!
It is illegal for teachers to strike in Mississippi but they are considering a strike anyway.
Legislators offered them a paltry $1,500 raise while setting aside $2 million for vouchers.
The eyes of the nation are on Mississippi.
Strike!
The legislators won’t pay you any mind unless you put on your red T-shirt, make a sign, and gather at the State Capitol.
Don’t agonize, organize!
Strike!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes! Red. 4. Ed.
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Mississippi communities owe it to themselves to support the teachers.
Gates’ digital education is the next Koch agenda, billionaire funded, tactic that is targeting their communities. If Mississippians want their kids to have face-to-face learning like that preferred by the rich for their kids, they need to be active NOW.
SETDA, an organization that purports to represent Mississippians and citizens in all of the other states includes 3 Mississippi State of Board of Education public employees.
Gates funds the organization which posted at the site what appears to be a marketing plan. “The Digital Instructional Materials Map…Acquisition Policies for States…compare up to 5 states by topics such as ‘state statute requires implementation of digital instructional materials’ “.
Based on the site, public employees who make up the entire governing board are promoting private-public partnerships, digital learning, helping ed tech start ups to scale up, etc.
Public employee’s selling ed tech for SETDA’s “Gold, Silver, Partners” and Gates, makes the pharmaceutical industry look noble.
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Good for them. The national voucher-mania in ed reform leaves lawmakers no room for any productive work or effort on the unfashionable public schools the vast majority of children attend.
Have public school families in these states noticed yet that public school teachers are the only people doing any effective advocacy at all for public schools and public school students? Because it’s true.
They’re filling a void. And they should fill it. Public school students deserve advocates. If they don’t have them in the people we’re all paying in government, and they don’t, they’ll have to come from outside government.
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Take a look at SETDA- is it modeled after ALEC, with one difference- public employees instead of elected officials?
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The boilerplate voucher bills are being introduced all over the country.
That’s what our public employees are working on this year. They don’t have any spare time for the “government schools” they all oppose.
We should replace them with people who take jobs in public education with the intent of doing some work on behalf of the schools 90% of kids attend.
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Chiara,
You are right.
ALEC voucher bills are being introduced in red states across the country.
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SETDA looks like an organization supported by some public school and state department of education officials that support tech expansion. They already have a number of big tech companies that are members. They look like a lobbying group to me. I am sure they are scheming for ways to impose on or entice public schools to adopt increasing amounts of technology.
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(1) Are there safeguards that prevent SETDA’s Partners from gaining advantage in government purchasing decisions? Do SETDA “partners” pay to belong and, what do they gain by being partnered with government employees i.e. Technology Directors? Is providing a showcase for the products and services of “Partners”, an example of preferential treatment? If the process for “Emerging Partners” is competitive, who gets to choose the firms that will be included in the “high energy pitch fest”?
SETDA IS, the 50 state boards of education. Think of it as a hybrid between select FDA staff and representatives of pharmacy retailers e.g. CVS. Then, picture the group allied with pharmaceutical corporations. How would that work out for the American people?
One defense given by a public employee for the organization is the states get discounts. When is a line crossed? (2) When discounts are cited as inducement and a political agenda is linked, for example, mandated implementation of digital learning and public-private partnerships, is that line crossed?
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ESSENTIAL truth: Teachers are filling a void. Public school students deserve ADVOCATES.
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I’m continually struck by the Democratic Parties complete inability to address PUBLIC schools in any way that it as all relevant to public school students, families or supporters:
“Buttigieg initially dodged the charter school part of the question, but a columnist of the Boston Globe, Scot Lehigh, followed up, generating the “have a place” language. Buttigieg’s complete answer fell short of an enthusiastic charter endorsement, but neither was it a wholesale condemnation. Buttigieg said he was “concerned” about “disinvestment” from public schools. “I don’t think they can excuse us,” he said of charters.”
Once again our schools are the disfavored “default” that can be addressed only in the negative and only after 90% of their energy and attention goes to charters and vouchers. They don’t even attempt to speak to us or offer us anything of value. I wonder if it’s tied to the fact that so few of them attended public schools, I really do. They completely accept the ed reform framing that the only people who care at all about public schools are teachers unions. It is simply unimaginable to these graduates of elite private schools that anyone might actually value a public school, invest in it, or seek to improve it. They have abandoned our schools. They simply take public school voters for granted.
Which is how we ended up here, where striking teachers are the only advocates for public schools.
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Support for “high quality” charters and competency based testing are all part of the DNC platform. Unless the Democratic party changes its agenda, we will continue to see numerous Dems try to evade being pinned down on education. The only ones that will openly support public education are the progressives.
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