Valerie Strauss: "Why Save Our Schools March is happening Saturday"

As hundreds of education advocates, parents, teachers and students prepare to bring their demands for substantive education reform to our nation's capitol tomorrow, Washington Post blogger Valerie Strauss writes about her interview with organizers of the Save Our Schools March taking place in Washington, D.C.



In her blog -- originally posted on washingtonpost.com -- read remarks from march organizers Anthony Cody is a veteran California science teacher who has a blog called Living in Dialogue for Education Week Teacher and Rita Solnet is a Florida businesswoman, parent and education activist, and co-founder of the nonprofit Parents Across America.



By Valerie Strauss

I long wondered why public school teachers sat quietly during the decade-long No Child Left Behind era watching high-stakes standardized test-based reform take hold, leading to a host of damaging unintended consequences (narrowed curriculum and teaching to the test, just to name a few).

This Saturday, teachers, along with principals, parents and other activists, quiet no longer, are scheduled to take their concerns to Washington, D.C., with a march intended to let the Obama administration know that they are unhappy with corporate-based school reform that is obsessed with test-based “accountability,” the expansion of charter schools and other measures.

I recently asked two march organizers why, now, after all these years, they were speaking out. Here, in a repost, is what they said:

Read the full post here.

Not our idea of "school reform"

In his most recent blog post for the Campaign for America’s Future, Jeff Bryant focuses on troubling trends in what is passing for education reform, including “school discipline policies gone wild.” Bryant writes that “school poverty, punishment and teacher experience are combining to create prison-like apartheid schools that condemn young people to low education attainment and greater risk of dropping through the cracks.” He adds “government defunding” as another troubling trend that is sweeping the nation and cause for concern for all who want to see the country restore itself as a world-class leader in education.

Jeff Bryant's blog -- which we are reprinting here in part and including a link to the fuller text -- was originally published on Campaign for America’s Future website, OurFuture.org, at http://www.ourfuture.org

By Jeff Bryant

Ask yourself if this is the type of school you'd like for your son or daughter:

* At one charter school, an array of 48 "infractions"-- such as "Lying/falsehood” and "Sleeping in class" -- will get students suspended or expelled.

* At another charter, students and parents are warned that "cutting class, school, detention and related mandatory school events can lead to suspension or expulsion. Other offenses that warrant out-of-class dismissal include possession of electronics and printed text deemed vulgar or profane … items confiscated can be held by the school permanently, irrespective of costs and fees."

* Another threatens parents that "a child with 12 unexcused absences for the year can lead to the school reporting the parent to the Louisiana Department of Social Services."

* And one more, a KIPP charter school, mandates that "five or more instances of the student being tardy or absent can result in a $250 fine, an official police report, a summons to perform 25 hours of community service by the parent, guardian or child or permanent removal from the school."

These examples of school discipline policies gone wild are from a stunning new article in The American Independent. [1]Reporter Mikhail Zinshteyn explains how three trends -- student poverty, punishment, and teacher experience -- are combining to create prison-like apartheid schools that condemn young people to low education attainment and greater risk of dropping through the cracks.

What's even more disturbing, however, is to see how this trend for New Orleans schools is being writ large across the nation.

Read the rest of Jeff Bryant's blog here. 

Take a stand for public education

This video says it all: Join us July 30 for the Save Our Schools March and take a stand for public education. It’s time to hold state and federal leaders accountable to guarantee all children – regardless of where they live – have an equitable opportunity to learn in high-quality public schools.

In joining national Save Our Schools march, faith community takes a stand for public education

Jan Resseger
Minister for Public Education and Witness
United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries

Because I believe so strongly that federal policy in public education must be radically changed to support our most vulnerable children and their teachers, I will join other advocates from the United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries – and thousands of other supporters from around the nation – in the July 30 Save Our Schools March & National Call to Action in Washington, D.C.

As Christians who believe that God desires for children the life abundant that comes from the fullest development of their gifts – physical, intellectual, social and spiritual – we will be marching because we are deeply concerned about today’s test-and-punish regime that drives education by test scores that narrow the curriculum and distort the vision of public education. We believe government should support and improve, rather than punish, public schools in America’s poorest communities. Our society should reduce reliance on standardized tests and should test only to improve instruction, measure real performance, and encourage exploration, imagination, and critical thinking.

Our public education resolutions in the United Church of Christ call on us to demand that the federal government address resource inequities among public school districts by allocating federal resources for equity and pressing states to close opportunity gaps. We will be marching because we believe that Congress should make equity a priority and work in collaboration with the states to ensure that all students have access to resources necessary to reach academic standards and be ready for effective citizenship, lifelong learning, and college or career. 

This year we in the UCC Justice and Witness Ministries are especially alarmed by state budget cuts across the country that will imperil public schools as well as children’s social services. School achievement, after all, is affected by factors outside school such as racial segregation, concentrated poverty, lack of health and dental care, and the need for preschool that helps children before they fall behind.

We know that while Title I is small relative to state and local funding, it is the federal government’s primary tool for equalizing educational opportunity. We support full funding of Title I to begin to shift the focus of federal policy from punishing struggling schools to improving them, and we believe that Title I funds should be distributed through a fair formula; poor children should in no circumstances go without federal support because their state loses a grant competition.   

We will be marching because we reject market-based, technocratic turnaround policies that close schools, charter-ize or privatize schools, and fire school professionals wholesale in the name of school reform. Public school policy should aim to improve public education as the bedrock of our society and public schools as the anchors of communities.

Finally, we will be marching because we are distressed by today’s wholesale attack on public school teachers. We are dismayed by attacks on collective bargaining, due process and credentialing of teachers. It is a tragedy that so many of the public school teachers who fill our pews feel devalued.

As a people called to love our neighbors as ourselves, we believe that Congress should balance the needs of each particular child and family with the need to ensure a strong public education system that secures the rights and addresses the needs of all children, regardless of where they live or how much money their parents earn.

Goldstein: Teachers’ unions are not to blame for economic crisis

Dana Goldstein has a great blog post over  on her site recounting Paul Krugman's speech to the American Federation of Teachers conference in DC this week. Check it out here. 

Note: We originally put up the post here with a mistaken attribution -- our apologies to Dana and our readers for any confusion.

Why we must understand both the achievement gap and the underlying opportunity gap

John H. Jackson

President and CEO of the Schott Foundation for Public Education

Huffington Post blogger Roderick Carey  has sparked a compelling – and necessary – discussion in a series of posts, which he is calling “Faith for Change,” that he has begun publishing about the achievement gap.

In his post, Mr. Carey cogently makes the point that until we truly understand the achievement gap – what it is, and what it isn’t – we will only scratch at the surface for real solutions. He writes:

“To fully understand the achievement gap, it is important to consider the numerous factors that contribute to its existence. Because so many factors influence the achievement gap, numerous and all-encompassing interventions are needed in order to even partially ameliorate it. In our 160-character or less, vivid-image and drama-laden media culture, many of us have been duped into thinking that we have grasp of the achievement gap.”

Understanding that the OPPORTUNITY GAP is the root cause of the achievement gap is absolutely an essential part of getting our federal and state leaders on the right track to providing an equitable education for all children. For the past two decades, these leaders have been fixated on standards and testing to close the achievemen­t gaps, but if we had been just as committed to reducing the OPPORTUNITY GAP from the start we would not have such a stark achievement gap today.

To build a stronger, safer and more prosperous nation, we must commit ourselves to ELIMINATING the opportunity gap by guaranteeing ALL children, regardless of where they live, have access to these four fundamental building blocks: high-quality early-childhood education, highly prepared and effective teachers, rigorous college-prep curriculum and equitable instructional materials and policies.

It is people like Mr. Carey – an educational researcher and Ph.D. candidate in the department of Teaching, Learning, Policy and Leadership at University of Maryland College Park, where he specializes in Minority and Urban Education – who are on the frontlines of this march to guarantee all children an equitable opportunity to learn, regardless of where they live.

We at the National Opportunity to Learn Campaign encourage you to read Mr. Carey’s blog and join the discussion and the fight to protect each child’s civil right to a quality public education.