James Meredith marks the 50th anniversary of his one-man “Walk Against Fear” in Mississippi by declaring his support for the parents, educators, and other citizens who oppose the deceptively named “reform movement” in education.

Meredith says:

We are in a dark age of American public education. We are losing millions of our children to inferior schools and catastrophically misguided and ineffective so-called education reforms that are wasting billions of dollars, destroying the teaching profession and causing widespread chaos in public education. We are, in effect, destroying the future of our republic.

Our public school children, rich and poor, do not need toxic stress, unqualified temp teachers, unreliable and universal standardized tests, system-wide disruption, eliminated arts and recess, excessive screen time, and schools forced to compete with each other instead of collaborate. There is no evidence that any of this improves learning, yet this is what we are forcing on our nation’s children.

It is time for all Americans to work together to strive to make the best possible education available to every single child in America. It is time to usher in a new Golden Age of public education for our children.

I stand with groups like the Network for Public Education against education policy governed by the mass standardized testing of children; against the privatization of public education; against mass school closures to save money or to facilitate privatization; against the demonization and de-professionalization of teachers; and against for-profit management of public schools.

I support equitable public school funding for all children based on need, democratic local control of schools, and well-resourced schools run by experienced educators.

What a remarkable statement!

James Meredith’s support gives the lie to the claim that the corporate reform movement is leading the “civil rights issue of our time.” In fact, the corporate reformers like Arne Duncan, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Reform Now, Stand for Children, have hijacked the language of the civil rights movement to impose unjust policies on the children and educators of America.

We thank James Meredith for his eloquent support. We have a mission to rescue public education from those who would standardize it, monetize it, financialize it, and turn it into a free market of choices. This path, as Meredith so well explains, is leading us away from equity, away from a better education for all, and away from equality of educational opportunity.