Good education for children cannot be deleted from tight budgets or thwarted by religious zealots without a country’s prosperity and very existence suffering. Because this is true, I’m going to tease you with some unique ideas that are already in use and achieving incredible results...
The fact of an ageing society isn’t new; it has been proceeding quietly across all developed countries for 174 years: data on female life expectancies starting in 1840 reveal an increase...
In her new book, Diane Ravitch — one of the leading thinkers behind the controversial Bush-era law — explores how the faulty logic of high-stakes testing, charter school expansion, and privatization hinders education...
The push to reform America’s failing schools dates to a 1983 report, “A Nation at Risk,” which found that U.S. students’ test scores were plummeting. The study's failure to consider factors like poverty, race, and immigration concealed the fact that scores were actually improving.
We were about to put this kid out of school, when what he really deserved was a medal. As executive director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, Fania Davis sees programs like hers as part of the way to end the school-to-prison pipeline.
As national media outlets announced the failure of Washington state’s Initiative 522 — a measure that would require labeling of foods containing genetically engineered ingredients — those advocating for the measure paused. The race was...
The Indian leader saw nonviolence as an active and powerful thing — not just the absence of war. Gandhi lived Ahimsa as a daily practice, waging peace to stop war and violence. His lifelong “experiments” with truth proved that truth force is more powerful than brute force.
Schools have made a strong impact on American youth, in good ways and bad. As an advocate for education and learning in general, it is not my intention to denigrate education, but instead to point out that...
In a perfect world, the resources that all the world's people and other-than-human species depend upon would be recognized to be a "global commons". Included in the commons would be, for example: clean air and water...
The U.S. Supreme Court held Tuesday that an immigrant should not have been automatically deported for a minor marijuana conviction.
Imagine that in this time ahead we do not live beyond Earth's means or behave as if we were larger than Life, that we live in an age in which we have helped to restore health to Earth's immune system and learned how not to...
- By Miles Olson
If we take away the governing bodies that propel us to destroy our land base and each other; if the forces that domesticate us were to cease, would we naturally find balance and heal, like all other living things?
- By Robert Reich
On one side are those who think of citizenship as a matter of exclusion and privilege — of protecting the nation by keeping out those who are undesirable, and putting strict limits on who is allowed to exercise the full rights of citizenship. On the other are those who think of citizenship inclusively...
- By Peter Ladner
Just as spending on social housing for homeless people has been widely proven to be more cost-effective than leaving people on the streets, so too is spending on food being proven as a way to save costs. Healthy eating prevents chronic diseases among people of all ages, from pre-school children to...
We need to put our entire mind and heart into pursuing unity and unity now, to confront the other side and preserve life. Our planet can be renewed or ravaged. Now is the time to awaken and take action. Everyone is needed...
- By Sylvia Clute
We are so accustomed to the status quo that we think this is how it has to be. Old institutions are tenacious, and they have long tentacles rooted in history and in a multitude of choices made by our ancestors. Law, history, religion, science, and culture all play a role in keeping us entrenched in dysfunctional structures...
The world is going through a crisis. Although most governments have pledged themselves to help develop a peaceful, sustainable, and socially just world, it is almost as if humankind has been gripped by a collective death wish. Though this is a time of great danger, fortunately it is also a time of great opportunity. Today, we have the...
The struggle for our minds is about waking up to the great social and cultural change happening in our midst; pulling our minds away from distraction, ignorance, and old programming; and realizing the transitions that our physical and spiritual worlds are moving through. It is imperative that...
Back here on earth, the human comedy has been renewed for yet another season. Maybe 2012 will be the year a critical mass of the heretofore-uncritical masses wake up and hear the laugh track. That’s right, the laugh track. In these serious times when there’s definitely something funny going on, laughter is key. You laugh, and I say, “Fabulous. You’re off to a good start.”
Prostitution Among Medical Students? Things are starting to get out of hand when our youngsters have to turn to the "free market" to pay for their college education. Sex work among medical students is on the rise, claims a new editorial, published in the journal Student BMJ.
What should be done about prisoners? Should society lock them up and throw away the key? Or should we try to rehabilitate them (indeed, is it possible to do so)? Balancing the safety of society with the rights of prisoners is an old problem — and different solutions have been proposed. At this time, however...
- By George Lakey
While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of
democracy and economic justice.
It doesn’t take an expert to see that things are very wrong with the current legal status of cannabis. Our government says there is no accepted medical use for it, yet it holds a patent (#6630507) for medicinal use of cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants, and it distributes canisters of rolled joints to a few select patients in the...