The National PTA, which has received millions from the Gates Foundation, warned its Delaware chapter not to encourage or support parents who want to opt their child out of state testing.
Opt out is the best tool that parents possess to fight corporate reform, data mining, rating their child, and privatization.
Delaware parents: Just say no.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Per National PTA SOA Policy, if you are unable to comply with the SOA requirements by April 26, 2016 (60 days from this notification), a support team will be assigned to Delaware PTA to help create and implement a plan to move your PTA back into compliance.”
…move to compliance? Do the intend to use force? Disturbing!
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Send in the Clones …
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“they”
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Maybe the Delaware chapter needs to “opt out” of the National PTA.
And if they won’t do it, then the local school PTA’s need to opt out of the “PTA” and become independent PTO’s.
Maybe, if enough local and state PTA’s withdraw, the National PTA might get a glimmer of a hint.
OTOH, if the national PTA is getting so much money from Gates, why should they care about all the local and state dues they would not be receiving? 😦
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Compliance is not only about money. It is about control.
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Yes, a lot of it is certainly about control.
But at the end of the day, money and control are totally intertwined.
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What are the benefits of belonging to the national PTA?
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ok so I looked up some of the benefits to belonging to the PTA. Much of whats on their benefits page looks like what you would find on a buyers club.
But what are the hands on practical supports that the organization offers to individual community schools, that a group of committed parent volunteers can’t provide?
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Jonathan, I don’t know about currently, but back when I was teaching in public schools (admittedly, I’ve been retired for a number of years now), I couldn’t see any direct benefits coming to the schools from the national.
Even longer ago than that, when my kids were in public schools and I was involved in their various PTA’s, all we saw was some of our dues getting sent to the state and national PTA’s. Which is why we switched to a PTO when my kids were in high school. No more dues shipped out. We also had a very active parents that were able to accomplish a lot for the school, and I realize not all schools are lucky enough to have this.
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I like the Nancy Reagan statement. “Just say NO” to everything the “deformers” say.
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This (raw egg) is your brain. This (frying egg) is your brain on standardized, computerized tests. Just say no.
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There’s not much that I agreed with the Reagans except two aphorisms: Nancy’s “Just say no!” and Ronnie’s “Trust but verify”.
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This is one reason our school switched from PTA to PTO last year.
Plus, our PTO now gets to keep 100% of our membership dues for our school instead of sending most of it away to state and national PTAs.
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My children’s high school (and this was a whole lot of years ago) switched from the PTA to a PTO. Mainly because of the dues thing, but there are even more reasons to do so now.
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The National PTA seems out of touch with its members on a couple of key issues (CCSS and Opt Out) but I urge people to continue to support their local units and state PTAs. Our local units do such good, and many state PTAs, like mine in Virginia, are very responsive to their members’ concerns and are doing amazing advocacy work. The Virginia PTA passed an opt out resolution this past summer and the legislation I will link to here supports that resolution. https://www.facebook.com/johnmillerforva/posts/10201565109566508?fref=nf
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And why would they even care if a chapter supports or helps parents opt out? What kind of demands has Gates Foundation put on the grant money? He doesn’t get money per student taking a test run by Pearson….or does he?
I support the Delaware chapter in being ‘civil disobedient’
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I would wager it’s more about the perception created by Gates, et al., being able to say “The National Parent Teacher Association supports CCSS, testing, VAM, and all of our half-baked, punitive measures. It’s only a few disgruntled crazies that support Opt Out.”
That’s how the PR works. It’s been obvious since NCLB that the National PTA was captured by big money profiteers and, like the national teachers’ unions, the national teacher professional organizations, and most of higher ed, they’ve become enamored of their “place at the table” and the big spending inside the beltway lifestyles that engenders.
They are toadies and sycophants to monied power and they don’t give two figs about what parents or teachers think or experience. They are nothing more than a PR response team and an astroturf organization that provided cover with the once-honorable and valuable “PTA Approved” stamp.
Disgusting.
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I am waiting for one of the rheephormsters that post comments on this blog to remind us that corporate education reform is not the status quo.
And that any assertion to the contrary is vitriol that undermines civil conversation.
So say the “agnostics” that are anything but when rheephorm words and deeds are undermined by facts, logic and reality.
😎
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The Delaware PTA should now “warn” the National PTA to a) not involve itself in state matters as, b) remind the National PTA that the federal government has been removed from a national “enforcement” in 2016, and c) give Mr Gates back his money and tell him it will not tolerate his, or his foundation’s meddling in policies affecting public schools and public school children.
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The Delaware PTA can warn all it wants (and I hope it does, in fact), but I don’t think that the national PTA is going to be giving Gates back his money any time soon. If ever.
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Maybe not the best example, but i just wonder if the national PTA would have adopted the same high handed approach if it had been Texas and not Delaware
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Isn’t this FASCIST? Well, Gates is a FASCIST.
This is MOST DISGUSTING! Delaware PTA should give National PTA the “EAGLE!”
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Yep. Delaware PTA is about -what is best for students. National is about what is best for corporate. Disgrace.
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The school which I attended in elementary and junior high dropped out of PTA in the fifties and became a PTO. I wonder now what the issue was then.
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Who in the world is the National PTA to tell anyone what to do with their children? This is outrageous!
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Wasn’t it a Delaware school board meeting where a parent was arrested maybe 4 years ago for speaking up against testing and common core? I will look this up, but I think it was Delaware.
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that does sound like a Delaware shenanigan, but it was Maryland…being led by ex-Delaware Sec. Ed, Lillian Lowery
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The PTA is like the Chamber of Commerce. Both organizations support and push for legislation that is detrimental to its members, but the salaries of the “leaders” do not depend on dues. They will lose influence if their membership drops too low, but there seems to be no problem attracting low information membership – reminds me AARP.
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I think everyone should hop on over to National PTAs Facebook page and let them know how they feel. How can they suppress a parents’ choice because that is what it is really all about!
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And just what will the national PTA do?….excommunicate Delaware? Then they could put their dues into their schools. The PTA is no longer a friend of education.
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Wow, this Opt-Out stuff is really working, guys. Even the National PTA is trying to twist our arms. I’d say keep up the good fight Opt-Out-ers! PTA just shot itself in the foot, ya know. Cuz lots of parents weren’t even aware of the option until you made headlines in Delaware. Nanny, nanny boo boo.
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I was PTA President and opted my kids out. I know of at least 3 other PTA Presidents who opted their kids out, too. This is a very bad move by the national PTA leaders.
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Local branches of the PTA need to do one thing: If you disagree with the National PTA, then break off and form your own organization, declaring yourselves independent of the NPTA.
It’s plain and simple, and you can then do your own fundraising and not be beholden to anyone but other-like minded people within your new organization.
WHAT is so off the wall about that?
Screw the NPTA . . . . They are not the end-all and be-all.
Act like a doormat, and you can expect to be treated like one. You’re much better than that.
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When classroom-allergic theoreticians can explain Common Core as easily as they can count their lobbying loot …
When politicians sit for 3rd and 8th grade assessment exams … in full public view … just like every 8 and 13 year old is required to do …
And when every business mogul, politician, and government bureaucrat enrolls their children in public school …
Then you can ask me why I’m refusing these assessments … and protecting childhood.
~ Denis Ian
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Excellent list of expectations, agree 100%
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If I were a Presidential candidate, I would shout this recent event from the rooftops! The National PTA HEAVILY FUNDED BY BILL GATES now warning its chapters not to allow OPT OUT! If there ever is parallel of how PAC money influences, this is it. Gates is a “one man PAC band”!!!! Parents live the anxiety and sense of worthlessness felt by their children day in and day out as testing destructively invades school life like gangrene and yet the National PTA tries to enforce test-taking? Just who do they represent? The corporate interests of Bill Gates or the children and their families? By the same token, just who do politicians represent these days? The People or their financial backers????
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I appreciate your thinking — “If I were a Presidential candidate, I would shout this…from the rooftops!” I just don’t see why our theoretically liberal candidates can’t see that one sure path to getting more votes in modern days would be to vehemently come out against testing: Period. No more tests, no more big-money manipulation of our schools. PERIOD.
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And now the NY Daily News continues its idea that Opt Out is mainly about union control and the imminent departure of Tisch means that any board that doesn’t agree with Tisch must be about Union control.
I kinda love how they bake in that assumption that Reform and Tisch were about the kids no matter how many parents protested it and anything else is Unionized Adult Protectionism.
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Sorry – http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/rip-n-y-school-reform-article-1.2545465
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PTAs, at the local unit level, do great work. Being a part of State/National gives you access to a strong support system (training, materials, personal advice), especially since local units are all-volunteer-run non-profits with constantly changing leadership. It’s really tough to run a compliant unit. Being a member of the PTA gives you inexpensive group insurance to protect the organization and its members. Having said all that, change can’t happen with Common Core, PARCC, opting out, etc. if everyone (State PTAs, county PTA councils, local units) has to strictly adhere to National positions. It doesn’t make sense since each unit is legally and financially independent.
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Jane Meyer’s book, “Dark Money”, explains everything. I’m sure the “philanthropists” at Gates gave the national PTA their orders. Of course, the national PTA has no hold over anyone and I strongly urge any parent to opt their child out of these idiotic tests designed to 1.) dumb kids down through turning them off to literacy and learning of any sort, and 2.) rake in money for the testing corporations–PROFITS! Folks, none of these foundations giving money for “educational purposes” wants to see the excelling of Everyday Children. Seriously, do rich, elite wealthy white people care about how an inner city, poverty stricken student does on a test? No, it’s about keeping children dumber, turned off to learning, and, most importantly, obedient; obedient so there’s no questioning of the status quo that is rigged which totally favors the free marketeers who are shoving free-market corporate education reform down everyone’s throat. In short, it’s all designed to protect their power and wealth by keeping everyone else stuck with their lot in a system that’s becoming more and more ossified.
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It’s about keeping children…turned off to learning. Wow, that is so true, especially in our district’s lowest-income schools. The less they know, the less they can fight off oppression?
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A oligarch-funded organization doesn’t describe the schools for the 99%, as “human capital pipelines” because there’s a concern about maximizing potential.
Silicon Valley and Wall Street don’t implement tax avoidance scams because they care about America.
OUR schools, funded with OUR taxes, are on their radar because they see a way to rob communities, via get-rich-quick schemes.
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Here’s link to Deleware PTA statement on National PTA’s action: http://delawarepta.org/updated-position-on-parent-opt-out/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=socialnetwork
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