Parents Across America Are Opting Out

Looks like parents have finally had enough testing too. The Superintendent of Montgomery County Maryland called for a three year moratorium on high stakes standardized testing. The budget squeeze is making it impossible to ignore all the money for testing. The perfect storm. On January 27 at 1:00 PM PST, 3:00 PM Central and 4:00 PM EST, Parents Across America will be hosting an online seminar on high stakes testing and opting out of such tests. Our guests will be: Jesse Hagopian, teacher at Garfield High School and part of the MAP test boycott  Shaun Johnson, a former public school teacher, current teacher educator and online radio show co-host of At the Chalk Face who is a founder of United Opt Out National.  Monty Neill, Executive Director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest). Dr. Neill  authored Implementing Performance Assessments: A Guide to Classroom School and System Reform, and Testing Our Children: A Report Card on State Assessment Systems, the first comprehensive evaluation of all 50 state testing programs. Tim Slekar, a former public school teacher and now an associate professor of teacher education. Dr. Slekar is also co-host of At the Chalk Face and a founder of United Opt Out National. There will be a discussion on: How high stakes testing got started. Methods to fairly evaluate a teacher in the classroom. Opting your student out of high stakes testing, why and how. Each guest speaker will have an opportunity to talk about these subjects and then it will be opened up for questions and discussion. To sign up for this event, go to Eventbrite. You will be notified of instructions on how to sign onto the webinar a few days before the event. We can accept a maximum of 100 guests.

Parents, Teachers and Citizens Organize to Save Public Education

With three months before the election, parents, teachers and citizens join in fight to save public schools and end the reign of high stakes testing as a weapon of mass destruction.  Instead of just one tool, or measurement of ability in a particular area, the tests have produced a steady stream of cash for those who sell them and track the data and a way to close down failing public schools and replace them with for profit private charters or religious schools.

Isn't it time to invest in all children and their teachers, mentors, guidance counselors, librarians, nurses, mental health professionals, and school buildings instead of the tests? The answer seems to be a resounding yes, but is anyone listening?

Parents Across America, United Opt Out National and Save Our Schools, along with many other activists and organizations are doing great work in tracking legislators and candidates on education policy and educating the public. The information is there to be used and shared to make phone calls, visits and write letters to you local, state and national representatives. Demand a town hall on education.

It's time to hold legislators and policy makers accountable for the destruction being wrought on public schools, teachers and children for a profit. It's clear the way to privatization has been paved by draining precious resources from public schools and funneling too much to for profit corporations interested in increasing price per share, net income for shareholders. Meanwhile,  it's garbage in and garbage out for teachers and students whose parents can't afford to send them to a private school or those rare semi private charters where they cream the best students from the regular public school. Those private schools where real books are actually used and there are libraries, tennis courts, gyms track fields, and sushi in the cafeteria. Music and trips around the world to different countries.

Parents, teachers, and citizens, even those who have no children, see the obvious result of 10 years of testing mania and data driven madness under No Child Left Behind. With 20 percent of all children and closer to 40 percent of minority or children of color living in poverty, these kids don't need more testing. That's why the parents are finally standing up and saying no more. They have joined together because they are no longer willing to drink the poison that's killing their kids futures by labeling them failures at an earlier and earlier age. Just like it's time to go back and reinstate Glass Steagall, it is also time to reinstate the NAEP and go back to recess, gym, music, dance, art and a collaborative community environment with the only focus is on helping kids become well rounded, functioning, healthy, well-adjusted people who are able to recognize bullshit, like these standardized tests, when they see it.

This was sent out to SOS to the thousands of supporters who marched on Washington in 100 degree heat last summer.

Action Alert to Supporters of Save Our Schools

and Public Education 

Dear SOS Members and Supporters,

On Friday, August 17th, CBS will air “Teachers Rock 2012” a live broadcast of a star studded concert promoted as a celebration of teachers and education.  While SOS welcomes media events that honor teachers, we believe that this concert and special WILL NOT benefit the teaching profession or public education. First, proceeds from the special will, in part, benefit Teach for America, an organization that sends underprepared, temporary “teachers” into our most needy, poverty stricken public schools, displaces career professionals, and pumps non-union staff into private charter schools.

Second, the sponsors of “Teachers Rock 2012,” Walmart and Walden Media, will use it to publicize the upcoming movie “Won’t Back Down,” an emotionally charged and manipulative account of a fictional event that will be used to whip up public support for passage of a “Parent Trigger Law” in every state.  Save Our Schools, along with Parents Across America, opposes this law that supposedly promotes parent empowerment, but is really a thinly veiled scheme to hasten the takeover of public schools by private charters.  Walden Media brought us the 2010 film, “Waiting for Superman,” which demonized unions and promoted private charter schools. The Walton Family Foundation, the owners of Walmart, has given over $159 million in support of charter schools and vouchers  and is one of the most anti-union corporations in America. 

We need your help in spreading the word about the real goals of “Teacher’s Rock 2012” and the truth about Teach for America!

In 2010, when Walden Media released “Waiting for Superman” we were not prepared with a plan of action to counter its promotion of charter schools and its demonizing of teachers’ unions. This time, Save Our Schools is prepared with a two step campaign to counter the dangerous messages of both the CBS special and the upcoming film.  The first step of the campaign is to counter the messages of the “Teachers Rock 2012” CBS special. We are calling on all SOS supporters to take immediate action to inform your local communities, media, elected officials, parent groups, and fellow teachers about the failures of Teach for America and the need for well-prepared, certified, career professionals in our classrooms. To support your efforts, we are attaching information, model letters, and a press release that you can adapt to your own local actions.

You will be receiving another action alert shortly regarding the second step in our campaign timed around the release of “Won’t Back Down” and targeting the Parent Trigger Law.  Together we can change the dialogue on public education!

For complete information visit our website at saveourschoolsmarch.org

Joel Klein, News Corp. and ALEC

Looks like Parents Across America have a solid press operation. Nice work.

Schooling in the Ownership Society
Media Matters 

The Wall Street Journal Covers Up ALEC Link To Anti-Union School Privatization Law

BLOG ››› JULY 24, 2012 2:26 PM EDT ››› MELODY JOHNSON

The Wall Street Journal this morning failed to report ties between the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and controversial "parent-trigger" legislation that would allow parents to take over and convert public schools to charter schools. They also failed to report that the Journal's parent company, News Corp, is a member of ALEC. The Journal's treatment of the legislation also cited no criticism of the proposal, which has been described as an effort "to manipulate parents into letting [the charter school lobby] privatize more public schools.

In the July 23 article, the Wall Street Journal reported on legislation that, according to the article, "empowers parents to take control of a school if enough of them sign petitions" and convert it into a charter school. But the article failed to mention that the proposal is based heavily on model legislation developed by ALEC, a controversial right-wing group that was recently exposed as a significant influence in the pro-charter movement in Georgia.

ALEC has also been behind such controversial legislation as voter ID laws and "Stand Your Ground" legislation. After the group's involvement in these efforts were made public, several of their corporate membersleft the organization. One of the corporations who remains a member of ALEC, however, is News Corp, the parent company of the Wall Street Journal. The article did not disclose the paper's relationship with ALEC and similarly did not disclose their relationship even while shielding ALEC from critics.

In addition to not disclosing their conflict of interest, the Journal reported on the claims of "advocates" of the legislation, but made no mention of opposition by several parent organizations, including parents who wanted their initial petition signatures in favor of that legislation revoked, because "many parents said that they had been misled about what the petitions called for" as well as "harassment by some signature gatherers." In addition, the nonprofit group Parents Across America pointed out:

According to Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters and a public school parent in NYC, "The Parent Trigger was devised as an underhanded trick by the charter lobby to manipulate parents into letting them privatize more public schools.  The fact that it has aroused huge controversy and has so far failed to achieve any results in California is one more reason legislators should be wary of passing it here in New York State. Parents want to be involved from the ground up in devising positive reforms to improve their children's schools, like class size reduction or offering a more well-rounded curriculum.  They do not want their schools either closed, converted into charters or half their staff fired."http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/07/27-5

Once more Alex Russo afflicts the afflicted and comforts the comfortable

"I want to work with people who have relevant experience in our neighborhoods, whose kids go to the same schools mine do, and who believe in the self-determination of all communities. I do not appreciate the dominant-culture control of the 'reformers' who parachute in, a la Peace Corps style, to show us Brown and Black folks how to be like them." — Andrea Merida

Photo courtesy of LS4C1.

It seems Alexander Russo just can't stand when ordinary working class people stand up to the plutocrats he serves with such aplomb. Wasn't it just yesterday when we discussed him excoriating "activists, community members, and educators standing up to the corporate education reform juggernaut" in The trouble with Alexander Russo?

On the first of June, he wrote a paean to right-wing school privatization veteran Linda Serrato. In the piece Russo makes abundantly clear his heartfelt desire that he wants to see the administration be supportive of "Charter Trigger" laws. Since this administration is responsible for educational malpractices including Race to the Trough and Corporate Core Curriculum, it wouldn't be surprising if they did express support for Ben Austin's American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) template legislation.

Yet it's not Russo's love for all things profitable and corporate that is of note in the above article. What's astonishing is that he banned parent activist Caroline Grannan for the month of June from making comments on his blog. Grannan's crime? She had the audacity to point out that privatization pimp Serrato was a paid hack, just like the rest of the so-called Parent Revolution condottiere so beloved by the Heartland Institute.

Grannan wrote eloquently about heavy-handed Russo's selective censorship in Parent Trigger flap over paid flacks vs. real advocates. Her fellow Parents Across America (PAA) member Julie Woestehoff also wrote an excellent piece entitled Mercenaries in the corporate reform propaganda war.

While his corporate reform bias isn't in question, Russo likes to pretend he is seemingly above the fray and that he somehow devotes equal skepticism to all sides. He cites a handfull of his posts where he is mildly unflattering of some corporate reforms. Let's put his feigned neutrality to the "Who Stands to Gain?" test coined by the sage Russian philosopher, since ultimately that's the question people have been asking about paid corporate education reformers that has Russo in such a tizzy. First and formost we can't forget Russo's employer, Scholastic, made $1,906.1 Million in revenues last year. Secondly, we have to remember that he's not a volunteer activist, or even an unpaid blogger. Instead, he's paid by one of the largest education companies to write about various topics that are most typically centered around what eventually will bring in more profits to his employer. Who stands to gain? Corporate reforms like Corporate Core and other scripted curriculum mean more profits for Scholastic, which, in turn, will ensure Russo continued employment. This is probably why he's so sensitive when his idols Rhee, Romero, Petruzzi, and Austin are rightfully accused of being hired guns, since he's one himself.

Hence Russo couldn't leave Woestehoff and Grannan's valid criticisms of both himself and his corporate reform colleagues unchallenged. Indeed he launched a full scale smear campaign against PAA, leveling accusations that they are "white, middle-class, middle-aged types," who are "coming at education reform from a less immediate and compelling perspective" and further says "it isn't really clear whether PAA represents any great number of young low-income minority parents who have a direct and immediate interest in making low-performing, neglected schools better." I would ask Russo this directly, but he tends to ignore me or respond with obtuse misdirections: since corporate education reform is funded by Walton, DeVos, Broad, Bradley, Gates, Koch, Hastings, Dell, Powell-Jobs, Scaife, Tilson, et al. can he name one of the entities from that list that meet his criteria? Taking just the funders from the above mentioned Parent Revolution, can Russo tell me who out of that group of plutocrats are "low-income minority parents?" Or perhaps he's referring to Parent Revolution's leader (and it's not Maggie Gyllenhaal) who lives in a 1.2 million dollar home in an area of Beverly Hills that's 87.5% white. Despicable, duplicitous, and disgusting.

I left the following comment under Russo's recent piece. He typically deletes or edits my comments, so it's good to have a record of the original:

Wow! One of the biggest cheerleaders for corporate "reforms" savaging one of the few genuine parent movements in the country. Who would have expected that?

I'm not a member of PAA, because I'm not a parent. If I was, I'd join in a second because their policies precisely reflect those of all the families that I do countless hours of VOLUNTEER work with in my impoverished community [1]. I think PAA are actually not critical enough of the other side, whose motives are as clear as the six figure salaries they receive. Mr. Russo, show me a PAA leader paid Gloria Romero, Michelle Rhee, or Ben Austin type money, and I'll make a public apology right here.

[1] http://projects.latimes.com/mapping-la/neighborhoods/neighborhood/westlake/

Several of the PAA founding members, including those of color who take righteous exception to Russo casting them as white and middle-class, have commented there. But as I argued in my first polemic against Russo, there's a serious power imbalance on every level between those forces heralding corporate education reform and grassroots resistance to that selfsame neoliberal agenda. Our very own Professor P. L. Thomas discusses such an "unfair imbalance of power" in his very erudite Does Tone Matter in the Education Reform Debate? far better than I am able to articulate. Interestingly Thomas' essay mentions yet another Russo attack on Professor Diane Ravitch. We must continue to point out that these power imbalances exist, and that they are manifestations of system that hinges on our oppressors maintaining those imbalances at all costs. In that regard Russo is merely a mouthpiece for those really in power, and a shrill and servile one at that.

Demand Congress Give Parents a Seat at the Ed Table

Parents Across America are disappointed they haven't been able to obtain an invitation to testify or have a seat at  a seat at the table as our elected representatives in Washington debate and discuss "state efforts to expand parental engagement"  - code for how to get parents to work for trigger laws that will put a bullet right through the heart of their public school system.

This PAA press release is a shot across the bow from a group of passionate parents who still believe they can make a difference and get lawmakers to see the truth or stop the attack on public education and teachers. However, make no mistake, anyone who challenges the new corporate education deform model will not be invited anywhere.


The David and Goliath fight is on and nothing will be conceded in this battle without demands and that means unless parents, teachers and citizens unite and throw out every congressperson and senator who continue to back corporate privatization of education, more public schools across the country will be closed, replaced by for profit charters and teachers will continue to be forced to do the dirty work of testing and data collection companies -- if they want to keep their job.


Yes, it is ugly and it is sad and it is getting uglier and sadder by the day. But it is real and it is happening, but it didn't happen overnight and it won't end overnight. It's going to be a long, difficult battle because both Democrats and Republicans have signed on and with fiscal austerity in the mix, education on the cheap is the new game in town.


This means cuts for public education, and more profits for the testing companies and data companies and private companies feeding off the carcass of a starved public education system. In this new world, education on the cheap will be for everyone except the 1% or the lucky few who can afford to send their children to the best private schools and universities where class sizes are small, teachers are free to teach and students are free to learn, explore, experience and pursue their passions with limitless opportunities. These educational opportunities under the new regime will no longer be available to poor children, ESL learners, and special ed children because they will be too busy taking tests while their teachers are busy jumping through higher hoops in order to pay their bills, feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. 


Write the members of this committee, follow Parents Across America and join the fight - it's worth the time and effort despite the huge monied interests and greed -- let Congress know the people are waking up and they are finally paying attention. 


There is so much work to be done.

Parents Across America’s Response to Testimony before the House Education and the Workforce Committee

Hearing held May 16, 2012

“Exploring State Success in Expanding Parent and Student Options”

Yesterday, a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing which was promoted as a discussion on “state efforts to expand parental engagement.”

However, the title of the actual hearing (see heading above) and the testimony of three of the four invited speakers, made it clear that the leadership defines parent engagement solely as parental choice.

In his opening comments, subcommittee chair Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) essentially equated parental empowerment with expanded charter schools, parent trigger laws, and school vouchers, i.e., the privatization agenda of corporate reform

Chairman Hunter even tried to tie those strategies to the research showing the many positive outcomes of true, comprehensive parental involvement – despite the data showing that charters, trigger laws, and vouchers have failed overall (see, for example, PAA fact sheet, “Research showing NCLB doesn’t work and PAA positions do.”)

Parents Across America (PAA) believes that House leadership has incorrectly defined parental interests in education, and are therefore promoting inappropriate, ineffective solutions that are more likely to weaken than strengthen our public school system.

PAA has repeatedly and so far unsuccessfully asked to be invited to speak at House and Senate education committee hearings to voice that perspective, which is in alignment with the opinion of the majority of parents in the US.

For example, a 2010 Phi Delta Kappa poll found that 54 percent of Americans think the best thing to do about low-performing schools is to keep the school open with the same staff and give it more support. Only 17 percent wanted to close the school and reopen it with a new principal, and just 13 percent wanted to replace it with a charter school.

We know that charter school parents actually have very little voice in the policies or programs of these schools, and few serve on their governing boards.

Even strong charter school proponent Ben Austin, of the Parent Revolution, recently said that parents at most of the schools his organization is working with are not interested in turning their school into a charter school, but rather want to focus on improving their existing schools (EdSource Extra, 1/12/12).

We appreciated the testimony of Dr. Maria A. Fletcher, president of the New York State PTA, whose comments yesterday most closely represented the opinion of the majority of U.S. parents:

Public school choice is a good thing – but choice shouldn’t be viewed as an engagement strategy. Perhaps we’re asking the wrong question – instead of asking how to empower parents by providing alternatives to their neighborhood school, why aren’t we empowering parents by engaging all stakeholders to ensure that every neighborhood school lives up to the quality promise we’ve made to educate all students? ….’Your school is broken – send your child here instead’ isn’t tantamount to effectively engaging parents in education.

Parents should not have to “choose” to obtain a good school for our children, every child should have the right to a quality education no matter what school he or she attends; and the goal of system-wide improvement is what the privateers seem to have forgotten or abandoned.

PAA knows that many schools are broken. But rather than requiring parents to “trigger” a restrictive, damaging set of reforms or shop around among wildly divergent charter schools, PAA supports the kind of empowerment which involves parents authentically at the ground level and in district-, state-, and nationwide policy discussions about how to improve schools. (Please see our position paper, “The Empowerment Parents Want: The LSC Model for School Reform)

There is strong evidence over the years that LSCs have been a successful element of effective school reform. PAA understands that parent involvement and the LSC model are not magic bullets. Chicago’s schools, for example, continue to struggle despite the best efforts of LSCs.

However, the research-based LSC model is a vastly superior “choice” for 
involving parents when included in a comprehensive set of proven reforms including equitable and sufficient funding, pre-K programs, full-day Kindergarten, small classes,
 strong, experienced teachers, a well-rounded
 curriculum and evaluation systems that go beyond test scores. We believe that parents are empowered, and children better educated, only when parents 
are full partners in education policy making.

We hope that the next time the House or Senate education committee calls a hearing, we will be able to share that perspective.

What Parents Across America Know,Think and Feel

From Parents Across America:

Let your local, state and national representatives in the legislatures hear your voices.

Here is a powerful letter reprinted from today’s Syracuse Post-Standard.

This week is the annual celebration of Teacher Appreciation Week. Politicians of every stripe and school superintendents everywhere will write letters and make proclamations stating how much they value the service and dedication of teachers everywhere. All of these words are empty and merely paying lip service to something they do not believe. By their actions, these ”leaders” have made it obvious that they neither appreciate, admire, respect nor comprehend the jobs of the people who spend their days with the nation’s children. Nor do they understand the first thing about the children in those classrooms.

On every occasion possible, they talk about incompetent and ineffective teachers as if they are the norm instead of the rare exception. They create policies that tie teachers’ hands, making it more and more difficult for them to be effective. They cut budgets, eliminate classroom positions, overload classrooms, remove supports, choose ineffective and downright useless instructional tools, set up barriers to providing academic assistance, and then very quickly stand up and point fingers at teachers, blaming them for every failure of American society, and washing their own hands of any blame.

They make children endure things they would never allow for themselves: nine hours of testing over two weeks, with no breaks during each session for children as young as 8; reading tests for English as a Second Language students who have only been in the United States for one year; math tests for those same ESL students, eligible as soon as they set foot in the school; testing for children with severe learning and physical challenges. And when the scores for these children are not at the top, it’s the teachers’ fault.

We are taught as teachers to value the individual, that each child learns at his/her own pace, that we should vary instruction and testing to accommodate all learning styles, that all children have differing talents and all are equally valuable. But our ”leaders” think of children as parts on an assembly line. If we plug in A, and tighten screw B, all will be well, and every child will be a carbon copy of the other — on the same date all children of the same age will get the same score on the same test.

Well, folks, education is not a product, it’s a process; a school is not a factory. Children are not identical machine parts, but complex human beings coming to school with a whole variety of baggage, both good and bad. So, stop blaming the teachers and setting up roadblocks to keep us from doing what needs to be done. And keep your empty words to yourself. Your actions have already shown us what you really think.

Corinne Driscoll lives in Syracuse.

Parents Across America Share Ideas on ESEA

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From PAA:

This letter is available as a pdf here.  A version of the letter which you can edit to fax to your Senators is here.
A handy chart laying out which provisions in the bill we support and oppose is here. 


October 18, 2011

Re: Reauthorization of ESEA

Dear Senator Harkin:

Your proposed revisions to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act show that you and the HELP Committee have listened to some of the concerns voiced by parents and others about the problems with No Child Left Behind. For example, we strongly support doing away with the adequate yearly progress measurement, and agree that requiring states to adopt unreliable test-based principal and teacher evaluation will only lead to an overemphasis on standardized tests and the further narrowing of the curriculum. Thank you from Parents Across America!

However, we believe that too many of the ineffective, damaging elements of NCLB remain in the Senate proposal, and that it does not address more important, fundamental problems facing our nation’s schools and students.

Specifically, instead of the rigid menu imposed on schools needing improvement, including punitive school closings, privatization, or other set policies imposed from above with no track record of success, solutions should be devised through stakeholder input from the ground up, including parents.

In addition, options should include research-based improvements including class size reduction, expansion of preschool programs, and more parent involvement in decision-making at all levels. Right now, schools with the most at-risk students are being closed or forced to arbitrarily fire half their staff. Not only does this seriously disrupt children’s lives, but it also undermines communities and fatally weakens the effort to recruit and keep high-quality teachers in our neediest schools. Given the harsh school budget cuts being carried out across the U. S., this is simply not the time to throw more precious education funds away on more experimental or damaging policies.

We also feel strongly that parents should have the right to have their children opt out of high-stakes testing—and that any accountability system should include multiple measures of success, including parent and teacher surveys. We oppose the continuation of the risky and damaging Race to the Top and Innovation grant programs. Attached please find a summary of specific recommendations from PAA for a better ESEA.

As the primary stakeholders of the public schools, parents have a deep-rooted understanding of the challenges facing our educational system. We would welcome the opportunity to testify at any hearings called on the topic of ESEA reauthorization.

Thank you so much for your time and attention, and for your service to our children.
Sincerely,

Julie Woestehoff, Legislative Chair, Parents Across America
____
Parents Across America Recommendations for a better ESEA

October 2011

ESEA should NOT:

• Promote policies that use standardized test scores or graduation data as the primary accountability measures for schools, teachers or students. Overemphasis on such data encourages cheating and manipulation, and has led to narrowing of the school curriculum and replacing important school subjects with math and reading test prep.

• Limit federally-mandated school improvement models to a narrow set of strategies, including school closings privatization, and/or firing half the staff, which are punitive and have had little verified success. Right now, schools with the highest needs students are being targeted for closure or other damaging prescriptions that disrupt children’s lives and undermine any effort to recruit and keep high-quality teachers in our neediest schools.

• Mandate charter takeovers or other forms of outsourcing school management that take resources from the schools attended by most students and put them into private hands, with less oversight.

• Identify those schools needing improvement by means of rigid formulas that do not take into account the need level of the student population.

• Continue the risky and damaging Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation grant programs.

A better ESEA should include

• Requirements that ensure fairly distributed, adequate resources in all public schools, so that every child receives a high-quality education.

• Support for improving schools rather than closing them, by means of evidence-based solutions, including class size reduction and expansion of preK programs, as designed by parents and other stakeholders at the school level.

• Less emphasis on standardized testing and more reliable accountability and assessment practices including local, teacher-designed assessments supplemented with teacher and parent surveys and site visits.

Programs that encourage the retention of professional, experienced teachers, especially at the most challenged schools.

• A full range of parent involvement opportunities including a stronger parent voice in decision making at the school, district, state, and national levels.

• The right of parents to opt their children out of standardized tests.

The full version of the Parents Across America Position Paper on the Reauthorization
of the Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) can be found at
http://parentsacrossamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/ESEApositionFINAL4-20-11.pdf 

For more information please email us at info@parentsacrossamerica.org or visit us online at www.parentsacrossamerica.org

An open letter to Michael Moore from Sharon Higgins

Sharon Higgins is a founding member of Parents Across America and is also the author of three major blogs dedicated to both authentic reform and to exposing the criminal masterminds behind the corporate take over of public education. Her indispensable blogs include: The Broad Report, Charter School Scandals, and The Perimeter Primate. Her impeccable research has yielded invaluable information for activists and public education advocates. Whether you need information on a Broadyte recently infecting your school district, the name of one of the charter school executives who embezzled a half a million dollars, or want to read up on the Gulen Movement's insidious control of much of the charter school industry, Higgins has it covered. In An open letter to Michael Moore from Sharon Higgins she makes an appeal to Michael Moore to take up the cause of defending public education from the philanthrocapitalist vultures and their vile hangers on.

Dear Mr. Moore,

I am one of the people who will have the opportunity to see you at your UC Berkeley book event this Saturday night. It's going to be great to hear you speak!

Yesterday, as I listed to your interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation, I was happy to hear how you have considered doing a documentary about the American school system. I'd like to add my voice to the chorus of people who make that request of you everyday.

It's clear that you are aware of some of the devastating issues facing public education, such as the demoralization of teachers. I was impressed that you knew how Finland's success is the result of great policy decisions made years ago (the type of decisions the country continues to ignore). I was very gratified to hear that you did not like Waiting for Superman.

I believe that you are going to get more and more requests to make a documentary about public education. A lot of public school supporters are extremely upset at how public education is being forced to go down the wrong road. We want the truth to be exposed, and will keep turning to you for help.

That alarming truth is that our nation's public education system is in the process of being dismantled and privatized in the name of "education reform." The strategies being used are right out of the disaster capitalism playbook, with both Republicans and Democrats in support of the plan (including President Obama's administration). A wrong-headed, glorified "business model of education" has been shoved down our throats but it's not working. The school reform we've now been subjected to for years is failing!

Opportunists and predators ("edupreneurs") are having a feeding frenzy on the stream of public school funding. School districts spend millions on consultants and useless programs, and then whittle away at teachers, librarians, and electives for kids. Privately-run, publicly-funded, inadequately-monitored charter schools get preferential treatment and the myth of their superiority is constantly parroted. [continues...]

Read the entire story here.

Introducing the Depowered Forward for the Corporate Oligarchs

Just too good!

The Sleeping Giant is Awakening As Parents Across America Unite

Ravitch Says The Sleeping Giant is Awakening

As Parents Across America Unite

by Judy Rabin

Hailed as a “hero” by supporters who came to hear her give the keynote address, Diane Ravitch took the stage for almost an hour as she spoke to parents, teachers, and activists from across the country Monday night at PS/IS 89 in New York City. They came from Seattle, Florida, Rochester, New York City, New Jersey, New Orleans, Chicago, and elsewhere, for the kickoff of the nationwide organization Parents Across America (PAA) and a call to action to take back public education.

PAA is a grassroots effort and political campaign spearheaded by parent activists and local organizations joining forces nationally against corporate interests who have hijacked public education and against the politicians who have turned their backs on the voices of parents and professional educators. “Since the top-down forces that are imposing their will on our schools have become national in scope, we need to be as well,” according to the PAA website.

Ravitch told the audience at this auspicious gathering, there is a perfect storm brewing in which those who have delegitimized public education are taking advantage of a bad economy and deep budget cuts to implement their own ideological agenda. She criticized President Obama’s Race to the Top by saying “education is not a race – education is not a competition. Good schools depend on collaboration, not on teachers competing for dollars. ” She said the punishments and remedies instituted under No Child Left Behind have escalated under the current administration and closing of schools destroys the social capital which consists of the relationships in the community essential for good, strong schools and a quality education.

The passion, excitement, determination and anger in the room were palpable as speaker after speaker got up to discuss how the current education reform is damaging their own communities, their schools and any chance of real learning opportunities for their children. They spoke of communities being torn apart in New York City and other urban areas where parents and teachers are pitted against each other. Members of the national board of PAA urged the audience to contact their local legislators and work to educate parents in their local communities by providing them with the tools and research-based evidence that illustrates why merit pay, charter schools and testing are failed policies that have not improved education or closed the achievement gap. In fact, with 20 percent of children living in poverty, Ravitch says poverty is the elephant in the room and it is an issue.

Up until now, parents have had very little say as the corporate reformers “move children around like checkers on a checkerboard” in their mindless pursuit of test scores, explained Ravitch. That’s why PAA hopes to galvanize parents and empower them to channel their frustration by working together with teachers and lobbying state legislatures and Congress to enact real, genuine education reform that will improve public schools, not close them. Some of the alternatives and ideas advocated by PAA include common sense solutions such as: high quality early childhood programs; parent education programs; reasonable limits on class size: medical clinics in schools: more professionalism in teaching: and more support and better working conditions for teachers; and acknowledging what every teacher and educator already knows -- test scores have been and still are closely correlated with the socioeconomic status of a school’s population.

           

Ravitch ended on a note of optimism. “There is hope even though all the power and all the money is on one side, and on the other side there is no one standing up for teachers. Parents are the sleeping giants of this debate. If the sleeping giant awakens you can take back American education and the time to start is today.”

For more information on Parents Across America go to: www.parentsacrossamerica.org and join -- today.