Education

By Breanna Small and Bill Van Esveld | ( Human Rights Watch ) – June 30 was possibly the most important day of 2020 for Syrian refugee children. At the annual pledging conference for the “Future of Syria and the Region,” dozens of governments and multilateral donors pledged US$7.7 billion in humanitarian aid for Syrian […]

Donald Trump

For Trump, Schools are just a Pawn: He wants the Parents back at work for his Reelection Campaign

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump is insisting that schools must open normally in the fall or he will cut their funding. About 10 percent of US K-12 education funding comes from the Federal government but most of it is paid for by local taxes. The Federal portion is allotted by Congress and Trump doesn’t […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s Plan to Expel Int’l University Students will Further Slash Economy, Hurt US Innovation, and Cost Jobs

The Conversation

By David L. Di Maria | – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, made a decision on July 6 regarding international students in the U.S. that will affect far more than just the roughly 870,000 international students themselves. Based on what I know about the power and influence of higher education in the U.S., […]

Education

Neoliberalism starved our Classrooms of Resources for 50 Years, and then Covid-19 Budget Cuts Hit

Tomdispatch

By Belle Chesler | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Do you hear that silence? That’s the absence of footsteps echoing through our nation’s public school hallways. It’s the silence of teaching in a virtual space populated with students on mute who lack a physical presence. It’s the crushing silence of those who are now missing, who […]

Israel Lobbies

Is Sympathy for the Plight of Occupied Palestinians winning the American University?

Al-Shabaka

By Hatem Bazian | – ( Al Shabakah) – Palestine Legal recently published a report noting that the majority of suppression of Palestine advocacy in the US targets students and faculty. In particular, 89% of such incidents occurred on college campuses in 2014, and 74% in 2019. While these statistics illuminate the current struggle that […]

Donald Trump

Why America’s anti-Science and Anti-Intellectual Attitudes doom it to Coronavirus “Pearl Harbor”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The surgeon general, Jerome Adams, has announced that the coming week will see enormous numbers of coronavirus deaths and hospitalizations, calling it this generation’s “Pearl Harbor.” But while Pearl Harbor was a plot of far right wing Japanese generals to get the US fleet out of the way so they […]

Education

Teachers with Macs: How to Film yourself Narrating your Powerpoint Presentation and Post it for Your Class

Juan Cole

Update: The Macs don’t have a built in sound system that will work with the screen recording function in Quicktime, so it may be necessary to download Soundflower or the equivalent to make the below instructions work. If you still have trouble, I have found that Screenflick for Mac also works. You can just tell […]

Bill of Rights

From Stoning Gays to Endorsing Slavery: The Problem with Bible Classes in State Schools

James A. Haught

(Syndicated to Informed Comment) – Here in Appalachia’s Bible Belt, conservatives in the Legislature want to force all West Virginia public high schools to teach Bible classes, as occurs in several other Republican-controlled states. I wonder how such classes handle Bible topics like these: First, the Bible decrees that gay males must be killed. Leviticus […]

Education

With College Students Drowning in Debt, the Best Solution is Gov’t-Backed Free Tuition for All

John Buell

(Special to Informed Comment) – Some developments in this campaign have been predictable. Once Senators Sanders and Warren had expressed support for free post secondary education it was inevitable that other candidates would have to jump in. College costs have grown rapidly in recent years and the jobs that colleges promise—when available at all—have failed […]