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Aafia Siddiqui: Victimized by American Injustice

Stephen Lendman | A human tragedy and gross injustice 0 Comments more...

The Right To A Fair Defense Cannot Be Controversial: The Case of Fahad Hashmi

Udai Malhotra | Fahad Hashmi's case characterizes overreaching powers that came about due to War on Terror 0 Comments more...

Pan African Unity Triumph! Black New Yorkers Deliver for Haiti

Amadi Ajamu | Report Back to Community Friday, February 5, 2010 at 6:30 PM Sistas' Place, 456 Nostrand Ave, Bklyn 0 Comments more...

Third NYC Encuentro for Dignity & Against Displacement

Movement for Justice in El Barrio | Movement for Justice in El Barrio Announce Third NYC Encuentro for Dignity & Against Displacement 1 Comments more...

Days 1 and 2: Eyewitness Reports from Port-au-Prince

Weekly News Update | NYC Activist Reports from Haiti; 1/19 on WBAI; 1/21 Teach-in at Brecht Forum 3 Comments more...

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PHOTO BY: Michael GW
A man waves a Palestinian flag at a protest condemning Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. more...


The Indypendent Issue 146: Fighting for Their Schools: Bloomberg's Latest Round of School Closings Sparks a Revolt Against Mayoral Control

 | The Panel for Education Policy’s decision to close 19 public schools across the city has ignited a widespread revolt against mayoral control of education. The panel, where the majority of its members are handpicked by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, voted 9-4 to close the schools January 26 even after hundreds of testimonies against the closings and protests leading up to the Panel for Education Policy hearing.

The tensions that arose at the hearing were the product of long-simmering grievances directed at Mayor Bloomberg and Joel Klein’s running of the education system, writes Indypendent reporter John Tarleton.

“Critics say the two men have exercised their power in an arbitrary and reckless manner — reorganizing the system’s administrative structures to be more remote from parents, spending millions on high-priced consultants and no-bid contracts, pushing high-stakes testing regimes that lack a sound pedagogical basis and closing scores of neighborhood schools.

When the DOE announced its proposed school closings in December, it struck a nerve. It was the largest rounds of school closings to date and it hit large high schools that have anchored their neighborhoods — Maxwell and Robeson in Brooklyn, Jamaica and Beach Channel in Queens and Columbus and Alfred E. Smith in the Bronx — especially hard.”

See the links below for all of the Indypendent’s education coverage in this issue.

Also in this issue: Arun Gupta, Nicholas Powers, Jaisal Noor and Isabel MacDonald on Haiti after the earthquake; Raj Patel reviews the movie Avatar; and Karen Yi reports on immigrant college students walking 1,500 miles from Miami to Washington, D.C. For that and much more, see the rest of the issue below!

Taking the Public Out of Schools || Inside Columbus High School || The Faces of School Reform || Bloomberg’s 12 Step Method to Close Down Public Schools || New York City Schools By the Numbers || First Person: Stealing the Best and Brightest from Public Schools || City Cracks Down on Illegal Hotels || Community Calendar || Reader Comments || Walking the Dream: Immigrant College Students Push for Reform || The Value of Work: An Interview with Journalist Gabriel Thompson About Immigrant Labor || History Loses Its Own: Howard Zinn Dies, 87 || History: Cruelty and Compassion: Howard Zinn In His Own Words || Same Old Interests Have ‘New Plan’ for Haiti || Haiti: How to Turn Disaster Into Catastrophe || Remittances to Haiti Fill Funding Fractures || Haiti In Aftershock Gaza, One Year Later || Dances With Space Smurfs: A Review of Avatar || A Faith Driven Renaissance: Performers Highlight Muslim Art and Culture more...

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