Retired teacher and blogger Norm Scott (EdNotes Online) has a creative idea, though time is short. Why not brings hundreds of thousands (or millions) of students to Albany on March 4 to get a “civics lesson” and to remind legislators that 97% of the state’s children attend public schools, not charters.
He writes:
Help this teacher sell this class trip.
“Norm, just stumbled upon you. I tried selling our BOE on the same idea that I just read on your blog (Time for Massive Civics Lesson on March 4). Super didn’t know if we could do that with our public school buses. I teach Elem.Spec.Ed.- do you know if there are any generic “field trip civics lesson plans” out there to expedite my push to make this legit? People won’t get off their asses and take action; all we get is “write your legislators”. Actions speak.”
Norm writes:
“I proposed this weeks ago right after Eva announced she was closing schools on UFT lobby day, March 4, to take them up to Albany. Why not get hundreds of NYC classes to take a field trip to Albany for a civics lesson on how public money can be misused to get away with just about anything. Note how the teacher gets it about the business as usual without imagination UFT plan. Even though March 4 is the day after my 70th birthday I would go along just to get video of a lone teacher making a stand.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
“Why not brings hundreds of thousands (or millions) of students to Albany on March 4 to get a ‘civics lesson’ and to remind legislators that 97% of the state’s children attend public schools, not charters.”
I thought the reason “why not” is that it’s not ok to use children for political events. I’m so confused!
But we have it on Eva’s good authority that it’s not “using” children. It’s just a civics lesson.
Let’s allow the $tudent $ucce$$ crowd to hoist itself by one of its own most sacred petards.
Public schools. Zoned schools. Charter schools. Charter schools ARE public schools. That’s why they’re often referred to as “public charter schools.” They’re all the same, traditional and public and charter and government monopoly schools.
Okey dokey. Then if Saint Eva of $ucce$$ can pull out 9,000 of her students [along with much staff and many parents] then by their own “reasoning” aka talking points/straw men arguments/pr spin, the supporters of charters should be all in for—
Public school students and staff and parents and communities and advocates to do the same.
Remember: charters ARE public schools! Public schools can be called “charter” or “traditional” or “zoned” or “government monopoly” or whatever you like, but they’re all one and the same—except for the “indisputable fact” that charters are better and do more with less and aren’t burdened with all those silly onerous regulations and such…
Word salad. Cognitive dissonance. Topped off with a generous helping of self-interest.
To all you cage busters out there: your silence is consent to what I wrote above.
😎
I love this idea. It underlines the idea that 97% of kids are in public school, I ask the question I always ask, why isn”t AFT ofrganizing this? Why don’t they make the raising of money for buses a public event…as in teachable moment?
This is workable with a middle school to high school aged group. Does anyone have access or knowledge of an actual written out “lesson plan” or “justification” that would work in regards to an activity such as this, bringing a group, observing the process in person, reflecting on how they felt, etc? It really would be educational for any adult or soon to be adult in my opinion.
Robert B,
The great majority of Success Academy students are elementary, not middle school or high school
I don’t claim to speak for “parents” but I personally don’t think you should do it. I think a lot of parents would absolutely hate it.
We had the (public) high school band accept an invitation to play at a rally for a presidential candidate and half the parents went nuts. It was this giant controversy. I felt at the time that the kids were only invited because it’s a rural area and the candidate’s handlers wanted to make sure and fill the room on a weekday afternoon, but that wasn’t what people were upset about – they just thought it was inappropriate.
We don’t really know if all the Success Academy parents are madly in love with this, either. Maybe they all do, but maybe some or a lot of them don’t.
I myself would take the high road on this one 🙂
The troubling part of this though, is that our kids are lacking representation.
Teachers and students don’t stop education to fight political battles.
But when one side shows up on the battlefield, guess who the winner is.
I’m not in favor of Eva’s gimmick either (giving a child a political message they have no means of understanding and posing for photo ops is just wrong).
I also don’t think we can afford the high road because unless we have a different approach (like thousands of public school parents), we can’t cede the battle to them.
I don’t think public school parents will make the connection and see it as a response to the charter promotion.
Most of them will just think you’re taking them to the statehouse for a political rally, and they’ll react based on their feelings about “missing school to attend political rallies”.
One of the challenges for public school employees, if I’m understanding the subtext of a lot of the commentary here, is the “public” part- you have to attempt to serve a lot of different people with a lot of different levels of interest and wants/needs. I think that broader idea has to trump politicking, partly because it’s a big part of your argument.
It’s a weakness in many ways, but it’s a huge strength long term because I think people intuitively understand those trade-offs as part of the “public” in public school.
I myself wouldn’t trade away that much long-term value for a photo op or a short term win.
To All parents and Educators in this website:
People whoever oppose or discount “civics lesson” as per 70 years old veteran educator’s suggestion really are gullible and ignorant about the true democracy, especially in today’s chaos in educational environment.
Idea of freedom expression that you say and do should cultivate in the young child’s mind. Please STOP b*llsh*tting about the wasted time for civics lesson.
Because of your gullibility, your children will become modern slaves under a disguised title manager or even as high as a CEO who are just the YES men and women in the society. Back2basic