A message from Mark NAISON:
Here’s the link to our new website!
SUNDAY MASSIVE LAUNCH PARTY!!
OFFICIAL WEBSITE IS UP AND RUNNING!
A BADASS THANK YOU TO REBEKAH CORDOVA AND TEAM FOR ALL THEIR AMAZING WORK!!
Mark D Naison
Professor of African American Studies and History
Fordham University
“If you Want to Save America’s Public Schools: Replace Secretary of Education Arne Duncan With a Lifetime Educator.” http://dumpduncan.org/
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks for all your support
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing!
LikeLike
This is remarkable. Congrats to all. Teachers are the best!
LikeLike
This is great as long as it is not coopted as was the Tea Party. Make sure you are independent as CORE-CA is and that is not controlled by outside funders. Use your own skills and money or you will not be you anymore. This is why we are a separate legal entity called CORE-CA not CORE. Not the same. Credibility is the coin of the realm and that is why I am saying this. You Badass Teachers are on the proper beginning stay there and you will win with all others in the same war against them who want to destroy. Attitude and knowledge is all important. Your organizations name is attitude and if that attitude is kept with knowledge you will be a force to reckon with.
Teachers, if they really want to do their job, must join with parents, students and community. This is the CTU was it seems and they are proving that it works against big power. Emmanuel et al are not getting a free ride.
LikeLike
WIse, seminal words, George.
Thank you.
So critical what yoy said!
LikeLike
Thank you for the time and effort put into this website. I’m 62 years old. I can’t tell you how proud I am of the young teachers who have decided to stand up for our profession. It is time we police our own organization. We are professionals like the AMA & ABA. It is time we stop allowing ourselves to be ruled by legislators and treated like second class citizens. We also owe that to the children, for we represent them too, by standing up against practices that are damaging to their ability to learn and make progress.
LikeLike
Agreed, Carolyn!
LikeLike
Our education “leaders” have something to learn from this kid:
http://www.upworthy.com/watch-out-no-child-left-behind-this-teenager-is-coming-for-you?g=2
Listen to him. You will be glad you did!
LikeLike
Sigh. UpWorthy is promoting that young man’s book. I followed your advice, clicked the link and read this:
Oh. Traditional methods of pedagogy, such as memorization of multiplication tables, learning world history timelines, literary genres and authors, how to memorize facts and synthesize them so as to write original essays, with correct spelling, all under the guidance of experienced, qualified K12 teachers, has “never worked”? I think it worked just fine, until the 1990’s and ed reform.
Look who’s been interviewed for this book, Noam Chomsky and Diane Ravitch!
Do Professor Chomsky and Ms.Ravitch realize that they are invoked in promoting this education reform book? My guess is “No”.
LikeLike
Ellie, this young man’s book was written IN OPPOSITION to the education deform movement.
LikeLike
I’m going out on a limb, I know, but after second thoughts I have opted out of BAT.
I’m not a badass. I’m not even bad. I am mad. Mad about what is happening in our schools and to our profession.
I consider it my professional obligation to present my views in a manner worthy of the responsibility I bear. I would prefer to be involved in a forum that bears a name that reflects the dignity of our profession.
I would like to proudly display my alliance with an organization holding similar beliefs, that bears a name that reflects the good to which we have dedicated ourselves.
Any thoughts?
LikeLike
You are most welcome to join forces with us in California. Our new group has not had the amazing growth of BadAssTeachers, but we have many retired teachers signing on to be activists in the battle against privatization as seen in LAUSD with Parent Revolution.
We need all the thoughtful, introspective, articulate, activists we can generate to go into all areas of the community to educate on how fast and recklessly our public schools are being shut down, decimated, in the name of BroadRheeform and Parent Revolution.
Once California, where the parent trigger is now law, is on the mend with a change of this flawed law, and with parents who really understand the misinformation they are being given by the false prophets of Ben Austin, then we will expand to other states. We are growing our movement in Southern California now, and by Fall will be training speakers in No. California.
So, 4equity2, here is a place to coalesce.
JoiningForces4Ed@aol.com
LikeLike
I’m with you. I wish the name of this group reflected teacher professionalism and dignity. I am supportive but don’t want to connect myself to the name.
LikeLike
The the originators of BT:
I just wish there were some way to join other than facebook. I am hesitant to join facebook. . . . please generate some other way to join. . . . so many in my boat would sign up and increase the numbers.
Think about access, access, access. . . . PLEASE!
LikeLike
You are not alone in having that sentiment. I do NOT use Facebook. I’ve even sent email pleas to U.S. government agencies who only allowed interaction with public posts via Facebook comments. I do NOT trust Facebook. Sometimes that causes accusations e.g. of anti-Semitism. That’s silly, as I am a Jewish widow.
I think that Ms. Randi Zuckerberg and her sisters are nice young women, but I do NOT trust that brother of hers with any of my personal identifying information! There are numerous alternatives available to BT for allowing individuals to join. It seems prudent to offer an alternative to Facebook, even if it requires more effort on the part of individuals such as Mr. Rendo. Perhaps BT could post an email address, or use a Google form. Or instead of Google, use one of many smaller independent providers of form submission for sign-up.
LikeLike
You’re anti-semitic if you don’t trust Mark Zuckerberg?
I believe some have levied that upon you, but it is bizarre!
BT and Diane, Ellie K is right about alternative ways to join . . .
Anyone has some advice?
LikeLike
There is now a Google+ community:
https://plus.google.com/communities/100027085386759919643
And you can follow them on Twitter:
They are trying to reach a broad audience, but it is difficult since the “public forums” (FB and Google) are actually private forums. But they are trying.
LikeLike
I can’t stand Facebook and am very suspicious of them as well, which has absolutely nothing to do with religion (I am Jewish, too). Google is no better regarding privacy concerns. Twitter is the only one that didn’t bend to government pressures, so I recommend following them there, where you can remain anonymous.
LikeLike
Me too, I don’t do facebook.
LikeLike
I don’t do Face book either.
LikeLike
Agree…must open other ways to join for the many folks who refuse to join Facebook.
LikeLike
Diane,
If you read this comment
can you either remove or tell
us how to remove the new
pop-up in the lower right hand
of the comments section?
If I scroll up I can read the comments
but the box below (that I copied
& pasted) gets in the way of
some of the comments that
are located more to the right.
Follow
Follow “Diane Ravitch’s blog”
Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.
Join 60,172 other followers
LikeLike
GJ,
I will ask my technical advisors.
LikeLike
While it might have some minor symbolic political value, isn’t it naive to think that getting rid of Duncan will by itself change anything?
As for insisting on an educator for Secretary of Education, this is also symbolism that is easily sidestepped: there are a lot of career educator/opportunists out there, so the demand could easily be met without substantively changing a thing.
Make noise in the streets, and strategically take down one or more elected officials identified with so-called education reform, and we might start to be listened to.
LikeLike
I would not trust any of the companies involved in Prism that report to NSA, which are, in the order that they joined the program, from 2007 – 2012, Microsoft (Hotmail, etc.), Google, Yahoo, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL, Apple: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/
I am just not inclined to believe the government’s claim that they are only targeting terrorists. When there are so many billions of dollars at stake in different matters, like privatizing education, one can’t help but wonder about other motives and uses for such a data collection program.
And I have to agree with the concerns regarding the name, Badass Teachers. I appreciate that teachers are tired of the witch hunt and that they are now are determined to stand up for themselves, but I think they may be written off by the media et al. as “union thugs”, even though not all teachers who are members belong to unions.
LikeLike
Union or no, BadAss implies thug.
I am standing for too noble a cause to call myself BadAss. The BadAsses are the thugs determined to strip teachers of dignity and profit from a basic right of our citizens.
Patrick Henry was no BadAss
Martin Luther King was no BadAss.
These are examples of the leadership I desire.
LikeLike
While you may or may not be correct about the Badass/thug connection, to call oneself a Badass right out of the gate is boastful and presumptuous.
The term Badass has to be awarded, not assumed.
Better to be mistaken for Ladies and Gentlemen, and be retroactively awarded the term Badass by your enemies after you’ve kicked their ass.
LikeLike
Just a question – When trying to educate people about what is happening many tell me not to bother fighting and it is a waste of time. Has anyone else encountered this problem? These comments are made by teachers, their spouses and parents. Some see their children struggling and their self esteem in decline with the pressure to get high scores. Then go spend a fortune on tutoring to get “higher” scores on regents or SAT’s.
LikeLike
Are you kidding?
That IS the problem.
And it is systemic in the teaching profession.
Our Data Coaches (in RTTT Delaware), tell us:
“Get used to it”
“It’s not going away.”
“This is the way things are headed.”
“Just put something there.”
Their eager swallowing of costly and unworthy projects and activities is the one reason they have their position.
Teachers sit passively, accustomed to having no voice, and go through the motions of state requirements.
It’s all a sham. And WE are participating in it.
LikeLike
4e2 – I was at a graduation party over the weekend and a parent was planning on sending her son, an upcoming senior in high school, to an SAT camp in another state this summer to improve his chances of getting into some college( doesn’t know where he wants to go). Oh, and she said the cost was $4000. She got him a tutor for high school chemistry and he still failed. ($$$)She said I was the first person that told her to screw the test. I guess he won’t be a chemical engineer! So what!! I also explained that the tests are rigged. I cannot participate in this!! ugh
LikeLike
I agree with everyone’s concern about the name, but the effort is worthwhile. Also, how do we sign the “Dump Duncan” petition?
LikeLike
Go to http://dumpduncan.org/forum/categories/petition
LikeLike
Yes, I agree that the effort is worthwhile. And to be honest, I’m ambivalent about the name, because I think the point is probably to demonstrate that teachers are no longer going to remain docile lambs as they are led to the slaughter –and I understand why.
Nearly twenty years of top-down corporate “reformers” implementing the business model in education, high-stakes testing and privatization, in cities like Chicago, without positive outcomes to show for it, while poverty has been virtually ignored and teachers are scapegoated for not eradicating it, has led educators to feel mad as hell. I think teachers are right to assert they are not going to take it anymore.
I believe that educational researchers were right to boo Arne Duncan this Spring at the American Educational Research Association meeting as well, because they, too, are tired of a government that implements unproven policies and ignores valid and reliable education research.
It’s about time education was led by genuine career educators who know and care more about children than profiteers and their political cronies who try to con Americans into believing that corporations care more about children than teachers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2LJzEuodZw
LikeLike
Actually, the con job the reformers are perpetrating has Americans believing that corporate business leaders and politicians care about children over profits. The huge increase in the amount of high stakes testing, the common core, and the charter movement are simply about draining public monies from school districts. Rupert Murdoch said it best when he pointed out that public education is a $500 billion industry ripe for exploitation. Exploitation and greed is what the entire reform movement is about.
LikeLike
Yes, Bill, because the corporations that are culpable own the media. That’s exactly why messages such as journalist David Sirtota’s on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2LJzEuodZw should be distributed widely to Americans, who have been too docile in accepting the propaganda and motives of the 1% in virtually every other areana as well.
For example, Walmart has a commercial out right now about how much they are doing to feed America, when they have more employees on Food Stamps than any other US employer due to the unlivable wages they pay. No one should be falling for that garbage, but they do when they don’t see other information countering it, so we need to reach people through other mediums.
LikeLike
Mr. Norreese Haynes and I of the Metro Association of Classroom Educators (MACE) here in Georgia are putting together a book that we have written, decrying the fact that the Socialistic Left and the Capitalistic Right have joined together to take the teaching profession hostage. Classroom Educators are used as Levitical scapegoats for all of the ills in public education. But, at MACE we know that you can’t have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions.
We are now putting up one chapter per day for the month of July. MACE is beginning its 19th year here in Georgia, and our message has not changed one scintilla. Teachers don’t give a rat’s ass about tote bags and spelling bee contests. They want protection and empowerment. They want to be freed up to do their jobs! They want to be creative, and they want the snoopervisors to leave them alone.
The incompetent, petty, angry, and abusive administrators have ruined public education, and now they are supported and emboldened by the likes of Arne Duncan, Bill and Melinda Gates, Eli and Edyth Broad, the Walton Foundation, the Pearson companies, ALEC, etc. A union has to kick ass for teachers! I tip my hat to BAT!
I am Dr. John Trotter, and I approve this message! Ha!
http://www.themacemanifesto.com
LikeLike