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The Council house has cancelled a booking for the discussion meeting against the huge cuts being made to Birmingham Council services. It was planned for Monday 25th February, in the Banqueting Suite. This meeting, organised by Communities Against the Cuts, various women’s groups, the Birmingham Trades Union Council, Birmingham Against the Cuts, student unions and others, aimed to discuss the effect of the cuts on Birmingham’s people, and women in particular, and to provide an opportunity for citizens to talk to their Councillors.

Communities Against The Cuts had been printing and distributing thousands of flyers, but have now been left in the cold by the Council who have cancelled their booking – which was to cost £800 – just a week before the meeting was due to be held.

The cancellation of this meeting is a continuation of an utterly undemocratic budget process throughout. The four consultation meetings that took place last…

Here are links to 13 extraordinary women whose contributions to education earn them a collective place in the Educational Thinkers’ Hall of Fame. They feature in a 2013 calendar called, Inspiring Edinburgh Women who advanced the cause of education in Scotland.

The calendar is available online at http://www.latebloomers.co.uk/wforum/weacalendar/index.html and has brief but informative biographies of each of the women in clickable links for each month.

Members and learners of the WEA Lothian Women’s Forum researched and compiled the calendar. The Forum is a self-organising student group of the WEA concerned with planning and organising women’s education workshops, classes and activities in Edinburgh and the Lothians

It’s worth clicking on the link to start with the striking cover photograph of WEA voluntary member Evelyn Muir who is pictured with the WEA Edinburgh and Lothian banner. Liz Beevers took the photograph as groups from across Scotland gathered at the Meadows in Edinburgh…

“Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.”
― Noam Chomsky, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda

In 2008, a private sector financial crisis caused by an unregulated, unethical, global financial services industry was turned into a public sector financial crisis by the banker’s bailout.  Since then, a broad toolkit of propaganda techniques has been applied to rewrite this history.  Political and Corporate efforts seek to divide sections of the poor and middle class to fight one against the other; to see enemies in our midst which do not exist; to see the free market and the idea of competition as the solution rather than the cause of our problems. We must become critical thinkers, if we are not to succumb to the DoubleThink that had 2 + 2 equal 5 in George Orwell’s novel 1984.

What Is Propaganda?

Definition:

• 1 [mass noun]…

In November the founding meeting of Birmingham CASE – the Campaign for State Education –  supported by AABA, agreed to hold a Birmingham Conference on Education.

The conference will be held on Saturday 9 March in a local school.

Speakers will include;

• Sir Tim Brighouse (formerly Chief Education Officer, Birmingham, and Director, London Challenge)
• Professor Peter Mortimore (formerly Director of the Institute of Education, University of London)
• Councillor Brigid Jones (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services)
• Viv Randall (Birmingham Primary School Improvement Group and Head of Colmore Infant and Nursery school)

Contributors and workshops from Birmingham schools are being booked now. Contact Birmingham CASE to get involved:

The next CASE Birmingham planning meeting is on Tuesday 22nd January at 7pm at the NASUWT offices, Water Street. It is expected to go ahead whatever the weather. All CASE supporters welcome.

CASE – the Campaign for State Education – has been…

By Richard Hatcher

There is a lot of misunderstanding about the term Cooperative Trust. One meaning is the Birmingham-wide umbrella partnership that the LA is trying to set up. This has no connection with the Cooperative Schools Society’s Cooperative Trusts, which are schools or groups of schools – LA and academy – adhering to the Coop’s model (over 200 of them now, including in Wolverhampton and Sandwell). Separate again are schools or groups of schools which may set up ‘cooperative trusts’ (again, as in the Bham LA’s model) without having any connection with the Cooperative Schools Society (CSC) model.

A word about Cornwall. Some LA people have given the impression that Cornwall LA has set up a CSC Cooperative Trust involving all its schools. This is not true. The case they are referring to is a CSC comprising Helston Community College and 15 local primary schools. (See below for a…