Make Social Change A Reality

It seems that there is always a shortage of teachers in big cities across the United States. Additionally, there seems to be overcrowding schools in these same cities. One example that I know of is in New York. Every fall, the newspaper headlines focus on overcrowding schools in low-income communities and the shortage of teachers in those same schools. Ultimately what ends up happening is that the schools stay overcrowded, the teachers under populated, the problem moves out of the headlines and gone until the following fall, when the cycle repeats itself again. However, this year, things might be a little different. For the first time in maybe the history of New York and public education, the poorer communities are not the only ones struggling with this problem. Upper-class New Yorkers are finding themselves being turned away from their neighborhood schools or being put on a waiting list for schools that they are zoned for. It’s rare the problems that affect the poor also affect the r...

I was never aware that Congress had a movie theatre. Nor that they show pretty damned good Hollywood flicks, until last Tuesday when I saw a Capitol Hill screening of the upcoming film American Violet , written and produced by Bill Haney and presented by the Justice Roundtable Coalition’s Crack the Disparity campaign. The film is part of the campaign’s month long lobbying of Congress to address the Crack and powder Cocaine sentencing disparity . American Violet is based on the true story of Dee, a young mother in Texas facing 25 years in jail for distributing Crack based solely upon the testimony of one unreliable police informant. Her community is systematically terrorized by the District Attorney’s “drug task force” using military tactics to cull plea bargains in order to redeem those guilty verdicts for ‘burn money’ from the Federal Government’s war on drugs. When Dee is approached by the ACLU to be lead plaintiff for a case against the DA, she accepts and begins the fight ...

I found the blog post shown below on "A Little Bit More", Idealist's blog series highlighting small steps we can take to make the world a better place . It contains a few links to resources that will help you learn more and get started on composting your food. Also, Matthew Reid, one of our volunteer bloggers wrote a post about composting earlier this year. Check out Matt's post and don't forget to leave your comments. Happy composting! A Little Bit More: Live Green, Compost! In my little Washington, DC apartment I had a small kitchen composter that sat in the corner near the garbage. At the end of every day, instead of throwing my food scraps into the trash, I'd toss my leftovers into the composter , sprinkle in a small amount of bokashi , and close the lid. "But doesn't that smell?" Not at all, and as the food decomposed, the composted waste made great fertilizer for my house plants. I also noticed that I was taking out my garbage far less ...

In 1964, then-President Lyndon Johnson authorized a preschool program as part of his Economic Opportunity Act. That program has evolved into today’s Head Start , which provides not only preschool education to children from low-income families, but also health and social services . Since 1965, the money invested in Head Start programs has been steadily increasing. President Obama allotted an additional $5 billion to the program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in the hopes of reaching 150,000 more children . The idea is that when education and healthy living start early, children stay in school, stay employed, enrich society and save taxpayer dollars in reduced welfare later on in life. However, in 1997 the Government Accounting Office published a report entitled Head Start: Research Provides Little Information on Impact of Current Program . In response, Congress mandated the Head Start Impact Study . Under the Department of Health and Human Services, the resear...