The Network for Public Education is delighted to endorse Lee Barrios for the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Lee is a tireless advocate for children and public education.

Barrios retired from teaching in 2010 and became a full-time advocate, working to protect public education in her home state. Barrios has a long list of qualifications for a seat on BESE. She is a retired National Board Certified Teacher with a Masters Degree in Secondary Education; a founding member of the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education, which represents classroom teachers; the Information Coordinator for Save Our Schools – LA; and she was a founding member of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, which worked to expose inBloom around the country.

Her opponent is James Garvey, who is running for his third term on BESE. He is a part of the board majority that supports charter schools, high stakes testing, vouchers, Common Core, VAM, and controversial Louisiana state superintendent John White. Garvey has well over $200,000 in his campaign coffers. Garvey entered the race with almost $160,000 left over from his previous campaign, and another $40,000 has been donated to his current campaign by four Political Action Committees (PACs) formed by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry. See here, here, here, and here.

Barrios is well aware that she is up against powerful, moneyed interests, and has a clear sense of how dangerous market-based education reform is to the cause of public education.

“The market-based model that is driving reform since the 2001 federal No Child Left Behind Act has not contributed to meaningful, lasting improvements in education. Privatization of our public school system will only diminish the education opportunities to which every Louisiana child is constitutionally guaranteed. Market-based reforms remove the community-based system and its democratic foundation. Privatization is profit driven.”

HERE IS THE LINK FOR DONATIONS TO LEE’S CAMPAIGN: http://electleebarrios.blogspot.com/p/donate.html

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