Starting Date: 10-10-2003
Ending Date: 10-12-2003
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233
United StatesNational Conference Announcement and Call to Action
All Out For Milwaukee: October 10 ? 12, 2003
The 180/Movement for Democracy and Education, in conjunction with Education for the People! in Milwaukee will host the:
Democracy and Education Conference
October 10th-12th, 2003
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.$.A.
National March on the Bradley Foundation's Headquarters!
---Building Local Democracy and Dignified Public Education For All
---Against the Corporate Agenda for Education!
Saturday, October 11th @ the Lynde and Bradley Foundation Headquarters
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.$.A.
E-mail our national office or call 501-244-2439 for more info.
"WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT?"
As students, workers, teachers, and community folks who need and are affected by a flourishing system of education, we must be united in common struggle to make that system more democratic and accessible. Standing in our way, corporations are moving steadily and strategically to colonize our schools, colleges, and universities using their economic and political influence to pull strings within campus administrations, state legislatures, the federal government and other chambers of local and global power. Education, a potential well of democracy, is becoming instead a source of conformity, profits, discrimination, and corporate control as schools are increasingly used as tools for the consolidation of corporate domination instead of civic engagement and human progression.
The Democracy and Education Conference, October 10-12 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin will challenge the corporate agenda for education. It will provide a forum to discuss campus campaigns and strategies and gain strength from our common struggle. It will be a great chance to interact with people from across the US and North America who are engaged in the movement for democracy and education.
If you are fighting for universal access to education, the right to organize, civil rights and diversity, public-welfare research/technology, democratic curriculum, institutional social responsibility, and/or democratic and progressive campus governance then you need to be in Milwaukee October 10-12!
AN INTERCONNECTED, "K-16" MOVEMENT
Our organizing is bringing us closer to the realization that the push for the corporate takeover of colleges and universities is being driven by the same clique of corporate tycoons and right-wing ideologues as in primary and secondary schools.
Higher education corporatization, exemplified by: collegiate ventures with large corporations, the creation of research parks, increased corporate and political control over research, use of temporary and contingent labor, and university administrators as paid corporate board members; aligns perfectly with plans for K-12 privatization such as: school choice plans (voucher systems, charter schools), comprehensive school designs based on business principles (such as economies of scale, standardization, cost efficiency, production line strategies), back to basics curricula, teacher pay based on test scores, and strong systems of "accountability."
Each of these schemes was dreamed up by and benefit the corporate sector by taking control and function of education away from its direct beneficiaries (students, teachers, workers, and the community around it) and moves it into the hands of the business elite who can fund it and benefit for a more sorted and streamlined pool of graduates to enter into their workforces. One of the biggest movers behind this drive for corporatization is the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.
Rise Up! As we move forward with our local struggles, we have made a call for a national march on the Bradley Foundation (Oct. 10-12). Throughout the country the response has resonated with local struggles for racial, social, and economic justice. We will expose and challenge the neo-conservative and neo-liberal agenda wherever it is working to maintain and benefit from the oppression of our communities. October 10 - 12 is around the corner and your participation is crucial in these efforts.
It is imperative that we move forward, united in creating a K-16 response to the corporate threat to all of education.
MORE ON THE BRADLEY FOUNDATION:
Since 1985 Milwaukee has been taken under siege by the wealthiest and most influential right-wing think tank in the country. Currently, there is a coalition to oppose the racist and economically destructive agenda of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (LHBF). And no, we don't need the Allen-Bradley clock tower to know what time it is.
As we continue the campaign to stop institutional racism and promote economic development in our city, we will expose the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation's economic agenda in Milwaukee and provide an alternative to Bradley's right wing social and educational experiments that are carried out in our city.
To the city, the Bradley Foundation has left us with the poverty enhancement program known as W-2, a gutted public educational system through school vouchers and privatization schemes, and public silence and complicity through massive buyouts to many political figures, non-profit and faith-based organizations. The LHBF, acting in the best interests of White Supremacy and Corporate Greed, has achieved for itself top advisory spots to the Bush Administration's education and work agenda and is central to creating and implementing policies that are direct attacks on communities of color.
To its corporate criminal allies, the LHBF has given thousands of low wage workers and in many cases free labor. These private interests profit off of the racist sanctions, limited educational access, and lack of rights on the job. Through Bradley's attack on public education, Bradley can reassure the private sector that they will have a constant supply of low-skilled Black and Latino laborers.
To the city, the LHBF tried to create the political reality of Charles Murray's book The Bell Curve, to which the foundation paid Murray 160,000 a year to write. The book and the foundation espouse the idea that Blacks and Latinos are by nature, inferior, and therefore will "congregate to the lower-classes of society." According to the LHBF mentality, they (we) are "meant" to work in low-wage jobs and attend inferior public schools. This is unacceptable.
The time has come to say enough to the further deterioration of the City at the hands of the Bradley foundation. To stand for justice and participation in our local democracy. To fight for economic Justice and stand against the racist agenda of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.
See you in Milwaukee, October 10-12! Geographical Scope: National Conference |
|
