Bill Ayers

A Jailbreak of the Imagination

The capacity to see the world as if it could be otherwise unleashes yearning and liberates desire—we are freed (or condemned) to run riot. Our lively imaginations can be rowdy, and can tend toward disruption and subversion—opening up alternatives always calls the status quo into question. Suddenly the taken-for-granted becomes a choice and not an echo, an option and no longer a habit or a life (death) sentence. The seeds of discontent are sown. I’m delighted to be joined today by adrienne maree brown, women’s rights activist and black feminist based in Detroit. adrienne is the author of Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, and an editor of the Octavia Butler Strategic Reader, and  Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements.

Sometimes we ask, What can one person do? The first step is to stop being one person. Move away from “me,” and take steps toward creating a “we.” From one to two, from two to three, step-by-step toward an irresistible movement for justice and peace, powered by love—the organizer’s credo. We’re honored to be joined by Mariame Kaba, educator and legendary abolitionist organizer who’s been building social movements for racial, gender and transformative justice for years. The founder of Project Nia, author of Prison Culture, the popular blog that shines a bright light into the carceral state and the punishment bureaucracy, her recently released book, We Do This ’Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, is a powerful guide to justice organizing and abolitionist politics.

Every Person is a Philosopher/Every Day Another StoryThe stories people tell and share can become powerful tools against propaganda, political dogma, and all manner of impositions and stereotypes. Seeking honesty and authenticity in stories means oral historians become attuned, to contradiction—to disagreements, silences, negation, denials, inconsistencies, confusion, challenges, turmoil, puzzlement, commotion, ambiguities, paradoxes, disputes, and uncertainty. Oral historians (like teachers) dive head-first into every kind of muddle, the wide, wild world of human experience. We’re profoundly pleased to be joined in dialogue with Adam Bush, activist and organizer, oral historian and teacher extraordinaire, co-founder and provost of an innovative college that works both inside and outside carceral spaces to ensure that all adult learners are valued as scholar-practitioners and have a pathway to a degree.

Let me put it in caps, the typed equivalent of shouting from the rooftop, to make things perfectly clear: REQUIRING TESTS THIS SPRING WOULD BE CHILD ABUSE! Because this school year has been unpredictable, abnormal, and inconsistent, why would anyone expect anything but skewed (screwed up) data from mandatory tests, particularly because students who have been ‘remotely schooled’ all year do not have to take the tests, and no one is clear yet about how the tests would be administered to students now attending remotely? It’s a disaster waiting to happen, and anyone who cares about children should be demanding that the tests be cancelled.

When running for the Democratic nomination, candidate Biden told an audience of teachers in Pittsburgh that he was strongly opposed to mandated high-stakes testing. I was there and heard his pledge.

But in February of this year, President Biden’s Education Department said that states must give the tests mandated by ESSA, the Every Student Succeeds Act, although the proclamation allowed states to request waivers and created some loopholes. Since that surprise announcement, many activists have been pressuring the Biden Administration to reverse the decision–and to keep his promise. No luck so far!!

Covid-19 revealed the depths of the inequalities in our society, including in public education, and we don’t need bubble tests to prove the point. You can find thoughtful discussions here and here.

The education historian turned activist Diane Ravitch summarized the problems with ever giving these machine-scored, multiple-choice bubble tests, whose scores, by the way, largely reflect the test-taker’s zip code, family income, and parental education :

“The tests are administered to students annually in March and early April. Teachers are usually not allowed to see the questions. The test results are returned to the schools in August or September. The students have different teachers by then. Their new teachers see their students’ scores but they are not allowed to know which questions the students got right or wrong. … This would be like going to a doctor with a pain in your stomach. The doctor gives you a battery of tests and says she will have the results in six months. When the results are reported, the doctor tells you that you are in the 45th percentile compared to others with a similar pain, but she doesn’t prescribe any medication because the test doesn’t say what caused your pain or where it is situated.“

I gave this post the title “Cancel The F**king Tests!”, but in case that doesn’t happen, I hope (SHOUTING NOW) that parents and their children will “BOYCOTT THE F**KING TESTS!”

Here’s a useful guide from FairTest on how to boycott them.  

Please share your thoughts on the blog at this link: https://themerrowreport.com/2021/03/18/cancel-the-fking-tests/  

ThanksJohn Merrow

EPISODE # 25: To Be Truly Free!

We dive once more into the wreckage, and swim as hard as we can toward a distant and hazy horizon—a place of hope and possibility. To begin Malik Alim offers another installment in his growing Freedom Chronicle, and lifts up a remarkable Chicago moment when activist organizers built Freedom Square, a brave space brought to life in the spirit of love and abundance. We are then delighted to invite Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law to join us Under the Tree. Abolitionists and freedom fighters, co-authors of a remarkable and essential text, Prison By Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms, Maya and Vickie take us on a complex and jagged journey to the far edges of the carceral state, and offer abolitionist alternatives that are within our reach right now.

When somebody comes into the pharmacy to buy medicines…they’re looking for some kind of order, since every complaint is chaotic. In a pharmacy numbers and arithmetic take on once again the no-nonsense neatness they had on blackboard at school.

How many capsules each dose? How many doses per day? During a meal?…During how many days? The answers are remunerated several times and written…on the packet…I ear people repeating figures to themselves as they go out: two on waking, three during the midday meal, two before bed, repeating them as if they were a telephone number, for like this…the silence of the unpredictable is kept at bay.

From A to X, John Berger, p 81, London, 2008 Verso

On March 8 people around the world celebrate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women, and recommit to the struggles for gender equality, reproductive rights, and an end to violence against women.
International Women’s Day leapt from the labor movements in the early 20th century—the earliest version was organized by the Socialist Party in New York City in 1909. After women gained the vote in the Soviet Union in 1917, International Women’s Day was made a national holiday, and March 8 was celebrated as Women’s Day by the socialist movements and communist countries from then on. The holiday was adopted by the United Nations in 197

24) What Counts?

What counts? And who’s counting? For what purpose, and toward what social end? Some years ago the Business Roundtable and their Education and Workforce Taskforce issued an influential challenge: “You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” it instructed. “No executive can run a business without accurate, granular data that explains what’s working and what’s not. Our school system should be no different.” And yet, any third grade teacher will tell you that each child is unique—the one of one. Mention that to the Business Roundtable and they’ll tell you that teachers can’t be trusted because they’re just spouting “anecdotal evidence” when what’s demanded is granular data. We’re joined today by  Dr. Rochelle Gutiérrez, a professor of mathematics education and Latino and Latina studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who will lead us on a journey into the contested question: What counts?

A day for remembering our lost Loved Ones.
Fifty-one years ago today, on March 6, 1970, three dear comrades died in an accidental explosion in Greenwich Village, NY. Diana Oughton, Terry Robbins Ted Gold—we love you all, we miss you so, we celebrate your lives, and we mourn our loss.
Each was committed to standing up and fighting against imperialism and the US invasion and occupation of Vietnam, to stopping the genocidal assault; committed, as well, to standing arm-in-arm, shoulder-to-shoulder with the Black Freedom Movement, and committed to a future fit for all.
Diana, Terry, Teddy—Live Like Them!

March 5th 2021 marks the 150th anniversary of Rosa Luxemburg’s birth. A Polish-born Jewish revolutionary, she was one of the greatest minds of the socialist movement.