The Network for Public Education Action fund is happy to endorse Pam Harbin for Pittsburgh school board! She is running in District 4.
Pam has a long history of supporting public school students and public schools. She has been working on the ground for twelve years in the fight to improve and save public education in Pittsburgh as a parent, community organizer and a long-time disability rights advocate. She has served on numerous PPS district-wide advisory committees, and has been an unofficial school board watchdog, streaming and/or attending more than 2,000 hours of school board meetings.
Pam is the Co-Founder of the Education Rights Network (ERN), a parent-led organization working for fully resourced, inclusive and quality education for students in Pennsylvania. She is also the immediate past president and a board director for Evolve Coaching, an organization that supports individuals with disabilities and their communities through education, employment, and the arts.
Pam has a clear sense of what it takes to create a system that works for all kids. She told NPE Action that the district needs “smaller class sizes and a smaller ratio of kids to adults in each building with more teachers, counselors, social workers, paraprofessionals, nurses, librarians, and other staff that keeps the building functioning at its best.”
She is also keenly aware of the dangers posed by the privatization movement, and how it can grow in a city like Pittsburgh.
The primary election is on May 21, 2019. Please be sure to get out and vote for Pam Harbin, a powerhouse public education advocate.
Pam Harbin is right. We need to go back in education to a time when young people were the primary focus of education. This was a better era before NCLB and fake reform. This is before CBE, billionaires and corporate raiders dominated the education landscape. This is a time when educators were heard, and meeting student needs were more important than generating profit for wealthy individuals. This is before corporations captured our federal policy, and wealthy special interest groups bought politicians to assist in the destruction of our public schools. We need to go back in time when doing the best for students and investing in the common good were the goals.
this resonates with words from AOC recently which could well become a national education rallying cry: Turn the ship around. GO BACK to what was actually working.
On an off topic note, did you see this, http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/indiana-teachers-mock-executed-during-drill-gun-control.html#comments?
This seems like something that some Maya Angelou are Frederick Douglas quote I’ve read on this blog would apply to.
Teachers need to draw a line right here, nationally, that they will not be abused. The AFT should address this.
Imagine if in a lockdown practice at some leafy white suburb, the police shot the students with pellet guns without permission and raised welts? They’d be sued to kingdom come.
So why is this allowed with teachers? A culture of teacher abuse.