A new group has been created to advocate on behalf of public education in New Hampshire.
It is called Advancing New Hampshire Education.
It was previously called “Defending New Hampshire Public Education” in response to sustained effort in the state legislature to harm and dismantle public education.
But with the election of a new governor and a new legislature, the group changed its name.
As you will see from its website, it will continue to track destructive legislation and build public support for the public schools.
Do you know of similar grassroots groups in other states and districts?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
–EmpowerED Georgia: EmpowerEDGa.org Teachers and Parents based in south Georgia but statewide in support and impact.
–Also the amazing Mississippi Parents Campaign, who have been around longer and do great and effective work.
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Thanks Diane – this is a great site!
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Good Morning Diane — I have a group of parents who are seeking guidance as to how to proceed. They are seeking an end to all of the pre- testing; post testing; standardized testing; field testing; and teacher evaluations which are based on test scores. Their concerns are that if 95% of the students are not in attendance on the day of testing sanctions will be placed on the school ( it may be deemed a school in need of improvement) and on the district.
Thoughts?? Suggestions??
Marge
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You should connect with Helen Gym of @ParentsUnitedPa.
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Form an organization. Join Parents Across America. Check the Fairtest website. Contact Monty Neill of Fairtest.
Join with others. Learn from experience of other groups fighting same battles.
More later.
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Check out Teachers Lead Philly, a teacher-led group that advocates for teachers’ stewardship of equitable education. With effective workings conditions, teachers can create and sustain policies that help colleagues and students flourish.
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There is a group in Northern New York- we have a Facebook page: “Equity in State Aid for Schools”. 50% of our rural north country districts will be educationally insolvent within 2 years, and financially insolvent in less than 4. My district will run out of fund balance in one more year. The feeling is that the state is trying to force consolidation (which will not work well in rural, sparsely populated districts- we already have four year olds riding the bus for an hour each way) so that they may initiate a state takeover and renegotiate teacher contracts. Cuomo is so desperate to squash this story that when our students traveled 4 hours through the mountains during a snowstorm last year to Albany, he purposefully staged a press conference about recent legislation and drew the press away from our group. We are not alone; districts all over the state of NY are in the same state we are. This is our website: http://fairfundingforstudents.wordpress.com/ – any help would be greatly appreciated.
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From the ANHPE web site:
High school civics requirement (2013-H-0025-R)
Would this bill meet Justice Souter’s desire to address the “dangerous state of civics education” and “pervasive ignorance” of civics?
Will other supporters of public education pay attention? Could this be model legislation?
Or will parents seeking a proper civics education for their children need to look outside traditional district schools?
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One group that is not for education reform are the Democrats for Education Reform or DFER. They are democrats who in reality are right wing republicans. There is a group of us in California who are fighting this. Unfortunately, we do not have a free press due to Bill Clinton signing the 1996 Telecommunications Act which wiped out the free press. Reporters have told us in private if they write those stories they will never again be allowed to work as reporters. In fact, when I finally got the L.A. Times to do the story, In a Book Bind, which showed that for 10 years LAUSD budgeted and did not spend $250,000,000/year on textbooks and instructional materials and supplies I got a call from the reporter who told me that management had called her and told her to call me and tell me that if I wanted my name or my non profits name in the article they would not print it. I told her to run the article and as a result was what is called the Schiff-Bustamente Legislation which added $1.5 billion over three years to those revenue streams to all school districts in California. Everyone was quoted except myself and I supplied all the information. This is how crooked the whole thing is. Recently, we stopped a $90 billion 1/2 cent sales tax until 2069 in under one month and with almost no money. Things can be done. We are doing that now within our corrupt system. You must take the fight to the top and do it with full documentation otherwise you are meaningless.
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Here in Houston there’s Community Voices for Public Education started earlier this year. We are parents, teachers, students and community members that meet regularly and have had some success. Last Spring we met with 7 out of 9 HISD Board Trustees (elected!) and over 30 people spoke at the May Board meeting where they passed a modified version of the Texas Association of School Board anti-testing resolution.
http://communityvoicesforpubliceducation.wordpress.com/
The new testing regimen-STAAR- has had a rocky start over the past year and many groups have sprung up around the state concerned about the financial and educational cost especially when the state cut over 5 billion out of the education budget in 2011. Less for schools but ratchet up the standards and number of exams that teachers have to teach and kids have to pass? Dole out millions to Pearson and an army of consultants while cutting nearly 1,000 teachers in Houston alone?
Across the state people have been up in arms and politicians at every level are taking note. Part of the new system included a provision that no credit would be given until a child passed the End of Course STAAR test and the test itself would also serve a second purpose as 15% of the child’s grade for the course. People were so upset that the Texas Education Commissioner delayed the 15% provision last year. Yesterday Governor Rick Perry sent a letter to the Commissioner asking him to not only defer it, but leave it to local districts to do the 15% or not effectively killing it.
http://governor.state.tx.us/news/press-release/17922/
CVPE members have been trying to speak at as many PTO meetings as possible for a new post card campaign to get the HISD Board to reign in its new teacher appraisal system that it rolled out last school year. The new system is old hat to readers here-50% of a teachers annual score is supposed to be VAM. The problem is that not all teachers are covered by a test. Some have multiples such as a new STAAR or AP. Teachers without tests were told they could make one up. Everyone had to create and give some sort of diagnostic test at the very beginning of the year and predict what they thought the students score was going to be on the real test in May. How that was to be done was a mystery. I wonder what happened to Johnny Carsen’s magic turban and those hermetically sealed envelopes? I believe that Ms. Ravitch has signed one of those cards and we need more concerned citizens in Houston and across the blogosphere to join in.
Other problems that the HISD Board have given for delaying the VAM have been explained as technical or hardware issues. We’re trying to get them to see the “junk science” behind VAM. CVPE wants the percentage to be less and low-stakes, not for determining the TNTP bottom 10% to terminate and for determining and awarding HISD’s ASPIRE bonus system as it is currently used for.
http://www.chron.com/default/article/HISD-may-delay-teacher-parts-of-evaluation-plan-4042250.php
Most surprising was that HISD’s superintendent reported that he had no idea that teachers were being asked to work so much.
http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/bellaire/news/student-performance-measure-applies-to-only-some-teachers-in-hisd/article_7a56d3d8-324e-11e2-9fc1-001a4bcf887a.html
Yes, Spring of 2011, 5 billion cut from state budget, nearly 1,000 teachers laid off in HISD at the same time and in June the Board passed the new TNTP inspired appraisal system requiring more work for everyone involved with a new more expansive state test starting at the same time. Kids have to pass tests for every core subject to be promoted, 2 for English-Reading and Writing-for a total of 5 high-stakes tests every year. Many fear that our dropout rate may skyrocket. I fear our HISD teacher dropout may skyrocket as well.
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We are a producing a documentary to try to raise awareness, understanding and support for public education locally and nationally. Check out the GO PUBLIC Project at http://www.gopublicproject.org. 50 short films are available for viewing with the feature length documentary currently in post-production.
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This is great. Keep it up as all they understand is constant warfare as that is what they are doing to us. In L.A. they are starting to crumble as they are for sure in Chicago. If it was not for CTU and Karen Lewis much hope would be not there. Emmanuel has met more than his blowhard match with Lewis. He cannot intimidate her. I bet it freaks him out at night in his dreams.
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The site you’ve linked to in your post, Diane, is very much in favor of Common Core. While they have done good work preserving public education and working against vouchers, they are very vocal about their support of CCSS.
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Diane, As a fan of your many articles and speeches, I started my own blog and it keeps me from chasing cars and yelling at the neighbors. I am amazed at the number of voters in our country who continue to believe the schemes offered by our many education reformers. The cheap and hurtful attacks on teachers are so prevalent and our unions do little to enter into the dialog. I’m at donaldchill@wordpress.com
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Donald Chill, welcome to the blogosphere. Contact Jonathan Pelto and join the amazing Education Bloggers Network jonpelto@gmail.com
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Story Preservation Initiative, a NH-based nonprofit (501c3), is creating primary source audio recordings of those of high achievement in the arts, sciences, and humanities, available for use in public high schools – as well as by home-schoolers / private schools. We’re beginning to work with educators to create lesson plans around them. Our work is supported by the NH DoE as an innovative way to reach students and develop critical learning skills. If interested, our website (blog, really) can be found at: http://www.storypreservation.wordpress.com We’re ramping up to “open the doors” of THE UNCOMMON SCHOOL, an online learning center. Email, if interested: mary@storypreservation.net Would love to initiate a dialogue.
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