FEATURING:
Activists Amina Althea and Amber Wood, and
Authors Lee Glazer and Zein El-Amine

Thursday May 22, 2008 from 6:30-8:30 PM
Busboys and Poets Café
2021 V Street NW – (14th and V)
Washington DC
202-387-7638
http://www.busboysandpoets.com/

Admission is Free – Donations  Gratefully Accepted

The Event

Authors Lee Glazer and Zein El-Amine will discuss and sign their recently released book "Keeping the Promise? The Debate Over Charter Schools." With a chapter on the DC experience.

 Amina Althea and Amber Wood will stage a multimedia performance piece based on their recently release Audio Documentary "I Want To Do This All Day." dancers and visual artists weave excerpts from the documentary with dance, song, and projections to bring to life the stories of young people making their own paths in learning and life.

TO RSVP and obtain more information contact Jim Baird at wycbaird@erols.com

OR Visit
http://dothisallday.org/ (Documentary)
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/publication/promise/promise.shtml  (Book)

 
More about the book "Keeping the Promise?" is a collection of papers written about the deferred promise of Charter Schools in urban areas such as DC, New Orleans and Dayton, Ohio.  These schools that promised to be laboratories of innovation have become laboratories of privatization funded by ideologically charged foundations that are supported by the biggest corporations in the country. Authors Lee Glazer and Zein El-Amine who wrote the DC chapter of this book will be on hand to talk about the impact of charter schools on DC public education.

More about the audio documentary and performance. Amina Althea and Amber Woods visited 23 radical learning spaces, including free schools, charter and private schools, community centers, and after school programs. They interviewed students, parents, teachers, and administrators about creating and sustaining these non-compulsory, non-coercive environments for learning and projects. The documentary illuminates a grassroots movement of people and communities taking power over their own education and creating learning environments based on freedom, cooperation and social change. DC is the second stop on a 17 city tour of the performance celebrating and promoting the documentary.