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The prospective artist may purchase an oil painting kit that contains smelly solvents that could cause irritation to the nostrils or skin. This may put off artists who suffer allergic conditions. However, there is a way of practicing oil paint that is friendly to the environment as well as the skin.

Odourless Oil Painting Mediums
 

Oil Painting with Water Soluble Oils Rachel Shirley

Several options are available to the artist who is loath to powerful odours. Although oil painters are known to use Turpentine or white spirits to produce oil washes or to clean the brushes, such industrial cleaners should be dispensed with, as they strip the natural oils from the art brushes and make the room an unpleasant place. Low odour art mediums that are kinder to the environment as well as the skin are more suitable, such as:

• Low odour artist’s white spirits.
• Turpenoid.
• Sansador.

Lathering oil painting brushes in neat washing up liquid or soap after cleaning in artist’s spirits will prolong the life of the brushes.

Water Soluble Oil Paints

Another option is to use watermixable oil paints. Winsor and Newton’s Artisan or Royal Talens’ Van Gough H2Oil are two examples of oil paint that is soluble in water. The properties of watersoluble oils are the same as traditional oil paint, the difference being that the oil medium has been modified so that it breaks down in water. This may make some oil painting purist shudder at the thought of oil and water mixing, but watermixable oils are widely used and are effective.

Water Mixable Oil Thinners

Artisan has a range of forty colors and its own versions of oil mediums to suit. Of course water can be used with Artisan to produce washes, but should be added gradually or the paint might bubble. But because water evaporates quite quickly, the watermixable oil paint is prone to thickening rather too quickly on application, making manipulation a little tricky. To overcome this problem, Artisan’s water mixable oil thinner provides a more oily consistency to the oil paint, making oil painting more like its traditional counterpart.

Water Mixable Oil Mediums



Water Soluble Oils click to buy from Amazon

 It is wise not to use traditional oil and watermixable oils in the same painting, as the differing drying rates could cause stresses in the painting. For this reason, Artisan has developed watermixable equivalents to the traditional oil mediums. For modifying the oil paint, water mixable linseed oil, water mixable safflower oil, water mixable stand oil and water mixable impasto medium have been developed. Some of these mediums will retard the drying time of the oil and add a glossy finish, others will accelerate the drying time.

Varnishes for Water Mixable Oils

Specialised varnishes have been developed for water soluble oils. Again, Artisan varnishes contain no irritants and are odour free, as the varnish is watersoluble. Gloss, matt and satin finishes are available. The varnishing brushes can be cleaned in warm soapy water afterwards.

Odour Free Oil Colors

The artist who suffers allergies or who dislike the high odours of oil mediums may try traditional oils with low odour artists’ spirits, but water mixable oils are a popular choice for artists who wishes to avoid traditional oils altogether.

• Oil Painting Mediums
• Alkyd oils and Liquin
• Books on oil painting
• Oil painting materials

Matt or Gloss Varnish? Rachel Shirley

Shiny and Matt Oil Paint

Oil by its nature is shiny. Pale colours, particularly titanium white are often blended with sunflower oil, as it is non-yellowing. Most other colours are blended with linseed oil. The high finish of oil paint gives a lustrous and rich finish to oil paint, particularly suited to detailed work and traditional oil painting. When wet the oil painting is particularly shiny. But the artist may notice some oil pigments dry more matt than others, resulting in a patchy appearance.

Although in some cases, this may be due to the oil paint sinking into an absorbent painting support, this is more often caused by the individual nature of the pigments and how they are blended with the oil. However, once coated with varnish, the oil painting will have equal gloss.

How to Get a Matt Oil Painting

The artist may obtain a matt finish to an oil painting in three ways:

• Adding an alkyd medium such as Liquin to the oil paint.
• Using alkyds in place of oils.
• Using a matt varnish once the painting is dry.

Using an alkyd based medium such as Liquin alters the properties of the oil paint by accelerating the drying time of the paint and giving a matt finish once dry. The alkyd medium should be added to the oil paint by a ratio of about one part to four before applying it to the painting.

Using Alkyds Instead of Oils

The artist may also consider using alkyd paints instead of oil which offer the same properties as traditional oils, but with a quick drying non-lustrous finish. A misnomer, alkyd oils, as they are sometime known, is not really a type of oil paint at all, as the vehicle is a special alkyd resin. It must be borne in mind, that a matt varnish should be applied to an alkyd painting to retain the matt look.

Matt Varnish for Oils

The third option, using a matt varnish for oil painting is the most common option.

click to buy from Amazon

• Types of oil painting mediums
• Types of oil painting varnishes
• Alkyd paints and Liquin
• Wet-into-wet demonstration with oil mediums
• Oil painting varnishes
• Oil painting mediums

Donald Ray founder of Traditional Authority Applied Research Network (TAARN) "...is currently leading a novel research project on the role of African traditional leaders in local governance..."they"...are analysing the role and contribution of traditional leaders in education and health reform, and the use of land as a social safety net of last resort. Based on this work, the team hopes to develop policy recommendations that enhance the responsiveness, effectiveness, and equity of selected social policies...the roots of legitimacy for African chiefs are partly pre-colonial historic, partly religious, and partly cultural. The contemporary state's roots, by contrast, include the legal system, the constitution, the nationalist struggle, and democratic elections. "When the post-colonial state attempts different types of development projects, it may leave chiefs out of the picture," he says. "We thought one of the ways to remedy this is to work out mechanisms, where appropriate, to combine legitimacies from both the state and traditional leaders, so there are more appeals to citizens to carry out development programs, whatever those might be...",IDRC.

Yesterday The Mackinac Center hosted a panel discussion with John Fund, Frank Beckmann, Kathy Hoekstra, Ken Braun and Henry Payne on the topic of The Alternatives: “How New Media are Transforming the Political Landscape”.  You can watch it yourself by going to the Mackinac Center website, and I encourage you to do so, because each of their prepared remarks were very insightful as to how blogs, talk radio, and Fox are changing the way that the media affects the political system. I'm not going to repeat their remarks, but I would like to elaborate on and comment on some of the things that they said during their discussion.

As I tell my students, the media plays several important roles in the political process in our country, and one of the most important roles that it plays is to be the gatekeeper of the news. This means that there is news, information, analysis, and events occurring, but it is The Media that controls what is allowed through the gate into people's homes. In the past, traditional media controlled that gate and as such could pick and choose what it wanted people to hear, and frequently traditional media would pick and choose based not on the importance of the news event or the quality of analysis, but rather on the bias and prejudices of the gatekeeper. The new media, such as blogs, Fox, and talk radio, have broken down those gates and widened them, so now the public has considerably greater access to the news in our nation, and that means will be more able to stay in touch with events, read different points of view or analysis, and get direct access to the sources that the old traditional media used to have a monopoly on.

Frank Beckmann pointed out the impact that the changing of the gatekeeper role will have on our nation when he talked about how today, because of the new media and the ease of access to it, political power is now returning back to the people and allowing the citizens of our nation incredible access to information. This access to information and analysis has been a contributing factor in the Tea Party movement, where citizens are accessing and reading proposed legislation and discussing it and analyzing it and then attempting to communicate their opinions about that legislation to their Congressman. In the past that information and analysis was controlled and biased and not fully accessible and Congressman could pass a bill without reading it and never be called out by a citizen, but that was the past, and the new media is changing that landscape.

Another interesting tidbit that I heard from John Fund was about the important role and power that citizen journalists are playing in today's political system. In the past, you had to spend long years going through liberal Ivy League schools and learning both the trade and the slant before you could become a journalist, but with the advance of flip-phones, blogs, youtube, and the internet, anyone can be a journalist. Even a public school teacher like me has the potential to break important stories and bring the news to do you, reporting on events (like this one) that the traditional media ignores or doesn't know about. The power of information has flowed to us, the citizens, and it is up to us to seize it.

My blog is the new media, and I believe that it is within my power to change the political landscape for the better. All I need is readers, and that is where you come in. If you haven't already linked to my blog from yours, please do so. If you haven't made my blog one of your favorites or bookmarks, please do so. You don't have to read my blog every day (mom, I'm talking to you), but you should read it at least once a week, otherwise you are ceding back to the old media the gatekeeper and watchdog and information resource roles that the new media like me have struggled so hard to grasp. Let's change our habits and change the direction of our nation by changing the ways that we access the news and information and analysis of the world- let's all jump on the new media bandwagon.

John Fund is the author of Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy and How the Obama Administration Threatens to Undermine Our Elections.

UPDATE: By the way, congratulations to fellow bloggers theblogprof and Michigan Taxes Too Much, both of whom were mentioned by name for the contributions they have made in changing the political landscape recently. We've got quite a powerful little group of bloggers here in Michigan, and we're lucky to have them!

UPDATE II: Thank you Grand Rants for your linking to this story! My only compliant is that you characterized me as " the great unwashed, those bloggers in their jammies who continue to kick against the pricks", and I do wash every now and then and the jammies have a flap in the back.

UPDATE III: Thank you to Liberty Junky for linking to this story too! This is a great site- if you haven't checked it out already, please do so.

UPDATE III: Thank you to Political Realities for linking to this story! Continue to do a great job in finding the news, publishing the news, framing the news, and opening wide the gates of the news!

"The greatest threat to America is not communist aggression, nuclear warfare nor oil embargo. The greatest threat is a public education system that has abandoned the principles on which America was founded." ~ Paul Harvey

A 'hit list' is a list of people or programs to be acted against or disposed of as defined by dictionary.com. This was the subject of the WTU Delegate Assembly's Tuesday meeting. Some union members pointed out that the 90-day termination plan is an 'important topic' that needs to be discussed at another time so that union business could be conducted. Of course this did not happen and teachers' union President Parker facilitated the discussion about the 90-day termination plan which took center stage for hours until the meeting ended. Unfortunately, the Delegate Assembly did not get to any other items on the agenda.

What is interesting to note is that WTU President George Parker revealed that Chancellor Rhee's office has refused to provide the names and work sites of any DC Teachers on the 90- day termination plan to the Washington Teachers' Union as required. As a result, the WTU is only aware of 50 teachers who have been placed on 90-day termination plans but suspects that many more have been targeted.

On Tuesday evening, union members told horror stories of principals regularly interviewing DC students about their respective teachers in exchange for bribes of candy. While others told a story of a DC principal rating all teachers as either 'traditional teachers' or 'non-traditional teachers' on structured observations with traditional teachers being given lower performance ratings then their non-traditional teacher colleagues without explanation. Yet another discussed a situation in which a DC principal lied about who actually performed his structured observation. Another teacher reported that a principal lied on a teacher who presented their lesson plans stating they were non-existent. Stories abound of DC teachers not receiving promised interventions and supports.

How many city-wide teachers have been placed on the 90-day termination plans ? You tell me. If you know of an 'unprincipled DC principal' who is falsifying PPEP documents, discriminating against veteran teachers or younger teachers, minority teachers or committing fraudulent acts- send your unprincipled principal story to me: c/o saveourcounselors@gmail.com and I will post it here on The Washington Teacher. Anonymity of sender guaranteed. Feel free to include the name of the school and the name of the principal.

Whether you believe DC teachers should be terminated or not, all teachers are entitled to 'due process' and representation under the law. If you know of a DC Teacher on a 90-day plan, and/or a needs improvement plan - you should encourage him/her to contact the WTU as soon as possible @ 202-293-8600. When contacting the WTU, request to speak with your assigned field representative. (Posted by The Washington Teacher).

Continuing on the subject of conflict resolution we take a look at a comparative study(PDF) authored by Luc Huyse on various traditional approaches:

What role does traditional justice play in dealing with legacies of human rights abuses? How can interpersonal and community-based practices interrelate with state-organised and internationally sponsored forms of retributive justice and truth telling? This International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) report provides a comparative analysis of traditional justice mechanisms in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Uganda and Burundi. Most of the countries studied combine traditional justice and reconciliation instruments with other transitional justice strategies.-GSRDC

via Pambazuka

Written by Candi Peterson

Join Empower DC's Exposing DC's Equation for Displacement: Info on DCPS closings & plan of action Saturday,  Feb. 4 @ 11 am -1:30pm @  1419 V St NW

The headlines from today's top education stories reads: "Many public schools in D.C.’s poorest area should be transformed or shut, study says; more charters recommended" written by Bill Turque, Washington Post writer while Mike Debonis' blog: DeMorning Links reads: "School Closings Contemplated" and Channel Fox Five TV news reported the DC School System study recommends making major improvements or close three dozen under performing public schools or expand high performing charter schools.

The Washington Teacher blog first reported on October 31, 2011 about future plans to close additional DC public schools. An excerpt from the 21st Century School Fund September - October newsletter stated: "The Deputy Mayor for Education, with a 100,000 dollar grant from the Walton Family Foundation, engaged IFF (Illinois Facility Fund) to study the capacity and performance of DCPS and public charter schools. IFF has authored reports in Denver, Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Louis, using a defined method to determine what they term "performing" or "non- performing" seats.  This analysis is being done with an eye to "right sizing" district schools which beyond consolidation could include reconstitution and replacement with school management organizations."

Not unlike other major cities including NY, Chicago, Ohio- DC has been at the forefront of shutting down traditional public schools. In 2008, twenty-three public schools were closed under former DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee and then mayor Adrian Fenty which led to a community outcry to save our public schools. Local education stakeholders voices weren't heeded by Rhee or Fenty and only one neighborhood elementary school- John Burroughs was saved from the chopping block.

Natalie Hopkinson who authored the article - "Why School Choice Fails"which appeared in the December 4, 2011 N.Y. Times discussed how this country’s reform policies in Washington, DC- put in place by a Republican led congress in 1995 led to the birth of many of our charter schools. Hopkinson wrote:" if a school was deemed failing, students could transfer schools, opt to attend a charter school or receive a voucher to attend a private school. The idea was to introduce competition; good schools would survive; bad ones would disappear. It effectively created a second education system, which now enrolls nearly half the city’s public school students. The charters consistently perform worse than the traditional schools, yet they are rarely closed."

The results of IFF's study recommend that DC make major improvements or close thirty six under performing schools in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods or expand high performing charter schools. It’s a finding that heralds the continued growth of the charter schools sector at the expense of the D.C. Public Schools, if not its outright domination. While some people are questioning the motives of the Illinois Facilities Fund, the study is “likely to rekindle impassioned debate about possible school closures and the future of public education in the District,” Bill  Turque notes. Officials tell Turque, education writer for the Post that any decisions about a “major restructuring” are at least a year and many community meetings away.

What comes as no surprise to anyone is that schools in ward 8 were identified as having the greatest need, according to the IFF study. The study recommended turning around or closing the following public schools: Simon, Patterson, Terrell-McGogney and Ferebee-Hope and closing two bottom-rung charter schools, Center City Congress Heights (pre-K to 8) and Imagine Southeast (pre-K to 5). H.D. Woodson Senior High School which is located in Ward 7  was also recommended for turn around or closure, a school which recently has undergone capital investment which cost millions of dollars in investment. 

One of the things that I find disturbing about IFF's report is the recommendation for DC to consider expanding charter schools in the 10 targeted neighborhood clusters and call for the DC Public Charter School Board to authorize about 6,500 new charter seats (current enrollment is about 32,000) while utilizing former public school buildings as incentives to get the public charter board to actively recruit the highest performing charter school operators to replicate their school models. 


The writing should be on the wall for all of us to see. If it's not, I don't know what to tell you. From where I sit, this situation looks bleak for working, middle class families and many of our teachers in some of our poorest communities. The loss of our public schools is a disinvestment in our school communities and may lead to higher classrooms sizes, further declining enrollment in DC public schools and extinction of traditional public schools and fewer teaching jobs. Now is not the time for parents, students, teachers, school staff and community members to sit back. We have to ask the hard questions, organize and demand to have a voice as education stakeholders or we may likely have a re-run of the 2008 school closures.

On November 8, 2011 - I issued a call to action to DC teachers and school personnel: "In the midst of upcoming contract negotiations, there are big plans ahead to close our traditional public schools. Never in our history has been there been a greater need for teachers and school personnel to have an effective organizing union. Our very future as educators and the future of our students will be determined by how vigorously we, alongside parents and community members are willing to fight to save our public schools." Won't you heed the call to get involved before your local school is reconstituted and turned over to a charter school, your job is lost and your community no longer includes you?

Leo Igwe writes:

...the Islamic faith is associated with the use of Juju, charms, and amulets-another practice very common in Africa. Muslims and Africans believe these fetishes and concoctions scare away evils and misfortune, to kill one's enemies, and to enhance one's progress and success in life. In Nigeria, Muslim spiritualists are reputed for their extraordinary feats in Juju and the production of talismans.By sanctioning many traditional African practices, Islam, unlike other alien religions, has been very instrumental in the continuation of these customs. Islam is one of the greatest obstacles to the efforts to eradicate harmful and inhumane traditional practices in Africa

More here

Image by Martin_Heigan via Flickr

Ochuko Tonukari writes:

There has been, of late, enormous interest in the study of nature conservation by traditional societies. The protection of patches of forest as sacred groves and of several tree species as sacred trees belong to the religion-based conservation ethos of ancient people all over the world. ...

According to a very elderly and learned Urhobo man, “the concept of the sacredness of trees, from the Urhobo historical past enters into every facet of Urhobo traditional religion. It rests on the earliest conceptions of the unity of life in nature, in the sense of communion and fellowship with the divine centre and source of life. The sacred tree is said to be deeply rooted in the primitive religious ideas of earliest Urhobo people. In the history of Urhobo religious evolution, it lies behind the primitive era.”
As one Urhobo traditionalist noted, "If you come upon a grove of old trees that have lifted up their crowns above the common height and shut out the light of the sky by the darkness of their interlacing boughs, you feel that there is a spirit in the place, so lofty is the wood, so lone the spot, so wondrous the thick unbroken shade."

...[continue reading]

Hat Tip Toyin Adepoju!

Although I am no expert in this, I have always felt that the 1930's were an interesting time period in our nation. The Victorian age had come to a bloody conclusion with World War One, and a whole generation of people were now being raised in a society that saw their parents as failures- their attempts to repress their sexual urges, their attempts to stick to the old ways, their attempts to put in place world peace, their attempts to build multinational nations- all had led to one of the most bloody and brutal and worthless wars of all time. Technology was changing fast- cars and telephones and radio and motion picture- and the children of the 1910's and 1920's thought that they had everything figured out- they thought that where other generations had failed due to their reliance on religion, traditional values, free markets, republicanism, and limited government, they would succeed by figuring out a third way of doing things, a practical way of doing things, a way of doing things that used the power of government to make society a better place to live. This new generation, horrified by WWI and mocking their parents lack of technology skills, had it all figured out, and ushered in an era of fascism and communism and World War Two.

In my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong I cataloged all of the laws that were passed in the 1930's in America that are with us today- such as the Unemployment Compensation Tax (MI, 1936), Oil and Gas Severance Tax (MI, 1929), Social Security Act (USA, 1935), Fair Labor Standards Act (USA, 1938), Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (USA, 1930), Hoover Tax Hike (USA, 1932), National Labor Relations Act (USA, 1935), Private Schools, Act 302 of 1921 (MI, 1921), Roosevelt moves traditional Thanksgiving Day (1939), Regulating Firearms, Act 373 (MI, 1927), US moves off gold standard (1933), Reapportionment Act (USA, 1929), etc. Looking through that list and thinking of how much America was changed by one generation, by one President, by one party, by one decade (mostly), I was always stunned, and wondered how people had let that come to pass.

As it turns out, the Republican Party of 1936 had put together a platform to oppose a lot of these fascist ideas, but people loved their hope and change and returned FDR to the White House instead, and so the Great Depression dragged on for another decade. Via Conservative Hideout, let's take a walk back in history and see just exactly what the GOP was offering as an alternative back then to the high taxes, high regulation, crony capitalism, fascist third way system that FDR was pushing our nation into. Here is a good chunk of the 1936 Republican Party Platform:

1936 Republican Party PlatformAmerica is in peril. The welfare of American men and women and the future of our youth are at stake. We dedicate ourselves to the preservation of their political liberty, their individual opportunity and their character as free citizens, which today for the first time are threatened by Government itself.

For three long years the New Deal Administration has dishonored American traditions and flagrantly betrayed the pledges upon which the Democratic Party sought and received public support. The powers of Congress have been usurped by the President... the rights and liberties of American citizens have been violated... regulated monopoly has displaced free enterprise.... it has intimidated witnesses and interfered with the right of petition... it has been guilty of frightful waste and extravagance, using public funds for partisan political purposes... it has promoted investigations to harass and intimidate American citizens, at the same time denying investigations into its own improper expenditures... it has created a vast multitude of new offices, filled them with its favorites, set up a centralized bureaucracy, and sent out swarms of inspectors to harass our people.... it has bred fear and hesitation in commerce and industry, thus discouraging new enterprises, preventing employment and prolonging the depression.... appeals to passion and class prejudice have replaced reason and tolerance.

To a free people, these actions are insufferable. This campaign cannot be waged on the traditional differences between the Republican and Democratic parties. The responsibility of this election transcends all previous political divisions. We invite all Americans, irrespective of party, to join us in defense of American institutions. We pledge ourselves:

...To preserve the American system of free enterprise, private competition, and equality of opportunity, and to seek its constant betterment in the interests of all.

The only permanent solution of the unemployment problem is the absorption of the unemployed by industry and agriculture. To that end, we advocate: Removal of restrictions on production. Abandonment of all New Deal policies that raise production costs, increase the cost of living, and thereby restrict buying, reduce volume and prevent reemployment. Encouragement instead of hindrance to legitimate business. Withdrawal of government from competition with private payrolls. Elimination of unnecessary and hampering regulations. Adoption of such other policies as will furnish a chance for individual enterprise, industrial expansion, and the restoration of jobs.

Society has an obligation to promote the security of the people, by affording some measure of protection against involuntary unemployment and dependency in old age. The New Deal policies, while purporting to provide social security, have, in fact, endangered it. We propose a system of old age security, based upon the following principles: 1. We approve a pay-as-you-go policy, which requires of each generation the support of the aged and the determination of what is just and adequate, 2. Every American citizen over sixty-five should receive the supplementary payment necessary to provide a minimum income sufficient to protect him or her from want. 3. Each state and territory, upon complying with simple and general minimum standards, should receive from the federal government a graduated contribution in proportion to its own, up to a fixed maximum....

...Nearly sixty percent of all imports into the United States are now free of duty. The other forty percent of imports compete directly with the product of our industry. We would keep on the free list all products not grown or produced in the United States in commercial quantities. As to all commodities that commercially compete with our farms, our forests, our mines, our fisheries, our oil wells, our labor and our industries, sufficient protection should be maintained at all times to defend the American farmer and the American wage earner from the destructive competition emanating from the subsidies of foreign governments and the imports from low-wage and depreciated-currency countries....

...We recognize the existence of a field within which governmental regulation is desirable and salutary. The authority to regulate should be vested in an independent tribunal acting under clear and specific laws establishing definite standards. Their determinations on law and facts should be subject to review by the Courts. We favor Federal regulation, within the Constitution, of the marketing of securities to protect investors. We favor also Federal regulation of the interstate activities of public utilities...

...We pledge ourselves to the merit system, virtually destroyed by New Deal spoilsmen. It should be restored, improved and extended. We will provide such conditions as offer an attractive permanent career in government service to young men and women of ability, irrespective of party affiliations.

The New Deal Administration has been characterized by shameful waste, and general financial irresponsibility. It has piled deficit upon deficit. It threatens national bankruptcy and the destruction through inflation of insurance policies and savings bank deposits. We pledge ourselves to: Stop the folly of uncontrolled spending. Balance the budget—not by increasing taxes but by cutting expenditures, drastically and immediately. Revise the federal tax system and coordinate it with state and local tax systems. Use the taxing power for raising revenue and not for punitive or political purposes.

We advocate a sound currency to be preserved at all hazards. The first requisite to a sound and stable currency is a balanced budget. We oppose further devaluation of the dollar. We will restore to the Congress the authority lodged with it by the Constitution to coin money and regulate the value thereof by repealing all the laws delegating this authority to the Executive....

...We assume the obligations and duties imposed upon Government by modern conditions. We affirm our unalterable conviction that, in the future as in the past, the fate of the nation will depend, not so much on the wisdom and power of government, as on the character and virtue, self-reliance, industry and thrift of the people and on their willingness to meet the responsibilities essential to the preservation of a free society.

Kofi Akosah-Sarpong reports on Courage Quashigah's campaign for a return to traditional foods:
He argues for,

Balanced nutrition by consuming healthy traditional Ghanaian food, as a bulwark against “preventing ill health,” is as vital as curative measures in the face of severe inadequate health infrastructure. Such observation comes in the face of similar admonitions in Japan, a country admired by Ghanaians for their ability to mix their traditional values with the dominant Western neo-liberal ones in their development process...The lessons here are that Ghanaian indigenous foods, with its heavy emphasis on green vegetables, like the famed healthy Arab/Mediterranean foods, are among some of the healthiest in the world.

By Candi Peterson

In the midst of upcoming contract negotiations, there are big plans ahead to close our traditional public schools. Never in our history has been there been a greater need for teachers and school personnel to have an effective union. Our very future as educators and the future of our students will be determined by how vigorously we, alongside parents and community members are willing to fight to save our schools.

I invite all Washington Teachers' Union (WTU) members to come out and get involved in our WTU Representative Assembly to be held Tuesday, November 8 from 4:30-6:30 pm. at McKinley Technology Senior High School @ 151 T Street NE. Washington, DC. Let's do more than just give lip service to save our schools.

Earlier this week, The Washington Teacher blog featured an article about future plans to close additional public schools. Below for your perusal I have included an excerpt from the 21st Century School Fund newsletter which outlines the purpose of the Illinois Facility Fund (IFF) study which was commissioned by Deputy Mayor of Education, De'Shawn Wright and is expected to be completed at the end of November. As indicated in the 21st Century School Fund September/October newsletter (below), IFF's analysis is being conducted with plans to right size DC public schools and could lead to reconstitution of our public schools and/or replacement with school management operations. The loss of our public schools is a disinvestment in our school communities and may lead to fewer jobs, higher classrooms sizes, further declining enrollment and extinction of traditional public schools.

Independent public schools budget analyst, Mary Levy has applied IFF's  methods to DCPS and public charter school data. Ms. Levy's analysis has found that schools located in wards with higher socio- economic status are considered to be "performing" while schools in wards with lower socio-economic means are considered to be "non-performing". It is a no brainer, that schools in our poorest wards would likely be faced with closure of traditional public schools while schools in affluent wards like ward 3 would go unscathed. (see map below)

Empower DC, a grassroots community based organization is continuing to hold strategic planning meetings to fight school closures across the city and encourages all to become involved. Their next scheduled meeting will be held on Thursday, November 17 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. @ the Deanwood Recreation Center located at 1350 49th St., NE. For additional information, contact Daniel @ daniel@empowerdc.org or call 202-234-9119 ext. 104. Please encourage your school community to get involved now before it's too late. Additional meetings will be held throughout the city at later dates.

Study for "Right-Sizing" D.C. Schools Anticipated

"The Deputy Mayor for Education, with a 100,000 dollar grant from the Walton Family Foundation, engaged IFF (Illinois Facility Fund) to study the capacity and performance of DCPS and public charter schools. IFF has authored reports in Denver, Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Louis, using a defined method to determine what they term "performing" or "non-performing" seats.  This analysis is being done with an eye to "rightsizing" district schools which beyond consolidation could include reconstitution and replacement with school management organizations.  Mary Levy, independent public school analyst, applied IFF methods to DCPS and public charter school data and found that where "performing seats" are located correlates with household wealth and family income of students.  So that ALL schools in high wealth neighborhoods are "performing" and those in low wealth neighborhoods and with large numbers of children from low income families are "non-performing" with a very few exceptions, as illustrated in a map and data-tables.   The IFF findings are expected to be issued at the end of November.  There has been no public input or discussion solicited on the methods, criteria, or purpose of this study. *Click on the underlined word map to enlarge the DC Wards map.

By Candi Peterson

Empower DC, a well respected community grassroots organization hosted a gathering on Thursday evening, November 3 at the Dorothy Height Library to discuss DC's plans to close more traditional public schools. People assembled from all walks of life including Ward 7 residents, parents, teachers, former principals, nurses, representatives of Teamsters-local 639, community activists, ANC representatives and yours truly. Some familiar faces that I saw included: Mary Levy, former DCPS parent and DCPS budget analyst, Mary Melchior, DCPS parent from Capitol Hill Montessori and Richard Patterson, former principal of River Terrace Elementary school.

Daniel del Pielago, organizer and facilitator of the Thursday meeting reminded attendees that Chancellor Kaya Henderson told parents during the spring that the city could not afford to continue to operate more than 40 schools with enrollment figures lower than 300 students. This  summer, a decision was made by Deputy Mayor of Education, De'Shawn Wright to commission an Illinois based firm known as the Illinois Facilities Fund (IFF) to conduct a foundational study which will help determine which schools will be proposed for closure. While IFF has done similar studies in Chicago, Denver, Milwaukee and St Louis, it is interesting that funding for this project was provided by the Walton Family Foundation who owns Wal-Mart. No competitive bidding process occurred. It is expected that the study will be completed by the end of November.

This study will be looking at schools test scores to determine if a school is “performing” or not.  They will not take into consideration other ways that a school is excelling for its students, parents and community. In similar studies, schools were determined to either be performing or not performing based on whether they meet or exceed 75% of the state standard in both reading and math. In DC, that standard would equate to 55% or more proficiency rates on the DC CAS. The numbers below reflect the number of “under performing DCPS schools” by wards: Ward 1 = 8 schools, Ward 2 = 3 schools, Ward 3 = 0 schools, Ward 4 = 11 schools, Ward 5 = 11 schools, Ward 6 = 11 schools, Ward 7 = 20 schools, and Ward 8 = 20 schools. We could potentially face high closure rates in some of our poorest wards.

After closing 23 schools during the Michelle Rhee administration in 2008, DCPS saw a 17 percent drop off rate in enrollment according to Washington Examiner Reporter  Michael Neibauer's September 8, 2008 article: "DC Public Schools Enrollment shows 17 percent drop off." Mary Levy who was quoted in Neibauer's 2008 article stated: "parents want some certainty, and closing schools is pretty much guaranteed to lead to loss of enrollment because we have so many other options." Those at the Empower DC meeting echoed these same concerns that were voiced earlier in 2008.

Many at the meeting saw the goal of another round of school closures as part of an ongoing reform model to privatize public education by closing traditional public schools with plans of replacing them with charter schools. Participants chimed in that DC Public Schools had not been transparent during this process  and that the study had no plans to include focus groups of critical stakeholders. While Deputy Mayor De'Shawn Wright has been quoted as saying there will be public input, it seems that community input will not be considered until after the preliminary analysis.

The meeting concluded with a brainstorming of ideas on next steps to fight school closures of our traditional public schools. Plans are being made for additional meetings to be held throughout the city. Participants were encouraged to spread the word and get members from their school communities actively involved. If you want to become involved in saving our public schools, contact Daniel by email @ daniel@empowerdc.org  or call 202-234-9119 ext. 104.


Stay tuned as more details emerge on upcoming meetings.

Jennifer I. Papin–Ramcharan and Richard A. Dawe write about Open Access publishing in developing countries:

For a number of researchers worldwide, publishing articles in OA journals is increasingly seen as an alternative to publishing in the traditional journals. In traditional journals, the costs associated with publication and peer review are paid for by the readers of those journals either through personal or institutional subscriptions. This traditional mode of funding the dissemination of research results has often been referred to as the “subscriber pays” model. But access to articles in these journals is restricted to those who can afford the costs of subscriptions, or the costs of acquiring copies of the articles by other means such as using interlibrary loan or document delivery facilities.

Alternatively, an OA journal allows all those who have Internet access to freely read, download, copy, distribute, and print articles and other materials. Of course, “free” availability on the Internet is only possible if “someone” pays for the cost of production and dissemination. OA publishers sometimes meet these costs by charging the authors (“author pays” a charge commonly referred to as a page charge). In other cases, open access journals are operated by researchers and/or volunteers and the publishing costs are absorbed by their employers/institutions and/or sponsors.

via FirstMonday