And Oakland Council member Lynette McElhaney will discuss Oakland’s path-breaking action to hire a local, less expensive trash company in preference to the usual $22 billion mega-corporation. Why did it happen? What difference does it make for the environment and youth employment? Why has it created such intense debate?

Listen to the last show here-

Friday, August 22, at 2;30 Kitty talks about  major developments in the national teachers union which has elected an activist president and come out strongly against standardized testing.

 She will also talk with teachers an students who are struggling to prevent their school from falling victim to gentrification.

On Friday, July 11 at 2:30 Kitty interviews Dr. Lora Lempert about a program which brings together college students and incarcerated individuals behind prison walls to study a variety of college subjects, including incarceration itself.

The program has spread to 30 states and several countries. Dr. Lempert provides little-known information about incarceration and education and includes the process by which other institutions can create a local program like this one..  Please tune it online at http://www.kpfa.org or on the radio dial at 94.1 FM

On June 27, Kitty interviews Yale Economist John Roemer about his work on climate change.

He and his colleagues have reached conclusions about the global negotiations that would be necessary to reduce carbon emissions sufficiently to avoid human catastrophe.

This Friday, June 13 Kitty will interview the newly elected President of the 35,000 member  Los Angeles teachers union, Alex Caputo-Pearl.   Alex opposes standardized testing and believes the teachers union needs a strong alliance with communities.

Check out an earlier interview with Pearl at: http://tcla.gseis.ucla.edu/rights/features/5/cej/caputo_pearl.html

On April 11, 2014  at 2:30PM  Kitty interviews author Alfie Kohn about his new book, The Myth of the Spoiled Child:  Challenging the Conventional Wisdom about Childhood and Parenting.

 Find out what he means by our “conservative thinking” and why he advocates “raising rebels.”

Kitty will also be speaking with Muntu Davis, MD at the Alameda County Public Health Department about the report on gentrification in Oakland which his department recently produced in collaboration with Just Cause/Causa Justa.  How does displacement ruin the health of communities of color and what policies need to be changed?

On February 28, Kitty interviews educational leader,

Augustine Remero about “Barrio Pedagogy” and a Berkeley High teacher about the overrepresentation of African-American teachers and older women among those being sent through disciplinary procedures in that district.

You can listen on the radio dial at 94.1 FM or online at http://www.kpfa.org

In the most recent segment of Education Today Kitty is in a wide-ranging  conversation with Tamara Turner, Chief Academic Officer of an exceptional K-12 publicly funded school

serving Latino and African-American students. Listen to the show here: https://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/98496

In this show November 2013 Kitty begins with a question about the legitimacy of “competency-based” to define and prescribe every educational experience.  She then interviews three teachers about their pedagogy, including Bay Area teachers, Jason Edwards and Dante Bush and Miguel Zavala, professor at California State University, Fullerton. Listen to the show here https://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/96948

IMPORTANT READING

On the October 25 show, Kitty interviewed the principal of Berkeley High and a professor much influenced by ethnic studies about  the situation with African-American studies, ethnic studies and lack of teacher diversity. Kitty will be checking back on progress in a couple of months.  She also interviewed an African-American parent, Michele  who home schools her children about the reason for this choice and some resources she uses.

Howard University Professor Ivory Toldson speaks on the damage of testing to African American children

PROF. IVORY TOLDSON

Check out this opinion piece by Howard University professor Ivory Toldson regarding the damage done by the way African-American children are tested:

 http://www.theroot.com/views/reading-proficiency?page=0,1&wpisrc=root_lightbox

Here are a couple other great resources.  First is a discussion hosted by Khalil Shadeed with Prof. Ivory Toldson and  Mr. Charles Gibbs on the topic of African-American academic success

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jEt8vL2sig

Second is a report Prof. Toldson took part in titled Breaking Barriers

Plotting the Path Away from Juvenile Detention and Toward
Academic Success for School-age African American Males

Breaking Barriers report

AFRICAN AMERICAN HOMESCHOOLING

Here are a few resources giving some insight into African-American’s choosing homeschooling for their children.

First is a very interesting article:

http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/10/07/rise-black-parents-homeschooling-children-producing-many-benefits/

This is a news report about why African-American parents are choosing homeschooling.  It also gives a look at some different home schools and talks with both parents and teachers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pnBqyBnPWA

This is hop hop artist M1 of the group Dead Prez speaking about his own experience of home schooling his children.  He talks about what some of the challenges have been and what its like in comparison to what the experience was like for his children both in public school and alternative schools.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4SALsvYOkY

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On November 8, Kitty will be discussing controversies in higher education with her guests.

Here is an example of the some real-life controversies from the point of view of a college student.

Dissident Poetry: The Classroom

Posted on March 27, 2013 by pipeditor

This month’s schedule for my radio show, Education Today, on KPFA 94.1 FM. The program airs at 2:30 p.m. (Pacific); 5:30 (Eastern) on the second and fourth Fridays of the month. It can also be heard by logging onto the KPFA FM web site and listening to it on-line @ www.kpfa.org.

1. Friday, July 12, 2013, Interview with educators Michelle Fine (author of “Framing Dropouts”)

and Regina Tuma, (parent, professor and expert on social media,)

on the struggles to keep their progressive, desegregated school district in New Jersey from being overrun by over-testing.

2. Friday, July 26 (2:30 Pacific time) I interview Susan Ohanian,

a critic of the Common Core standards, and Kate Walsh,

president of the National Commission on Teacher Quality, who says that entering the teaching profession is too much of an “open-door.” Then I talk with a local community member, Julia Ibarra, about whether entering the field has been an “open door” for her and about her work to recruit other Latinas to teaching.