Be in DC this weekend!
But if you can't, watch it all on LiveStream.
Occupy the DOE in DC, Friday, March 30th: Take Our Message to Capitol Hill
10:00 a.m. Welcome Rally at the DOE!!!! United Opt Out Administrators
speak up: Morna McDermott McNulty, Laurie Murphy, Peggy Robertson,
Tim Slekar and Ceresta Smith. Why we are here and what we hope to
accomplish – we plan to create a greater awareness of the negative
effects of corporate education reform and share tools for action.
We opt out of corporate education reform.
11:00 a.m. Mic-check: Share our stories, our dreams for public education and more.
Noon:
ALEC (
American Legislative Exchange Council)
awareness session by United Opt Out Administrators
1:30 p.m. March to Capitol Hill to share our demands. Route/guidelines/permit for march to Capitol Hill can be
found here. Map can be
found here.
We will share a copy of the Parental Rights Opt Out Bill (currently
going to committee to allow a parent the right to opt a child out of the
state test with no punitive consequences to the child, school or
district) from Colorado – we suggest this bill become a model for opt
out bills in every state. This is a proclamation for issuing bills
across the land; opting out needs to be protected in all fifty states.
We will share our concerns regarding ALEC legislation, NCLB, RTTT and
our demands for a public education system that provides a whole and
equitable education for all children – without high stakes testing and
punitive consequences for students, teachers, schools, communities and
our democracy.
3:00 p.m. Appointment with Senator Sanders educational counsel, Jessica Cardichon.
4:00 p.m. Return to the DOE to continue our occupation.
9:30 p.m. at Saint Stephens with Bill Moyer of Backbone Campaign: Strategy, Conflict, & Creativity – Tools for Harmonizing Grassroots Power
In the wake of a tumultuous Fall and in anticipation of a vibrant
Spring how will the populist uprising manifest and draw new members to
the cause? How can we build movement identity that is sympathetic and
inviting? Overcoming obstacles, misconceptions, and confusion about the
nature of conflict, the activist-organizer’s role in building movement
power, and understanding grand strategic principles are essential if we
are to deliver meaningful victories.
Occupy the DOE in DC, Saturday, March 31st: We OCCUPY the DOE
10:00 a.m. Wake Up Call – Join us in the morning to rally and mic-check at the DOE. We want to hear your voice!!
11:00 a.m. Liza Campbell, teacher and
education organizer in NYC and Brian Jones, teacher and co-narrator for
the Inconvenient Truth about Waiting for Superman: Building a
Grassroots Movement to Defend Public Education
NYC public school teachers Liza Campbell and Brian Jones will
describe their experiences fighting privatization, charter school
co-locations, school closings and high-stakes standardized testing.
These activists will share lessons from the struggle in New York, and
discuss the challenges facing our movement today.
Brian Jones is a teacher, actor and activist in New York. He is the
co-narrator of the film, The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for
Superman, and a contributing author to the new book, Education and
Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation (Haymarket Books).
Liza Campbell is a teacher and education organizer in New York City.
Currently she focuses her activism energy on building a movement of
parents and teachers to fight high stakes testing, combating the
school-to-prison pipeline while pushing for restorative alternatives,
and occupying the New York City Department of Education. She teaches
high school math.
1:30 p.m. – Linda Nathan, Ann O’Halloran, Ruth
Rodriguez-Fay. Getting Beyond the Madness of High-Stakes Testing:
Occupy the Classroom!
Linda Nathan
is the founding headmaster of
the Boston Arts Academy, the city’s first and only public high school
for the visual and performing arts. Dr. Nathan has written a
widely-praised book about teaching and leadership in urban schools, “The
Hardest Questions Aren’t on the Test,” which was recently published in
Spanish. Ann O’Halloran was the 2007 Massachusetts History Teacher of
the Year and is a member of Citizens for Public Schools. Ruth
RodrÃguez-Fay (pictured here) is past President of Citizens for Public
Schools and a “Save Our Schools” interim committee member.
2:30 Jim Horn: KIPP and the Total Compliance Model of Schooling the Poor: Ending the KIPP-nosis
Since 2000 when KIPP, Inc. presented a student skit at the Republican
National Convention, thus making its debut onto the world political
stage, this corporate charter franchise has attracted hundreds of
millions of dollars to promote KIPP and the KIPP pedagogical model as
the segregated, no-excuses solution to urban schooling. This
presentation will share research on KIPP schools that tells a very
different story than the one presented in the corporate media. Also
included will be excerpts from firsthand accounts of former teachers who
taught within the KIPP organization and lived to tell about it.
Jim Horn is Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and
Foundations at Cambridge College. He also publishes and contributes to
Schools Matter,
a weblog devoted to the preservation and renewal of public education.
He has close to four decades of experience as a K-12 educator and as
professor of social foundations and research. He publishes opinion
pieces regularly in various venues, and he is committed to the social
justice leadership mission in schools here and abroad.
3:30 p.m. Dave Greene: The Inconvenient Truths behind TFA and its Inadequate Version of Teacher Training.
SUMMARY: Most CM’s (TFA teachers) are nice, well intentioned, upper
middle class suburban white kids with no bicultural literacy. They
usually see their two years as “community service” on the road to a
“higher” calling. Many of them would make excellent teachers, if they
stayed.
They, and we, are told they are the solution to the problems facing
education. TFA propaganda is all we see. TFA is very good at marketing
their product, which is not education; it is TFA.
TFA is the Emperor with no clothes. It’s time to tell the Emperor we see.
David Greene is a former Social Studies teacher and coach in NYC,
Woodlands HS, and Scarsdale HS. He presently is a field supervisor for
Fordham University, mentoring Teach For Americans in the Bronx. He is a
staff member of WISE Services, an organization that helps high schools
create and run experiential learning programs for seniors. He is an
advisor to the Foundation For Male Studies and The Boy Initiative, a HS
football coach, and was a member of the Save Our Schools Call to Action
Conference and Rally Program Committee.
Mr. Greene co-presented a workshop on TFA at the SOS Conference last
July. He has had work published in Ed Week on line and has also been
referenced by Valerie Strauss in her Washington Post web based column, The Answer Sheet.
He has given several talks on how NCLB and RTTP have negatively
affected the success of boys in public schools. He is a regular
contributor to The Teachers Talk Back Blog, was featured on “Bronx Talk”, blogs at his website, DCG Mentoring, and is still working on a book tentatively titled, So You Think You Know Education, A Teacher’s Perspective.
6:30 p.m. Movie – TEACH at American University 6:30 p.m.
followed by a panel with Bob & Yvonne Lamothe, Ann O’Halloran, and
Ruth Rodriguez.
Location: American University, 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20016
http://www.teachdocumentary.com/film/teachpreviews.cfm
The TEACH documentary,
TEACH, Teachers are Talking, Is the Nation Listening?
is a film that features conversations about the art of teaching and
learning by teachers themselves. We have interviewed over 40 teachers
from many school districts including Boston, Brooklyn, NY, Madison, WI,
Key West, FL, North Conway, NH, Cambridge, MA, Newton, MA,
Lincoln-Sudbury,MA, and others. Additional parts of the movie include
legislative hearings, speeches by Bradley Whitford, Diane Ravitch, and
others, debates between union and school officials, various public
hearings about school closings, and various teacher rallies. Recently we
traveled to Wisconsin to take part in the rallies and document the
multitude of happenings there to fight to protect their unions. We have
interviews and many scenes from their recent protests there including
the rally of more than 100,000 people on February 26.
Robert Lamothe and Yvonne Lamothe are teachers in the Boston Public
Schools. Since we started this movie around 4 years ago we have become
increasing concerned and dismayed by what has been happening to our
schools and education in general. People are making decisions about our
schools that don’t really know what they are doing and don’t have the
interests of children and our schools as the determining factor in
setting our education policies. The joys of learning and teaching are
being destroyed by this terrible emphasis on testing and standards. We
have become increasingly frustrated by the fact that very seldom do
teachers voices get heard. Teachers who should be a leading part of
education policy and “reform” are for the most part not part of the
process, not part of the national and local debates.
Each day we hear about teaching and teachers through the eyes of
administrators, politicians and business leaders. Public education in
the US is under attack. Seldom is voice given to those dedicated and
experienced teachers who work in our public schools. Interviews with
teachers from many school districts illuminate what’s happening to
schools across the country, what is impacting their performance, and
offers their analysis of the performance and purpose of the charter
movement. This documentary hopes to give dignity and appreciation to the
passion, commitment and insight of those who make the choice to devote
their lives to educating all of our nation’s children.
As stated in the subtitle,
Teachers are Talking, Is the Nation Listening. We hope to bring the voices and wisdom of teachers to the nation.
Sincerely,
Robert Lamothe and Yvonne Lamothe
Director / Producer
Film Our Way Films
http://www.filmourwayfilms.com
Occupy the DOE in DC, Sunday, April 1st – April Fools Day – We OCCUPY the DOE
April Fools! No Child Left Behind – Fool Me Once.
Race to the Top – We Won’t be Fooled Again.
10:00 a.m. Wake Up Call – Join us in the morning to rally, mic-check and wake up America with our stories, our hopes and our demands!
11:00 a.m. – Jesse Turner: Children More than Data
Jesse will discuss how the current NCLB/RTTT assessment framework is
both unethical and unbalanced. He wants to engage participants in an
interactive dialogue – what does an Inclusive Balanced Assessment
Framework look like? A balanced framework using authentic measures that
values the voice of students, teachers, and parents is within our reach.
Dr.
Jesse Turner is the Director of the Central Connecticut State
University Literacy Center, teaching advanced clinical graduate courses
for literacy specialists. As part of his department’s community
engagement mission, the Literacy Center at CCSU provides over
$130,000.00 worth of tutoring by certified teachers to local children,
free of charge, every year. Dr. Turner works closely on a daily basis
with children, parents, and teachers and is an activist and advocate for
children, parents, and teachers. He has spoken to audiences across the
nation about the problems created by the No Child Left Behind Act, In
2010 Jesse created the Facebook group “Children Are More Than Test
Scores” as a way to connect individuals and communities struggling
against the NCLB law. Two years ago Jesse walked 400 miles in 40 days
from Connecticut to Washington, D.C. to raise awareness of the negative
impact NCLB/RTTT was having on children, parents, teachers, and schools.
With a core group of people he met on his walk, and online Jesse helped
build the coalition that became the Save Our Schools March, and Week of
Action. His work includes advocating for children, parents and
teachers, chairing conferences, writing grants, and organizing community
based projects.
1:30 p.m. – Mark Naison and Ira Shor: The Occupy Movement and the Struggle to Save Public Education in the United States
Mark and Ira will discuss the intense attack on public education
while connecting it to larger policy campaigns in a class war underway
in America. Further discussion will focus on the banning of Paulo
Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed in the MAS program at Tuscon.
Mark
Naison is Professor of History and African American Studies at Fordham
University. He is the author of four books and over 100 articles on
African American politics, social movements and American culture and
sports. Dr. Naison is the Principal Investigator of the Bronx African
American History Project, one of the largest community based oral
history projects in the nation and has begun work on an book of oral
histories from the BAAHP, with Robert Gumbs, entitled
Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life in the Bronx from the 1030’s to the 1960’s.
His articles about Bronx music and Bronx culture have been published in
German, Spanish, Catalan, and Portuguese as well as English. When not
doing historical research, Naison likes to play tennis and golf, post
commentary on his blog “With a Brooklyn Accent” and make periodic forays
into the media. He has appeared on the O’Reilly Factor, the Discovery
Channel’s Greatest American Competition (as Dr King’s advocate), and on
the Dave Chappell Show, where his “performance” has been preserved on
that show’s Second Year DVD. Most recently, he has begun presenting
historical “raps” in Bronx schools under the nickname of “Notorious Phd”
and was the subject of stories about his use of hip hop in teaching in
the Daily News, and on Bronx 12 Cablevision, and Fox Business.
IRA
SHOR works with Prof. Mark Naison of Fordham University on starting
“99% clubs” affiliated with the Occupy movement. Shor is a Professor of
Rhetoric/Composition at the City University of NY’s Graduate Center(Phd
Program in English) and in the Dept. of English at the College of Staten
Island/CUNY. Shor started the new doctorate in Rhetoric/Composition at
the CUNY Grad Center in 1993. There, he directs dissertations and offers
seminars in literacy, Paulo Freire and critical pedagogy, whiteness
studies, composition theory and practice, and the rhetorics of
domination and resistance. At the College of Staten Island/CUNY, he
teaches first-year writing, non-fiction, coming-of-age narratives,
multicultural literature, and mass media.
His 9 published books include a 3-volume set in honor of the late
Paulo Freire, the noted Brazilian educator who was his friend and
mentor: CRITICAL LITERACY IN ACTION(college language arts) and EDUCATION
IS POLITICS(Vol 1, k-12, and Vol. 2, Postsecondary Across the
Curriculum). Shor’s work with Freire began in the early 1980s and lasted
until Freire’s unfortunate passing in 1997. He and Freire co-authored A
PEDAGOGY FOR LIBERATION in 1986, the first “talking” book Freire
published with a collaborator. Shor also authored the widely used
EMPOWERING EDUCATION(1992) and WHEN STUDENTS HAVE POWER(1996), two
foundational texts in critical teaching. His CRITICAL TEACHING AND
EVERYDAY LIFE(1980)was the first book-length treatment of Freire-based
critical methods in the North American context. That book grew out of
Shor’s teaching for Open Admission students in the City University in
the 1970s, where he helped build an experimental writing program
recognized as one of three successful efforts in higher education.
Coming to the CUNY in 1971 after a PhD at Wisconsin, he experimented
with critical literacy, taught Basic Writing for 15 years, and now
offers doctoral courses.
Born into a working-class family in 1945 in the South Bronx of New
York City, Shor attended mediocre local public schools until he was
selected for the premier public high school then in the nation, New York
City’s Bronx High School of Science. There, he saw how differently
education for the elite is managed compared to the education for the
majority he took part in before. In the Jewish South Bronx of the 1950s,
he grew up in a rent-controlled apartment among Eastern European
families, his being Russian. Shor’s father, a son of immigrants, became a
sheet-metal worker after he dropped out of school at 15. He learned his
trade from a family friend; during World War II and the Korean War, he
built battleships and aircraft carriers at the old Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Shor’s mother, also first-generation, was a bookkeeper for small
businesses who finished high school but could not afford to go to
college, which broke her heart.
After graduating from Bronx Science High School, Shor attended the
University of Michigan(BA, English, 1966), then the University of
Wisconsin(MA, 1968, and Phd, 1971), both sites of vigorous student
activism in the 1960s. Shor joined the antiwar, civil rights, and
students’ rights movements of that time. His dissertation was on Kurt
Vonnegut whose fiction stood for equality, peace, and kindness. After
finishing his Phd, Shor started teaching comp and basic writing at
Staten Island Community College, then a 2-year unit of CUNY. He joined
the CUNY faculty when the democratic policies of Open Admissions and
Free Tuition were under attack. Shor joined the long defense of
democratic rights at CUNY, 1971-1976, while also experimenting with
critical literacy for his working-class students. He worked with Paulo
Freire in the 80s and 90s, when Freire and he co-authored
A Pedagogy for Liberation.
2:30 p.m. – The Education of Sam Sanders with author Thomas S. Poetter
Set in 2029,
The Education of Sam Sanders tells the story of
an 8th grader searching for meaning in his school experiences. In a
public school system beset by the finality and rigidity of standardized
tests and curriculums, Sam Sanders, with the help of his teacher and
mother, defies the system and creates something new: a curriculum that
enlightens rather than categorizes students. In this hopeful yet
frightening look at an educational future not too far from our own, we
encounter the high cost of inquiry-oriented learning and the even higher
cost of a system that suppresses it.
The Education of Sam Sanders
is a valuable book for young adults in schools, students of teaching,
teachers, and parents/citizens concerned by current trends in public
education. This inspiring work offers a unique and in-depth analysis of
the high stakes testing and standardization movements and surfaces ideas
for how we might change our current direction.
Thomas
S. Poetter is a Professor of Curriculum Studies in the Department of
Educational Leadership at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. A longtime
public school advocate and partner, Poetter continues to write and teach
with remarkably talented,focused students and colleagues at Miami in
the areas of curriculum, teaching, and public education renewal. Among
his many published journal articles and books is his recent edited book
with doctoral students,
10 Great Curricula: Lived Conversations of Progressive, Democratic Curriculum in School and Society (2011, Information Age Publishers). He can be reached at poettets@muohio.edu.
3:30 p.m. – Stephen Krashen
Is American Education Backing the Wrong Horse? (Yes)
The movement for national standards and tests is based on these
claims: (1) Our educational system is broken, as revealed by US
students’ scores on international tests; (2) We must improve education
to improve the economy; (3) The way to improve education is to have
national standards and national tests that enforce the standards, and
rate teachers on the basis of student performance (value-added
measures). Each of these claims is unfounded. Dr. Krashen will discuss
each claim and how to refute it. And – Stephen has a solution – join us
to hear more.
Stephen
Krashen is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of
Southern California. He is best known for developing the first
comprehensive theory of second language acquisition, introducing the
concept of sheltered subject matter teaching, and as the co-inventor of
the Natural Approach to foreign language teaching. He has also
contributed to theory and application in the area of bilingual
education, and has done important work in the area of reading. He holds a
PhD in Linguistics from UCLA, was the 1977 Incline Bench Press champion
of Venice Beach and holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. He is the author
of The Power of Reading (Heinemann, 2004, second edition). His recent
papers can be found at http://www.sdkrashen.com.
7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Bus Boys & Poets: Barry Lane Cabaret
Location: Cullen Room @ Busboys and Poets, 5th & K
Barry
Lane is an author, teacher, comedian and singer. Barry’s Cabaret
celebrates teachers. He states: These are difficult times for teachers.
There are serious issues in educational accountability and instruction
raised by the new Common Core Standards. There are one-size-fits-all
bubble tests that rank teachers. There are politico-pundits who blame
teachers for all the problems of public education. Time to forget about
all that, let your hair down, and concentrate on what’s real. Time to
DANCE, LAUGH, SING.
After years of doing stand-up and parody karaoke singing as part of
his academic presentations, Barry Lane has put together a genuine
interactive, improvisational, nightclub act for teachers. You will sing,
you will dance and you will learn to laugh at yourself and the crazy
world around you. You may also begin to realize once again, that you
have the most important job in the world.
Occupy the DOE in DC, MONDAY, April 2nd – Let’s Bring Real Learning to the White House: Real Hope. Real Solutions.
9:00 a.m. Join us at the DOE – Poster Making Party, Mic-check and more.
10:00 a.m. Solutions for Communities – Mike Klonsky: “This is how we do it: Parents Organizing to Save Our Schools”
Michael Klonsky, Ph.D. is
on the education faculty at DePaul University in Chicago. He currently
serves as the national director of the Small Schools Workshop and is a
member of the National Steering Committee of Save Our Schools (SOS).
Dr. Klonsky is a teacher educator who has spoken and written extensively
on school reform issues with a focus on urban school restructuring. He
is also the parent of three children who have been educated in Chicago’s
public schools. His latest book (with Susan Klonsky),
Small Schools: Public School Reform Meets the Ownership Society
(Routledge), is a critique of top-down school reform and the push
towards privatization of public schools. He is also the author of
Small Schools: The Numbers Tell a Story (University of Illinois Small Schools Workshop) and co-author of A
Simple Justice: The Challenge for Teachers in Small Schools (Teachers College Press). He has served as a member of the
National Advisory Council on Youth Violence and is past president of the board of
Catalyst,
Chicago’s school-reform journal. He has also written extensively on the
history and progress of Chicago’s school reform movement and has
assisted teachers, parents, and community groups in efforts to save,
rethink, and transform their public schools.
His work is profiled at
http://klonsky.blogspot.com/
His
SmallTalk blog can be found at
http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/
His Schooling in the Ownership Society blog is at
http://schoolingintheownershipsociety.blogspot.com/
mail: smallschoolsworkshop@yahoo.com
11:00 a.m. Solutions for Educators – Bess Altwerger, Morna
McDermott McNulty and Peggy Robertson (more info. to follow):
Professional Schools of Conscience for Educators and the Declaration by
Ken Goodman
12:30 p.m. March to the White House – Share Real Learning…..Real Assessment….Real Teaching…Real Democracy. Solutions for the 99% – Not Profit for the 1%.
Tell Me What Real Learning Looks Like? This is What Real Learning Looks Like!!!
Mic-Check – Share our stories from students,
teachers, parents and community members. Let’s tell them what we know
about quality learning and teaching. Let’s tell them what we demand in
return. Let’s share our posters – our visuals of real teaching and
learning. Bring student work, bring STUDENTS!!! Bring instruments (hand
held), art displays, history, science and math projects (on poster
displays that can be hand held) – let’s share quality learning
experiences. Our children are more than a test score. Our teachers are
not robots reading a script. Let’s bring it the White House and let
them see.
Return to the DOE where we pass the torch to
Save Our Schools: A national movement dedicated to saving, rethinking and transforming public schools.
4:00 p.m. Save Our Schools
Steering Committee members announce the next action. (current steering
committee members attending: Don Bartalo, Peggy Robertson, Ceresta
Smith and Jesse Turner)
