“In Honor of Teachers”

September 3, 2011 by

Thanks to Charles Blow’s NY Times oped for a pitch-perfect back-to-school message and tribute to the teacher who turned his life around:

It was the first time that I felt a teacher cared about me, saw me or believed in me. It lit a fire in me. I never got a bad grade again. I figured that Mrs. Thomas would always be able to see me if I always shined. I always wanted to make her as proud of me as she seemed to be that day. And, she always was.

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Filed Under: Education-Other

CPS in the News

August 24, 2011 by
CPS Executive Director Marilyn Segal’s letter responding to a Boston Globe Editorial appears today, August 24, 2011.
RULES OF NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ARE CHALLENGED

Time to get rid of high-stakes standardized tests

August 24, 2011THE GLOBE continues to conflate standardized tests and quality education (“Don’t cut standards for No Child Left Behind,” Editorial, Aug. 22). Researchers such as Diane Ravitch and Richard Rothstein have demonstrated that nine years of No Child Left Behind, with its narrowing of education to teach to the test, have resulted in a slowing of the rate of improvement on the nation’s report card compared with the previous decade.

They understand that poverty is the greatest predictor of poor school performance. Intense pressure to perform on high-stakes tests, closing schools, and denigrating teachers don’t change that unfortunate reality. While a growing number of children in America – now an estimated 25 percent – live in poverty, high-performing countries such as Finland have about a 3 percent child-poverty rate and no standardized testing.

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Filed Under: Education-Other

Dear Mr. President

August 4, 2011 by

Former CPS President Ruth Rodriguez prepared to speak at the Save Our Schools rally in Washington but did not have the chance. Her full prepared remarks are here. This is an excerpt:

Mr. President, we want to know, how long will you allow the stubbornly continuation of Mr. Duncan’s failed policy of high-stake testing, school closings, charter conversations and “turnarounds schools” in our nation’s public school system; a failed policy that has become the Secretary’s signature legacy? Arne Duncan’s closing of schools in Chicago to turn them into Charters was a huge failure. Now you are allowing him to take that failure nationwide. You’ve placed yourselves apart from reputable educators as being the leaders of the nation’s public schools whose legacy will be known as the “dismantling of democratic neighborhood public schools” in order to hand them over to the private greedy billionaire white boys club.

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Filed Under: Education-Other

CPS Reports from Save Our Schools Conference in DC

August 3, 2011 by

Greetings!

I just returned from the SOS Rally and conference in Washington DC. It was uplifting to join with other progressive education advocates from across the country. The principles of SOS are totally in sync with the CPS agenda:

Guiding Principles

For the future of our children, we demand:

  • Equitable funding for all public school communities
  • Equitable funding across all public schools and school systems
  • Full public funding of family and community support services
  • Full funding for 21st century school and neighborhood libraries
  • An end to economically and racially re-segregated schools
  • An end to high stakes testing used for the purpose of student, teacher, and school evaluation
  • The use of multiple and varied assessments to evaluate students, teachers, and schools
  • An end to pay per test performance for teachers and administrators
  • An end to public school closures based upon test performance
  • Teacher, family and community leadership in forming public education policies
  • Educator and civic community leadership in drafting new ESEA legislation
  • Federal support for local school programs free of punitive and competitive funding
  • An end to political and corporate control of curriculum, instruction and assessment decisions for teachers and administrators
  • Curriculum developed for and by local school communities
  • Support for teacher and student access to a wide-range of instructional programs and technologies
  • Well-rounded education that develops every student’s intellectual, creative, and physical potential
  • Opportunities for multicultural/multilingual curriculum for all students
  • Small class sizes that foster caring, democratic learning communities

Read the Washington Post story on the event here.   → Read More

Filed Under: Education-Other

Come to Brookline and hear about the DC Save Our Schools Rally

July 18, 2011 by

Monday, August 1

Join us in Brookline to hear about SOS Rally and Support CPS!

Public Schools and Teachers are Under Appreciated, Underfunded, AND UNDER ATTACK

Learn about and support two inter-related efforts to combat this:

•       Save our Schools March and National Call to Action, Washington D.C., July 28-31, and local events across the state, sponsored by Citizens for Public Schools.

•       Wisconsin Senatorial Recall Elections, August 9, and attacks on Public Unions.

7:00 pm, 123 Buckminster Rd., Home of Don Weitzman and Harriet Goldberg

Organized by Julie Johnson, Rep. Frank Smizik, Ed Loechler, David Klafter and Marcia Hnatowich, and supported by:  Citizens for Public Schools, Brookline PAX, and Brookline Chapter of Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts.

For more information about this event, click here. Read the Washington Post coverage of the rally here.

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Filed Under: Education-Other
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