3 Things I learned from Network for Public Education Conference

I spent the weekend in Austin, Texas at the first Network for Public Education (NPE) and it was fantastic. You can find my day 1 post here and my day 2 post here.

Here are 3 things I learned from The Network for Public Education Conference:

1. Relationships. I was so happy to get a chance to meet some very cool people that, until this weekend, I had only known as avatars on Twitter. Don't get me wrong, I love social media -- while social media can help connect people by removing the obstacles of time and place, it is no substitute for real life, face to face relationships. I was so happy to meet and spend time with Kirsten Hill, Adam Holman, Jose Vilson, Stephanie Cerda, Xian Barrett, Audrey Watters, Sabrina Stevens, Katie Osgood and Phil Cantor.

I got to briefly meet Deb Meier, Anthony Cody, Diane Ravitch, and Chris Lehmann.

2. Assault on Public Education. As the token Canadian at the conference, I was struck by the raw emotion that dominated the conference -- teachers are saddened and angered by the assault on public education lead by profiteers, politicians and privatizers.

The politics and problems killing American Education is complex, but here's my Wikipedia version: For a long time, public schools in the United States had been a public good. Schools were about pupils. However, Corporate School Reform has become the status quo -- public education is being bastardized into a private interest where schools are about profits.

Essentially Corporate School Reform is led by three foundations: Gates, Walton and Broad -- who have allied with the Federal Government, effectively making the United States Department of Education an enemy of public education.

Common Core, high-stakes standardized tests and Teach for America are a money grab for Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. Democratically elected school boards are replaced with Charter CEOs who have absolutely no accountability to the public. Public schools who have a responsibility to take all children who show up are closed and turned into private charters with select admissions. Every dollar from tax payers for public education should go to public schools not into the pockets of CEOs and investors. Private schools should not be publicly funded.

The Charter school movement in the US is re-segregating America and rolling back whatever gains were made from Brown vs Board of Education. Experienced and educated teachers are fired in exchange for well-intentioned but grossly ill-prepared youngsters whose effectiveness have been grossly overstated. Public Education is being strangled to death by Corporate School Reformers who provide an opportunity-rich education for their own children while imposing other people's children with schools that are marinated in acquiescence and testing. Education excellence requires equity.

The Corporate School Reform is a part of the Global Education Reform Movement which is built on a contradiction:

Use PISA scores to show that public education in the United States is failing but then implement market-based reforms that are almost entirely contradictory to the reforms and policies found in high achieving countries.

3. There is hope. The only thing necessary for destructive mandates and cancerous education policies to succeed is for good teachers, parents and students to say and do nothing. When distant authorities invoke their ignorance with the force of law, remember that your silence is read as assent -- and at some point your silence is betrayal to those who do speak up and take action.

The Network for Public Education is the loud speaker for people who support public education. Rather than remain as individual pockets of resistance to Corporate School Reform and GERM, NPE is a way to organize and mobilize a movement that will save public education.

NPE concluded its first National Conference with a call for Congressional hearings to investigate the over-emphasis, misapplication, costs, and poor implementation of high-stakes standardized testing in the nation's K-12 public schools. The consequence of all this is that testing has become the purpose of education, rather than a way of measuring education.

NPE is encouraging everyone, including Congress to ask some tough questions:

• Do the tests promote skills our children and our economy need?

• What is the purpose of these tests?

• How good are the tests?

• Are tests being given to children who are too young?

• Are tests culturally biased?

• Are tests harmful to students with disabilities?

• How has the frequency and quantity of testing increased?

• Does testing harm teaching?

• How much money does it cost?

• Are there conflicts of interest in testing policies?

• Was it legal for the U.S. Department of Education to fund two testing consortia for the Common Core State Standards?

If Congress has the time, effort and resources to investigate baseball players using steroids, they can surely find the time, effort and resources to investigate the misuse and abuse of testing.

My second day at Network for Public Education Conference

The morning's first session included a panel on the Common Core:

Randi Weingarten:

• The push back from teachers on Corporate School Reform is not being ignored. It's noticed by those who are in power and it frustrates them.
• During this period of privatization and de-professionalizing of teachers, the idea of public education as a public good is under assault.
• National standards might be a good thing to help raise the standards and opportunities for children living in poverty.
• The Common Core standards are not appropriate for children in K-2.
• The testing will conflate and destroy any good that might have come from Common Core.
• The middle class is disappearing. We need to rebuild the middle class.

Paul Horton:

• If you are from Chicago, then you are angry. In the coming weeks, some Chicago teachers may be fired.
• No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top were born in Texas. The Texas 
• The Common Core is tied to data collection, the tests and Charters. There is no legal way of separating the Common Core from the Tests.
• The people who created the Common are test makers.
• Teachers don't need multi-billion dollar corporations to create curriculum and assessments that they should be paid to do.
• 
  

Geralyn McLaughlin

• Kindergarten is no longer the child's playground.
• Young children are being exposed to developmentally inappropriate, sit and get, drill and kill stuff.
• Many of the Common Core standards are not developmentally appropriate.
• The Common Core assumes that all children develop at the same rate. 
• Average age for learning to read is 6.5 years. Half learn earlier. Half learn later. Early readers are not better readers. 
• The Common Core demands that Kindergarteners read with fluency and accuracy.
• Let's stop demanding children be ready for school and have schools be ready for the children. Meet them where they are at.
• Children need play today more than ever.
• What the US can't learn from Finland.

Mercedes Schneider

• Common Core is not the same as national standards
• Common Core is the noose. Standardized testing is the scaffold. The high stakes and cut scores are the tightening of the noose.
• Common Core and Corporate Reforms ignores teacher professional judgement. 
• Common and standardized are not the same thing.
• No Child Left Behind has morphed into Common Core. Both need to be rejected.
• 
  

Jose Vilson

• Unions rightfully protect outspoken teachers.
• I don't teach kids for a higher teacher evaluation.
• The Common Core feels intentionally rushed.
• When we know that more than half of the children will fail the test, there is something wrong with the test.
• Too often we have the "experts" in one room and the teachers in another. Teachers are not considered the "experts" in their classrooms.
• Corporate School Reforms are destroying public education by demanding schools do things that they wouldn't make their own children do.
• We need to focus on the whole child -- not testing.

Opposing standardized tests that have no stakes is low hanging fruit. The real work is in opposing standardized tests that have the highest stakes. 

Diane Ravitch:

Diane Ravitch and me.

• Network for Public Education is a grassroots movement made by people who understand that public education is a public good not a private interest.
• Network for Public Education was Anthony Cody's idea.
• Randi Weingarten provided free legal aid to help start Network for Public Education
• Why we will win? 
• Robert Scott said we now have an educational-industrial complex and it was born in Texas.
• The assault on public education is a feature, not a bug, of Obama's administration.
• We may be out funded but we are not 
• I'm angry that powerful billionaires beat up on teachers who make less than their secretaries.
• I'm angry when legislators tell teachers how to teach.
• I'm tired of hearing people say they care about children and then do nothing about the 1 in 4 children who live in poverty.
• The Department of Education is an enemy of public education.
• The Democrats and Republican have merged into a bipartisan agenda that is really the Republican Agenda.
• I'm tired of people who say parents should have choice but then don't let them opt out of the testing. 
• We are going to win for several reasons: Everything proposed by the Corporate School Reformers fails.
• If privatization works, it should have worked in Milwaukee. It didn't work in Milwaukee. 
• Value Added Measurements shows who the students were in the class -- not the quality of the teacher. Value Added Measurements is junk science.
• We are being over run by 'disruption'. Children don't need disruption.
• Charter movement in US is resegregating America. 
• A 'for-profit public school' is an oxymoron.
• 90% of charters are no union schools.
• Every dollar of tax payers for public education should go to public schools not investors.
• Standardized tests measure the achievement gap -- they don't close it.
• Virtual Charters are a ponzi scheme.
• Main stream media is failing public education -- so we need to find other means to get our word out.
• Politicians and Legislators who think so little of our children should have to take the standardized tests and have their results published.
• Deborah Meier has been the voice of wisdom for longer than I have.
• Pittsburgh got a new school board and cancelled their contract with Teach For America.
• We are going to win because we own social media.
• Michelle Rhee was suppose to debate Diane Ravitch but Rhee wouldn't sign the contract. Rhee said she needed a partner -- so she got Rod Paige -- but then she wanted a third partner but couldn't find one so she wouldn't debate Ravitch.
• Corporate School Reformers are stealing tax payer dollars.
• We must stand in solidarity. We must be united. We must abandon ideological purity. We need a big tent. We need to stop pissing in our tent.
• Corporate School Reformers are the status quo
• Liberals think that facts persuade people -- conservatives know that stories persuade people. We need to reclaim the narrative. We must re-frame the argument against public education. We are defending democracy and children.
• We need retired teachers to speak up -- they can't be fired.
• I'm not going to be here forever. Who is going to take my place? You will. 
• Walls of Jericho will come tumbling down.

First Network for Public Education Conference

I will add to this post as I experience
more of this historic conference.

I had the pleasure of attending the first Network for Public Education Conference in Austin, Texas.

I see this as a historic event because it is the official organizing of the grass roots movement by people who see public education not as a private interest but as a public good.

I see this conference first and foremost about reclaiming public education from those who 

Here's what I thought of as I listened to Julian Vasquez-Helig:

• There are two kinds of education reform. One is for the affluent and the other is for the poor.
• Education reform in the United States is really educational apartheid.
• What if public education perpetuates some of the worst injustices and inequities of our society? What if inequity and poverty are advanced, rather than stifled, by public education? What if public education is really the great divider?
• Too often progressive educators who oppose Corporate Education Reform are accused of supporting the status quo -- when really they just oppose Corporate Education Reform. Progressive educators want to reform Corporate Education Reform.
• The Network for Public Education is a movement of progressive educators who believe in public education as a public good.

Here's what I thought of as I listened to Anthony Cody:

• Public schools are under assault by philanthropists and privateers.
•  Teachers who join the Network for Public Education have fought and condemn the status quo of public education - they oppose the inequities and poverty that are strangling the life out of our democracy and our public schools.
• Teachers' Unions and Associations are critically important in organizing a collective resistance to test and punish, corporate reform.

Here's what I thought of while listening to a panel with Katie Osgood, Deborah Meier, Karen Lewis and Robert Peterson:

I got to meet Deb Meier.

Deborah Meier

• Deborah Meier started teaching over 50 years ago. Chicago. Boston. 
• Some teachers are their own worst enemy -- we are passive and allow others to talk down to us in a humiliating manner that alienates teachers and marginalizes them.
• Teachers need to stand up for themselves.
• Teachers need to be outraged by the outrageous.
• Too often teachers wait for someone else to lead the push back against the assault on public education. If teachers want others to be outspoken and lead, they have to be willing to follow and support.
• If teachers won't stand up for themselves, how can we trust that they will teach students to stand up for themselves?
• Poll after poll, despite all the teacher bashing by politicians and privateers, teachers are trusted by the public. 

Robert Peterson

• Rethinking Schools is a wonderful publication.
• Wisconsin has been a petrie dish for how governments are de-professionalizing teachers and stripping them of their collective bargaining rights.
• What's disgusting? Union busting!
• Three years ago, teaches walked out and students followed in support of them. Public sector unions in Wisconsin are being destroyed.
• Only 59% of students in Milwaukee go to public schools.
• Conflict is the midwife of consciousness. 
• The issue is to gain political power for the 99%.
• If we want to save public education, we have to address more than just education.
• Milwaukee is the largest city to defeat attempts of Mayoral take-over of public education school boards.
• We must re-imagine our teacher unions. Unions need to be far more democratic and participatory that takes up social justice for the community. Unions must not simply represent themselves -- unions must represent the students that they serve

Katie Osgood

• Many teachers find their Tipping Point of Outrage when they see the assault on public education hurt children.
• Lack of resources, test and punish accountability and school closures are pushing teachers to speak out and become outspoken activists for public education.
• Katie's students are children admitted to the hospital for mental health problems. They are the first victims of the assault on public education. 
• Children need teachers who know what they are doing and are well educated. Teach for America does not do this.
• Unions need to partner with their community. 
• Teachers need to use social media to organize and network. Twitter, blogging, Facebook are tools made for grassroots movements such as the fight for public education.

Karen Lewis

• When people threaten us, that tells us something. 
• When it comes to education, there is only one party in America - The Party of Wrong.
• Teachers are used to following directions, but now the directions we are being told to follow are unethical.
• Teachers are not afraid of accountability -- but they do oppose being held accountable for things out of their control.
• Accountability for public education has been hijacked by a deficit model - test and punish.
• Teachers are not afraid of accountability, but they are acutely aware of the costs of standardized testing and their cancerous effects.
• The new normal: "You should be happy you have a job." This 
• People who are frantically distracted and live in fear are easily manipulated.
• Value-Added Measurements (VAM) is junk science. 
• We are in the Data-Driven Dark Ages. The Opt-Out movement is the achilles heal of Corporate Education Reform.

Real educational status quo is not opposing accountability via standardized testing -- the real status quo is found in the long time reality that the affluent and powerful get one kind of education while other people's children get a different kind.

John Kuhn

• Public education is a promise to all children -- and that promise is under siege by 
• Corporate education reform is code for "we will educate those we choose to and leave the undesirables to public schools."
• Focus too much on "career-ready" and "college-ready" and they won't be ready for life.
• If our schools are sick it's because our society is sick. Schools are a reflection of our society's priorities.
• Public education is our trust-fund -- no *one* gets to have it.
• Free-market schools have no mandate to educate all children. 
• Competition does not breed excellence -- if it did, our fast-food chains would serve the healthiest foods.
• Milton Friedman's legacy in education is one of failure.
• Teachers are the real education reformers. Those venture capitalists and distant authorities are corporate school reformers.

Karen Lewis

• Chicago teachers are continuing the Opt-Out movement.
• Corporate school reformers will say that poverty isn't an excuse and that poverty shouldn't matter -- which would be nice -- but they do.
• Corporate School Reformers keep teachers, parents and students in a constant state of fear so that they can be easily manipulated.
• Jobs contradiction - Corporate school reformers demand children be career and college ready and then 
• You can't be neutral on a moving train. When you are silent to power, you side with power.
• President Obama has nominated Ted Mitchell as the #2 in the US Secretary of Education. Mitchell is the CEO of The NewSchools Venture Fund. This is indicative of who is hijacking public education.

Network for Public Education 2014 Conference

Do you care about public education?

Are you concerned about how some education reforms are working to weaken and destroy public education?

If so, here is a conference you simply can not miss.

The Network for Public Education 2014 National Conference at University of Texas at Austin on March 1 & 2. 

Register here.