Guy Brandenburg writes here about the first conference of the Network for Public Education, just concluded in Austin, Texas.
Nearly 400 educators, parents, and activists met to brainstorm about how to roll back the corporate attack on public education.
It was huge, exciting, energizing, and the beginning of a new day.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sitting in the sidelines through Twitter and the #npeconference hashtag and live stream (when up) was breathtaking and inspiring. We didn’t break Twitter like Ellen DeGeneres’ “selfie” during the Oscars, but for me you rocked and so did all who contributed to this event.
Guy Brandenburg does not so much report on the conference, which would be of interest to all, but just repeats the same old screed about billionaires trying to destroy public education. One of the few facts he reports was that there were few parents there, mostly teachers and “activists.” The parents are the employers. Why so few? I don’t know. Maybe there will be more next year as the activists learn to organize for their cause.
The conference itself may have energized Diane, but I find zero in Guy’s blog entry to give me any hope of either rationality or realism in the defenders of public education. It SHOULD be defended, but screeds like Guy’s will cut no ice with the general public. Why? It’s all rhetoric of demonization, rhetoric of scapegoating, anti-capitalist rhetoric. Most of us make our livings working for corporate America. We can’t afford to attack the hand that feeds us. Moreover, we feel we ought to have choices, alternatives to the public schools, even if we aren’t rich. Thus charters and vouchers. We may be wrong, but we feel it intuitively any way, and no amount of haranguing, such as Guy’s blog, is going to change that.
Now here I speculate wildly about why I find Guy’s rhetoric so unpersuasive. Public school teachers seem to me to think they have some kind of quasi religious claim on tax money. I think they think they are like clergy and should be protected from accountability, just as the priests of England in the old days claimed a special right to be tried in church courts, even for rape and murder. That didn’t go over well with the general populace. Public education seems to me to think it should be like an that kind of established church, with everyone compelled by the police power of the state to go to services.
If you accept my analogy, it should be easy to understand why some parents are ambivalent about public schools. Everyone wants his kid educated, but some parents want choice more than they want to stay inside the local system, yet they still feel the public should fund that freedom of choice.
I have to agree with your assessment of Gary’s report on the conference. It’s not a report on the conference but rather a rally the troops speech. We may disagree on a many issues, Harlan, but your assessment of some parents’ ambivalence about public schools rings true although I doubt their analogies include priests in England. 🙂 I’m sure the conference was energizing (and make no mistake that is important), but on the ground advocacy is going to require dedication to more than “the flag.” We can’t just be against, we have to be and work for something. I am glad that the participants were fired up by the conference, but what’s the game plan?
The one thing I “got out of the conference” was that we need to increase our social media footprint, which, even though not suggested at the conference, will lead to a bigger footprint in the main stream media. Not to mention the fact that many younger folk now get the vast majority of their information from those newer social media sources than the lame stream media (couldn’t help that).
You are probably right, Duane.
I agree with you, Duane.
Another part of the “game plan”, in addition to social media, needs to be one to one activism.
What I mean is for each of us to use every opportunity to speak, (gently perhaps) to friends, neighbors, etc. Maybe even simply correcting basic factual errors…like the STEM crisis, shortage, whatever, or the notion that international test scores have anything to do with economic competitiveness.
Gently, but factually, calling out some of these claims may, over time, induce some to think about, (question) what the lame stream media (accurate moniker, IMHO) is selling them.
The problem with that is that liberals never want to be gentle or reasonable or truthful. A leopard can’t change its spots even if the policy were unambiguously correct. This is a struggle for control of public money, not a contest of virtue and evil.
An inconvenient fact: a great many teachers ARE parents.
Data, er, food for thought…
😎
I was actually surprised by the number of parent activists that were in attendance and presenting. Quite a bit more than I would have thought! Some board of ed members, even some administrators (sorry Peter, John, and HJ (?) [and those three really do know how to “administrate” in service to the children]) were in attendance and presenting. Young folk, older folk, many in between, black folk, brown folk, white folk, oriental folk and many folk were in attendance. I thought it was a varied and informative crowd.
NPE Conference… Inspiring, visionary, motivating, fun, uplifting, exciting… ACTIVISTS… students, parents, grandparents, teachers, principals, journalists, superintendents, university professors and more…
I am going back to my third graders today with a renewed sense of passion, hope, commitment and dedication to work with all of you to preserve true teaching, learning and public education. By standing strong and pushing forward, truth, justice, educational expertise and commitment to equity and strong communities for our children is on our side. We Will Win!
Now, let’s go out there and make it happen by documenting the hard data and absurdities of the for-profit school factory failures and telling the true stories our children and teachers are living every day in school together.
Thank you to All!
Maureen Reedy