CNN.COM just posted a description of the letter-writing Campaign for Our Public Schools.
This is extremely helpful as it educates the public about what teachers and parents and students know and believe.
In our efforts to promote a sane public policy about education and to stop the demonization of teachers and public schools, we need to educate the public about what is happening in the schools, the good and the bad.
We need to let the public know about the negative consequences of high-stakes testing and about the demoralization of those who do the daily work of teaching our nation’s children.
We need to make our voices heard. This article helps us reach a broader public.
Thomas Friedman may gush about the Race to the Top.
But policymakers should listen to what teachers, students, principals, superintendents, and parents say.
We won’t stop trying until those in positions of power pay attention, stop the PR machine, and listen.
Upon reflection, it struck me that the “PR Machine” started in 1981 with the issuance of A Nation at Risk… ever since that day it has been a “given” at the Federal level that our public schools are failing… and ever since that day it has been a given that “government is the problem”… and ever since that day we’ve reduced the services to children born into poverty… The vicious circle started then and it doesn’t appear ti will be ending any time soon… 30 years of adverse publicity is hard to overcome!
You can read all of the letters at: http://campaignforourpublicschools.org/
I am glad this article mentions you were the one behind this campaign. And I wish they would have gotten more quotes from you. However, I think more than 400 letters went out since not all were given to Cody.
What’s upsetting about this article is that the reporter didn’t contact the White House for their reaction to receiving them.
It’s also upsetting that the article didn’t report on the cookbook reply that people recieved.
I got two copies of the same-old canned education reply in my email last night. I had been hoping there would be some effort to generate more responsive boilerplate.
Is it that nobody on the White House can actually hear anything, over the roar of the impervious corporate spin machine? Nobody home?
Well, of course they published it and of course they did not ask for White House comment. Reporting this campaign has the dual (“win-win” for pro-capitalist media) effect of turning a spotlight on the President’s failed education policies,not as some progressive attempt to improve those policies but embarrass him in the run-up to the debate and if He indeed responds with what will likely be a progressive-sounding appeal for “better schools” and a “thanks for the input”-but that’s why his administration is pushing privatization to help “all children”. CNN has long ago shed even its pretense at objectivity.
A letter-writing campaign is precisely the kind of ineffectual action that lends itself not to improving policy but to provide it with the facade of a supposed “democratic” process aimed at cajoling those in power who have absolutely no interest in changing their policies.
Yes, you got some publicity. Yes, it secures your “legitimacy” as a spokesperson for better more progressive education (albeit in context of failed educational practice and policy). But it does so precious little for any meaningful change or even publicizing a true campaign for action in the context of rigged Twin Party politics. And, No, it is not all you could have done during this election.
So, what more should have been done? We can’t count on the unions for help: they endorsed Obama without any thought to how he has further devastated public education. Should we all have marched on Washington or something? Oh, wait! That actually happened in 2011. Sure the form letters we’re getting back are ridiculous, but what more was there?
Assuming you’re not just channeling your whiny teenager, here is a very non-exhaustive list of what could be done beyond 400 letters and 6300 signatures on a petition to “Dump Duncan” (as if somehow the President isn’t capable of throwing any of his cohort under the bus only to replace him with someone equally reprehensible):
–A tour by Karen Lewis to teacher/parent/student meetings around the country calling for ending privatization and full funding for public schools
–a campaign to have teachers and parents participate in the presidential debates as audience participants with real questions about privatization and their devastating effects on public schools
–A call for a campaign of mass action (yes, the demonstration in 2011 was a good start, but there needs to be much more national coordination)
–A campaign by the unions to organize the charter school teachers undercutting the reason for their existence as a bludgeon against public school teachers.
–Organizing students in schools for real funding of the most vulnerable public schools
–A campaign to unite teacher unions along the lines of CORE in Chicago and build momentum for a militant union leadership in the NEA/AFT
–A debate and discussion in the ranks of teacher unions on the merits of supporting lesser-evil Democrats who have sold out public education
In short, a focus on organizing and building a movement among teachers, students, parents and communities that challenges the corporate privatization being implemented by the Democrats and Republicans and their partners in school boards and administrations.
Yes, I know this is a bit more consuming and necessarily more collaborative with all those real people that privatization really affects. I know it is much easier to admire the problem of how bad privatization is and become all indignant at how “we’ve done all we could” (everything except what it really takes to make a change). But if we do, I can guarantee you such action would be infinitely more effective.
Nope. Not channeling whiny teenager. I really wanted to know. I would be happy to help with some of these ideas. However, I (and I expect, a lot of others) am trying to keep my head above water. Who would lead the thing?
well, that’s exactly right, Jennifer, such projects really require united and collaborative action. Indeed, I know that activists in CTU are presently trying to start a campaign to organize charter school teachers.and have done so for at least a couple of years; sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Other initiatives include working to change the nature of what we are teaching children and youth and calling for a social justice curriculum: here is a recent link to Teachers for Social Justice in Chicago:
http://www.teachersforjustice.org/2012/10/tsj-2012-curriculum-fair-call-for.html
A similar event is happening in Minnesota in November and I imagine there are other cities. There is the DC-based Save our Schools who initiated the march on DC.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-Our-Schools-The-Movement/162470283812585?fref=ts
I would say that there are similar initiatives beginning to take place everywhere. We would do well to start publicizing those here as well.
Finally, to be successful, ideas and action cannot be the inspiration of one or a handful of individuals. We all have to pitch in, but we have to pitch in with the thought that we must organize as much as educate, engage as much as be appalled.
Re the CCN article: IMHO, Diane and Anthony did something very important by forcing their way into the public discussion while bringing many others along with them [remember: 400 letters].
There is no one silver bullet to kill the werewolf of privatization, no magic elixir of healing that will cure all that ails public education, no one-size-fits-all model of activism that will bring about “better education for all.”
When Diane goes on media forums and is ganged-up on by three or four deform ‘heavyweights’ she may not say everything she wants or needs to say, but what counts is getting into the fight even when your opponents have all the advantages. *Need to add: she more than holds her own.*
Silence is often construed as assent. The first step in organizing a national push-back is to break that silence. Diane and Anthony are two among many breaking that silence.
Many thanks to you both.
Yeah, not denying either of their intents and contributions; just the effects in context what is actually needed. It may not be ineffective, just ineffectual in the larger scheme. The sooner we realize that writing to a government diametrically opposed to its people’s interest to ask them to “change their mind” the sooner we will come up with real victories. We need massive united action that challenges the Twin Parties of War and Plunder not trying find ways to make THEM do better.
We should also take note of those letters that come from non-unionized teachers in states like Virginia and Texas.
Why? Because the defenders of the “Testing Status Quo” and/or “RTTT Enablers” will often brush off any teacher comments as “Well, that’s just your typical union-protected teacher, blah, blah, blah…”
ALL of these wonderful letters should be read and respected, but we should be ready to refute the “cut & paste nonsense” that seems to spring almost robotically from the “Business As Usual” defenders.
Since the odious imposition of first, “No Child Left Behind” and then the arguably worse “Race To The Top”, we’ve seen overwhelmingly negative reactions, from teachers everywhere, in every state, across the board.
This negative response, from every state, and from conservatives, centrists and progressives alike, after more than a decade of its imposition, should be a signal to our political leaders: Stop doing this. Shift course. Change, now, while we still can.
This has nothing to do with unions. It’s all about our children and their education.
Included in the list of letters is one with 6363 signatures calling for the resignation of Duncan,an end to high-stakes testing, and real involvement of teachers and parents in policy development ot the U.S. Dept. of Education. So it isn’t just 400 letters, it is letters from more than 6700 parents, teachers and other concerned citizens. See the Open Letter to Obama at http://dumpduncan.org
I received two email letters from the White House within ten minutes of each other today and the same exact letter I received a week ago..so now I have received their nonsensical RTTT rah rah form letter three times in one week.
Judging from Obama’s remarks about education during the debate just now, it sounds like maybe he did read those letters and is willing to parrot some of the content if it suits him rhetorically, even though it is the antithesis of his own RttT folderol.
I can’t watch…what did he say?
Oh, it was an impassioned appeal for small class sizes, professionalism for teachers, support for public education, and the sort of stuff that he says he “has learned from speaking with teachers.”
Or he “learned” from directing his staff to mail out the same form letter multiple times to hundreds of teachers…the ones who can’t adjust to change. He inserts a few placating words and now we will all vote for him…sorry…too late for me. I am not buying what he’s selling.
Actually nothing. Obama said his policies are working, but never mentioned the execrable RTTT.
And Romney claimed credit again for the bipartisan reforms enacted ten years before he was elected.