Organizational Structures: Dysfunctional vs Grassroots
References and Articles about Organizational Structures
US Education Institutions under Stress
“This latest ploy by the Trump administration to dismantle the congressionally created US Department of Education is not only unlawful – it’s an insult to the tens of millions of students who rely on the agency to protect their access to a quality education,” said Rachel Gittleman, president of AFGE Local 252 and a worker at the agency. “Students, educators and families depend on the department’s comprehensive support for schools, from early learning through graduate programs.
“This move comes as the administration has attempted to fire large numbers of career public servants in these very offices – and is now trying to shift their critical work to agencies with no educational expertise. Breaking apart the Department of Education and moving its responsibilities elsewhere will only create more confusion for schools and colleges, deepen public distrust, and ultimately harm students and families.”
Angela Hanks, chief of policy programs at the Century Foundation, who worked at the Department of Labor under the Biden administration, questioned the logic of transferring the Title I program, which serves 26 million children in the US by providing federal funding to schools, to a Department of Labor program that serves 130,000 children.
Texas Education Institutions under Stress
The survey interviewed nearly 4,000 faculty across the southern U.S., including more than 1,100 from Texas. About a quarter of the Texas professors said they have applied for higher education jobs in other states in the last two years, and more than 25% said they soon intend to start searching for out-of-state positions. Of those who aren’t thinking of leaving, more than one-fifth said they don’t plan to stay in higher education in the long-term.
GrassRoots Movements
Grassroots Economics - Will Ruddick
Indigenous Cultures and Trauma
For the Blackfeet, bison are as much a source of food as they are a part of their cultural identity. Before the bison’s extermination, their movements across the plains shaped the Blackfeet way of life so much that nearly 200 years later, the community is still grappling with the generational trauma resulting from the sudden loss of these animals from the prairie.
Recognizing these problems, the tribal government, a variety of non-profits and dedicated community members decided to take action. In 2016, the Blackfeet Nation became one of the first tribal governments to implement a program that would assert tribal management over agricultural resources within the reservation, with the greater goal of establishing food sovereignty and tribal self-determination.
Known as an agricultural resource management plan (ARMP), the program created by the Blackfeet was the first in the nation to be built around cultural practices, and centered on the five pillars of Blackfeet values: creating sustainable economic development, strengthening cultural knowledge, increasing organizational development, investing in the Piikani people and promoting health, healing and nutrition.
In addition to non-profits like PLHI, Blackfeet Community College (BCC) has started providing students with the tools and space to explore traditional practices paired with modern science to help to make food sovereignty a reality on the Blackfeet reservation.
Articles
Hahrie Han, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University and a 2025 MacArthur fellow, warned that organizing thus far has mostly engaged like-minded people. The next step must include organizing in places where people may not agree. There’s also a need to supply more opportunities for people to get involved, and to help people learn to organize themselves for what their needs are, she said.
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