We had a full room, and a packed schedule on Thursday for Citizens for Public Schools’ 2018 Annual Meeting!
Some highlights:
Executive Director, Lisa Guisbond gives opening remarks, stating “CPS has been a voice for public education [in Massachusetts] for over 35 years.”
Julie Johnson (Executive Board Member) leads voting process to elect Carol Savage and Tito Jackson as CPS’s new Board members
Norma Shapiro (Executive Board Member) gives a moving dedication of the Annual Meeting to Kathleen Kelley, former President of the Boston Teacher’s Union and American Federation of Teachers- MA, as well as former CPS Advisory Board Member
Daniel Koretz, Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Education at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, gives the keynote with some memorable quotes:
- “The bad news– absolutely pervasive bad test prep… much of it is just gaming, and it’s particularly pervasive in low-income schools.”
- “I want to see things like engagement, kids motivated and enjoying learning.”
- “We need to set reachable targets. The targets set by No Child Left Behind are arbitrary and not reasonable. When you set targets not reachable by reasonable means – what happens? Cut corners, fail, cheat.”
- “We need to pay attention to context. Not all schools who score well are good. Not all schools who score poorly are bad.”
- “I don’t think we can do better without going back to relying on human judgement… it’s difficult to do this well, but we can’t go forward without it.”
- “Raise scores as fast as you can —from the lowest level of aid to the superintendent of schools, nobody has the incentive to find out how you are doing.”
- “The starting point has to be parents because if enough parents say [high-stakes] testing is not what I want, officials will have to listen.”
Aidan Orly, Community Organizer with Citizens for Public Schools, speaks about CPS’s upcoming strategic planning process, and a new program, called CPS Local Coordinators, where 1-2 people in various districts will be a part of a network of leaders all organizing for public education. Reach out at lesstestingmorelearning@gmail.com if interested in being a CPS Coordinator!
Ruth Rodriguez, CPS Board Member, speaks of the higher consequences of high-stakes standardized testing on Latinx students.
Charlotte Lowell, Lead Organizer for Boston’s March for Our Lives on March 24, gave a powerful speech about the March. She said, “students don’t feel safe when they’re learning… we’ve been raised in this culture where we’ve practiced active shooter drills since I was six years old.”
Tom Gosnell, CPS Executive Board Member, spoke of how he helped start CPS with other Executive-Board members Sheila Decter and Norma Shapiro in 1982 in response to a “constitutional amendment to give public funds to private schools. We were on a shoestring budget that year, but we won!”
