Host Jamie Partridge interviews Sheila Warren, president of the Portland Parent Union, and Fran Partridge, an instructional coach and long time member of the Seattle teachers union.  Topics include teacher union bashing, charter schools, teacher evaluation and mentoring, the achievement gap, discipline, and systemic racism.

It's that time of year, when Jo Ann and Dave review which of our public figures deserve a gift in their stocking and which deserve a lump of coal, such as Senator John McCain for his blind opposition to "don't ask, don't tell"; Governor-elect John Kitzhaber for stonewalling single-payer health care advocates once again;  and even closer to home, Portland Police Chief Reese and his public position on participatory democracy.

Listeners called in and shared their holiday list of candidates.

Jo Ann Bowman is a former state legislator, former executive director of Oregon Action, and a long-time leader in the struggle for racial and economic justice.

An interview in Spanish and English with Arturo Sepulveda of the United Farmworkers

President Obama just signed into law a $1.15 billion settlement with thousands of black farmers who were discriminated against by the United States Department of Agriculture. So we began the show with an update from John Boyd Jr., president of the National Black Farmers Association, who spoke with us in February.

Host Jamie Partridge interviews Peter Shapiro, of the JOBS with JUSTICE Health Care Committee, about legislation being introduced in the 2011 Oregon legislature to create a Single Payer Health Care system for the state.  Peter also invites the public to a Statewide Single Payer conference on January 29th.

Today's show featured excerpts from the songs listed and linked below. Bill talks with Brad Duncan about how these songs relate the experience of everyday peoples' struggles with economic forces.

Factories across the United States have been closing up shops for decades.  Less common, however, is worker initiated factory takeovers.  Today’s show will span from Argentina where workers occupied factories and established cooperative control all the way to Massachusetts where a union is fighting the closure of a plant and wants to reopen as an employee-run operation.

Our guests are:

A new study by Portland State University's Regional Research Institute says a program that teaches financial skills to lower-income Oregonians is paying off.

The arrest of Mohamed Osman Mohamud is raising troubling legal, political, social and moral questions. This week, Dave and Jo Ann examined the fallout of this incident and how we can move toward real - rather than politically expedient - solutions.