charter school expansion, and privatization hinders education...
The push to reform America’s failing schools dates to a 1983 report, “A Nation at Risk,” which found that U.S. students’ test scores were plummeting. The study's failure to consider factors like poverty, race, and immigration concealed the fact that scores were actually improving.
We were about to put this kid out of school, when what he really deserved was a medal. As executive director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, Fania Davis sees programs like hers as part of the way to end the school-to-prison pipeline.
As national media outlets announced the failure of Washington state’s Initiative 522 — a measure that would require labeling of foods containing genetically engineered ingredients — those advocating for the measure paused. The race was...
The Indian leader saw nonviolence as an active and powerful thing — not just the absence of war. Gandhi lived Ahimsa as a daily practice, waging peace to stop war and violence. His lifelong “experiments” with truth proved that truth force is more powerful than brute force.
Schools have made a strong impact on American youth, in good ways and bad. As an advocate for education and learning in general, it is not my intention to denigrate education, but instead to point out that...
In a perfect world, the resources that all the world's people and other-than-human species depend upon would be recognized to be a "global commons". Included in the commons would be, for example: clean air and water...
The U.S. Supreme Court held Tuesday that an immigrant should not have been automatically deported for a minor marijuana conviction.
Imagine that in this time ahead we do not live beyond Earth's means or behave as if we were larger than Life, that we live in an age in which we have helped to restore health to Earth's immune system and learned how not to...
- By Miles Olson
If we take away the governing bodies that propel us to destroy our land base and each other; if the forces that domesticate us were to cease, would we naturally find balance and heal, like all other living things?
- By Robert Reich
On one side are those who think of citizenship as a matter of exclusion and privilege — of protecting the nation by keeping out those who are undesirable, and putting strict limits on who is allowed to exercise the full rights of citizenship. On the other are those who think of citizenship inclusively...
- By Peter Ladner
Just as spending on social housing for homeless people has been widely proven to be more cost-effective than leaving people on the streets, so too is spending on food being proven as a way to save costs. Healthy eating prevents chronic diseases among people of all ages, from pre-school children to...
We need to put our entire mind and heart into pursuing unity and unity now, to confront the other side and preserve life. Our planet can be renewed or ravaged. Now is the time to awaken and take action. Everyone is needed...