Blogger Yinzercation is a parent of little children in Pennsylvania. She was reluctant to send them to school, but she did with assurances that they would be okay.
And she thought about the teachers and principal in Newtown. She read that there was a plan in Newtown to cut the budget of the schools, possibly eliminating the music teachers and the librarian. They too had sheltered the children.
As Yinzercation points out, the story in Newtown is about the heroism of dedicated professionals. It is also about the political context in which we protect our students, our teachers, and public education. Not just their physical safety, which is paramount, but the security and resources that enable them to teach and learn without fear.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In tIn the end, it will be parents like this as well as other citizens who will come to the defense of our teachers. I am confident of that.
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Thanks for sharing this, Diane. Yinzercation, which is the name of my public education research and policy blog, is also a grassroots movement of all volunteer parents, students, teachers, and community members fighting for our public schools here in Southwest Pennsylvania. We are connected to other grassroots movements across the state — and through sites such as yours — across the country. Together we will defeat the forces of privatization and restore the faith in public education as a public good. Now we owe it to all the Sandy Hook teachers and students to keep fighting.
Yours,
Jessie Ramey, Ph.D.
Women’s Studies and History
University of Pittsburgh
yinzercation.wordpress.com
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Kudos to you all!
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I don’t think parents always understand what is really happening at the schools. They hear all the bad publicity directed at teachers, and they pull their children out of public schools and put them in charter schools or private schools. They don’t understand that when they pull their children out, they are taking the funding away from the public schools, as well. This in turn makes it more difficult for public schools to provide the kind of instruction they want and need for students. It is a vicious circle. I had dinner last night with three former teammates–3rd grade teachers in a low income school in Phoenix, AZ. They were all upset about their classes. Two had 30 or more students. The ELL teacher has 27 students. They all have students with great needs–learning disabilities and/or behavior issues. Each of them should have an assistant to help them deal with these issues. They should be able to get the ones who need evaluation the assistance they need. None of this is happening. These wonderful teachers told me they are working so hard that they have no time for their own families. Sometime is truly wrong with our society to continue to allow this to happen. Time for change across the board. If we are going to have charters, then they need to follow the same rules that public schools follow.
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Fear is a powerful force… and if too many parents are afraid to go to public schools because they fear their children will be gunned down by a random killer the privatization movement will benefit even more… Several years ago Richard Luov wrote about the two Americas he saw in the future: the one with gated communities and robust public services and those who lived outside the gates… Even if public schools lock the doors and install cameras, they won’t be able to compete with the privatized schools staffed with private guards armed with automatic weapons…
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wgersen, I had also been thinking the horrible thought that K-12 & other virtual schools would use this (your kids can stay home and be safe while learning!) to their advantage in the not-so-distant-future.
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