In Newark, a dozen or fewer students continue their sit-in in the office of Cami Anderson, who was appointed by Governor Chris Christie to turn Newark into an all-choice district. The students demand that Anderson meet with them and the local school board or resign.
Their protest has received national and international coverage.
Margaret Mead said:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Can you post media links?
Google New Jersey: des lyceens occupent le bureau de leur directrice for French article; it’s on observers.france24.com/fr/
She also said “My grandmother wanted me to get a good education, so she took me out of school” It’s time to change the system and philosophy of education that has failed for over 200 years http://www.wholechildreform.com
I couldn’t be prouder of these brave students.
Great quote. Appropriate. But I thought it belonged to Eleanor Roosevelt. Both cut out of the same cloth!
This is what the “civil rights movement of our time” looks like.
Forget the modifier “new.” Not needed. There’s are always civil and human rights issues that needed to be urgently addressed.
They follow in the best American tradition:
“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!” [Mario Savio, 12-3-1964, Berkeley Free Speech Movement]
And a final note for the “choicers”: so when these brave young people voluntarily and consciously stand up to be counted they are missing school and it’s just so damn immoral and unfair and they’re just being manipulated by lazy LIFO teachers and union thugs and such.
But when, time after time after time, charter schools mandate students and parents and employees to pack meetings and rallies and put on a show of “voluntary grassroots support” for $tudent $ucce$$ and the like—
When those students, sometimes in the hundreds and hundreds, are out of school and out of the classroom—isn’t that bad bad bad?
Maybe not. See this blog, yesterday—
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2015/02/19/nashville-dad-opposing-the-charters-political-agenda/
Or are we seeing in action the “common core” of the self-styled “education reform” movement”?
😱
Double talk. Double think. Double standards.
Yep, that’s the one. The same line of “reasoning” that says “choice” doesn’t mean having the choice of opting out of high-stakes hazing rituals, er, standardized testing.
Ok, I know I’m pushing it here, but the choicers remind me of that bit from Lewis Carroll by that greater choicer His Own Bad Self, Humpty Dumpty:
[start quote from Wikipedia]
• “My name is Alice, but — ”
• “It’s a stupid name enough!” Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. “What does it mean?”
• “Must a name mean something?” Alice asked doubtfully.
• “Of course it must,” Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh: “my name means the shape I am — and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost.”
• “When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
• “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
• “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master— that’s all.””
[end quote from Wikipedia]
Oh my—“which to be master” of what “choice” means? $tudent $ucce$$, I guess…
😎
Krazy TA, you should e-mail this to newarkstudentsunion@gmail.com
Am sure the sit-in students would appreciate it. The Savio quotation is especially apt because C Anderson is a Berkeley alum.
The kids met with Scami. The meeting accomplished nothing. Hespe had decided prior to renew her contract as “we are very happy with her work.” There ya go.