You know how important it is to elect informed people to school boards and state legislatures and Congress. That’s the way we will save our public schools from the grasp of privatizers and defend our teachers from punitive laws that intrude on their ability to teach.
That is why I am happy to endorse Rachel Barnhart for the New York State Assembly, representing the 138th district in Rochester.
Rachel Barnhart grew up in Rochester. Her parents are retired Rochester City School District educators. Rachel’s parents were strong believers in public education, sending her to Rochester city schools. Rachel graduated from John Marshall High School and Cornell University.
Rachel worked as a television journalist in Rochester since 1999. Rachel’s reputation in the broadcasting industry is that she is one of the brightest and most insightful reporters in ferreting out corruption and finding the truth. She frequently reported on financial mismanagement in Rochester public schools, earning her the respect and admiration of many teachers. Rachel often blogged about growing concerns regarding Common Core, testing, school closures and teacher evaluations. She also used her blog and huge social media presence to talk about poverty and segregation.
As a reporter, Rachel challenged politicians, including Governor Andrew Cuomo. (The governor once called her a cynic when she questioned a big drop in the labor force.) She won’t be afraid to challenge Albany’s culture. She will represent citizens, not the governor, the speaker or special interests.
Rachel gave up her job to run for the Assembly. She will be a champion for public schools.
I urge you to support her, contribute to her campaign, and vote for her if you live in her district.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As my friend @ArneDuncan says: the most powerful investment we can make is in HQ early learning ”
If this is the most powerful investment they could have made, then why did the Obama Administration spend 4 billion dollars and 8 years on testing and teacher rankings and loosening charter regulations in states?
Obviously they believed testing and teacher ranking and loosening charter regulations in states was the “most important” or pre-k wouldn’t have been a lame-duck afterthought that they knew they wouldn’t get.
If you want to know what DC’s “priorities” are, look at what they actually get done. Charter schools were the Obama Administration priority. Obviously. DC manages to increase funding for those every year. That’s not an accident.
We have free public pre k here and we’ve had to stretch our public school budget to cover the cost, because we have lost funding every single year ed reformers have been in power. We’re borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. That’s how we expanded pre-k.
They’ve actually harmed the expansion of prek. We don’t have the money to run K-12, let alone pre-k.
Pre-k to me is like the minimum wage. That was supposedly a “priority” too yet it never gets done.
The word “priority” means something. They shouldn’t use it just randomly to mean
” things we put somewhere on our promise- to-do lists”.
A “priority” was bailing out banks. Number One. Wages they got around to talking about 8 years later. One was a “priority” and one was clearly not a priority.
Someone in the media who was/is actually an advocate for public schools!? What a rarity, what a blessing to be treasured and nurtured. I wish we had a Rachel Barnhart here in Jerseylandia. We do have Jersey Jazzman and Bob Braun but they are not going into politics and I don’t blame them.
Good news from NJ Spotlight: Despite not ranking first in any particular category, the Garden State was judged second in the country when it came to its schools, according to Wallet Hub, a personal financial social network. (Massachusetts came in first.)
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/16/08/01/2/
Take that Chris Christie, he who always bashes, demeans and vilifies public schools, their teachers and especially their unions. You would think that he would be bragging about NJ’s great schools but you would be wrong. Keep Christie out of federal government, you know the rest by now.