– George Schmidt publishes Substance News.

It’s actually worse about the 2012 strike. SEIU members were told by their union they had to cross CTU picket lines. As you remember, CPS opened more than 100 schools, claiming that the children would starve if the schools were not opened. After the first day of the strike, most of the kids refused to cross the picket lines, and instead joined their teachers outside on the lines that were set up at the various schools where CPS told people to go. On the first day of the strike, my sons (Sam and Josh) joined their teachers on the picket line at O.A. Thorp on the northwest side. By the strike’s second day, Thorp was shut down completely and pickets were gathering at the scab schools CPS had announced.

The main result of the position taken by Christine Boardman and the Local 73 leadership…

Ciao, Maya.

(Maya Angelou, 1928-2014)

John Ewing wrote a brilliant article called “Mathematical Intimidation.” If you haven’t read it, please do. It demolishes VAM. He calls on mathematicians to speak out. And at Brown, we read here, he spoke out:

“John Ewing, Executive Director of the American Mathematical Society and President of Math for America, was the speaker at a Brown commencement forum today. He spoke to a packed audience on the question, “Is There an Education Crisis?” Since it’s unlikely that the media was there for this one, here’s a synopsis for those following the public education debate:

“Ewing briefly described the various reports going back to 1958 that proclaimed the so-called crisis, and listed the forces that benefit from keeping it “in the forefront of the news”: politicians; the education/industrial complex; and that aspect of the American character that likes a crisis because a crisis “demands action and demands it now.”