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. We will accomplish this by networking groups and organizations
focused on similar goals in states and districts throughout the nation, share
information about what works and what doesn’t work in public education, and
endorse and rate candidates for office based on our principles and goals. More
specifically, we will support candidates who oppose high-stakes testing, mass
school closures, the privatization of our public schools and the outsourcing of
its core functions to for-profit corporations, and we will support candidates
who work for evidence-based reforms that will improve our schools and the
education of our nation’s children.
ANNOUNCING
THE LAUNCH OF THE NETWORK FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION
Our public
schools are at risk. As public awareness grows about the unfair attacks on
public education, parents, teachers, and concerned citizens are organizing to
protect our public schools.
Public education
is an essential institution in a democratic society. We believe that we must
stand together to resist any efforts to privatize it.
We must also
stand together to oppose unsound policies that undermine the quality of
education, like high-stakes testing and school closings.
High-stakes
testing takes the joy out of learning. It crushes creativity and critical
thinking, the very qualities our society needs most for success in the 21st
century. High-stakes testing does not tell us whether and how well students are
learning or teachers are teaching; it does waste precious time and resources.
No school was
ever improved by closing it. Every community should have good public schools,
and we believe that public officials have a solemn responsibility to improve
public schools, not close or privatize them.
·
President: Diane Ravitch, America's most important
educational historian, and a former Assistant Secretary in the US Department of
Education
·
Secretary: Robin Hiller, Executive Director of Voice for
Education, who founded that organization as a parent to include the voices of
parents in the making of policy, and who has extensive work experience in
politics
·
Treasurer: Anthony Cody, who taught science for 18 years
in Oakland CA, served as an academic coach for other teachers, and is a regular
blogger on education for Education Week / Teacher
·
Director: Phyllis Bush, a retired English teacher and
grandmother who has become very involved in trying to protect Indiana public
schools, and who wrote for an organization that played a major role in the
upset election of a former teacher as Indiana's Superintendent of Public
Instruction
·
Director: Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size
Matters and co-founder of Parents Across America
·
Director: Julian Vasquez Heilig, a professor of education
policy and other subjects at University of Texas, Austin, whose primary work
considers the student achievement and progress in relation to accountability
policies
·
Director: Larry Lee, whose last position before retiring was
Director of the Center for Rural Alabama where he coordinated an extensive
study of high-performing, high-poverty rural schools
·
Director: Renee Moore, who teaches English at Mississippi Delta
Community College, who was that state's teacher of the year in 2001, and who
serves on the Board of Directors of the National Board for Professional
Teaching Standards
A
couple of other notes. I have prior connections and personal and
professional relationships with a number of these people. Anthony Cody
was one of the organizers of the 2011 Save our Schools March and National Call
to Action, as was I (Phyllis Bush and Leonie Haimson both attended that
event). Renee Moore is a member of the Teacher Leaders Network, as am I,
and she also attended the Save Our Schools March. I have worked with
Diane Ravitch on a number of issues, going back to interviewing her for a
project in 2001, and including writing a review of her blockbuster book of a
few years back. She was a key speaker at the Save Our Schools March.
This
effort is unlike other efforts. It is explicitly political, because
politics is how educational policy is controlled. In that sense even
though a number of us have connections with Save Our Schools (which is an
ongoing organization) we do not see this as being at cross-purposes.
I
did say "we." I am a contributing member and intend to help
this group in any way I can.
People
may not realize how much momentum there now is in pushing back at what has been
happening to America's public schools. Politically consider just the
following recent events:
In
November, in Indiana, Glenda Ritz, a 33 year teacher, defeated incumbent
"reformer" Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, drawing
more votes than did the incoming Governor.
This
past Tuesday, in school board elections in Los Angeles, incumbent board member
an former teacher Steve Zimmer held on to his seat despite millions dumped into
the race on behalf of his opponent from the likes of News Corp, Joel Klein,
Michael Bloomberg, and others (Bloomberg gave $1 million to support the
candidates of a coalition supporting the positions of the current
superintendent, that coalition including Zimmer's opponent).
And
in a race for the school board West Sacramento, National Board Certified
Teacher Sarah Kirby-Gonzalez won a hard-found election to fill a vacancy,
beating a man who works for Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst.
Let
me conclude by offering the text of the press release announcing the group, but
removing the contact information - you can go to the website to be in
touch with the group, or if you are interested in getting very involved,
contact me through kos mail and I will pass your information on to the
appropriate people.
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