This post is a continuation of the previous one.
I am addressing my many friends who are BATs.
I am asking you to work with your local PTAs to battle against privatization and to oppose attacks on teachers.
In state after state, public education is under attack. Teachers are under attack.
Build coalitions with parents, especially local PTAs.
We are natural allies.
PTAs want to strengthen their schools.
Work with them.
We must build a powerful coalition to support and improve our public schools and the teaching profession.
We are in this together, to do what’s right for children and for our society.
Alone, you lose.
Together, we win.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane,
I agree, however no one is even listening to the parents!!!
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I have contributed to the PTA each year, but have not made attending meetings a priority.
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I disagree rockaway. I have been an educator for more than 30 years. I thought I had some influence in the schools since I am a paid or unpaid consultant and people brought me in to actually listen to me. Unfortunately, even well received plans of action we worked on did not get fully implemented due to a variety of reasons. But when I call as a parent or a parent advocate – that is when I see instant changes and results on a small scale. So I think Diane is correct, if parents join together all over like they have opt out of testing in different districts in New York, they have made major impacts on how the tide is turning there, Let’s learn from them. This parent led example Diane gave recently was impressive: http://www.refuseny.org/
Districts and states who have a PTA or PTO or other organizations that has not taken CCSS money, they can mobilize parents even easier than some of the grassroots efforts. I am going to stop replying and start looking more into this for my state.
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Diane, you are so right. We in Los Angeles are so spread out that it’s difficult for parents to even get to meetings beyond their own child’s school. It is in those parent centers, cafeterias and auditoriums where parents are grappling with the edicts from downtown in very concrete ways. Those are the people motivated to do what is best for students and who find ways to collaborate with administrators and to support teachers. The reform agenda is not some distant theory to parents in the schools. It’s an obstacle to what they know is best.
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What’s a BAT?
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BAD ASS TEACHERS. I do not like the “cursing” (not sure when I became a prude) but I love the group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/BadAssTeachers/
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We also go by BATs…you can find us on many social media sites. Our mission is defined once you join. We have 37,000 members with other sites internationally. We are on FB as BadAss Teachers Association and @badassteachersa Thanks for asking!
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I’ve tried to reach out to my PTA, and they will not listen to anything anti-CCSS. I feel like they “sell” it the same way the teachers and administrators do…”college and career, critical thinking, deeper learning…global economy…rigor.” They will not speak out against something that teachers support. And, where I live, virtually all teachers publicly support Common Core 100%.
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Momoffive, Where do you live?
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you need to know that Gates has been influencing many PTAs at local, state and the national level…. he has been funnelling money to them… http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2009/12/National-PTA-to-Mobilize-Parents-for-Common-Core-Standards
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Just wait until their children “fail” the CCSS assessment. Then they’ll change their tune.
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In the past we have been able to slide on our attendance of PTA meetings and BOE meetings. We can no longer let this happen!
BOEs are trained on how to “save money” by doing away with step guides and instead offer financial incentives. PTAs are being inundated with CC propaganda!
I know everyone has a life outside the classroom but this is so important, not only to your job but to the future of Public Education, that we must find the time. If each school district sent only 2 volunteer members to each meeting, we could control any misinformation. After all PTA is Parent TEACHER Association! ^O^
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I’d like to ask for advice. Our local PTA is tremendous, with a lot of parents organizing forums, attending meetings, contacting representatives, etc. Many of us have raised concerns that the Common Core promotes a flawed pedagogy and takes power away from schools and teachers and gives it to national bodies and corporations. And yet the New York State PTA President Lana Ajemian remains committed to the idea of the CC and says that merely its implementation needs to be improved. By this reasoning, we can never stop the CC (because the promised results are always around the next corner).
This is my thought process as my inbox fills with requests from the PTA to serve on committees. I’m afraid that I would be empowering a person and organization that has different ends than mine.
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Nicholas, it is your duty to inform the parents about the CC. Insist on having a presentation on the true effects and errors of the CC. I am sure that you are not alone in your district with this concern. In order to “kill two birds” at a time, you could set up a joint meeting of the PTA and BOE with all concerned Teachers in attendance!
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If every BAT just has a conversation with their own PTA president and provides them with an informational flier to hand out to the parents, I believe we can reach more stakeholders, the parents.
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In the NYC Metro area Save Our Schools, Bats, and several local parent groups from NYC, Long Island, New Jersey, and the Hudson Valley are working together towards a mid May rally in NYC. The tentative date is May 17th. We hope Diane can join us as well.
It is our hope to represent all constituents: parents, teachers, students, administrators, and concerned citizens in our attempt to publicize the evils being perpetrated on children in the name of “reform”.
We seek to TAKE BACK OUR SCHOOLS and REVITALIZE, not reform, education.
We need to do is Revitalize Education by honoring and using ALL the proven methods of teaching created over the years that we ALREADY KNOW work with children from all backgrounds, each gender, and each learning ability.
Please join us if you live and work in the area.
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Parents are crucial to this movement, yet I have had limited success going through PTA channels. Was basically told “We’ve been protecting public education for a hundred years, and we don’t need you.” If course, their idea of “protecting” meant supporting CCSS and dropping the ball on testing. This needs to be a one-to-one, word of mouth activity.
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You need to know that in many parts of the country, parents have been working against ed reform for almost a decade, whereas, from our point of view, teachers have been very late to the party….
amongst the parents I work with, there is an impression that millions of teachers are not informed about ed reform, are not in touch with what’s going on outside their own districts/states, think it’s just another fad that they can ignore and it will peeter out, think that their unions and/or administrators will fix the problem, are too cowed to pushback….
there has been enormous frustration as we have watched unions take money from the ed reformers, sign contracts that let VAM affect teacher evaluations and TFA into district classrooms… we wonder why teachers cant see what is happening, and we struggle with the logistics of waking up our own ranks around the country AS WELL as teachers, and with the idea that we have to save public education and our kids by ourselves….
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Diane is right. Parents and teachers are natural allies. Parents have been misinformed by organizations like the National PTA, AFT, and NEA. All have received money from the Gates Foundation. In my school district, the parents are very trusting. Many assume that if we’re doing something new, like the Common Core, it must be good for their children. I am fortunate. My local PTA is sponsoring an Educational Reforms Study Group. Our group has 10 parents and 5 teachers. We are using Diane’ book, Reign of Error, as one source of information. We also also using other articles, reports, blogs, and websites to get different points of view. Our group meets twice a month for 4 months. We have different facilitators at each meeting. Work with your PTA to develop a dialogue on the changes you are experiencing in classroom and schools that impact the children. Together is better.
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My PTA president is polite and she presents as neutral on my feelings about CCSS, but I also get the vibe that the PTA is duty-bound to support what the *school* is doing, parents’ feeling about it or no. The PTA has gotten millions of Gates dollars and they need $$$ to keep doing the other stuff they do, especially in our relatively disadvantaged school with a lot of FARMS and ELL’s. Why would they bite the hand that feeds them millions? 😦
I don’t blame them, but I don’t have to like it.
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I agree with your assessment. PTA – at the national/state levels – really toe the ed reform line. Parents at the school level feel helpless without real leadership from either the unit/regional level of PTA. I feel PTA has been co-opted (and I love PTA).
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Get active in your local PTA and reclaim it for parents and teachers, not Bill Gates.
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In my district the first thing they did was to take over the PTA . The principals appointed aides that were employed by them to be President of the PTA and then they use any money that they bring in for their purposes only and only their agenda is done.
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Michigan PTA supports CCSS. I have asked about this on several occasions and they do not respond. I have posted their mission statement and links. They have been ignored or taken down. It is a major disappointment.
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We will not be successful without the support of parents.
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Diane, I am a special education teacher in Eastern NC. I have taught in some wonderful schools in Buffalo, NY and Richmond VA before coming down here to open my doors to foster children who are involved with the juvenile justice and mental health departments. My teaching role is to work with self contained students with behavior issues.I feel I am a humble person who doesn’t toot their horn much but I will say I have been proud of being involved in more miraculous reclaiming of youth than setbacks. I pay close attention to the politics involved in my former states. Both North Carolina and New York, politically are on opposite ends of the spectrum. However both states, and I’m sure many others, are clearly trying to destroy public education as we know it for the sake of publicly sponsored charter schools, many of whom are owned by huge conglomerates, many invested in by Middle Eastern oil barrens among others. They are doing this by driving out public school teachers to replace with unlicensed, inexperienced teachers in the Charter system and Teach for America. They are doing this by taking the caps off class sizes, and not investing in the buildings and school supplies. They are doing this by forcing a terrible curriculum down our throats on purpose in hopes the parents complain to their local administrators instead of the politicians and policy makers. I am sure I am not saying anything Diane Ravitch has not said before but it is frustrating because I am witnessing all of this happening before my eyes. I push into regular ed classes that have over 40 students in them, we haven’t had new teaching materials or textbooks since the 1990’s and we’re supposed to teach to this new curriculum. There is a feeling classes like social studies will be a thing of the past since it doesn’t translate to national test scores or the Common Core. Our teachers are no longer rewarded for having Masters degrees, we’ve had only a 1% raise in 6 years, and kids in class have no basic writing materials like pencils and notebooks because their parents won’t supply them, the school won’t supply them and teacher won’t pay out if their pocket for them. States up north are fortunate to have unions to slow this stuff down. Our state does not. It seems to me this plan of ultra reform will probably happen first in North Carolina. Parents need to get outraged and voice their displeasure. We all need to march on our state capitals and use our first amendment rights as best we can. We need to become political activists for the first time in some of our lives. We need to express that this is not a Democrat thing or a Republican thing, its the Constitutional right to a free and public education. We also need to expose the ultra rich individuals who are putting their funding and resources into these policies of evil reform.
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Just as teachers are having to deal with knowledge their union leaders took money from the ed deformers and have given away ground it will be very hard to get back, we parents are fighting ed reform within the PTAs and school district directorships and management.
The plutocrats have been at this for a very long time, and, with an unlimited budget, have been able to cover all the bases…. which is why I say that trying to stop this hostile takeover of public education (a fractal reduction of the bigger agenda of taking over and controlling the entire political, economic and social system) by being “nice”, isnt going to work…
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My fellow teacher and I had been sharing the VP seat for our PTA for years. Once this CCSS issue came about, the county and state PTA had trainings for parents on how teachers needed to be held accountable to “teach deeper, not wider” from these new standards. Our SB trustees and district admin were approached regarding the lack of CCSS/strategies they were seeing and had learned about when entering classes while volunteering. I had been friends with those PTA parents for years, and the president helped me get my position after tutoring her grandson years ago. But suddenly we were cut from the PTA board over the summer. I am with you on why we all are on the same mission to create successful students, but I do point out that I WAS THE PTA and the push is very strong coming from their national to educate parents on how they need to get on board. My PTA parents sound like better trained CCSS teachers than the teachers (lack of PD funding does that). Of course, many of thier kids with parents (etc) that are in the PTA have such support in the home that the equity for our neediest we fight for may not be understood. To experience it and be accountable to it is different than observing it or learning what someone else should be doing as an absolute. This is also a media issue, as these parents hear we are “failing” and believe that they can help identify the reasons according to what they were taught/told since they are in the school all of the time.
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Diane, As someone who worked with education associations for 34+ years, I was saddened by the precipitous decline in participation in PTA’s over the years. Since so many families have two parets in the work force, that doesn’t leave much time for PTA involvement/activism. I hope your advocacy for this organization bears fruit, and I urge teachers to reach out to and help build PTA’s in their districts AND AT THE STATE LEVEL.
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I couldn’t agree more. A child doesn’t come to school without family influence and values; and unless you’re ready to home-school, parents would do well to get to know their kid’s teachers. We should be allies in our fight for quality education for all our kids.
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The general public, and thus politicians, won’t listen to teachers “whine” about education, even when our comments are about the fate of their children. They will, however, listen to the parents (if there are enough if them). It is only when the teachers and administrators, in combination with the parents, speak out and threaten to withdraw their support on Election Day, that a change in direction might be possible.
And it can’t be a whimper – we definitely need to create a BANG.
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UM….. before you start throwing stones around inside your glass house, you might like to ask your union bosses why they accept MULTI millions of dollars from many of the main ed reformers, including Bill Gates…. and have been doing so for the past decade or more….
and parents – who are more isolated than teachers from what’s going on in ed reform, dont connect with each other or other parents across the country regularly, are not in the trenches each day and dont have connection with their PTAs on a daily/weekly basis, have a rather larger “right” to be ignorant of, not understand what ed reform and common core really is, ESPECIALLY as the teachers’ unions signed on to implement CCSS BEFORE them…
after all, if the teachers think its good for our kids, it must be, right?
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