This is the talk, both written and video, that Wendy Lecker gave about charter schools at Public Education Nation in Brookyn on October 11. The event was sponsored by the Network for Public Education at the Brooklyn New School. Please read/watch. Lecker was terrific.
Archives for category: Network for Public Education
Sarah Jaffee attended the October 11 meeting of Public Education Nation in Brooklyn, convened by the Network for Public Education, and she saw the emergence of a new and vital spirit of resistance and dedication to public education.
She noted the well-known bloggers and advocates on the stage and in the crowd, but the show-stopper, she said, was a student activist from Newark named Tanaisa Brown.
Tanaisa Brown of the Newark Student Union perhaps best set the tone for the day when she told the crowd that the movement needs to have a central message, a central idea. “Remember that there’s other people fighting for the same causes that you are,” she said. While each location has its own specific fights – in Newark, she noted, they’re fighting against the “One Newark” plan being imposed by Chris Christie and his appointed superintendent, Cami Anderson – the movement, she suggested, needs a positive vision to anchor it.
“We want community schools,” she said. “Not a community school that is now a charter school, but a school that is embedded in the community and helps out the parents, the teachers, and anyone else who lives there that can benefit from wraparound services at those schools.”
This idea came up again and again throughout the day. It is no longer enough to simply say no to the top-down reforms, high-stakes tests, charter schools and school closings. It is no longer even enough to strike, to hold dramatic actions, to speak out. The movement, the day seemed to suggest, needs to take the next step and figure out what it is for.
Tanaisa is an articulate representative of students. And she is right. Saying no is not enough. But she also knows that you can’t begin to build positive change until the negative forces now crushing students, teachers, administrators, and public schools are stopped. Cami’s “One Newark” must be stopped, and students are trying their best to stop it. It is hard to climb when someone keeps cutting out the rungs on the ladder beneath you. It is hard to make progress when someone keeps beating you with a whip and threatening your job, your income, your pension, your reputation.
Perhaps Jitu Brown said it simplest when he said that we can’t work an inside-outside strategy. We must directly confront and block the damaging movement that calls itself “reform.” Closing schools is not reform, it destroys families and communities. Jitu Brown and his group Journey for Justice are bringing civil rights complaints against the school-closing, privatization “reforms” in New Orleans, Newark, and Chicago.
When Tanaisa Brown was asked for her own vision, she said she would like to go to a school that had the arts, that had dance and music. She would like to go to a school that had foreign languages and a library. She would like a school that offered the liberal arts.
That doesn’t sound radical or crazy or far out. Why is that so far out of reach for students in cities like Newark and Detroit and Philadelphia? Why?
We must continue to stop what is wrong and we must continue to fight for what is right.
Today, the Network for Public Education is sponsoring Public Education Nation.
Sponsored by you!
610 Henry Street in Brooklyn.
All the details are on our website: http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/
PUBLIC Education Nation will deliver the conversation the country has been waiting for. If you can’t make it to Brooklyn, you can still watch beginning at NOON EDT. PUBLIC Education Nation will be livestreamed on the web on the afternoon of Saturday, October 11, from the auditorium of Brooklyn New School, a public school. To watch click on to www.schoolhouselive.org.
We have waited too long for that seat at someone else’s table. This time, the tables are turned, and we are the ones setting the agenda.There will be four panels focusing on the most critical issues we face in our schools. The event will conclude with a conversation between Diane Ravitch and Jitu Brown.
Testing and the Common Core: New York Principal of the Year Carol Burris will lead a discussion with educators Takeima Bunche-Smith, Rosa Rivera-McCutchen and Alan Aja.
Support Our Schools, Don’t Close Them: Chicago teacher Xian Barrett will moderate a panel featuring education professor Yohuru Williams, Hiram Rivera of the Philadelphia Student Union, and a representative of the Newark Student Union.
Charter Schools: North Carolina writer and activist Jeff Bryant will host a discussion that will include New Orleans parent activist Karran Harper Royal, New York teacher and blogger Gary Rubinstein, and Connecticut writer and activist Wendy Lecker.
Authentic Reform Success Stories: The fourth panel will be led by Network for Public Education executive director Robin Hiller and will include New York teacher and activist Brian Jones, and author of Beyond the Education Wars: Evidence That Collaboration Builds Effective Schools, Greg Anrig.
Diane Ravitch and Jitu Brown, In Conversation: The event will finish off with a conversation between leading community activist Jitu Brown and Diane Ravitch, who will talk about where we are in building a movement for real improvement in our schools. This event will be broadcast live on the web, and can be viewed from anywhere in the world, at no cost. No registration is required. If you happen to be in the New York area, you can join the studio audience at the Brooklyn New School, at 610 Henry St. Brooklyn, for the live event. The Network for Public Education is hosting this event. It is NOT sponsored by the Gates, Walton or Bloomberg foundations. It is sponsored by YOU, each and every one of the people who care about our children’s future. Can you make a small donation to help us cover the expense of this event? We are determined to create the space not ordinarily given to voices like these. But we need your participation. Please donate by visiting the NPE website and clicking on the PayPal link. A live-stream of the event will be available on Saturday, Oct. 11, starting at Noon Eastern time, (9 am Pacific time) at http://www.schoolhouselive.org.
WE ARE MANY. THERE IS POWER IN OUR NUMBERS. TOGETHER WE WILL SAVE OUR SCHOOLS.
Just ONE Week Away! The first-ever PUBLIC Education Nation
This time we own the table, and we will bring together educators, parents and students to tell the truth about what is happening in our schools, and what real reform ought to be all about.
TOMORROW, Sunday, October 5, will be our major money bomb online fundraiser for the event. This is NOT sponsored by the Billionaires – it is sponsored by US – each and every person who cares about the future of public education
One easy way to help is to sign up for our Thunderclap. Just a few clicks will allow a SINGLE tweet or Facebook post to be made, showing your support and spreading the word about the fundraiser. Please sign up — and share. Thank you!!
Please donate here, and spread the word.
If you are in the New York area, and would like to attend the October 11 event in person, please show up by 11:30 am at 610 Henry St at Brooklyn New School/Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies, and register here in advance. You can also sign up for the online event on Facebook here.
Follow us on Twitter at @PublicEdNation & @NetworkPublicEd
Panel #2:
Support Our Schools — Don’t Close Them!
The second panel next Saturday will be moderated by a classroom teacher from Chicago, Xian Barrett. Xian has been active in the Chicago teachers Union, and numerous other organizations that work to elevate the voices of teachers. He will be joined by the following education experts:
Yohuru Williams, PhD, is the Assistant Professor of history at Fairfield College in Connecticut. Here is why he is passionate about supporting schools:
“Schools are the nucleus of communities. Every school closed is a community compromised. I fight school closures because I believe in the importance of schools as centers of learning and places for community dialogue and participation. The arbitrary closure of schools, driven by corporate education reform, is another example of how so called education reformers undermine democratic practices and place profits over people. The disbanding of popularly elected school boards, reallocation of critical resources to unproven charter schools, and narratives of teacher and student failure that accompany school closures betray the real agenda of the corporate raiders-their desire to line their pockets, in spite of the detrimental influence school closures have on communities. This is why we fight.”
Tanaisa Brown is a high school student active in the Newark Students Union. She explains her activism:
I fight against school closure because I see the detriment it has, not just on ONE school, but the whole community. Newark, NJ has been under state control for 20 years, and slowly but surely, they have been underfunding our district. From this point, they deemed many of our schools as “failing” in order that they could “prove” that they needed to enter and “reform”. These are reforms that close schools, and sell PUBLIC PROPERTY to privately owned companies not in correlation with education.
As a community, Newark has taken great action from students, parents and teachers, and even to Board Members who file legal complaints about the reforms. As an organization,The Newark Students Union has taken many actions. About 2 years ago, we had our first meeting with about 100 students at a local college. From there, we held our first protest where the superintendant and Cory Booker were in attendance for a radio show. Since then, we have had 2 city-wide walkouts of many high schools, and a boycott of Newark’s Public Schools. Our major events include a shutdown of Newark Board of Education’s business board meeting where we remained in the central offices for 17 hours. We also recently shutdown 3 public high schools in a soft blockade and marched the first day to have skill shares at a park, while on the second day we performed a hard blockade next to the Board of Education on the busiest street in Newark for about 8 hours. Aside from actions, we inform students about current issues, meet with other organizations to create unity, and were deeply involved in the recent Mayoral Election.
In having our events, we always have demands that will count as “wins” if they are met. The most important one is a stop to the One Newark plan, which displaces our students, staff, and furthers harm of education. The entire community is against this plan and it would be really huge if we could defeat the plan introduced by the nonchalant Superientendent Cami Anderson. A “win” that encompasses the one previously mentioned one is FULL LOCAL CONTROL. This “win” is something that all urban districts can agree with because with local control over OUR DISTRICTS, we can have more of a direct say-so in our educational policies. Chris Christie will not be able to send puppets to NJ’s districts to destroy them! But besides stopping the ed reformers, we wish to implement community schools with wrap-around services that can not only uplift the students but our families as well! Community schools have always proven to be effective and produce better results for the whole city!
I think one of the most important things is good media coverage and social network coverage and support. These are both excellent ways to educate the masses on the issues happening in your area and it allows for allies to give support and to share your stories with their allies and home communities. I think in order to work nationally in this movement, we need unity and support because as the saying goes, divided we fall. If other organizations are hosting events that may be close by or you are able to sacrifice to get to (works well for summer actions), then we should be able to network, connect and invite eachother. Keeping in touch no matter the distance is a great way to stay united. But an idea for national unity that we can work towards is to keep one central demand amongst the ones that are more personal to your community. For example, we can all have a central goal/demand of “Community schools” or “Stop privatization and standardized testing”, nationally rallying around that one idea while still presenting a plethora of your own specific issues. This will show unity to the oppressors, showing that this force is bigger than they thought, and it will also stand out to the different media sources as the begin to notice a national trend.
Think of our school districts as a flower. Chris Christie and Cami Anderson believe that in order to help the flower, you have to uproot it. I disagree, I believe that to help this flower grow beautifully, we need to water the same flower, expose it to sunlight, and show it love.
Hiram Rivera is the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Student Union. He is a native of New Haven, CT, a father, an activist, and an organizer. He started his career in youth organizing as a coordinator at Youth Right’s Media in New Haven, training Black and Latino students in video production and campaign organizing around Education & Juvenile Justice issues.
On Saturday, Oct. 11, you can tune in online here at SchoolhouseLive.org to the live broadcast starting at 12 noon Eastern time, 9 am Pacific time.
The event will conclude with a conversation between Diane Ravitch and Jitu Brown.
The Network for Public Education is hosting this event. It is NOT sponsored by the Gates, Walton or Bloomberg foundations. It is sponsored by YOU, each and every one of the people who care about our children’s future.
Can you make a small donation to help us cover the expense of this event? We are determined to create the space not ordinarily given to voices like these. But we need your participation. Please donate by visiting the NPE website and clicking on the PayPal link.
A live-stream of the event will be available on Saturday, Oct. 11, starting at Noon Eastern time, 9 am Pacific time at http://www.schoolhouselive.org.
JOIN US FOR THE FIRST PUBLIC EDUCATION NATION ON OCTOBER 11!
NBC has abandoned its annual “education nation” funded by Gates and featuring the leaders of privatization and high-stakes testing.
Now is our hour! We are here for you! We are here for the millions of students, teachers, parents, and administrators who are part of public education. We are here permanently. We are not going away.
Coming Saturday, Oct.11
PUBLIC Education Nation
Panel #1: Testing & the Common Core
Just Two Weeks Away! The first-ever PUBLIC Education Nation
This time we own the table, and we will bring together educators, parents and students to tell the truth about what is happening in our schools, and what real reform ought to be all about.
Next Sunday, October 5, will be our major money bomb online fundraiser for the event. This is NOT sponsored by the Gates, Bloomberg or Walton foundations – it is sponsored by US – each and every person who cares about the future of public education. Please donate here, and spread the word.
If you are in the New York area, and would like to attend the October 11 event in person, please show up by 11:30 am at 610 Henry St at Brooklyn New School/Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies, and register here in advance. You can also sign up for the online event on Facebook here.
Follow us on Twitter at @PublicEdNation & @NetworkPublicEd
Panel #1: Testing & the Common Core
One of the highlights of the event will be the very first panel,
Testing and the Common Core, which will be moderated by New York’s high school Principal of the Year, Carol Burris. Burris has written extensively about equity in schools and the impact of the Common Core, and will bring her many years as an educator to the table. She will be joined by the following education experts:
Alan A. Aja, Ph.D. is the Assistant Professor & Deputy Chair of the Department of Puerto Rican & Latino Studies in Brooklyn College. His research examines race, gender and class disparities between and among Latino and African American communities; immigration/education policy; social and economic segregation; sustainable development and collective action/unionization. Before academia, Aja worked as a labor organizer in Texas, an environmental researcher in Cuba, a human rights organizer in Argentina and in a refugee hostel in London. He is a public school parent and elected member of the SLT (School Leadership Team) of PS264 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
Dr. Aja will discuss the impact of common core aligned testing in New York, Kentucky and other states on marginalized communities, with attention to blacks, Latinos, ELLs, special ed/learning and disability students. He will present the early evidence to demonstrate that the Common Core and its testing is not resulting in the closing of the achievement gap, but may, instead be leaving disadvantaged students even further behind. He will also discuss alternative ways to increase student and school performance.
Rosa L. Rivera-McCutchen, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at CUNY’s Lehman College. She began her career in education as a high school teacher in the Bronx.Her research examines the theory and practice of leadership in small schools in urban settings in order to create socially just and equitable schools for Black and Latino students. Dr. Rivera-McCutchen’s research has appeared in an edited book entitled Critical small schools: Beyond privatization in New York City urban educational reform.
Dr. Rivera McCutchen will focus on the moral imperative of leading for social justice in the face of CCSS and high-stakes testing. She will highlight the challenges leaders face in resisting, and focus on the strategies that leaders have used in mounting successful campaigns of resistance.
Takiema Bunche Smith is the Vice President of Education and Outreach at Brooklyn Kindergarten Society (BKS), where she oversees educational programming and outreach initiatives at five preschools located in low-income neighborhoods in Brooklyn, New York. In both her professional and personal life, Ms. Bunche Smith is involved in various advocacy efforts that relate to early childhood care and education funding and policy, and the push-back against the overemphasis on high stakes testing in public schools. She has been a classroom teacher, teacher educator, content director for Sesame Street, and director of curriculum and instruction. She attended NYC public schools for 3rd-12th grade and is now a public school parent and member of the SLT at Brooklyn New School.
Ms. Bunche Smith will discuss the early childhood education implications of the Common Core and how it affects schools, students and parents. She will discuss various parent perspectives on the Common Core as well as critically highlight those who are not part of the conversation around Common Core.
On Saturday, Oct. 11, you can tune in online here at SchoolhouseLive.org to the live broadcast starting at 12 noon Eastern time, 9 am Pacific time.
The event will conclude with a conversation between Diane Ravitch and Jitu Brown.
The Network for Public Education is hosting this event. It is NOT sponsored by the Gates, Walton or Bloomberg foundations. It is sponsored by YOU, each and every one of the people who care about our children’s future.
Can you make a small donation to help us cover the expense of this event? We are determined to create the space not ordinarily given to voices like these. But we need your participation. Please donate by visiting the NPE website and clicking on the PayPal link.
A live-stream of the event will be available on Saturday, Oct. 11, starting at Noon Eastern time, 9 am Pacific time at http://www.schoolhouselive.org.
Support The Network for Public Education
The Network for Public Education is an advocacy group whose goal is to fight to protect, preserve and strengthen our public school system, an essential institution in a democratic society. Our mission is to protect, preserve, promote, and strengthen public schools and the education of current and future generations of students.
Over the past year, donations to The Network for Public Education helped us put on out first National Conference – an incredible success. In the coming year, we will hold more events, webinars, and work on the issues that our members and donors care about the most!
To become a Member or to Make a Donation, go to the NPE website and click on the PayPal link. We accept donations using PayPal, the most trusted site used to make on-line payments.
http://networkforpubliceducation.org
The Network For Public Education | P.O. Box 44200 | Tucson | AZ | 85733
You can support the Network for Public Education by joining and becoming a member.
Join us for our historic event, “Public Education Nation” on October 11 in New York City at the Brooklyn New School or watch it live-streamed.
You can support our work by sending a check to:
Network for Public Education
P.O. Box 44200
Tucson, AZ 85733
Your organization can affiliate with the NPE.
If you are a blogger who supports public education, you can affiliate with the Public Education Bloggers Network (contact Jonathan Pelto at jonpelto@gmail.com).
We are adept at connecting individuals and organizations and helping them work together to repel the corporate assault on public education. Since our budget is small, we are adept in using social media.
We are many, and they are few. They have money, but we have deep and broad public support. We will stand in their way when they try to privatize public schools. We will mobilize people to fight the overuse and misuse of testing. We will defend our children, our public school, and our educators. Join us.
The Network for Public Education endorses candidates who share its values: supporting strong and better public schools, opposing high-stakes testing and privatization. We don’t know everyone running for office everywhere but endorse candidates who seek our endorsement, after a review of the records of all candidates in the race. We are ptoud to endorse Michael Charney, who is running for the state board of education in Ohio.
“The Network for Public Education endorses Michael Charney
“The Network for Public Education is proud to endorse Michael Charney for District 7 Ohio State Board of Education.
“Michael Charney was a social studies teacher for over 30 years. He has worked for smaller classes and to bring student, parent and teacher voices into decision making on public education. He also created community based literacy campaigns that ensured parents had books at home for their children, creating literacy friendly homes.
“Here’s what Charney has to say on high stakes standardized testing:
“Let’s end all high stakes standardized testing and replace the test with thoughtful teacher developed tests and performance assessments that will help teachers decide how best to make sure their instruction is working with all students.
“Stop hurting students with the overreliance on high stakes standardized testing.”
“Charney supports reducing class size:
“His plan would massively reduce class size so students can have personal attention. “Low-income students who enter kindergarten without a large vocabulary especially need that attention and high school teachers need smaller classes so that they will develop projects and in-depth writing assignments for their students.”
“Charney wants Congress to hold Hearings on Testing
“I support Congressional Hearings on standardized tests. Look at my website for the summaries of my listening sessions with Ohio educators to see more day to day examples of how high stakes standardized testing is hurting children, and driving teachers out of teaching.”
“Here’s what Ohioans say about Michael Charney.
“State Representative John Patterson:
“Michael Charney has been an educator and teacher for over 30 years. He gets it. He understands what needs to be done for public education.”
“Tom Schmida, retired teacher and former President of the Clevelnd Heights Teachers Union for 22 years:
“Charney is “incredibly passionate about public education and students. He will work with communities to provide them the very best instruction as well as resources.”
“He goes on to say, “Charney has always been a community activist, he founded Youth Voices in Cleveland. He is a stellar candidate.”
“Charney’s opponent is Sarah Fowler, a strong supporter of home-schooling.
According to the Education Action Group Foundation, Fowler says,
“Gay rights, Marxist ideals, and other elements of the left’s political agenda have slowly crept into school lesson plans with the help of teachers unions and their allies and it’s important to counter that influence to provide students with a proper education. I would say the union is definitely promoting that agenda.”
“According to the Education Action Group, Sarah Fowler says “American history in most Ohio public schools, for example, starts at the Civil War, omitting lessons on the people and documents that founded the United States of America.”
“This is not accurate according to the Ohio Department of Education, 8th grade students study U.S. History from 1492 to 1877.
“Michael Charney understands schools need to improve. His proposes to:
Stop the over-reliance on high-stakes tests
Protect student privacy and not allow the sharing of your children’s data
Increase parent engagement
Continue to support smaller classes
Two things you can do to support Michael Charney:
Today, donate
http://charney2014.com/Contribute.html
VOTE NOVEMBER 4th for Michael Charney
Ohio State School Board, District 7.
The Network for Public Education joins parents and teachers and community leaders throughout District 7 who know Michael Charney is the best candidate for the job. Please support MIchael on Tuesday, November 4!
Frank Breslin, retired teacher of foreign languages and history, calls for Congressional hearings about the cost and misuse of testing.
He points out that test scores are used to close public schools, fire teachers, and privatize schools, even though charters do not get better results than public schools.
He warns that the federal government has used testing to impose its failed ideas on schools, eviscerating local control. Breslin concludes that the best way to end federal intrusion is to abolish the Department of Education.
The Network for Public Education will hold a major event on October 11 in New York City called “Public Education Nation.” This is not to be confused with NBC’s annual Gates-sponsored “Education Nation.”
Nope, this will be a low-budget, high-interest opportunity to meet education activists who are fighting corporate education “reform” and working for better public schools. The event will be live-streamed and can be viewed from anywhere. If you are in the New York City area, admission is free.
PUBLIC Education Nation will deliver the conversation the country has been waiting for. Rather than featuring billionaires and pop singers, this event will be built around intense conversations featuring leading educators, parents, students and community activists. We have waited too long for that seat at someone else’s table. This time, the tables are turned, and we are the ones setting the agenda.
This event will be livestreamed on the web on the afternoon of Saturday, October 11, from the auditorium of Brooklyn New School, a public school. There will be four panels focusing on the most critical issues we face in our schools. The event will conclude with a conversation between Diane Ravitch and Jitu Brown.
Testing and the Common Core: New York Principal of the Year Carol Burris will lead a discussion with educators Takeima Bunche-Smith, Rosa Rivera-McCutchen and Alan Aja.
Support Our Schools, Don’t Close Them: Chicago teacher Xian Barrett will moderate a panel featuring education professor Yohuru Williams, Hiram Rivera of the Philadelphia Student Union, and a representative of the Newark Student Union.
Charter Schools: North Carolina writer and activist Jeff Bryant will host a discussion that will include New Orleans parent activist Karran Harper Royal, New York teacher and blogger Gary Rubinstein, and Connecticut writer and activist Wendy Lecker.
Authentic Reform Success Stories: The fourth panel will be led by Network for Public Education executive director Robin Hiller and will include New York teacher Brian Jones, and from Cincinnati, Greg Anrig.
Diane Ravitch and Jitu Brown, In Conversation: The event will finish off with a conversation between leading community activist Jitu Brown and Diane Ravitch, who will talk about where we are in building a movement for real improvement in our schools.
This event will be broadcast live on the web, and can be viewed from anywhere in the world, at no cost. No registration is required. If you happen to be in the New York area, you can join the studio audience at the Brooklyn New School, at 610 Henry St. Brooklyn, for the live event.
The Network for Public Education is hosting this event. It is NOT sponsored by the Gates, Walton or Bloomberg foundations. It is sponsored by YOU, each and every one of the people who care about our children’s future.
Can you make a small donation to help us cover the expense of this event? We are determined to create the space not ordinarily given to voices like these. But we need your participation. Please donate by visiting the NPE website and clicking on the PayPal link.
A live-stream of the event will be available on Saturday, Oct. 11, starting at Noon Eastern time, 3 pm Pacific time at http://www.schoolhouselive.org.
WE ARE MANY. THERE IS POWER IN OUR NUMBERS. TOGETHER WE WILL SAVE OUR SCHOOLS.
On Friday, 73-year-old veteran educator George McKenna was sworn in as a member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education. He is filling the unexpired term of MargueriteLaMotte, who died in office. He will stand for re-election in 10 months.
His opponent was Alex Johnson, 34, who worked for the County Commissioner and was supported by the charter industry. Johnson’s campaign spent $1.4 million, almost three times as much as McKenna.
As the charter industry becomes involved in more state and local school board races, these races become more expensive for ordinary citizens. It takes someone with a strong constitution to enter a race knowing that his or her opponent will have ample resources ad will outspend her or him by 3-1, 4-1, 5-1, or more.
We have seen numerous examples where the privatizers have bundled campaign contributions from allies across the nation. It is no longer unusual to see a school board race swamped with money donated by people who not only do not live in the district, but live in another state.
Thus, it is encouraging to see true friends of public education like George McKenna, Steve Zimmer, and Monica Ratliff prevail against big money. It has happened before, and it will happen again so long as we remember that commitment, integrity, and hard work can beat big money. As we say at the Network for Public Education, we are many, and they are few. We must never be discouraged. If the public is informed and turns out to vote, our friends will win.
Diane Ravitch's blog 