Save Our Schools March in Sacramento

            An estimated 2000 – 3,000  parents, teachers, and public education supporters marched in Washington, D.C. and in  eleven  support rallies in other cities including Sacramento, California  on July 30.  The Sacramento event had about 100 participants. The events were organized by parent groups and other pro public education groups and supported by teachers unions.  The rally, although small by Washington standards was at least 20 times larger than the Tea Party rally held in Washington this week in support of the Tea Party’s proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution to balance the budget.

            There was limited media coverage of the Save Our Schools rallies.  The Save Our Schools March was organized by a wide variety of local groups and education advocates.  Speakers included Diane Ravitch, Jonathan Kozol, José Vilson, Deborah Meier, Monty Neill, Cornel West, and Pedro Noguera, among others.  Schools around the country are suffering from severe  budget cuts and teacher lay offs  imposed by the economic crisis and the  resultant decisions of legislatures to cut budgets.

In addition parents and  teachers  say they are fed up with so-called “reform” policies in No Child Left Behind  that falsely label more than 80% of U.S. public schools as failures.   They oppose several programs of the Obama Administration included Race to the Top including the proposed new amendments to the NCLB law that would increase competition between under funded schools.   March participants, including many teacher union members, oppose the shift to more for-profit charter schools rather than public schools,  the assault on the teachers’ unions,  and the emphasis on high stakes testing which has driven many public goals from the school curriculum.

Parents and teachers insist on more democratic participation in reform effort rather than the current domination of “reform” agenda by corporate and Right Wing interests including the Gates, Broad, and Bradley  Foundation, among others.

Why We March: Save Our Schools

Monty Neil:My organization, FairTest, also endorsed Save Our Schools. True, in time more specifics are needed, but the most fundamental task is to save our schools from the education ‘deformers’ who have decided that tests (the standards don’t really matter except for the tests) and punishments are the core of a ‘solution’ to the very real problem that too many students do leave school not having learned enough to be effective citizens. It is a destructive ‘solution.’

California Rally and  March
Saturday, July 30, 11am-3pm
State Capitol Building
1315 10th Street, Sacramento

Join other Californians on the Capitol steps to support public education. Sponsored by California supporters of the Save Our Schools March, National Call to Action .

Finland, by contrast, decided to build a system based on having high-quality teachers who would be prepared well (not a BA and short training course, a la TFA), engage in ongoing shared professional learning, and be largely in charge of the shape of schooling. They have brief national standards, but those are not imposed through tests. Finland does far better than the US, which chose a disastrous detour through testland. Finland also has a child poverty rate under 5% while the US is now well over 20%. Finland is more homogeneous, but has growing numbers of immigrant students (15% if memory serves) with 43 different languages. But of course US poverty is an ‘excuse’ to the deformers, who have managed to simultaneously promote damaging education ideas while deflecting attention from massive poverty.

There are many reasons why the basic framework, the paradigm, of federal and state laws and policies must be changed – I use the US failures and Finnish success simply to highlight how a different approach has produced markedly different results, though the underlying social structures and poverty also matter.

Save Our Schools March- Sacramento

March in Sacramento.  July 30.  State Capitol.

California Rally & March
Saturday, July 30, 11am-3pm
State Capitol Building
1315 10th Street, Sacramento

Join other Californians on the Capitol steps to support public education. Sponsored by California supporters of the Save Our Schools March, National Call to Action & the Student CTA.

AFT President on so called "School Reformers"

From the speech of AFT President Randi Weingartner at the AFT convention.

We need to study what works, as I recently had a chance to do in Ontario, Canada—which has a school system as diverse as many American urban school districts. For a while, Ontario suffered from the divisiveness we are all too familiar with, and it lagged behind the United States in achievement. In 2003, a new government was elected and immediately moved to change the tone. They focused on collaboration and building the capacity of the teaching force. They created a Partnership Table that brings everyone together around policy development; teachers have a voice right from the start. Funding is from the province and is distributed equitably to the local boards. Ontario did this throughout the province; they created an effective system—not a handful of successful schools. They focused on educating all kids—not just some. Teachers unions are full partners—in fact, leaders—in this work. In this short time, Ontario has dramatically raised student achievement and greatly narrowed the achievement gap.

Other countries that have summoned the political will also have seen dramatic, nationwide turnarounds in a relatively short period of time. We heard many similar success stories back in March, at an international summit in New York. What became immediately clear was that the top-performing countries all put a strong emphasis on teacher preparation, continuous development, and mentoring and collaboration—and in each of these countries, teaching is a highly respected profession.

Take Finland, which I visited last fall. Teacher training is demanding, rigorous and extensive, with ample clinical experience. Finnish teachers are esteemed and are compensated fairly, and their training is fully paid for by the government. And they’re virtually 100 percent unionized, as teachers are in most of the top-performing countries.

I am delighted that a leading Finnish educator is with us today. Pasi Sahlberg is, to use his term, a school improvement activist. Pasi has generously shared many of Finland’s lessons about improving education with us over the years. Thank you, Pasi!

Look, I know America isn’t Finland. It doesn’t take a breakfast of herring to realize that. But even though we’re not them, we can learn from them. After all, they readily admit that they learned from us. But they took the best ideas, scaled them up, supported and sustained them.

I can’t talk about the international comparisons without noting how the so-called reformers have distorted them: They use international comparisons to denigrate American schools. But they ignore their lessons. Worse, they pursue policies that are completely antithetical to the successful strategies used in high-achieving countries. It just doesn’t make sense.

While other countries were setting a course, one that was supported by investment and political will, what was the United States doing? A series of stop-start experiments: Stop-start on curriculum. Stop-start on standards. Experimenting with vouchers, merit pay, tour-of-duty teaching, and the latest experiment—Race to the Top. And many have started denigrating public schools and public educators, putting ideology over effectiveness, and experimenting without regard to evidence. And that must stop.

The problem with all of these experiments is that our children are not lab rats. This is not about navigating through a maze. It’s about navigating through life. And we have to help them do that.

That is why the AFT has put forward this powerful quality agenda. And that is why you are all here—on your own time and, in many cases, your own dime—to learn about new ways to enhance quality in your classrooms.

But, without muscle behind it, no agenda will ever lead to a new reality.

And make no mistake, a new reality is what we’re fighting for, one in which teaching really becomes a profession and leads to genuine advances in student learning. And by improving student learning, we’re improving the prospects of our nation.

A quality agenda unites educators and the broader community. The current discussion around education has been hijacked by a group of self-styled “reformers” who believe that public education in America should consist of islands of excellence staffed by passers-through, instead of dynamic school systems staffed by professionals. Islands versus systems. Passers-through versus professionals. Let’s really look at what these two different views mean in practice.

Note. I am not now a member of the AFT. 

Systematic cheating to pass tests in Atlanta's School system

By KIM SEVERSON: New York Times 

ATLANTA — A state investigation released Tuesday showed rampant, systematic cheating on test scores in this city’s long-troubled public schools, ending two years of increasing skepticism over remarkable improvements touted by school leaders.

The results of the investigation, made public by Gov. Nathan Deal, showed that the cheating occurred at 44 schools and involved at least 178 teachers and principals, almost half of whom have confessed, the governor said.

A culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation existed in the district, which led to a conspiracy of silence, he said in a prepared statement. “There will be consequences,” Mr. Deal said.

That will certainly include dismissals, according to school board members and the interim superintendent, Erroll B. Davis Jr., and could possibly result in criminal charges.

Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta called the release of the investigation “a dark day for the Atlanta public school system.” The cheating, he said, showed a complete failure of leadership that hurt thousands of children who might have been promoted to the next grade without meeting basic academic standards.

CTA on the budget deal

Latest Democratic Budget Plan Best Option for Students, Public Education and California

Contact: Sandra Jackson, 916-325-1550

SACRAMENTO – Dean E. Vogel, president of the 325,000-member California Teachers Association, released this statement about the 2011-12 Democratic State Budget plan:

“This is certainly not a perfect budget plan, but it is what Democratic lawmakers and the Governor were able to do in light of the Republicans’ refusal to work with them to pass a budget that would temporarily extend revenues to protect our students, schools and our state. We commend Democratic lawmakers for engaging in the work they were elected to do. 

“While this new plan is far from what our schools and colleges need to provide all students a quality education, it protects them from much worse cuts and will help local school districts and colleges plan for the coming year.  The proposal defers nearly $3 billion in funding to K-14 schools and cuts $300 million from higher education.  This year as thousands of educators were laid off, class sizes pushed higher, the school year shortened, student programs eliminated, and college tuition fees increased, Republican lawmakers simply watched and offered no honest solutions that would even maintain California’s current level of funding to public education.

The Republicans won the California budget battle today

The Republican minority won the California budget battle.

California is a Democratic controlled state; in the Senate there are 25 Democrats and 15 Republicans, in the Assembly there are 52 Democrats and 28 Republicans, the Governor and most state offices are Democrats.

In spite of these majorities, the Republicans won the budget battle of 2011.  They got a cut in the sales tax by 1 %, and a cut in the vehicle license fee.  The result will be further cuts in the Univ. of California, further cuts in the California State University system, and further cuts ( called deferrals) in the K-12 schools.

California is presently 47^th. out of the 50 states in per pupil expenditures, we are among the very poor in funding our schools.  In prior years, as described by the California Budget project, “Lawmakers cut the overall annual funding level for K-12 public schools by $6.3 billion, from $50.3 billion in 2007-08 to $44.1 billion in 2009-10.3 Lawmakers cut schools’ general purpose dollars as well as funds earmarked for specific school programs, often referred to as categoricals.”

What remains?  The proposed budget uses overly generous estimates of future tax incomes.  If the projections  fall short, there will be mandated further cuts to the universities and to k-12 education.

By imposing this mostly cuts budgets, the economic crisis flows down to produce cuts in police, fire protection and local budgets.

The Democratic leadership will not admit the truth.  They lost.  Jerry Brown claimed he could negotiate with reasonable Republicans.  He failed.

To be certain, the school budget crisis was not caused by the Democrats.   Finance capital collapse and theft in housing and  on Wall Street produced this crisis, not police officers, firemen, nurses, librarians and teachers.  The recession took sales taxes and property taxes which normally fund safety and public services.  Now Wall Street has recovered, but the states and the cities and counties are left with the destruction. 

Please Test Us too.

S. Krashen

The US Department of Education is planning the most massive and expensive testing program ever seen on the planet, far exceeding the already unacceptable level of testing demanded by NCLB. 

The Department of Education will require, as before, summative testing at the end of the academic year, but will also require testing several times during the academic year (interim testing), and the plans include the option of pre-testing in the fall to be able to measure growth during the school year.  

The Department will, as before, test students in math and reading, but is also encouraging testing other subjects as well, and the National Science Council is eager to cooperate, recommending new standards and tests in science ("Successful K-12 STEM Education: Identifying Effective Approaches in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics," National Science Council, 2011).

All this is in response to a STEM crisis that may or may not exist (e.g. David Berliner, in Pereyra et. al. (Eds), PISA Under Examination. Amsterdam: Sense Publishers.)

Save Our Schools- march

TEACHERS, PARENTS GEAR UP FOR JULY 30 SAVE OUR SCHOOLS MARCH ON D.C.,

ALLIED ACTIONS AROUND THE NATION

  

Educators and families from around the country say they are fed up with so-called “reform” policies that falsely label more than 80% of U.S. public schools as failures. To counter what they call unfair attacks on teachers and public education, a growing coalition of individuals and organizations is mobilizing for a national day of action in support of public schools. 
  
On Saturday, July 30, 2011, thousands of people will gather at the White House in Washington, DC and at locations around the nation to express their desire to reclaim the right to determine the path of education reform in their own communities. The “Save Our Schools” March and allied events are being organized by a network of teachers, parents and community activists. 
  
“For too long, public school stakeholders have been treated like second class citizens in our own communities,” said Sabrina Stevens Shupe, a former Colorado teacher, who is a member of the March’s organizing committee. “Teachers’ knowledge has been dismissed because we are falsely presumed to be self-interested and incompetent.  Students and parents who vocally oppose the disruption and destruction of their schools are often entirely ignored.  At the same time, ideologues with little to no experience in public schools have made misguided decisions that devastate educational quality and equal opportunity.” 
  
Addressing high-stakes “accountability” policies, such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, Florida businesswoman and parent advocate Rita Solnet explained, “A decade of NCLB's incessant focus on high-stakes tests narrowed curriculum in many schools. Each new initiative ratcheting up the stakes behind these tests, has resulted in the abandonment of the very children NCLB sought to serve. NCLB has not improved overall achievement, and it has diminished the quality of teaching and learning. We must reverse this wrong-headed direction.” 

Mr. Duncan. You are a shining example

By David Reber, Topeka K-12 Examiner   May 21st, 2011

Mr. Duncan,

I read your Teacher Appreciation Week letter to teachers, and had at first decided not to respond. Upon further thought, I realized I do have a few things to say.

 I’ll begin with a small sample of relevant adjectives just to get them out of the way: condescending, arrogant, insulting, misleading, patronizing, egotistic, supercilious, haughty, insolent, peremptory, cavalier, imperious, conceited, contemptuous, pompous, audacious, brazen, insincere, superficial, contrived, garish, hollow, pedantic, shallow, swindling, boorish, predictable, duplicitous, pitchy, obtuse, banal, scheming, hackneyed, and quotidian. Again, it’s just a small sample; but since your attention to teacher input is minimal, I wanted to put a lot into the first paragraph.

Your lead sentence, “I have worked in education for much of my life”, immediately establishes your tone of condescension; for your 20-year “education” career lacks even one day as a classroom teacher. You, Mr. Duncan, are the poster-child for the prevailing attitude in corporate-style education reform: that the number one  prerequisite for educational expertise is never having been a teacher.

 Your stated goal is that teachers be “…treated with the dignity we award to other professionals in society.”  Really?

 How many other professionals are the last ones consulted about their own profession; and are then summarily ignored when policy decisions are made? How many other professionals are so distrusted that sweeping federal  legislation is passed to “force” them to do their jobs? And what dignities did you award teachers when you publicly praised the mass firing of teachers in Rhode Island?

Education State of Emergency: Mobilize!

Schools state of emergency

 megan

Created 05/05/2011 - 5:39pm

Posted on 05 May 2011

By Lisa Schiff
May is turning into a month of action on the part of public education supporters. From parent groups to the University of California system, teachers, administrators, parents, students and advocates will be engaged in a variety of actions to convey to elected officials and the public the seriousness of the financial crisis our schools are facing. Since the effort to get a vote on tax extensions onto a June ballot failed, there has been an eerie period of relative calm, but that is an illusory state, a quiet before the storm.
Schools, along with other critical services, have been left in a financial limbo where they must continue to operate, but must plan for unknown levels of cuts that may come in an unpredictable schedule, with unfamiliar, unacceptable changes to classrooms. Across the state, teachers are facing layoffs, class sizes are being increased, and program offerings are being reduced. Just recently in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), community members at the high school level were fighting to save a long-established music program and third year foreign language classes.
From the perspective of the education community, this fiscal chaos has reached a point of crisis sufficient to declare a state of emergency. And it is this level of alarm that needs to be conveyed to state representatives and senators, and their constituents. Actions throughout May are designed to accomplish just that task. The first of many events happens Friday in Northern California with a Senate Budget Committee hearing in Mountain View:
Senate Budget Committee Hearing
When: Friday, May 6, 10 a.m.
Where: Microsoft, Silicon Valley Campus, Microsoft Conference Center, Building 1, 1065 La Avenida, Mountain View, CA 94043

It's time for lawmakers to finally get the problem solved now

Parents group calls for reform of NCLB

Parents across America. Our proposals to reform NCLB

The US Congress is considering how to revise No Child Left Behind, the Bush-era version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the most important federal law that governs our public schools.  NCLB has been extremely damaging in the eyes of most parents, and needs fundamental reform.  Unfortunately, the Obama administration plans to make it worse in many respects.

Parents Across America has developed our own blueprint, based upon less testing and privatization, more parent input, and a greater emphasis on evidenced-based reforms that have been proven to work to improve schools, such as class size reduction.  Our complete blueprint was featured on the Washington Post Answer Sheet, and is posted on our PAA website as a pdf here.

Please sign our petition in support of our proposals, and send a message to the President and the US Congress now!

Then  join us, as we fight for better schools!

Our children, our schools, our voices.

http://parentsacrossamerica.org/

CTA's State of Emergency campaign

The “State of Emergency” campaign came to Main Street in Santa Clara today, drawing media attention to local impacts of the Legislature’s stalemate on the state budget crisis.

Silicon Valley teachers, parents and labor leaders held a news conference on Main Street to dramatize that their urgent demand for state lawmakers to extend some temporary taxes is really about “Main Street priorities” like protecting our schools, public safety and communities from devastating cuts.

Speakers were Don Dawson, CTA Board member and San Jose educator; teacher Tracy Pope, president of United Teachers of Santa Clara (UTSC); UTSC member, teacher and Santa Clara Unified School District parent Viola Smith; teacher Dave Villafana, president of Cupertino Education Association; Santa Clara Unified parent Stephen McMahon, president of the San Jose Teachers Association; San Jose firefighter Jeff Welch, president of San Jose Firefighters Local 230; and Anna Schlotz, lead organizer for the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council.

With tax deadline day looming on Monday, April 18, speakers thanked the public for paying the taxes that fund our services, but reminded them of the consequences of massive cuts if some temporary taxes are not extended. The governor is seeking the tax extensions as part of his balanced approach to ending the state’s crisis. Lawmakers have made $12 billion in cuts already, and must extend the taxes to close the remaining $15 billion deficit, said Don Dawson, a teacher in the East Side Union High School District and a member of the CTA board of directors.

Superintendents? Leaders? Why School Reform often fails

Stop Waiting for a Savior

By TIMOTHY A. HACSI

DID Cathleen P. Black, the former publishing executive who was removed last week after just three months as New York City’s schools chancellor, fail because she lacked a background in education?

In this respect, she has had quite a bit of company over the decades. In 1996, Washington hired a former three-star Army general, Julius W. Becton Jr., to take over its low-performing schools; he left, exhausted, after less than two years. For most of the last decade, the Los Angeles Unified School District was run by non-educators: a former governor of Colorado, Roy Romer, and then a retired vice admiral, David L. Brewer III. They got mixed reviews. Raj Manhas, who had a background in banking and utilities, ran Seattle’s schools from 2003 to 2007, balancing the budget but facing fierce opposition over his plans to close schools.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who had hired Ms. Black without public discussion, quickly replaced her with a deputy mayor steeped in education policy. But the real issue is not the superintendent’s or chancellor’s background, but the excessive emphasis that politicians, educators and parents place on the notion of leadership rather than on empirical evidence about what improves education.

Even as the specific fixes advocated for schools have changed, the role of school-district leaders has gotten greater attention — and the selection process has become more political.

It doesn’t always take actual success to be lauded and promoted, nor does an education background guarantee anything. Roderick R. Paigebecame superintendent of Houston schools in 1994 and in 2001 parlayed his “Houston miracle” to become President George W. Bush’s secretary of education, and the point man for the No Child Left Behind law. That Houston’s test-score increases and low dropout rates were mirages did not impede Mr. Paige’s ascent or the emphasis on testing as a magic bullet.

Perhaps the best-known school leader today is Michelle A. Rhee, who was schools chancellor in Washington from 2007 to 2010. She aggressively took on the teachers’ union, but made more headlines than lasting reforms.

Bill Gates and the Soap of Education

                                 Bill Gates and Soap of Education

                                          

     Bill Gates recently claimed class-size doesn’t matter.

     Mr. Gates, I need to talk to you about soap.
    I teach fifth grade in Castroville, California, and a former fifth-grade student, Rojelio (Ro for short), sends me powerful and disturbing gifts. He is twenty-seven now and freshly released from prison.  His gifts, although welcomed because they represent an ongoing seventeen year teacher-student bond, also unnerve me. Ro says they are for “hanging with him all these years.” His gifts have included a newspaper belonging to Charles Manson (A Christian Science Monitor – go figure), and four Sudoku puzzles completed by Sirhan Sirhan. Today he gave me a bar of soap. Inscribed on it are three letters, PIA -- Prison Industries Authority.
     My student has been incarcerated for thirteen-plus years - since he was an eighth-grader. He got the newspaper and the Sudoku puzzles when he was on the same tier as Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan. He played chess--a game I taught him in fifth-grade-- with both men. 

   Rojelio’s mom called me, “Mr. Karrer, Ro is coming home on Sunday. Can you straighten his ass out? We’re having a party for him. You wanna’ come?”
     Can I straighten him out? Probably not.  Will I keep on trying to help him? Yes.
So, today right after class, we met at Starbucks. He spotted me and walked to my car, big grin under his nose. He had put on lots of weight. Last time I saw him was in Salinas Valley State Prison, over two years ago. He was in ankle chains, waist chains, then chained from his waist to his ankles, and handcuffed.
      But today, we hugged and he passed me a paper cup with the soap in it.  He said, “Got a present for you, pretty rare. I’m surprised the correction officers let me take it out. It’s worth a couple bucks on E-bay.” He laughed and added, ”Plus, with the cutbacks we only get half a bar now.”

        He didn’t get an education in prison. I have sincere worries that he was in no way rehabilitated. He has little to show for thirteen years of incarceration. Basically he walked out of prison with one thing and he gave that to me - a prison issue bar of soap.
       Mr. Gates, you don’t get it. Those of us teaching in the urban areas see communities and children wallowing in pitiful, desperate poverty. You have no idea how distressed my students are. Nor how slim their margin of survival is.  Last year, fifty percent of my students had set foot in a jail or a prison to visit a family member. The many staggering deficiencies which accompany that reality are overwhelming and swirl around in a negative critical mass, pulling down students’ academics, motivation, and life’s bright shine. Rojelio is the end product of that wretched poverty. And unfortunately he’s not alone. Armies of kids are in line behind him waiting to join gangs.
     You say good teachers are the most important variable in a classroom. Well, you are wrong. It is home life or lack thereof. All teachers can do is assist. I’d like to think I do.  If you think we are so important, then aid us – by helping these kids who need the most. So many of my kids end up in jail or prison. Actually, in communities of raw despondence, smaller class size does matter. It’s one of the very few things that can impact the despondence of their daily lives.  But you think it doesn’t and you are a billionaire. I’m just a front line teacher.  What do I know?
   As for Ro, the odds are stacked against him. He’s never been in a plane, never held a meaningful job, didn’t finish school past eighth-grade. He’s a validated gang member and a felon with one strike. There’s a sixty percent recidivism rate waiting for him.
   As for me, I missed Ro’s coming back party, but I’m going over for dinner. I also hope I won’t be receiving any more presents from him.
   Class size matters Bill Gates, it matters big time. You need to clean up your thinking. And if you want to borrow some soap to do it I have some… unfortunately. 

Paul Karrer

Teacher

Save Our Schools March

Save Our Schools March.

Exon Mobil, $156 million. Bank of America, $1.9 billion. General Electric, $4.1 billion. Chevron, $19 million. These highly profitable companies, and many others like them, received these extraordinarily large amounts of money back as tax refunds. Yes that’s right, Republican lawmakers at the state and federal levels are trying to convince the American public that we need to decimate critical services like Medicare and public education so that we can hand over our money to these companies.

In the most intense ideological battle since Newt Gingrich was in office, Republicans at state and federal levels are holding fast to plans to extend tax breaks and implement drastic cuts to a variety of social services, including education. In California, the health care community, K-12 public schools and public institutions of higher education are steeling themselves for unknown levels of losses.

But for public school supporters the challenge is doubly difficult. Not only do we need to fight more forcefully than ever for the minimal, insufficient funding that schools currently receive, we must also fight for a totally revamped approach to education. Education activists across the nation have made the painful realization that President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are no friends to the project of providing a quality education to all children. If anything, the programs and proposals of this administration have set schools back even further than under the Bush regime. Certainly they have only reinforced the approaches established by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and their destructiveness has been extended through the outrageous Race To The Top (RTTT) competition, that attempts to pass for policy.

We have no choice but to face facts--public education is under attack from all sectors of elected leadership, regardless of party. There is no one now to turn to other than ourselves, which may in fact be the best position to be in. Asking to be invited to the conversation about improving our schools for all kids has only resulted in a controlled pacification of parents, a grinding down of educators, and more sophisticated means of covering up where are schools are failing our students.

Who is Bashing Teachers?

By Stan Karp

The short answer to this question is that far too many people are bashing teachers and public schools, and we need to give them more homework, because very few of them know what they’re talking about. And a few need some serious detention.

But the longer answer is that the bashing is coming from different places for different reasons. And to respond effectively to the very real attacks that our schools, our profession, and our communities face, it’s important to pay attention to these differences.

The parent who’s angry at the public school system because it’s not successfully educating his/her children is not the same as the billionaire with no education experience who couldn’t survive in a classroom for two days, but who has made privatizing education policy a hobby, and who has the resources to do so because the country’s financial and tax systems are broken.

The educators who start a community-based charter school so they can create a collaborative school culture are not the same as the hedge fund managers who invest in charter schools because they see an opportunity to turn a profit or because they want to privatize one of the last public institutions we have left.

The well-meaning college grad who joins a Teach for America program out of an altruistic impulse is not the same as the corporate managers who want to use market reforms to create a less expensive, less secure, and less experienced teaching force.

Rhee the Reformer