links for 11-1-12

The Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning (JUAL): "When a child refuses to go to school, the whole family is placed in a highly distressing situation. The response of school and mental health professionals in the UK is to return the child to school as soon as reasonably possible; home education is almost never suggested as a viable alternative. Nevertheless, a number of parents decide that home education will be in the best interests of their children. This mixed-method study reports on 20 such families who completed questionnaires, followed up by 5 in-depth interviews. Parents generally reported that symptoms associated with school refusal, both physical and psychological, lessened or disappeared altogether. Moreover, although they had turned to home education as a last resort, the majority decided to continue after seeing their children thrive academically and socially. It is concluded that parents of school refusers should always be fully informed about home education."

From Master Plan to No Plan: The Slow Death of Public Higher Education | Dissent Magazine: "Under the neoliberal public policy regime of the past thirty years, the United States has moved from providing public goods directly toward providing coupons for the purchase of those goods in the private market.  ..... 

Thanks to the Reagan revolution, in short, we’ve forgotten that the United States was building public schools and universities for a lot longer than it has been letting them crumble. If we want to tell a different story than the decline of public education—and especially if we want to see it rise again—it behooves us to move past Reagan and the backlash, and to think more clearly about what they destroyed, and what we’ve lost."

Voices: A more honest approach to marijuana | EdNewsColorado: "We are seeing something similar with respect to teen marijuana use in Colorado. According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, a federal agency charged with protecting public health and safety, teen marijuana use in the state has dropped since the state began enacting strict state and local regulations for medical marijuana in 2009, whereas teen use rose nationwide over the same period. The same survey also found that regulation could reduce teen access to illegal drugs while at school, showing a significant decline in students reporting that they have been “offered, sold or given an illegal drug by someone on school property.”"

DME WIDE • World Inequality Database on Education: "The World Inequality Database on Education (WIDE) highlights the powerful influence of circumstances, such as wealth, gender, ethnicity and location, over which people have little control but which play an important role in shaping their opportunities for education and wider life chances. It draws attention to unacceptable levels of education inequality across countries and between groups within countries, with the aim of helping to inform policy design and public debate."

Texas schools punish students who refuse to be tracked with microchips — RT: ""I had a teacher tell me I would not be allowed to vote because I did not have the proper voter ID," Hernandez told WND. "I had my old student ID card which they originally told us would be good for the entire four years we were in school. He said I needed the new ID with the chip in order to vote.""

Allow every child to learn: "Before the elitist colonial system of education took root, India had a good system of schools and centres of higher learning that taught in vernacular languages and even Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian, language of the Muslim elite preceding the Mughals, who initially favoured Turkic, which was in course of time supplanted by Urdu. Villages, too, promoted education through grants and land, set aside for this purpose. Subjects included religious texts, theology, philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, logic, law, poetics, grammar, arithmetic, accountancy, astronomy, astrology, medicine, esoteric vidyas and in Malabar, for instance, chess, martial arts and navigation. ...   
Mahatma Gandhi was to decry the supplanting of traditional education during his address to the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London in 1931, observing that because of this, “the beautiful tree perished”. As a result, India was “more illiterate than it was fifty or hundred years ago”. Not a great deal seems to have changed.   'via Blog this'

Education Not for Sale | National Radio Project: "Around the world, students have been taking to the streets. They’re opposed to rising tuition fees and cuts to education. On this edition, we’ll hear how students in Quebec, helped bring down the government and why Chilean students are back out on the streets again. We’ll also speak to an activist in Puerto Rico who says she’s had enough of US-style higher education.

Cap and Skull society members Class of 1919; Paul Robeson at far left. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Pearson Erases Paul Robeson from History: Students Write 100 Letters to Challenge Omission | Teaching for Change: "One of my specific objectives is to get the internationally acclaimed singer, actor, and activist Paul Robeson into the music textbook used in the D.C. schools.

Decades ago, Paul Robeson was censored from most school books, and it was hard to find his recordings or films.

In recent years, Robeson has enjoyed a renaissance of interest and approval; he is even on a U.S. postage stamp. But Paul Robeson is not mentioned in the Making Music text (Silver Burdett/Pearson) used by many school districts."