Maureen Reedy sends congratulations, praise, hugs, and high-fives to the teachers at Garfield and Ballard High Schools in Seattle. May their message resonate in schools across America.
Dear Ballard and Garfield High School Teachers in Seattle,
Your proclamations ring true as patriots of public education!
Your proclamations proclaim our right as educational experts to independently stand up, and let our voices ring loud and clear for integrity, authenticity and educational expertise in our teaching practice.
Your proclamations are just what our country needs to build the precursor to a new Declaration of Independence for Public Education!
Most importantly, your proclamations show our students that we will stand up for them and be strong role models in fighting for what we know is best in creating quality educational experiences and lessons for our kids.
Quite simply, when something is wrong, we do everything in our power to “make it right.”
That’s what we teach our students, that’s how we practice our profession and that is how we live our lives.
Thank you for standing up for our children, thank you for standing up for our profession, thank you for standing up for public education.
Thank you all for your courage and conviction.
Teachers across America stand with all of you!
Maureen Reedy
Parent & 29-year public school teacher
Columbus, Ohio
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane,
I just wanted to say Thank you for your blog. As a new follower I have found so many posts to be informative and interesting. I especially love this one! I have referred to you in my most recent blog post at http://conversationeducation.wordpress.com/ and thought you might be interested in seeing how your work influences the work of others.
Best,
Tomasen M. Carey
University of New Hampshire
Learning Through Teaching Field Coordinator
Statement from Chicago’s Parents 4 Teachers (www.parents4teachers.net) on the Garfield High School teachers’ testing resistance:
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As parents working to end the horrifying excesses of standardized testing in our children’s schools, we express our strongest possible solidarity with the teachers of Garfield High School in Seattle. Your resistance is an inspiration and a tremendous validation of our work. As parents, we will defend any teacher’s right to protect students from these harmful tests.
For years, parents have watched as the testing machine has grown like a cancer. Misuse and overuse of standardized tests is strangling our children’s schools. We want our children’s education to inspire creativity, curiosity and independent thinking. That’s what their teachers want too. Instead, policy makers are doing all they can to reduce teachers to being test-administering drill sergeants. We salute the Garfield High teachers for modeling for their students what it is to think independently. We too have had enough.
The explosion in high stakes standardized testing occurs in tandem with other attacks on our public schools. Billionaire-driven privatization and charter school initiatives have put control of public resources into the hands of private, unaccountable operators. This agenda has not improved the quality of public education. Instead, neighborhood schools are closed at a breakneck pace, destabilizing poverty-stricken communities of color. Standardized test scores are used to rationalize these policies that punish students, teachers, and schools.
We know high stakes standardized tests do not improve our children’s education. They do not help teachers succeed at their craft. They do not help schools become the supportive, community centers we desperately need. They are punitive, stressful, demoralizing and unproductive.
Our children are not data points. Our children’s teachers are not data points. We stand with the Garfield HS teachers and pledge our support for all efforts to end the terrible regime of misuse and overuse of standardized tests.
Chicago’s Parents 4 Teachers (a WONDERFUL group!!!)- ALL of you: OPT YOUR KIDS OUT!!!