At the Occupy DOE (Department of Education) event last week, we marched to the White House on Saturday, after listening to speakers most of the day, which made for a very long day for this old lady:) There were about 300 of us stretched along
the road; our presence was huge. Our police escorts were fantastic – the cleared
the road for us and took us right into the touristy area where there were
thousands of people. We marched right
down the street, into the heart of the tourists, during cherry blossom week no less, chanting, singing, playing
tambourines. A man behind me talked to
the crowd about education with his bullhorn. Bystanders stopped and watched,
honked their horns, gave us thumbs up.
Some even joined us.
I hope they
will go home with questions about what in the world is happening to our public
education system.
At the White
House we did a “mic check”. People
poured their hearts out, the rest repeated their words for all to hear. Again – bystanders stood and listened to us. We drowned out all the other protesters at
the White House that day. I never
thought I would find myself at the White House protesting for the right to have
a neighborhood school – took them so for granted. People talked about many
things, including how the extreme testing regime is sucking the joy out of
education and wasting money that should be spent on our students.
The news
continues to be bad – but hopeful because the grassroots are organizing. The more we test, the more severe and
ridiculous the tests become. The testing
companies, of course, are making a
fortune – taking it right straight out of the already-thin public schools
funding. They are now working to get
bubble tests in pre-schools! This is so
the opposite of everything we ever learned in any college class, any training
we ever went to as educators. High stakes testing only breeds more high stakes
testing. It will never stop until we
just stand up and take this into our own hands and simply stop.
Bully Michigan
state rep Tom McMillan and his cohort Lisa Lyons suggest that those who don’t
want to corporatize our schools don’t care about the kids and only want to
defend the status quo. Well, guess
what? Over and over again studies show
the methods they are promoting are ineffective. Solutions such as school libraries with credentialed librarians lead to school success, not
a “turn-around” school, in which all the teachers are fired. A good library can nearly balance the impact
of poverty. Throw the tests out and
bring back school librarians!
The federal
government brought us No Child Left Behind and Race to the top. The result of those policies? Every child was left behind and our children
are exhausted from racing to the top.
Dr. Diane
Ravitch is a true hero of this movement.
Pearls of wisdom poured out of her mouth.
- Schools with low test scores have children with high needS
- Vouchers don’t work! Wherever they have been tried, they have failed.
- Merit pay is a proven failure.
- The notion that we can fix schools by closing them is a ridiculous notion that only hurts the kids.
- This is not a “reform” strategy; it is a “destruction” strategy.
Next
installment: what DOES work?
Mary
Valentine
P.S. This link will take you to a speaker who
shared his experiences teaching in Rhode Island. Please repost and send out wherever you
can. The population needs to hear these
stories.
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