Mike Deshotels writes a terrific blog about education in Louisiana. He attended my debate with Chas Roemer, and here is his account. He also writes about the teacher town hall, where I urged teachers to become politically active.
He urged teachers to join the Network for Public Education. They should also join the “Defenders of Public Education.”
It is not teachers alone who are at risk in Louisiana. It is the very principle of public education as a founding pillar of our democracy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Mike is an invaluable asset to educators here in Louisiana! His blog and Louisianavoice are my two Louisiana blog sources for information as well as website for thelensnola.org
I have to point out Diane we had democracy long before we had public education. How do you account for that?
We may have had a semblance of “democracy” then, for male white landowners. Ask the women, blacks and non-landholding white males how that “democracy” worked for them (yes, I know they’re dead so we can’t ask them.) Kind of interesting the “giving of the franchise” to those excluded groups came after public education got going full force, eh!! And even then it took a long time.
Imagine if our schools could actually teach the real history of our country, not the sanitized and selective textbook version. Democracy depends on an informed citizenry; who should be informed in our schools with the truth. You can have an opinion about history but you can’t change it, just learn from it. Our public schools have done their best to support this informed citizenry. Many people like to fantasize that the history of our country was based on Democracy but many of us were excluded from it back then. Many people here still are.