Anthony Cody reflects on a year in which the voices of parents and teachers are at last being heard.
The foundations and the U.S. Department of Education and ALEC were having a field day, pushing untried and noxious policies without debate, until 2012.
Then things got interesting.
Reform hero Tony Bennett was upset by a National Board Certified Teacher in Indiana.
Cody spoke truth to power in his dialogue with the Gates Foundation.
Friends, we are finding our voice.
The public is beginning to understand.
Be strong.
Bad ideas eventually collapse, especially when they have no record of success and a long history of failure and demoralization.
Persist.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I like this attitude. War is a series of battles. We are still in the battle stage and they have not won yet. Their methodologies are failures and eventually will totally fall on their face. We must make that as soon as possible. We must give Obama hell and make him stop acting like a right wing conservative which is what his policies are in almost every area. As a friend of mines grandfather taught him “I hear real good, but I see a whole lot better.”
He ain’t acting like a right wing conservative, by all his actions (in spite of the sweet talk) he’s a neo liberal reactionary.
Are you serious? You are calling the most leftist extremist president in history a conservative?
Who is Paul Hoss? Why does he love Bill Gates?
I believe I read once that Mr. Hoss is a former teacher from south of Boston, MA. He’s also obviously very conservative in his political views.
“The stakes attached to tests are the tools of coercion, by which teachers and students will be rewarded or punished for the extent to which they comply. But in the big picture, the final objective is not tests, but uniformity, and adherence to a centrally conceived and approved version of truth. I think the Common Core is the vehicle for this technocratic vision, and it should be firmly opposed for this reason.”
Anthony Cody precisely describes the issues. Thanks for providing the link, Dr. Ravitch.
This is an institutional change to success from a system built and based on failure. Her work undermines the system’s need to run in place.
Endurance is true strength.
Parents in Chicago are fighting back on two fronts. First, they are widely circulating a petition against the misuse and overuse of tests.
https://www.change.org/petitions/chicago-board-of-education-and-chicago-public-schools-end-the-overuse-and-misuse-of-high-stakes-standardized-testing?utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=url_share&utm_campaign=url_share_before_sign
Second, they are exposing the misuse of funds by UNO,one of our city’s biggest charter school networks.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-uno-soccer-academy-20130123,0,7254983.story