Today is Malala Day: She Speaks at the UN on Education for All
Malala Yousafzai, the girl who fought for education in Pakistan made famous by her diaries on BBC, spoke at the UN today less than a year after she was shot in the head by members of the Taliban. Her voice didn’t waver, it was strong and clear. Today is now Malala Day – it’s her 16th Birthday. [Friendly warning: I’m a grown man and I openly wept for 16 straight minutes while watching this… and am tearing up as I type this blog… you might want to schedule in some time to listen to it and really deal with it….
The Anti-Public Education Agenda Comes to Alaska…
…And Hardly Anybody Knows It Many of us have heard the stories: new Republican Governors and Tea Party majorities in state legislatures across the country have been targeting public employees and their salaries, pensions, health benefits, etc… Along with this, there has been a major push at another budget-cut target — public school systems. Public Education faces massive cuts in Texas ($4 bil), huge cuts in Wisconsin ($900 mil), more cuts in North Carolina, budget cuts and a removal of the school districts’ tax authority in Pennsylvania (inhibiting individual districts from raising property taxes), and a governor-declared “financial emergency” in…