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by Mercedes Olivera

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Ending poverty, not adding tests, is solution to school woes
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Mercedes Olivera

oliveramercedes@ymail.com

Published: 17 February 2012 10:13 PM

Tests, tests and more tests won’t fix the problems with our nation’s schools.

More funding would certainly help in an era of widespread state budget deficits.

But the real problem, says Stephen Krashen, is poverty.

That’s the message the linguistics and education scholar gave to bilingual educators at the annual conference of the National Association for Bilingual Education. About 3,000 educators attended the event in Dallas this week.

Krashen has a point.

It’s become almost axiomatic these days to talk about America’s educational system as “broken.” U.S. students do poorly on tests when compared with those in other countries, especially in math and science.

But recent studies also reveal that U.S. students from middle-class families and well-funded schools outscore students in nearly all other countries.

New Dynasty Will be holding a /performance-mini concert on Feb 24,2012 at the UCIMC 202 S. Broadway Suite 100, Downtown Urbana old postoffice.From (9pm-11pm)
Fees @door $5.00 without student Id,and $3.00 with student Id,They will be singing the hit track (The Gift)
please come out and help support the talent group.thank you................For more infor contact Cece at 217-418-3998 or Ron at 217-418-2505 we also book all partys.

Act to Halt Approval of Agent Orange Resistant Corn

https://www.facebook.com/events/243792879036961/

This is a Facebook event - but please print this out and distribute widely. Public comments can be posted with the USDA until February 27. Please act now. The link for public comments is -

http://www.regulations.gov/#%21searchResults;rpp=10;po=0;s=APHIS-2010-0103

As part of Urbana Public Television’s day-long salute to the legacy of Dr. King on Monday, January 16th, there will be several opportunities to view this year’s Champaign Countywide Celebration (held 1/13/12). The program will air Monday at midnight and again at 8:01 am, 2 pm, 5pm, 8 pm and 11 pm on UPTV (Comcast Channel 6 / ATT U-Verse Channel 99).

Other programs of related interest will also be seen throughout the day on UPTV, including documentaries on Dr. King and the civil rights movement, and archival broadcasts of past Countywide Celebrations from recent years.

UPTV is the television service of the City of Urbana, providing governmental, educational and public access television to, and by, the local community. It is available on Comcast Channel 6 to over 40,000 homes in Urbana, Champaign, Savoy, Bondville, Philo, Ogden and St. Joseph, as well as in Springfield, Decatur and Danville on ATT U-Verse Channel 99. The complete program schedule is at www.urbanaillinois.us/uptv. Membership is free and entitles volunteers to free video and editing training and equipment use. For more information, contact UPTV at 217-384-2452 or at uptv@urbanaillinois.us.

This week Urbana Public Television presents this lecture by food systems analyst Ken Meter. It airs Tuesday 1/10 @ 7:30 pm, Wednesday 1/11 @ 4:00 pm, and Saturday 1/14 @ 7:30 pm.

Ken Meter is president of the Crossroads Resource Center in Minnesota, a non-profit organization working with communities and their allies to foster democracy and local self-determination. His work integrates market analysis, business development, systems thinking, and social concerns. Mr. Meter's lecture was sponsored by Urbana's Common Ground Food Co-op, and was recorded there by UPTV in September of 2011.

UPTV is the television service of the City of Urbana, providing governmental, educational and public access television for, and by, the local community. It is available on Comcast Channel 6 to over 40,000 homes in Urbana, Champaign, Savoy, Bondville, Philo, Ogden and St. Joseph, as well as in Springfield, Decatur and Danville on ATT U-Verse Channel 99. The complete program schedule is at www.urbanaillinois.us/uptv. Membership is free and entitles volunteers to free video and editing training and equipment use. For more information, contact UPTV at 217-384-2452 or at uptv@urbanaillinois.us.

Please join us this Friday, January 6th at the Champaign Public Library, Room C, Robeson Pavilion, from 6 to 9 p.m. for the first meeting of 2012!
This meeting is open to the public and all are welcome. Come and see what Occupy is all about!

For more information see also:
https://www.facebook.com/events/299796190056209/?context=create

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 4, 2011
10:37 AM

CONTACT: ACLU

Sandhya Bathija (202) 675-2312; media@dcaclu.org

ACLU Urges House Judiciary Committee to Consider the End Racial Profiling Act
Discrimination in Law Enforcement Must End

WASHINGTON - November 4 - Racial profiling is something many Americans deal with on a regular basis that Congress should end by passing the End Racial Profiling Act. The House Judiciary Committee is hearing testimony today as a first step in that process.

“Before there was even a name for it, racial profiling has been engrained in our country’s law enforcement practices,” said Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “But racial profiling not only goes against our Constitution and our country’s value for equality – it also hinders law enforcement officials from doing their job.”

by Barbara, Ehrenreich

As anyone knows who has ever had to set up a military encampment or build a village from the ground up, occupations pose staggering logistical problems. Large numbers of people must be fed and kept reasonably warm and dry. Trash has to be removed; medical care and rudimentary security provided -- to which ends a dozen or more committees may toil night and day. But for the individual occupier, one problem often overshadows everything else, including job loss, the destruction of the middle class, and the reign of the 1%. And that is the single question: Where am I going to pee?