Barbara Madeloni, the firebrand insurgent who won the presidency of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, was re-elected last week on a platform of fighting high-stakes testing and charters.
Madeloni first rose to prominence in 2012 when she fought the EdTPA, the Pearson test required for certification. She refused to administer it to her students and lost her job (she later regained it, then took an unpaid leave, then lost it again, but may be rehire again, or maybe not.)
At that time, she said about teacher certification:
““This is something complex and we don’t like seeing it taken out of human hands,” said Barbara Madeloni, who runs the university’s high school teacher training program. “We are putting a stick in the gears.”
Last week, the MTA filed an amicus brief as part of a lawsuit to stop the legislature from lifting the cap on charter expansion.
Charter advocates filed a lawsuit last year claiming that the state’s cap on charter schools violates the civil rights of students who could then not have an opportunity to attend a charter. The state attorney general, Maura Healey, filed a motion to dismiss and the Massachusetts Teachers Association just filed an amicus brief in support of the AG’s motion to dismiss. The MTA brief confronts the lie behind the charter advocates’ ‘civil rights’ argument.
For her fight for public schools, students, teachers, education, and democracy, I am glad to place Barbara Madeloni on the honor roll.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is absurd. A twist of logic I have not seen before
“Charter advocates filed a lawsuit last year claiming that the state’s cap on charter schools violates the civil rights of students who could then not have an opportunity to attend a charter.”
How about public school advocates filing a lawsuit claiming that the civil rights of students are being violated by the unlimited proliferation of charter schools, waste and fraud in the use of taxpayer dollars, laws guaranteeing poor charter oversight, boot camp discipline in many schools, targeted and costly ads to recruit students in low income communities with a high proportion of minorities,excluding students with disabilities, especially severe disabilities. Etc.,etc,. Kudos to Barbara Madeloni and to those who reelected her.
It does seem to be past time to start considering the civil rights of those students choosing a public school education. Perhaps Erie, PA should file a law suit against the unlawful destruction of its financial base by charter proliferation and thus destroying the choice of its public school students.
This is some of the best education news from Massachusetts, where we’re not yet ready to cave to the privateers.
Here’s a link to photos from yesterday’s student demonstration:
Sorry! Doesn’t seem to work.
Proud to have been one of Barbara’s students to refuse EdTPA! She is a source if inspiration and we’ve started an opt out movement way out in the Berkshires of western MA. I refused Pearson, and now my kids are, too!
I don’t find Barbara Madeloni to be “militant” at all, except comparatively. If teachers were militant we would not merely advocate that parents opt out of testing, we would organize ourselves to refuse to Administer a test that harms children and the education system we believe in: a mass refusal to do harm.
But Madeloni is a large step in the right direction, a good and decent person who ran an inclusive meeting despite some provocation. Good for her!
Teachers have accepted too much for so long that the sharks think teachers can be walked over. They do indeed need to organize and fight for sensible change.