The Network for Public Education will holds its first annual conference at The University of Texas at Austin on March 1 & 2, 2014 – the weekend before the world famous South By Southwest EDU Festival. Diane Ravitch will deliver the keynote address and NPE Board members Anthony Cody, Leonie Haimson, Julian Vasquez Heilig and others will take part in the discussions.
All are welcome!
As we are finalizing our panels and speakers, we would like some input from our friends and allies about the issues that we should address at the conference. For the next few days, we will be collecting this information on the NPE website. If you would like to make a suggestion, fill out the form on the NPE website.
More information about the NPE National Conference 2014 will be released in the coming days. In the meantime, make your travel plans as we hope to see you in Austin!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We are really looking forward to this event and we will help spread the word.
YES! I’m there! I don’t know why you’ve picked Austin, but thank you!
Texas, which pundits say is trending blue, is a great place to raise these issues. Wendy Davis (D) is running for Governor, and I think Texas parents have a right to know her thoughts about Common Core.
Please invite Lisa Delpit. Thank you.
Yes — Lisa Delpit would be a wonderful person to hear from!
About six months ago I rescued a female Husky/German Shepard mix from a couple moving out of state who weren’t able to take her with them. She is a beautiful and amazing dog, but in need of some serious obedience training. This brings up a question that may be relevant here (believe it or not!). For just a moment, consider the following hypothetical.
Let’s say that in the state where I live (Nevada), many more people had dogs like mine that were untrained and that said dogs were becoming a great concern to whole communities due to various interruptions to the daily routine of residents or even because of threats to public safety. Assume further that existing laws requiring licensing and proper restraint have been unsatisfactory because of the sheer number of dogs and the strong libertarian bent of Nevadans who sincerely believe their dogs should run free or that they shouldn’t have to be responsible for their training (remember, Nevada).
One possibility might be to introduce a law that would permit the state to compel dog owners to submit their animals to training centers for several hours a day where they would be properly and professionally trained, paid for by tax receipts. Trainers would have to be certified and rules would have to be established to assure that the missions of the training centers were being accomplished, that no dogs were being mistreated or neglected, that owners complied with associated regulations and didn’t purposefully undermine the process, etc. Such a plan might solve some problems temporarily, but it would surely create a huge new set of problems.
Now, if citizens decided a year later that the training program provided for the dogs was inadequate, or that a new concept such as contracting out the job to private experts who claimed to offer superior training protocols was a mistake, would they be able to effectively control what was happening? Some citizens might support the changes, while some might demand that new experts and authorities be put in charge, or that some alternative ideas should be implemented. Yet, in the absence of a strong and unified consensus, the law would make it virtually impossible for individual citizens or even organized groups of citizens to over-rule the authorities or to persuade them that their expertise was lacking somehow.
Does this parallel seem too far-fetched, or does anyone see similarities to what is happening with schools? If the people have relinquished their rights and the rights of their children to a large extent, and if they have conceded control to state authorities and admitted in effect that they aren’t trustworthy parents, should they expect to retake that control without a new law that restores their rights and autonomy, or without eliminating the offensive laws?
Please don’t accuse me of comparing children to dogs. Also, please don’t succumb to the temptation to suggest that Arne Duncan or the NY City Commissioner would ever intentionally train children in the way that dogs are trained. They may have ulterior motives or lack competence with respect to education, or they could be totally corrupt, although I doubt it, but one should be careful not to cast unfounded aspersions based on bad thinking or arrogance.
Laws grant power to certain agencies or authorities. Laws that affect the entire populations of states establish certain types of institutions or entities that require elaborate sets of rules and regulations and guidelines that CONTROL every aspect of life and work within those entities. It has to be thus. This is what passing laws is all about. Someone has to make decisions and enforce rules and exert a degree of arbitrary authority in order to assure order, discipline, and continuity.
There is no reason why laws cannot establish state funding for schools, and administrations to operate those schools, without dictating that all children of certain ages attend unless officially exempted. Problems immediately arise, however, when attendance is mandatory. The dynamics change profoundly and people are locked into relationships and obligations and roles from which there is no ordinary or legal escape. If there is a hierarchy and an authority structure based in law and needs and duties revolving around compliance, discipline, performance, curriculum, and various other criteria, there will be resistance, conflict, failure, competition, frustration, bureaucracy, concealed abuses, and myriad other manifestations of dysfunction.
I hate to be blunt or rude. But, how else can I say that those who are willing to allow children to be categorized under laws as requiring transformation through coercion and conscription should not complain when large numbers of children are designated as misfits or disposable? If people who claim to be educators or to support educators and their students will not recognize that laws create by their very existence the conditions for neglect, injury, demoralization, artificial stratification, bullying, and on and on, then why should anyone take them seriously?
A core curriculum that is antithetical to the very concept of education under these circumstances was inevitable. Charter schools or some type of desperate attempt to circumvent the public system is a logical conclusion to generations of bitching and complaining about poor results. If one wishes to argue that things aren’t as bad as some people say, or that comparisons between countries are distorted or unfair, there may be a case to be made, if one is willing to accept standards derived from something other than the usual test scores. But the reality is that we have big problems which have been documented, and which cannot be disputed by any rational thinking person.
The only effect of massive amounts of empirical evidence and sophisticated research has for over a century been a doubling down on bad ideas and bad practices, with token “experimental” classes or schools implementing authentic changes that are eventually abandoned. Rage and organized opposition are impotent in the face of institutionalized power. The people visiting this site are the best and brightest. It’s time to lead them in a more effective endeavor. Instead of giving legitimacy to inane and insane curricula by critiquing its content or source and encouraging testing by merely complaining about its frequency or difficulty and failing to question the fundamentals, isn’t it time to talk about returning the power back to parents and those they choose to teach their progeny?
Compulsory attendance is more than a fly in the ointment. It is a toxic contaminant that is fatal to education for legions of children. It creates conditions that make teaching infinitely more difficult and less edifying than it would be otherwise. Fighting the wrong fight guarantees a painful and possibly permanent loss.
Would really like to join for this event. Curious looking at the calendar… will there be two March 1st Keynotes for two separate events? AACTE in Indianapolis http://aacte.org/2014/2013/10/welcoming-session-will-feature-diane-ravitch/ and NPE in Austin, TX? Perhaps a future joint conference could be held with both these organizations (I imagine many AACTE members would echo and support NPE, yes, no?). On the fence and trying to decide which conference to go to now given same weekend, different cities. Thanks for your good work and please continue to keep us posted, thank you!
I will speak at AACTE on March 1 in Indianapolis and at NPE on March 2 in Austin. Two different speeches.
I am so sad that I missed this conference, which I learned about after watching the Blll Moyors documentary with you. Is there an Austin, Texas group? Is if possible to join such a group? I am a retired educator who taught at St. Edward’s University and am looking for a way to serve.
I am looking forward to learning more about the conference and attending I would be willing to present at the conference as well