Not only because I am a teacher, but because I am an American. Along with others,
For the future of our children, we demand:
Equitable funding for all public school communities
Equitable funding across all public schools and school systems
Full public funding of family and community support services
Full funding for 21st century school and neighborhood libraries
An end to economically and racially re-segregated schools
An end to high stakes testing used for the purpose of student, teacher, and school evaluation
The use of multiple and varied assessments to evaluate students, teachers, and schools
An end pay per test performance for teachers and administrators
An end to public school closures based upon test performance
Teacher, family and community leadership in forming public education policies
Educator and civic community leadership in drafting new ESEA legislation
Federal support for local school programs free of punitive and competitive funding
An end to political and corporate control of curriculum, instruction and assessment decisions for teachers and administrators
Curriculum developed for and by local school communities
Support for teacher and student access to a wide-range of instructional programs and technologies
Well-rounded education that develops every student’s intellectual, creative, and physical potential
Opportunities for multicultural/multilingual curriculum for all students
Small class sizes that foster caring, democratic learning communities
These are the core demands of those organizing and support the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action.
I am helping with this effort, support for which is rapidly growing.
Please keep reading.
This is an issue of equity
This is a matter of fairness
This is important for the future of our democracy
Unfortunately, we have a national administration whose education policy has bought into the rhetoric of those who really do not have the best interests of our students at heart.
We could call them Education Deformers.
Or given one of the most visible of their advocates, perhaps we should call the Education RHEE-formers.
They are corporatist.
They are anti union.
They make common cause with groups that are hostile to public education.
Sadly, in the making of education policy, too often the voices of educators and of parents have been systematically excluded.
Instead we get test companies, think tanks, textbook companies. hedge fund operators, foundations.
It does not have to be this way.
But we need to speak up now, before ESEA is reauthorized.
We have to get the attention of policy makers - in Congress and State Legislatures.
We need to finally force the media to recognize that they have only been listening to a narrow portion of those attempting to speak on education, and that many of those to whom they are listening are not really educators.
You can see our many endorsers, who include among others
noted policy experts and Educators like Yong Zhao, Alfie Kohn, Diane Ravitch, Deborah Meier and many others
Institutions of Higher Education:
Hofstra University, School of Education, Health & Human Services, Long Island, NY
Lesley University, Cambridge, MA
Teachers College, Department of Curriculum and Teaching, Columbia University, New York, NY
Teachers of the Year:
Nancy Flanagan, National Board certified music teacher, 1993 Michigan Teacher of the Year, and author of the Teacher Magazine blog “Teacher in a Strange Land”
Danielle Kovach, 2011 New Jersey Teacher of the Year
Renee Moore, National Board certified English teacher, 2001 Mississippi Teacher of the Year, and author of the Teacher Leaders Network blog, TeachMoore
Bob Williams, math teacher and 2009 Alaska Teacher of the Year
Maryann Woods-Murphy, 2010 New Jersey Teacher of the Year
Go follow the link - read all the names and organizations that have signed on to this. We have now been endorsed by both national Teachers Unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.
Here's the key - this was organized by ordinary people, teachers and parents and teacher educators.
We are trying to build something ongoing to ensure that our voices and voices like ours continue to be heard as the future of public education in America is under discussion.
We have a conference.
We have a march.
We will then meet to organize for where we go from here. This is not intended as merely a one-time event.
The rally on July 30 will officially begin at noon at the Ellipse, but arrive early to enjoy performances, art, and more!
At noon, Diane Ravitch, Jonathan Kozol, José Vilson, Deborah Meier, Monty Neill, Angela Valenzuela, and other speakers, musicians, performance poets, and more will encourage, educate, and support this movement and the Save Our Schools March demands.
At two p.m., we will march to the Department of Education, where the demands will be read, we’ll chant, and engage in a call for continued action to reclaim schools as places of learning, joy, and democracy.
If you cannot come to DC then, check our website for local events, or perhaps see if you can organize one in your town.
So why am I marching? Why am I involved?
In 1994 I left a secure career as a local government civil servant in data processing to get trained as a teacher and teach. Since the 1995-95 school year I have been a public school teacher, dedicating my life and my energy to making the world a better place, by opening the minds and widening the perspectives of those students I am lucky enough to teach. We learn together.
Increasingly I have seen public education - schools and teachers - under attack.
Some people don't believe in public education.
Some only see it as the training of a complacent work force.
Others see it as an opportunity to profit - by selling tests, test preparation, managing schools, running chains of charters with cookie cutter curriculum.
I see public education as the hope and future of American democracy.
I believe in teaching my students to think critically, to be able to think for themselves.
Others want to indoctrinate - some in a theological perspective, creating the Evangelical equivalents of the madrassas through which a narrow perspective of Islam has been propagated around the world.
Our democracy is under attack from many directions.
If we cannot maintain a vibrant public education system, what is left of democracy will be eroded, will wither away.
Public education should be seen as a public good, as a responsibility for all, even if they choose other options for their own children, or - if like my wife and I - they do not have children of their own.
Education should not be solely dependent upon the wealth and education of one's parents. America was not conceived of as a nation with a self-perpetuating class structure.
I am now 65. I have march before - for Civil Rights, against the war in Vietnam . . . I have not marched for many years. On July 30 I will be marching, no matter if it pours, or if it horridly hot and humid, as it can be in DC in the summer. It is that important.
As I write this I am sitting in an open space at a hotel in Daytona Beach, where I have for a week been spending almost 8 hours a day reading Advanced Placement exams and scoring the same question over and over and over - so far more the 3,000 times.
Often I will sit at my computer and write about education, trying to help people make sense of it.
I review books.
I review movies.
I deconstruct and analyze policy statements, and research.
I advocate - online, and in person to local, state and national elected officials.
It is that important.
So tonight, even though I am tired, and my brain is almost fried, I sat down and wrote this, to try to explain why I will be marching.
I wrote it to urge you to explore what you can do.
Perhaps you can come to the conference.
Perhaps you too can come for the march.
You certainly can let others know about this.
You can speak out against what is happening to our schools, our teachers, our students.
You can work to reclaim a meaningful public educational opportunity for all.
You can prevent the corporatists and profiteers from destroying meaningful public education.
And by doing this, you might just help save our democratic republic.
So what will you do?