Portside

If you say you’re on the freedom side, then that means you will join us in asking the rich to pay their fair share; calling on the city and state to stop the attacks on public and higher education; in asking the banks to end their predatory deals that strip vital dollars from our schools; in fighting for stronger neighborhoods and job creation, and access to health care and not just health insurance.

Reader Comments: The GOP, Trump and the Appeal to Reaction; No Union Mines in Kentucky; Black Panther Party film; Lessons from Alabama's Black Communists and the #BLM; Indigenous People's History of the United States; Serena Williams; Climate Change and Workers; New Resource: Black Lives Matter Syllabus; Livestream Sept. 18: Unions, Workers, and the Democratic Party

Common, John Legend - Glory. X: Malcolm's Final Years. Movie -- Merchants of Doubt. The Ancient Ocean on Mars. School to Prison Pipeline.

Reader Comments- Netanyahu Doesn't Speak for All American Jews; SYRIZA, Greece; George Washington and Slavery; Lesley Gore; Needed-Populist Challenger; Tax Top Incomes; Militarized Future; Mississippi's Racial Murders; Ai-jen Poo, Aging; Walmart; West VA Coal; Bad Cops; Chapel Hill Murders; Water Privatization; Teachers and Education Today; Medical Volunteers Needed: Rojava Announcements: Film "Made in Dagenham", Identity Politics-Foundation for Coalition Building

Reader Comments- Keystone XL-What Next; Mexico; Elizabeth Warren; Voter Suppression; War and Democracy; A White Manifesto?; US-China Climate Accord; Responses to Naomi Klein; Schools and Prisons; Housing Discrimination; FBI Plot - Martin Luther King Suicide; Net Neutrality; Global Economic Divide; COSATU and NUMSA; Announcements - 2014 & Looking Forward to 2016- New York- Dec 2; Voter, Civil & Workers Rights- New York- Dec 11; She's Beautiful When She's Angry- showings

Of the 14 students who were ultimately expelled, 12 were Black even though only 40 percent of the district’s students are Black.

Reader Comments - People's Climate March, Greening of the Labor Movement, What Next; ISIS, Syria, Iraq, Muslim Fundamentalism; Ongoing War in Middle East; Elizabeth Warren and Israel; Theodore Roosevelt; Emmett Till, Michael Brown - Ongoing Struggle for Racial Justice; Guns and the Southern Freedom Struggle; Texas School Text Books; Military Weaponry in Schools - WTF?; Socialism, Worker Cooperatives; Today in History; Abraham Lincoln Brigade celebrations

School libraries with more staff and larger collections lead to stronger academic performance, a study says. Yet one-third of public schools do not have a full-time, state-certified librarian. Often when education funding is cut, libraries and the arts are the first to go.

New York public school teacher Kate Abell responds to earlier Portside post, on Common Core, adding the perspective of a math educator. "The Common Core Math Standards are far and away the best tool for supporting teachers in the teaching of mathematics that I have ever encountered. The standards themselves are written in a way to help teachers deepen their own understanding of mathematics, make connections between math topics.. and pass this on to their students."