Kopkind Colony

Jennifer Berkshire

Organ Barn, Tree Frog Farm, Guilford, Sunday July 14th

Public invited, please bring a dish for pot luck.

Potluck at 5:30pm; Talk at 7:pm

“Apart at the Seams: Race, Class and the War over Public Education (a farce)”

As we open the 15th summer for Kopkind’s retreat/seminar for journalists and activists, we’re inviting back someone who was with us at the very first camp in 1999 and whose work since has been inspired by the project’s dual commitment to storytelling and social movements.

After working in radio and print, as a freelancer, satirical commentator and editor of union newspapers, Jennifer started Little House Communications, helping communities, unions and grassroots organizations use media in their action campaigns. For the past few  years she has worked with groups involved in the struggle over public  schools. “The terrain of this fight is the schools, but the issue is really the internal borders separating the rich from the poor,”  she says. “It’s the death of a vision of equity concealed in the  language of reform, and increasingly in a hijacked language of civil  rights. How did we decide that to ‘succeed’ Jamal has to go to an all-black school with all-white teachers run by a for-profit company whose board is made up of all-white hedge fund managers?”

Her talk will explore the cruel farce of what she calls “achievement gaptivism”.

The talk takes place at the Organ Barn at Tree Frog Farm in Guilford, VT and if you would like direction