Metropolitics

Teacher Unionism and the Bargain for the Common Good

Claire Cahen — 2021-07-06T05:00:00Z

Rank-and-file teachers across the United States challenge their unions to embrace social democratic ideals, and fight for equal access to social goods, such as quality public schools and safe tap water. Drawing on the case of Newark, New Jersey, this essay questions the liberal democratic norms and policies that continue to treat teacher unions as narrow economic organizations.
A decade ago, teacher unions were minor political players in US cities, focused primarily on negotiating educator

- Essays / Newark, New Jersey, United States, trade unions, activism, teaching, education, public education, water, common good

Building a Multifaceted Campaign for Public Higher Education

Stephen Brier & Michael Fabricant — 2016-10-04T06:39:27Z

In their new book, Austerity Blues: Fighting for the Soul of Public Higher Education, Michael Fabricant and Stephen Brier trace the waning support for public higher education and its deleterious effects on students, faculty, and American society at large. Here, they reflect on what helped the Professional Staff Congress at the City University of New York win the most recent round in the fight for public higher education at a time when greater access to public universities is sorely needed to

- From the Field / participation, inequalities, United States, media, New York, public policy, protest, education, public action, public education, mobilization, higher education, university, austerity, budget cuts, public investment, CUNY

“Harriet Jacobs didn't learn to read and write so that she could get an A”

C. Ray Borck — 2016-05-03T05:00:00Z

Confronted by school systems that persistently reproduce race- and class-based educational inequality, how can individual poor students of color navigate their own educational paths to realize self-actualization, engaged learning, and scholastic success? Urban ethnographer C. Ray Borck shows how one school in Brooklyn is teaching students to harness their historical disenfranchisement and cultural strength for educational achievement.
Poor youth of color are more likely to attend struggling

- From the Field / New York, race, education, Brooklyn, school, culturally competent curriculum, critical racial awareness, public education, educational inequality, racial pedagogy, Brooklyn schools