The claims and advocacy surrounding the school choice movement receive disproportionate coverage while solid and peer-reviewed studies remain in the background. Some recent examples of the problems created by choice and the misinformation surrounding advocacy groups publishing "reports" that are flawed: see my poverty blog. paul thomas

My Op-Ed regarding the Bauer comment equating the poor to stray animals is in The State today: Baure's comments reflect our own misconceptions.

For many reasons, today is a reminder to consider the power of words and action: "You may well ask: 'Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?' You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored." From MLK Jr's letter written in a Birmingham jail. . .paul thomas

I am an anxious person by nature. . .
People are apt after being around me for a while to say something like, "You're from here?"—meaning the South. And I have to say that I am. I am a son of the deep and disturbing South. . .South Carolina. . .
Recently I sat socializing with professors from my university and I recounted the story of my showcase lesson I taught when being interviewed for the position I now hold. After my lesson I was given an interesting piece of advice: "You may not want to say to your students that you are a Marxist. . ." And this was a nearly hushed moment of caution. . .

Here is a new Op-Ed I had in a local paper: http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20091128/OPINION/911280311/1016/...

All: I have begun and will be updating and maintaining a blog dedicated to poverty and education. . .this is initially being based on several scholarly pieces I have been working on and have had published over the past few years. . .feel free to suggest additions and please share as you see fit. . .I would appreciate feedback as well. . .

http://livinglearninginpoverty.blogspot.com/

. . .paul thomas

My newest Op-Ed: http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20090820/OPINION/908200313/1016/...

Here is a draft of an Op-Ed I am working on related to the Sotomayor debate; any feedback would be appreciated:

We will see more and more of this I fear: http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-charter31-2009may31,0,648240...

I live in the South, maybe in 2009 very much the "south" of the South in SC. . .and the partisan bitterness and rightwing-as-norm are heavy as a blinding fog.

i was invited to speak this past Thursday eve and Friday to the parents (Th) and faculty (Fr) of a high school in the midlands of SC. . .they asked me to talk about the "boys crisis," literacy, and poverty. . .they heard me say we should be skeptical of anything labeled "crisis". . .they heard me talk about the insidious intent hidden in SAT data (poverty and gender and corporate deception). . .they heard me ask them all to reconsider why we view children (not just boys) as empty glasses needing us to fill them (with the middle-class assumptions we never question). . .they heard me argue with two or three teachers who openly disagreed with me (almost all English teachers. . .). . .and they heard me call for no one ever again to use the distorted programs of Ruby Payne addressing poverty in deficit ways. . .over and over faculty came up to me afterward and said quietly, "you are a brave man". .

When people fret about "What is wrong with our schools?" it would have served them well to know Joe. What is wrong with our schools? They too often lack KINDNESS, intellectual and academic kindness. They too often lack PASSION, intellectual and academic passion. They too often seek anything and everything except that which is human, most human.

What schools need is Joe—and those of us moved and touched by Joe.

I am very sad to say that Joe and I failed to meet face-to-face. Once he visited my university and as fate would have it I was out of town at a conference. But Joe and I talked by phone. The first time, he laughed and said, "You are from the South, aren't you?"

Joe and I shared the odd baggage of our roots not mixing well with the traditional acadmic world. My deep Southern drawl does not jibe with my written text. And for it, like Joe, I do not apologize.