Dear Common Dreams Readers:
Steven Singer
Steven Singer is a husband, father, teacher, blogger and education advocate. He often writes at his own blog here.
Articles by this author
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Views Friday, August 18, 2017 Surprised by Charlottesville? You Haven’t Been Paying Attention America is a funny place. On the one hand, we’re one of the first modern Democracies, a product of Enlightenment thinking and unabashed pluralism and cultural diversity. On the other, we’ve built our entire society on a cast system that is the basis of our economics, politics and cultural mores. We... Read more |
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Views Sunday, August 13, 2017 Dear White Supremacists: There Will Be No Race War This one goes out to all the white boys. No. Not ALL the white boys. Just the ones who think being “white” and being a “boy” means the world owes them something. "There will be no race war... Not now. Not ever." Cause I’m white, too, and I know it doesn’t make me any better than anyone else. But... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, August 01, 2017 I Am Not A Hero Teacher I’m sorry. I am not a hero teacher. I am not stronger than a locomotive. I cannot jump tall ignorance in a single bound. I am not faster than a tax-cutting zealot . Up in the air – it’s a bird, it’s a plane, but it’s certainly not a teacher because we can’t fly. I am not bullet proof. If a gunman... Read more |
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Views Monday, July 24, 2017 Middle School Suicides Double As Common Core Testing Intensifies Here’s a high stakes testing statistic you won’t hear bandied about on the news. The suicide rate among 10- to 14-year-olds doubled between 2007 and 2014 – the same period in which states have increasingly adopted Common Core standards and new, more rigorous high stakes tests. For the first time,... Read more |
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Views Sunday, July 09, 2017 More Truth in Teacher-Written Education Blogs Than Corporate Media Let’s get one thing straight right from the get go: I am biased. But so are you. So are the parents, students, principals and school directors. So are the policymakers, the corporate donors and professional journalists. "We need to be aware that corporate media is often going to take the side of... Read more |
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Views Thursday, June 29, 2017 Calling Total Bullshit on Allowing Guns in Schools Next school year, I may be able to bring my gun to class. The Pennsylvania state Senate voted 28-22 today to allow school employees like me to start packing heat. Hooray! My class sizes will be larger because of almost $1 billion in budget cuts the legislature couldn’t be bothered to heal over the... Read more |
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Views Sunday, June 18, 2017 Here’s an Idea: Guarantee Every Child an Excellent Education Let’s get one thing straight: there are plenty of things wrong with America’s school system. But they almost all stem from one major error. We don’t guarantee every child an excellent education. Instead, we strive to guarantee every child THE CHANCE at an excellent education . In other words, we’ll... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, May 23, 2017 Why Care About Other People’s Children As a vocal critic of charter and voucher schools , one of the most frequent questions I get from readers is this: “Why should I care about other people’s children?” One reader put it this way: “Why should my child’s education and safety have to suffer because of difficult and violent students? …it... Read more |
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Views Sunday, April 16, 2017 Dept of Ed Hires Anti-Civil Rights Crusader to Protect Student's Nonexistent Civil Rights Candice Jackson is a victim of oppression. When she was attending Stanford University in the mid-1990s, a minority calculus tutoring group refused to help her because she was white. Sure she could probably afford to pay for private tutoring, but it was the point of the thing. She came from a family... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 30, 2017 Newsflash! Betsy DeVos Opens Mouth. Nonsense Falls Out Betsy DeVos opened her mouth-hole this week and a load of crap fell out. And somehow that’s news! Our federal Education Secretary said Wednesday , "I'm not sure how [U.S. public schools] could get a lot worse on a nationwide basis than they are today." Let’s add that to the list of things she’s... Read more |