News for educational workers.

COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION

Under a five-year agreement, Microsoft is settling more than 100 class-action antitrust suits, which accuse the company of overcharging customers, by donating $1 billion in cash, software and hardware to 12,500 low income public schools. This deal not only saves Microsoft from further legal battles, but also makes the company look less like "mercenary legal vultures" ( The New York Times, November 25, 2001).

Federal investigators raided campuses (Duke, Purdue, M.I.T., U.C.L.A., the University of Oregon) and high-tech companies around the country and seized hard drives and computers as evidence of what they say is a massive software piracy ring. A larger global sweep also included Australia, Finland, Norway, and Britain. The piracy group, called DrinkOrDie, may face legal action once a judge or jury can resolve what entails stealing information.

"Would the creation of the Internet be allowed to happen today?" (http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/01/04/university_open_sou rce/index.hrml) asks if the drive to license research for profit may not be stifling the spread of software that could be of universal benefit. In the 1980s, computer scientists at U.C. Berkeley, working under contract for the Defense Department, completed a networking protocol, which by 1992 was released to the public as an open-source code that quickly became the backbone of the network that came to be known simply as "the Internet." In 2002, Bill Hoskins, currently in charge of protecting U.C. Berkeley intellectual property, thinks this was a mistake. His attitude about privatizing the Internet has become the norm among many administrators at universities across the country, making it more difficult for computer science professors and researchers to release their work to the public as open-source software.

9/11 CURRICULA

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have reignited the culture wars of hawks versus doves from nearly a decade ago. A forum at Yale University asked students to put themselves in the place of Palestinians responding to the attacks. Brown University issued a curriculum guide that called for understanding why people resent the United States and the necessity for a measured military response. Bard College added readings by Henry Kissinger and related the weeping of the Trojan women to the suffering caused from the attacks. In all cases, these campuses had an oppositional point of view (The New York Times, September 30, 2001).

Universities across the country offered 9/11 related courses the semesters immediately after the attacks. Might this new academic field even end up being called September 11 Studies? Returning UCLA students found fifty new courses inspired by the events. A Princeton English class will explore literature and terrorism in the spring. Although some professors say the attacks have transformed their fields to include international relations and politics, religion and the humanities, other professors seem quite content to exploit the attacks as ways to boost declining enrollment and attract students based on a national tragedy (Boston Globe, November 3, 2001).

The Winter 200 1-2002 issue of Rethinking Schools includes a 24-page supplement, "War, Terrorism, and America's Classrooms: Teaching in the Aftermath of the September 11 Tragedy." It includes articles both reflective and practical about the war, its background, how to teach and talk with students about it, and so on, by Rethinking Schools editors and regular writers, as well as by Stephen Jay Gould, Martin Luther King, Jr., Arundhati Roy, Michael Klare, and Alfie Kohn. The special supplement is insightful, moving and indispensable. For information call 800-669-4192 or go to www.rethinkingschools.org/sept11. Thanks, Rethinking Schools, for this and for your great work over the years.

"Education Life" (The New York Times, Section 4A, November 11, 2001) focuses on "Lessons of a New Reality," education's response to making the attacks, their causes and their aftermath more accessible to students. "It's a Volatile, Complex World ..." asks if American universities are prepared to teach students all the things today's undergraduates need to understand. "Where Islam Meets 'Brave New World"' describes a Muslim school in Brooklyn trying to perform the balancing act of keeping children connected to American society while providing an Islamic environment.

9/11 CENSURE

Academic freedom and 9/11 censure have deeply divided the academic community. A report in The Nation (December 3, 2001), "The War on Campus: Will Academic Freedom Survive?" cites the bashings academic freedom has taken since the September 11 attacks. These stories include examples of unpaid suspension, attempted assault, and even death threats to faculty who have not held the mainstream patriotic line. AftOn Campus, November 2001, in its Special Report, discusses ways New York colleges responded to the attacks and methods of teaching through the tragedy, offered condolences from union members from around the world, and also laid out union efforts to defend faculty whose academic freedom is being challenged.

City University of New York (CUNY) was particularly hard hit as it created a series of teach-ins and forums to help students get a fuller grasp of the implications of the 9/11 attacks. Students, faculty, and community members organizing against the war have encountered significant repression at two CUNY campuses. At City College, a teach-in on October 2, 2001, organized by the Professional Staff Congress and supported by the CCNY Coalition for Peace, was viciously attacked for the next two days in the New York Post. In response, Chancellor Goldstein denounced the people who spoke at the event, and members of the Board of Trustees are expected to offer a resolution against the event.

At Brooklyn College, the Third World Within-Peace Action Coalition had organized a public event against the war to be held on campus on October 12, 2001. After the event was planned and space arranged, the Brooklyn College administration imposed additional demands, including additional fees and IDs for all attendees, charged a fee for people not from Brooklyn College, and issued a warning about activities held on campus that challenge the U.S. military response to September 11 and challenge the supposed consensus for war. The organizers were forced at the last minute to move the event to a completely different location.

An article from Working For Change (December 21, 2001) details the dismissal of a tenured faculty member at the University of South Florida for political statements about September 11 and a letter in response by the president of the faculty union ([e-mail]).

The publisher and president of the Sacramento Bee was not allowed to finish her commencement speech at the mid-year graduation ceremony of California State University, Sacramento, on December 15, 2001. The stomping and disruptions of the crowd, which eyewitness reports say were coming from the audience and not the graduating students, permitted only about half of the ten minute talk. The content of the address had to do with the uncertain futures of graduates. Posted on the Socunity (Socialist Unity) listserv ([e-mail]).

People of Color Against Wax; a local Santa Cruz organization, is advocating a renewed dialogue among Americans regarding the Bush administration's war on terrorism and the war in Afghanistan. Rebecca Hall, a member of POCAW, an attorney, and a Ph.D. candidate at UCSC, posted anti-war material in the Santa Cruz community. These posters called for an end to the war in Afghanistan and proclaimed that "Genocide Does Nor Equal Justice" and "Not in Our Name." Shortly thereafter, the Santa Cruz Police Department impounded her car in the early morning hours of November 13, 2001 and she was brought up for charges under Proposition 21, a law notorious for criminalizing people of color. Posted on the Santa Cruz Progressive Email List (SCPEL) (portside@yahoogroups. corn).

A 19-year-old freshman at Durham Tech received a series of three visits from the Secret Service and the Durham police because of a poster on her wall depicting George W. Bush holding a length of rope against a backdrop of lynching victims. The poster reads: "We hang on your every word. George Bush: Wanted, 152 Dead," a reference to the number of people executed by the state of Texas while Bush was governor. To catch the entire story, go to Independent Online, November 21, 2001 (http://wwwindyweekcom/durham/2001-11-21/triangles.html).

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), an academic watchdog group founded by Lynn Cheney, the wife of the Vice President, issued a report titled "Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It." The authors said that while "citizens have rallied behind the President wholeheartedly. . . . college and university faculty have been the weak link in America's response." The report named over 40 "unpatriotic" professors and cited 117 media sources to prove it. Many of these sources were taken out of context or culled from secondary sources. Some of the listed professors were proud to have made the list and many unlisted professors named themselves in the hopes of being added to it. However, broader faculty anger over misrepresentation and misquotes led the authors of the report to yank it off their website (www.goacta.org) after a week, but soon replace it without the names. For further information on ACTA, its accusations, and the opposition to it, see San Jose Mercury News, December 13, 2001; The Nation, December 31, 2001; and In These Times, January 21, 2002. To read a delightful lampoon of the entire ACTA fiasco, read In These Times (December 24, 2001) Appall-0-M eter on McCarthy for Dummies. After quoting the ACTA report that "College and university faculty have been the weak link in America's response to the attack," ITT asks: "How's that? Not airport security personnel earning minimum wage? Not their reckless and exploitative employers? Not the do-nothing zealots in Congress? No, the real danger to homeland security is those damned tenured radicals."

9/11. STUDENT ACTIVISM

Although it has been basically ignored by the mainstream media, the student activist movement since the September 11 attacks began quickly and has grown rapidly. Wesleyan University was among the first campuses to act. Students there who had been working against sweatshops and World Bank policies joined Arab-American students to create a 'peaceful justice" movement. Emailing campuses nationwide, they created a website (www.peacefuljustice.cjb.net), and tapped into existing organizations like Students Transforming and Resisting Corporations (STARC), Student Peace Action Network (SPAN) and 180/Movement for Democracy and Education to organize a National Student Day of Action on September 20, 2001 which saw teach-ins and rallies on over 140 campuses. Wesleyan students are now trying to take their efforts off campus (The Nation, October 15, 2001).

The Nation (December 17, 2001) also writes about how "embattled campus activists hone their message about the crisis in Afghanistan." In a campus environment where four out of five students support the bombing of Afghanistan, student activists have had to be careful about how they framed criticism of the U. S. Nonetheless, the new peace movement has touched over 400 campuses, building on the previous anti-sweatshop and anti-corporate movements. A new dimension of this new peace movement is its extension to rural Southern schools, historically black colleges, community colleges, urban public universities, and high schools and middle schools. The newly formed National Youth and Student Peace Coalition is far more diverse than previous student activist groups.

University of California at Santa Cruz sent out via [e-mail] (October 27, 2001) a partial summary of the current student anti-war movement. The summary drew comparisons with the Vietnam War protest of the 60s and explained how the common strategy among the protests is to encourage alternatives to the bombing. The atmosphere of the anti-war movement on several campuses followed: UC Santa Cruz was "Gaining Momentum," UC Berkeley was "Divided," UC San Diego was "Not anti-American, just Anti-War," New York University was "Tense," and University of Pittsburgh was "Sassy." For more information on the student anti-war movement: www.protest.net, www.nowarcollective.com www.indymedia.org, www.pitt.edu/leftists.

Students in Solidarity of the University of Pittsburgh developed a leaflet for use by the student anti-war committee. The leaflet is for informational purposes and lists what it considers the top five lies about the war against Afghanistan. After a brief introduction, each "lie" is listed with a detailed explanation. To receive this leaflet, and let Students in Solidarity hear what you think about it, and what responses you get from people, write [e-mail].

The Cornell Forum for Justice and Peace, a group of facility and graduate students, offered a statement, dated November 25, 2001, in response to the events of September 11 and the bombings in Afghanistan. To read this statement, go to www.geocities.com/cfjusticepeace/.

The students, faculty, and staff of Hampshire College voted to condemn the "War on Terrorism" and propose alternative solutions. The vote, which was won by a margin of 693-121 (with 11 abstentions) is believed to be the first such decision by a college community in the United States. For more information, contact msherrard@hampto, edu. (Counterpunch, December 6, 2001 http://www.counterpris hampshire1.html)

Hosted by People for Peace and the Columbia Coalition Against War and Racism, Columbia University held the National Student Antiwar Conference on February 22-24, 2002. For details of the conference, go to www.antiwarconference.org

HOMOPHOBIA AND GLBT STUDENTS

The National Youth Advocacy Coalition called on Governor Parris N. Glendening and the Board of Regents of the University System of Maryland to terminate Dr. Calvin Lowe, President of Bowie State University, for his well-documented and blatantly offensive remarks about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning students. Dr. Lowe, as reported in the Washington Post and the Washington Blade, referred to routines of Bowie State's Marching Band as "faggot dancing" and expressed a larger concern that Bowie State may have acquired the reputation of being a friendly place for GLBT students (Washington, December 5, PRNewswire).

The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) continues its excellent work in envisioning a future in which every child learns to respect and accept all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. Respect (Winter 2001, Issue 8), GLSEN's newsmagazine, focuses on "Parents Taking Action" as they participate in the inclusion and protection of their GLBT children within the educational system. Another GLSEN resource, The GLSEN Bookstore: Educational Resources for Change is a one-stop shopping place for those committed to ending anti-GLBT bias in schools. The 200 1/2002 catalog contains 25 new resources and can be ordered, along with Respect; by writing GLSEN, 121 West 27th St., Suite 804, NY, NY 10001, or calling 800-24--65 53, or visiting www.glsen. org.

The National Film Board of Canada offers two new videos to help combat teenage homophobia and discrimination, both for the special offer of $199. One of Them (25 minutes) is a discussion-starter for high school students to explore the very real issues of bullying, homophobic name-calling and violence in school. In Other Words (26 minutes) explores the impact of homophobia on a group of young people who speak courageously about their fears, concerns, anger and pain. Using slang, music, animation, media images and dictionary definitions, it examines how language determines our attitudes towards each other. Both films can be ordered by calling 1-800-542-2164.

CLAGS News (Fall 2001/vol.XI, No. No. 3), from The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, Graduate Center, The City University of New York, offered a special edition in response to the September 11 attacks. To receive a copy, go to www.clags.org or write CLAGS, GC CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue, Room 7.115, NY, NY 10016-4309.

RACE

The new president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, has come into conflict with a number of his faculty, but particularly the celebrated African Americans in Harvard's African American Studies program. When President Summers met with Professor Cornel West, who recently had made a rap recording, Summers "suggested that Mr. West put some of the social philosophy expressed in his recent rap CD into something scholarly, and he emphasized his concern that professors were inflating grades." However Mr. Summers might have meant this, Mr. West publicly dedared humiliation and personal disrespect and threatened to leave Harvard. His colleagues in Harvard's African American Studies department unanimously supported him. President Summers apologized and has become less confrontational. (The New York Times, January 6 and 13, 2002)

The question of whether institutions of higher learning have the right to consider the race of applicants who come from historically disenfranchised minorities will once again be addressed when two cases challenging the University of Michigan's use of affirmative action go before a federal appeals court in December. "These cases may force the Supreme Court to reconsider whether colleges and universities can give a boost in admissions to under-represented minorities, something they have always done for athletes and the children of alumni and major donors." (In These Times, January 7, 2002)

Rethinking Schools (Fall 2001, Vol. 16, No. 1) has a special report by the Harvard Civil Rights Project, "Segregation: Alive and Well," stating that schools across the country are still separated by race and class, with the problem getting worse, even after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 50 years ago that segregated schools were inherendy unequal.

SWEATSHOPS AND SCHOOLS

In Atlixco, Mexico, about 900 workers at Mexmode, a maquiladora or assembly factory, which produces sweatshirts for colleges in the U. S., were fired after boycotting the company cafeteria because of worms in the food. Hearing of the firings, leaders of an activist coalition, the Workers Rights Consortium, supported by students and administrators from about 85 American colleges and universities, rushed to Atlixco to investigate. After hearing complaints about low wages, corruption among union officials, and verbal abuse, the Consortium began a high-profile campaign against Nike, whose sweatshirts Mexmode manufactured. As a result, workers have received two raises this year, the cafeteria food is now edible, child laborers have been removed from the production lines, and the 450 seamstresses and machine operators at Mexmode won the right to kick out corrupt labor leaders and form a union of their own. Obviously, this is a victory for the American anti-sweatshop movement (The New York Times, October 8, 2001).

In These Times (September/October 2001) has a lead article called "Sweatshops 101" which offers six lessons in monitoring apparel production around the world.

The theme of the third annual Sweatfree Schools Poster Contest was "We can make a difference; say 'no' to child labor and sweatshops." The contest is sponsored by the state Labor-Religion Coalition and is underwritten by New York State United Teachers.

PART-TIME TEACHING

Campus Equity Week, October 28 -- to November 3, 2001 was the creation of a grassroots coalition of more than 20 sponsoring organizations, including international labor unions, national faculty organizations, academic disciplinary associations, and other education groups in the United States and Canada. The week was designed to educate the public about the poor pay and working conditions of the growing number of part-time faculty, adjuncts, non-tenure-track faculty and other contingent academic workers, including graduate employees. The goal of Campus Equity Week was to force policymakers to take action to correct the inequities. For additional information, see On Campus (October 2001 and December 23001/January 2002) and www.aft.org. For efforts at organizing in the State University of New York (SUNY) and the City University of New York (CUNY), see New York Teacher (November 21, 2001).

TESTS AND STANDARDS

According to a lawsuit filed by the Massachusetts branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, the state Department of Education prevented Alfie Kohn, a prominent author and critic of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), from speaking at a federally funded education conference. A committee of superintendents, school principals, college educators, and charter school staff organizing the event invited Kohn to speak (Boston Globe, December 14, 2001).

Yale's president called for an end to early admissions. Most early admissions are upper class whites and some colleges fill nearly half their freshmen class this way (New York Times, December 23, 2001).

A New York Times editorial (December 9, 2001) discusses the seriousness of grade inflation, saying that it ranges from Harvard, where a recent report revealed that half the grades given to undergraduates have been A or A-, to second and third tier schools which might discourage teachers from giving low grades that might drive tuition-paying customers off campus.

When George W. Bush signed his education plan into law on January 8, 2002, the legislation was a huge victory for Bush. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act is seen as the most ambitious federal overhaul of public schools since the 1960s. All students will now be tested annually from the third to the eighth grade (The Nation, January 28, 2002).

In the spring of 2002, 69,000 eighth grade students in New York City will take exams in math, social studies, reading and science, which will significantly shape their futures. To read about the pressure and potential failure of these tests for students, see The New York Times, The City, November 11, 2001.

In "Testing ... Testing ... One, Two, Three: The Commercial Side of the Standardized-Testing Boom," Dollars and Sense (January/February 2002) discusses the costs of testing to school districts and the profits of testing to standardized testing companies.

BUDGET CUTS AND FINANCES

Thousands of workers around the country are becoming teachers as the recession tosses them out of their usual jobs. This phenomenon is particularly true in high-tech positions where college-educated workers can qualify to be teachers. School districts and educators will now need to make teaching rewarding enough so these new teachers stick around should the more lucrative jobs reappear (Business Week, December 10, 2001).

Florida school children are being shortchanged and future leaders, scientists, and inventors are less likely now than ever to come from Florida schools. With a freeze on hiring new teachers, the Florida school system will rely on substitute teachers, who do not even need BA degrees, to take over. Florida schools rank among the lowest in the nation (Miami Herald, November 28, 2001).

A Harvard committee, a 19-member panel of students, workers, administrators and faculty headed by labor economist Lawrence Katz, found that its low wage employees, mainly janitors and food service workers, are paid less than a living wage. As obvious as this may seem to many, the report was a shock and concluded that the students, who recently had been protesting these working conditions, were right. The committee recommended an immediate wage increase as well as a shift in Harvard's policies toward its low wage employees. (Boston Globe, December 24, 2001)

SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS

The city of Columbus, Georgia, citing "security concerns," sought an injunction against SOA Watch from holding a march to the gate of Fort Benning, home of School of the Americas, the alma mater of some of the most famous state terrorists in Central America. Magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth denied the injunction, saying, "It's a question of First Amendment rights, and you can't play with that" (The Nation, December 10, 2001).

SOA Watch Update (Fall 2001) announced the November 16-18 meetings against the School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, Georgia. To keep informed of future activities, contact: SOA Watch, P0 Box 4566, Washington DC 20017; 202-2343440; www.soaw.org; [e-mail].

BOOKS

The first two books listed below are publications by members of the Radical Teacher editorial collective.

The issues explored in The Feminist Classroom (Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 2001), by Frances A. Maher and Mary Kay Thompson Tetreault, are just as timely and controversial today as they were when the book first appeared six years ago. This expanded edition offers new material, which rereads and updates previous chapters, including a major new chapter on the role of race. The authors offer specific new classroom examples of how assumptions of privilege, specifically the workings of unacknowledged whiteness, shape classroom discourses. This edition also goes beyond the classroom to examine the present context of American higher education.

"The Politics of 'Coming Out' to Colleagues, College, and Basic Writing Students," by Leonard Vogt, appears in The Politics of Writing in the 2 Year College, edited by Barry Alford and Keith Kroll, Boynton/Cook Publishers, 2001.

How to Take an Exam and Remake the World, by Bertell Ollman, was recently published by Black Rose Books, and an excerpt appeared in Radical Teacher. Ollman intermixes analysis of capitalism and advice on how to overthrow it with analysis of exams (multiple choice, essay, oral) and advice on how to study for and take them. There is good commentary, too, on the social relation of being a student in this kind of society, making clear how the exam predicament mimics and supports the social order. The book is smart and witty and punctuated with a nice assortment of radical cartoons. Black Rose Books is at C.P. 1258, Succ. Place du Parc, Montreal, Quebec, H3W.2R3, Canada. To order by phone, call 1-800-565-9523.