Link to: CSPAN BookTV Program 1291

The event is at Busboys & Poets,
14th & V streets, NW, Washington, DC

The online video will then be archived on
the CSPAN BookTV website for future viewing.

Three Engagements:

Wednesday Feb. 2nd @ The Worker’s Center, Liberty City, FL more info
Thursday Feb. 3rd @ Books & Books, Coral Gables, FL more info
Friday Feb. 4th @ Florida International University College of Law, Miami, FL more info

John Doar, head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division during the Sixties, and his fellow civil rights legend, Dr. Robert P. Moses, MacArthur Genius Fellow and president of the Algebra Project, will discuss the historical context for exploring the U.S. Constitution as a document to ensure quality public school education for all.

Youth from the Young People’s Project, former Miami Edison H.S. students, will also dialogue with the audience.

Dr. Moses will sign his new book. All royalties are donated to the Young People’s Project.

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/328/index.html#algebra

Look for “Class Act,” and go to “Program Resources” to the right of the blurb about the show, with links to “video,” “stream, download, podcast” and choose depending on your web browser (you might try clicking on “video” first…)

We would like to thank the producer, Khadijah White; and our partner organization, the Center for Urban Education & Innovation at Florida International University’s College of Education for arranging and welcoming the PBS Now team to film on campus.

Find out about Ruafika Cobb who founded the Algebra Academy, a Saturday program that teaches 15 minority students from the Asheville Middle School. Her work, and others in the Asheville, North Carolina community, is raising the bar for public school math education.

You can read more about the event at the Asheville Citizen-Times.

Wednesday, March 19 to Thursday, March 20

www.edliberation.org/talkin-bout

Talkin’ bout is an online discussion series that brings together educators, activists and youth to participate in a public conversation on the network website about timely and important topics in liberatory education. From Wednesday, March 19 to Thursday, March 20 a panel that includes Algebra Project founder Bob Moses and RadicalMath.org founder Jonathan Osler will answer questions posted to an online discussion board about math and social justice. The conversation will take place on the website of the Education for Liberation Network.

talkin ’bout.math and social justice is linked to the upcoming national conference, Creating Balance in an Unjust World. Creating Balance provides a unique space in which educators can come together to explore questions, challenges, and opportunities to work for social and economic justice through mathematics and math education. This conference is sponsored by Radical Math and Long Island University.

The panelists are:

* Bob Moses, Founder and President of the Algebra Project

Author of Radical Equations and former Civil Rights Movement organizer.

* Jonathan Osler, who taught math at El Puente Academy for Peace & Justice for six years and is currently a math coach in Los Angeles. He is the founder of RadicalMath.org and an organizer of the Creating Balance in an Unjust World conference on math & social justice.

* Darnisha Hill, a junior at the Greater Lawndale/Little Village School for Social Justice in Chicago and a member of the school’s “mathematics for social justice” team. As part of the team, Darnisha participated in five regional and national conferences to present their work and research.

* Patricia Buenrostro, who has taught high school mathematics for 10 years in Chicago. Currently she is pursuing a PhD at the University of Illinois at Chicago in Curriculum. Her research interests are math and social justice, community engagement in schools, and teacher professional development in mathematics reform.

* Saara Nafici, Projects Coordinator for the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project in New York. She provides technical support to community groups, collaborates on GIS mapping projects, engages in coalition organizing and organizes the annual Community Reinvestment Workshop Series.

Also available on the website are samples of social justice math lesion plans.

The network invites all those interested in this important issue to post their own questions and comments for the panelists and for each other. Anyone can read the discussion without registering. To post, first you must register to use the site.

We hope this will be an enlightening and lively digital conversation.

The Education for Liberation Network is a national coalition of teachers, community activists, youth, researchers and parents who believe a good education should teach people-particularly low-income youth and youth of color-to understand and challenge the injustices their communities face.

For more information contact Tara Mack, Director, Education for Liberation Network at tara@edliberation.org.

DOWNLOAD RFP

RFP Deadlines: 

Abstract:  APRIL  28

Full Proposal: MAY 5

General registration will open shortly – please visit this page for updates.

From hunger striker supporters: Please read to get a full understanding of what you can do and why the students are striking. The amount of money is SMALL — .005 of the city budget and the students are just asking for the one year INTEREST on the rainy day fund. Sun Op-Ed at the bottom plus links to other media coverage. If you have friends and family in other states, please forward. They can help also!

Dear friends,

Why the Mayor thinks of the hunger striking students as adversaries is a mystery. They’re the solution, not the problem.

The hunger strikers are entering the third day, and are healthy–examined daily by a physician, spirited, but physically tired, of course. They have been consuming only juice and water since Friday. Great media yesterday on TV and in the paper publicizing the demand for $3 million for youth jobs in the knowledge-based economy. But we need much more.

Mayor Dixon refuses even to schedule a meeting with the young people. On the news she says she already has budgeted $14 million for youth programs. That is less than .005 of the city budget–less than half of one percent.

Students and Peer-to-Peer Youth Enterprises are asking for only the interest on the rainy day fund, Councilman Bill Henry’s excellent idea–not a penny from any other program, not even a penny from the rainy day fund, but only the interest.

Call Mayor Dixon today at 410-396-3100 or 410-396-3836
Email her at mayor@baltimorecity.gov

The students have recommended this script for supporters:

Hello, my name is……and I live in…….. I want to leave a message for the Mayor. I heard that Baltimore City students are on a hunger strike and I think that is outrageous. I am calling to urge the Mayor to fully fund Peer 2 Peer Youth Enterprises to create knowledge-based jobs for youth who might otherwise turn to street crime and violence to support themselves and their families. We must invest in our youth because they are the future of our city! Thank you very much, I will be seeing you at Mayor’s Night In on Monday.

Students are asking you to:

1. Call Mayor Dixon

2. Come to Mayor’s Night In, Monday, 6 PM, War Memorial–(or march with students from Pratt and Light at 5)

3. Donate money/supplies (water, juice, cups, vegetables & fruit for juice,) (call Jay at 443-248-9032)

4. Come to our rallies & bring your friends (next rally: Pratt and Light , Monday, 4:30)

5. Sign our petition

Talking points:

The young people on hunger strike are the solution, not the problem.

Peer-to-peer youth are:

• engaged, not apathetic
• educated, not ignorant
• committed, not distracted
• creative, not destructive
  
• peace-loving, not violent
• hard-working, not lazy
  
• united, not divided.

They’re the solution.

What’s the problem?

Call Mayor Dixon today at the main switchboard 410-396-3835 or if you can’t get through, (410) 396-3100.

E-Mail her at mayor@baltimorecity.gov

Read Bryant Muldrew’s outstanding letter to the Sun below:

Fasting to give city kids a chance

May 31, 2008

I’ve lived long enough to watch my city descend through some levels of the underworld. I ask: Who will stand up to fix the problems of my Baltimore?

We students in a coalition called Peer-to-Peer Enterprises are aware of the injustices city youths face.

Peer-to-Peer organizations employ older youths to teach their younger peers skills and knowledge.

In the past few years these organizations have employed hundreds of youths, helped increase test scores, kept young away people from violence and drugs and established “families” outside the home.

These programs should be expanded and need sustained investment to grow their accomplishments.

The Peer-to-Peer coalition has requested $3 million from the city’s budget to create an additional 700 to 1,000 jobs and provide services to thousands more peers.

The funds would allow youths to participate actively in a knowledge-based economy. Peers help peers learn all kinds of things: public speaking and debate, algebra, theater and playwriting, drumming and dance, video production and much more. These technical skills help students plan successful futures.

The City Council unanimously approved a resolution in March requesting that the mayor include this $3 million in the city’s budget. But Mayor Sheila Dixon has refused the council’s request.

The City Council recently missed an opportunity to do something to help us by refusing to fund Peer-to-Peer Enterprises with the interest on the city’s rainy day fund (“Youth fund boost denied,” May 29).

The interest this year will be approximately $3.5 million on a total fund of $88 million.

We don’t understand why an investment in our youth can’t be made from the interest on money that isn’t even being used. In effect, we’re just asking for the loose change under the cushions in the sofa.

Why would the City Council unanimously pass a resolution in March but then tell us in May that we aren’t worth a little interest?

Having exhausted all other courses of action, we have decided that participating in a hunger strike is a way to take action against injustice.

We dedicate our bodies in solidarity with our peers. Educationally, we’re starving already. We choose now to represent voluntarily what’s already happening to us against our will.

We would love to eat of the fruits of knowledge-based jobs and quality education. But our city, not our peers, keeps us hungry.

Bryant Muldrew

Baltimore

The writer is a student at Baltimore City Community College who works for one of the Peer-to-Peer Enterprises groups and is one of the hunger strikers demanding city funding for the Peer-to-Peer program.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bal-md.protest31may31,0,4785526.story

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/letters/bal-ed.le.hungerstrike31may31,0,2792000.story

http://wjz.com/video/?id=39447@wjz.dayport.com

http://indyreader.org/node/129

*******

UPDATE AS OF TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 2008:

From: Betty G. Robinson <bgrobinson@verizon.net>
Subject: Hunger Strikers advance a step
Date: Tuesday, June 3, 2008

From the Hunger Striker Support Team:

Responding to hundreds of emails, phone calls, and protestors, Mayor Sheila Dixon offered yesterday to meet with students on Wednesday, inviting “compromise”

PLEASE CONTINUE TO CALL AND EMAIL THE MAYOR–Ask her to fund peer-to-peer enterprises with $3 million.
410-396-3835 (mayor’s office) or 410-396-3100 (main switchboard)
mayor@baltimorecity.gov

In a television interview, Dixon said, “Mayor Dixon said: ‘I’m going to meet with them, but they’ve got to be ready to compromise. We don’t have three million dollars.” Since the mayor had previously refused to schedule a meeting, we consider the openness to meeting and compromise a positive sign. (http://wjz.com/video/?id=39543@wjz.dayport.com). The mayor did not hint, however, at what kind of compromise she might offer.

Students from Peer-to-Peer Youth Enterprises and adult supporters packed the event with about 200 participants. Many were prevented from entering the assembly room by police claiming overcrowding. One student described the occasion as “not Mayor’s Night In, but Peer-to-Peer’s Night Out)

The hunger strikers felt tremendously supported, and later described their sense of power at being able to completely control a public meeting with their message. We will be putting portions of the video on the peer-to-peer website later this week (some today, hopefully) http://p2pyouthenterprises.org/ at the “media” tab.

Today (Tuesday), strikers and the student planning team will be caucusing to determine a negotiating strategy for Wednesday.

THERE WILL BE NO RALLY TUESDAY (June 3, 2008). We will keep you informed.

We have heard that the story has gone national. If anyone sees it, hears it or reads it, please send links!

For more information, please contact: Chris Goodman, Tel. 443.957.5346, E-mail: chris_byc@yahoo.com