Please join me and many others in Washington, D.C., on July 8 to express our support for our nation’s public schools and educators.
If you are fed up with the privatization of public schools and the high-stakes testing that has harmed real education, please join us.
You will meet old friends and make new friends. There are many wonderful activities planned before and after the March.
Join us and raise your voices for better public schools, a respected teaching profession, and a new direction for American education.
I hope you stop and say hello!
Please Join
Save Our Schools Coalition for Action
People’s March For Public Education & Social Justice
On July 8 a coalition of grassroots groups, union organizations, and activists will rally at the Lincoln Memorial and march in support of education and social justice. We are marching for community-based, equitably-funded schools that are the heart of neighborhoods.
We stand and march for:
· Full, equitable funding for all public schools
· Safe, racially just schools and communities
· Community leadership in public school policies
· Professional, diverse educators for all students
· Child-centered, culturally appropriate curriculum for all
· No high-stakes standardized testing
Join us in Washington D.C. on July 8-10th to celebrate democracy by living it.
· July 8th: Rally & March – Lincoln Memorial
Speakers include: Diane Ravitch, Rev. William Barber, Jamaal Bowman, Jonathon Kozol, Jesse Hagopian, Morna McDermott, the Youth Dreamers, Gus Morales, Detroit Teachers Union members, Denisha Jones, Sam Anderson, Tanaisa Brown, Julian Vasquez Heilig, Barbara Madeloni, Brett Bigham, Ruth Rodriguez, Bishop John Selders, United Opt Out, Yohuru Williams, Lisa Rudley, the Dyett Hunger Strikers and Jitu Brown, Mike Klonsky, Michelle Gunderson.
· July 9th: Activists Conference: – Howard University
New & Experienced Organizers Working for Public Education & Communities
Workshops for individuals and groups so we can return to our communities as leaders, organizers, participants, artists, and/or performers. Sessions for families, children & youth.
Keynotes: Jitu Brown and Bishop John L.Selders Jr.
· July 10th: Coalition Summit Work Session –activists & organizers meet to plan
An action this big requires much collaboration and support, and the Coalition has many involvement opportunities for individuals and organizations alike. Consider helping in the following ways:
1. Endorse the principles and the 2016 event
2. Provide active publicity about the 2016 event to your organizations and listserves
3. Organize in your area and assist people in attending the event
4. Provide financial support for the 2016 event and/or scholarships to deserving attendees
Free bus July 8 leaves 335 Adams St., Brooklyn at 6:00AM & returns after rally. To sign up email ysiwinski@uft.org; give your name & e-mail. Only 60 seats
http://saveourschoolsmarch.org/2016/03/sos-coalition-event-lincoln-memorial/.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Would love to and had plans but then shoulder surgery on 7/5 has gotten in the way. Hope all have fun and few get arrested.
Good luck with the surgery. Take care.
Thanks!!
Duane Swacker:
Keeping in mind what the sage of Concord said:
“The first wealth is health.” [Ralph Waldo Emerson]
You’ve got your priorities straight. Wishing you a full and speedy recovery.
😎
i’d rather remember than march.
I’d rather remember Little Rock … and remember how we can cure the moment.
We know Secretary of Education John King … and we know how this administration works. Neither is much concerned with the law, but very concerned with their own agenda … and that agenda is founded on control.
There’s no room in John King’s world for any significant dissent. There’s John King’s way or the highway. Like this administration, he is comfortable violating the law and worrying about any consequences at a later moment.
He’s a master at the game of irritation … and an absolute grand-master at cold-shouldering those in defiance of his splendid arrogance..
The rest of the nation is just learning of John King. Here, in New York, we’re still wading through his educational debris. And it’s deep, deep stuff.
John King is, in truth, the catalyst for this national opt-out movement that was born on Long Island. His parental disdain is now legend … and he’s now a more loathed figure than even Arne Duncan. Talented chap, eh?
But King is more dangerous than Duncan because now … at this moment … he’s cementing this “one-size-its-all” philosophy of education on the entire nation … and he believes that a national “common score” for every school in every state is the key to homogenizing education and morphing schools into dutiful learning-factories replete with robotized faculties and numbed students.
Read it an gasp … http://www.recordonline.com/article/20160626/news/160629526
King is one thing for sure … and that is reactive. He’s designed this swerve to counteract those schools and districts who are not yet fully energized in their resistance to Fed-Ed. This “head ’em off at the pass” routine is very familiar to New Yorkers who saw King do anything but answer the hard questions posed by invited speakers in forums throughout the state. His tactic? Stare and bore.
I wouldn’t respond to King at all. At least not in any method he anticipates.
I think we should do something entirely unexpected … something grand and large and media-grabbing. I think we should send a message that we’re uninterested in this foxtrot of frustration.
We should plan to empty the schools.
A boycott. The ultimate refusal.
The nation is in a proper moment of colossal dissatisfaction. That’s undeniable. We should not let this moment of national discontent with government pass us by. We should strike while emotions favor us.
I think it’s time for a Little Rock redux. To flip history on its ear.
Imagine disenfranchised parents and guinea-pigged students marching OUT of schools … with law enforcement providing safety from the clutches of … an intrusive, out-of-control federal government! Scenes not likely to go unremembered.
History is the ultimate tutor. We should learn this lesson … quickly … and strike while the political iron is hot.
Denis Ian
( John King) believes that a national “common score” for every school in every state is the key to homogenizing education and morphing schools into dutiful learning-factories replete with robotized faculties and numbed students.
Excellent and memorable line-link common score and common core, he 21st century version of factory education.
Wish I could join you, but on a teacher’s salary, not in the picture……
Save public education. Charter schools and vouchers will lead to no public education. Eventually vouchers will be cut and education tax cut. Then only wealthy families will educate their children. Privatization leads to reduced service, fewer employees, higher costs, less community envolvment, and more profit for corporations. Save public education.
Karl