Patrick's blog

When an organization's bureaucracy has become calcified and disconnected from its members over the years, thanks to guaranteed revenue, removal of that guarantee can be a death sentence. Grassroots, direct democracy is like a muscle — when a union all of a sudden faces Right-to-Work, or when a student association has its dues frozen by administrators, we see that muscle has atrophied so much that the organizations often collapse under their own weight.

This is footage from the 2012 National Student Power Convergence, in Columbus, Ohio. I finally got around to offloading and editing it! Apologies for those I didn't get a chance to interview — our caravan had to leave the conference very unexpectedly earlier than we thought!

by Ray Glass:
"In this article I have outlined the problems with student governments, their failure to adequately represent and further the interests of students, the need to develop a new organizational form to serve this purpose, and some of the principles on which that new type of organization should be based. I have defined the problems according to Bundy's watershed theory because student governments have passed their second watershed..."

The Great Chicago Teacher's Strike of 2012, after one week, is over. Or as the business press put it, "finally" over. The way this strike ended must be considered a victory, at least these days.

Today, teachers across the Chicago Public Schools system are on strike. Just like last year's protests in Wisconsin weren't just about Wisconsin, teachers in Chicago are taking a stand for all teachers: the corporate assault on public education is taking place everywhere.

Now that the Democrats and Republicans have both released their 2012 party platforms, I took a look at each party's education planks (with stiff drink firmly in hand). Here's a bit of preliminary analysis.

Below is, for your reference, the education planks of the Democratic and Republican Party Platforms for 2012 and 2008. Read at your own peril.

I've been in Columbus, Ohio, at the National Student Power Convergence since Friday afternoon. (My trip started with a van full of organizers trekking out from Boston for an epic 14-hour drive.)

I recently sat down with The Daily Agenda to chat about student loan debt and how it relates to larger activist movements on- and off-campus.