Gotta love these parents. Here is a brilliant comment to an earlier blog about parent power. What will Gates and Broad and the U.S. Department of Education and the governors and state legislatures do when parents get engaged and angry? What will they do when parents rise up and say, “Enough is enough,” as parents in New York City did today? How will they defend themselves when parents demand an end to the use and misuse of their children?

Parents are the key here.  Unfortunately, parents tend to be invested in their own children’s education and that does not translate into a national movement yet.  Many parents are still ardent supporters of a data driven, educational model whether the numbers tell them something useful or not. The outrage is not universal, by far, as not every state, city, or local district has embraced the testing culture to the same extent.  It will come as we all jump on the common core bandwagon.  When parents throughout the country start to grumble, the political machinery will start to crumble.  I wonder how long powerful foundations and corporations will be able to control the agenda.  They can’t possibly be totally staffed by people who can afford elite private education for their children.  Will they sell out their own children?

The forces promoting the obsession with standardized testing and data are powerful, but they cannot hold back a tide of informed and committed parents. Once parents realize what is happening to their children, their teachers, and their schools, once they see how the quality of education is being eroded by data mania, once they understand that they are sacrificing their own children to the giant data-crunching machine, game over.

Rule of the day, the month, the week, the year, the decade, the century: Do not do unto other people’s children what you would not do to your own.

Diane