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In this week’s program, we feature the Occupy Together movement; also referred to as the 99% movement. We share testimony of educators, parents, students, and teacher union organizers who are participating, and we reflect on the time we spent at Occupy locations in New York, Boston and Amherst, Massachusetts. We also explore the deep connections between this movement and the fight for equity in public education. We are living in a time when banks and corporations responsible for the most recent economic collapse received massive government bailouts, many of which are now thriving more than ever, and corporate profits on a whole are at an all time high. Military spending is higher now than at any point since World War II as a means to build and maintain a much-despised empire abroad, and despite a major recession, the wealthiest Americans have grown even richer.  Consequently, massive and extensive unemployment is making a bad situation worse for many, especially African Am...

The Peck Full Service Community Schoo l – which is part of a district under threat of corrective action by the state -- is attempting to create aschool community where engagement, voice, shared decision making, and caringare understood to be central to student achievement. In this second part of a two-part episode, we return toPeck Full Service Community School to examine the complexities of how itadheres to its two core values -- ‘student achievement’ and ‘unconditional positive regard’ -- within thecurrent climate of high-stakes testing and strict accountability structures. As Education Radio has come to know the people and practices of Peck, wefind ourselves raising questions about not only how, but if, school communitiescan be remade to be more human and democratic under the narrowing andoppressive pressures of our current accountability systems. In this episode we again hear from Paul Hyry-Dermith, Principal of the Peck Full Service Community School, as well as two teachers ...

Community schools, wrap around schools, and full service community schools are all names used to describe a growing trend that sees school –community partnerships as a means to address the issues of poverty- homelessness-hunger-lack of health care-that must be attended to before students can be expected to focus on learning.  The connection between poverty and poor school performance is real and well documented. While the neo-liberal discourse dismisses the impact of poverty on student learning and even suggests, in the twisted manipulations of language that mark its narrative, that to attend to a child’s poverty is to somehow diminish the student’s potential, going to school hungry, living with insecurity about shelter, and struggling to meet basic needs like heating, health care, vision and dental care severely impact children as they begin the school day. For this week's program, Education Radio went to William Peck Full Service Community School in Holyoke Massachusetts...