Neema Avashia learned that her middle school in Boston was going to close. She decided that she would stand and fight. She did. She is a true patriot. She made a difference. She defeated the powerful. She is a hero of the Resistance. She joins the honor roll of this blog.
She writes:
My gloves came off the day representatives of my school district told us they would be closing our school. Our students would be sent to a turnaround high school that had never taught middle school students. Recently arrived immigrant students in language-specific programs, which the high school did not offer, would be dispersed across the city. As for our staff, the representative from Human Capital glibly told us, “We have no plan for you.”
What does it mean when the school system that you’ve poured your heart into doesn’t have the decency to consider a thoughtful transition plan before making the decision to close your school?
It means they never saw you as human in the first place.
It means that your job, then, is to make it impossible for them to look away from your humanity.
I went home from work that afternoon and opened a Twitter account. Opponents of other district proposals had successfully used Twitter to shame city leadership into changing course.
“I am a @McCormackMiddle teacher,” my first tweet read. “Today the district announced they will be closing my school, and I am left full of questions.”
Once I began, there was no stopping. I knew that if the McCormack closed, I would not be a teacher anymore. That the work it took to build these relationships, and this community, was not something I could take up a second time under the scepter of further closures.
On Twitter, I relentlessly poked holes in the plan: BuildBPS was founded on the premise of renovating pre-WWII buildings, yet our building was constructed in 1968. Multiple schools have failing heat systems and leaking roofs, but our building had received a new boiler, windows and roof within the last ten years. BuildBPS purported to prioritize the most vulnerable students, yet disrupted the education of our English Language Learners.
My recklessness knew no bounds. I went before the Boston School Committee and announced, “I’m here to give you a history lesson,” then reminded them that our students had merged with a turnaround previously — the elementary school next door — and that doing so had placed the elementary school under even higher scrutiny from the state.
Read her story. Hers is the kind of dedication that the corporate reformers and Disrupters can’t buy. She is a champion of children, not a billionaire’s lackey. She carries within her the spark of revolution that inspired patriots in the 18th century. She is a patriot for our times, uncowed by money and power.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Neema deserves to be put on NPE’s “Honor Roll.” Good for Neema!
Public School Teachers are THE BEST. I simply LOVE Public School Teachers. They are smart and brave, not like most politicians.
The DFERS are just so WRONG about so much … and now we have that dump.
This may sound weird but I think public school teachers were/are being set up for more carnage from the deformers, known as the oligarchy. Those oligarchies need slaves to do their biddings.
Every time you write “that Dump,” I smile
Speaking of Patriots. This has been posted before but it is most fitting on July 4 to repost it
“The Midnight Blog of Diane Ravitch” (apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
Hear ye, my teachers, of techy wares
The “teaching” inventions of billionaires
Of testing and Cores
Political whores
And a blogger with passion who really cares
She said to her friends, “If the billionaires roll
By software or hard, from your towns tonight
Hang a lantern aloft from the tall flag-pole
At the public school, as a signal light —
One if by Gates and two if by Broad
And I, on the opposite side of the road,
Ready to blog and spread the alarm
Through every American village and farm
For the parents and kids to march arm in arm
Then she said “good night” and with a blogger’s adieu
Warned to “Be watchful of ‘privatize’ clue’”
Just as the wealthy were meeting with pols
And paying the think-tanks and internet trolls
For “proof” that their methods were “tried and true” —
The Common Core and the testing too —
That only THEY know what to do
A propaganda that was magnified
By billions of dollars, far and wide
Meanwhile, her friends, through blogging and tweet
Wander and watch with eagle eyes
Till they read of the program to “personalize”
The learning, by students with tech, for sure
The smell of a hardware and software cheat
By usual folks, with their usual lies
Peddling wares at the techy store
They hoisted the lanterns up the poles
At the public schools, throughout the land
To the top of the masts, hand over hand
Unbeknownst to the blogger trolls
On the internet sites (paid as planned
By billionaires, who worshipped Rand)
Up the flag-pole, so steep and tall
The highest flagpole of them all
They raised the lanterns above the trees
Where Diane Ravitch saw with ease
And moved to action from the call
A flurry of blogs and a trumpet of tweet
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark
And beneath from her fingers, in passing a spark
Struck out by a blogger both fearless and fleet
That was all! And yet through the gloom and the light
The fate of a Nation was riding that night
And the spark stuck by the blogger in flight
Kindled the Land into flame with it’s heat
You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the brutish billionaires tired and fled–
How the parents gave them piece of mind
(And not of the peaceful restful kind)
Chasing the billionaires down the lane
Then crossing the field to emerge again
Under the trees at the edge of the school
To banish forever the billionaire rule
So through the night, she persevered
And so through the night went her cry of alarm
Through every American village and farm
A cry of defiance and not of fear
A voice in the darkness a knock at the door
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For borne on the night wind of the Past
Through all our history to the last
In the hour of darkness and peril and need
The people will waken and listen to hear
Of the ominous danger of billionaire greed
Threat to democracy that we hold dear
One of my all time inspiring favorites.
Thank you, Poet.
Auden:
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
Wonderful, SomeDAM!
It is reassuring to read of the actions of such people as Neema Avashia, for they show what can be done, when we take risks even when we are afraid. It also shows the nature of leadership. It is not the principal, and less so the Superintendent, but a teacher, who with daring made a difference.
Indeed for the last two years teachers have been making a difference in the fight against the Privatizers. They bring hope, that our democracy will continue to exist and our public school system will continue to improve.
Ms. Avashia is a successful community organizer and activist. She understands the community value of a public school. It is stability! Schools with lots of ELLs are easy targets for the privatization steamroller. This community is difficult to mobilize as there is a high level of fear among parents. Ms. Avashia knew how to work within the system and gain powerful allies outside of it. “Somos panteras de la corazon.” She managed to help negotiate a consolidation deal.
Most privately managed charter schools reject ELLs anyway as they are not known to be “high scorers.” Their best hope is a strong public school that will hire a staff that is trained to work with them. That is not a private charter school!
Neema Avashia is a valiant warrior for our public schools, and so deserves a place of honor on the blog!
However, Boston suffered the closing of another two schools this year, and although teachers, staff, parents, students and community advocates fought valiantly for those schools, we were not successful. We did manage to get some concessions but it has been heartbreaking.
One bright spot from this fight for our schools has been the coverage from our two local public radio outlets – they have not rolled over and reguritated talking points from fronts for the foundations. Here’s coverage from WGBH on the closing of the West Roxbury Education Complex – which used to be West Roxbury High School before it was afflicted by Bill Gates’ small school experiment.
http://features.wgbhnews.org/road-to-closure-boston-public-schools
How inspiring. Pity the organizational abilities of this lady are not hard at work in other ways. Every hour we spend trying to right the wrongs of administrative stupidity could be spent solving important problems.
Very true, but imagine how educational and inspiring her efforts are for her students.
Something that no textbook (and certainly no test) can ever do.
She is a living example of democracy in action.
You are, of course, correct. There will never be an end to the sbversion of civil liberties, and we need those who fight it.
Totally agree with you on this. Part of the ridiculousness was that we had been in the planning process around going 7-12 prior to the closure announcement. All of that work got put on hold his year because we were simply fighting for survival. If management would actually plan with people, instead of doing TO people, so much less time would be water on fighting to reverse bad plans.
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