NPR reported on a new, smart wave of activism in Oklahoma: 40 teachers are running for office this year. They are running because they want to increase funding for the public schools. Most are Democrats, but some are Republicans and Independents. One of the candidates is Oklahoma’s Teacher of the Year for 2016.
This is great news! The best way to change the legislature is to run for a seat at the table.
Getting elected to the State Senate or Assembly (or whatever it is called in your state) is far more powerful than posting a petition on change.org or holding a rally to get the attention of the legislators.
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, and change the face of the legislature.
Go, Oklahoma teachers!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m proud to be a public school graduate of Oklahoma! I’m so proud of these teachers!
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I completely agree with this strategy for political change, and I’d like to see some teachers running for Congress as well.
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MORE than 40 educators and family members are running. Many did not have primary opponents. We are hoping the incumbents are listening to the wind whipping down the plain…right at them. We won’t win them all, but we will make a statement, and we will learn for the next election. We win or we learn.
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I created a list of educators and family who are running for office:
http://fourthgenerationteacher.blogspot.com/2016/06/finalized-list-of-educators-running-for.html
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“It makes for a great talking point, but thus far their actions have not backed up that talk. They like to say ‘Oh my mother was a teacher. My uncle was a teacher,’ and then they make decisions that are very harmful to our schools and consequently our students.”
So true. On or about 2012 they all started saying they were related to teachers.
HIGHLY amusing 🙂
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The Ohio Education Association or, the Ohio Federation of Teachers should take a page from Okla.’s book. The current situation, a 24-year-old, home schooled person, in Northeast Ohio, sitting in a position on the Ohio State Board of Education, registers like, a lack of effort to elect an alternative.
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Go teachers! It’s time for all stakeholders to have a voice in the education reform debate. True change takes when all parties participate.
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This is fantastic! They’d find themselves looking around like they are in the Star Wars cantina when they got there though.
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