Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Sunday, February 5th, 2012
The Change.org people have been touting a Nicholas Kristof piece about successful petition drives on their site. His first example is of a petition by a fourth grade class, looking for changes in how a movie (of a Dr. Seuss book) is promoted - "Don't lose the environmental message!" A ...
Posted in Education, Political activism, Society and culture | Comments Off on Unless…
Saturday, January 28th, 2012
In Knight, we also have someone who pays college coaches a fortune so “student-athletes” can wear and by extension advertise their products. We have someone who ploughs millions to the University of Oregon football program funding state-of-the-art equipment and facilities, while the school endures terrible cuts. We have someone who ...
Posted in Education, Society and culture | Comments Off on Why Phil Knight’s eulogy of Paterno was so problematic
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
Two different suggestions today from Labour politicians about appropriate ways to mark Bloomsday. Joe Costello notes that Ireland has one of the lowest numbers of public holidays in Europe (9 per year, only exceeding the 8 of England and Wales) and suggests that making the day a holiday could provide ...
Posted in Education, Income and poverty, Labour issues, Society and culture | 1 Comment »
Friday, November 26th, 2010
The Irish educational system has some strange features. One is that while school staff have their wages and conditions set - and paid for - by the Department of Education - they are not viewed, in law, as employees of the Department. Historically this has been used as a fudge ...
Posted in Education, Income and poverty, Labour issues | Comments Off on More DoE hypocrisy
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
In a successful 2-day strike - the first by a union local at the University of Illinois in 10-years, and one of the largest in the history of graduate unions in the US - the GEO has secured a commitment to retain tuition waivers for graduate employees. The University had ...
Posted in Education, Income and poverty, Labour issues, Political activism | Comments Off on GEO wins tuition waiver security! Pickets suspended!
Monday, November 9th, 2009
This Thursday, the University of Illinois Board of Trustees will meet in Springfield. Members of the GEO will be there to remind them of the urgency of reaching agreement on a fair contract. You may not be able to be in Springfield, but you can play your part in persuading ...
Posted in Education, Labour issues, Political activism | Comments Off on Call to action: Call the U of I this Wednesday, and support graduate employees
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
The Irish Times aren't generally known for coherent or incisive editorials, but their reaction to the Ryan report makes for sobering reading:
We have to call this kind of abuse by its proper name – torture. We must also call the organised exploitation of unpaid child labour – young girls placed ...
Posted in Citizenship, migration, race, and ethnicity, Education, Prisons and crime, Society and culture | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
Amidst a BBC report on Roma migration in Europe is this note on education policy in Hungary, which :
In Hungary, an earlier policy to give money to schools for the mentally disabled, to which a disproportionate number of Roma were sent, was abandoned when it was realised that it encouraged ...
Posted in Citizenship, migration, race, and ethnicity, Education, Society and culture | Comments Off on This is integration
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008
I'm not heading to the NCA meeting myself, but some friends have been asking about ways to make it easier to find sessions of interest. I therefore offer this entry as a way for people to note and track such sessions. I hope that many of my ICR/U Illinois colleagues ...
Posted in Education, Meta | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
A number of items today, from a range of sources.
First, the picture to the left is of Labour TD Joe Costello, who for the last 5 years has run a weekly protest outside the Mater hospital, calling for better healthcare.
Second, potentially good news for grad employees in private universities in ...
Posted in Citizenship, migration, race, and ethnicity, Education, Income and poverty, International Affairs, Labour issues, Political activism, Society and culture | Comments Off on Activism compendium