Badass Teachers Association

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  June 22, 2014

More Information Contact:

Marla Kilfoyle, General Manager, BATs

Melissa Tomlinson, Asst. General Manager, BATs

contact.batmanager@gmail.com

The Badass Teachers Association (BATs), an association of over 48,000 teachers, has taken a vote of NO CONFIDENCE in U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.  This vote signifies that teachers around the nation do not support the educational agenda set forth by the Obama Administration and Secretary Duncan.  Race to the Top fails to serve our neediest children and it fails to address race and class inequalities in the education system.

BATs Co-Founder Mark Naison states in his letter to President Obama, “The joy and creative learning that your own children experience in one of the nation's top private schools are being driven out of public schools throughout the nation with startling rapidity. Teachers work in fear. Students learn under extreme stress. Parents wonder why their children have started to hate school.  ”

Marla Kilfoyle, General Manager of BATs states, “Secretary Duncan’s continued public attacks on parents, students, and teachers have further eroded our confidence in his ability to run the U.S.D.O.E. and to make decisions for our nation’s public schools.   His continued support of corporate education reform, which is dismantling public education in America, furthers our resolve to have him removed from office.”

Melissa Tomlinson, Asst. General Manager of BATs claims, “Arne Duncan, as Secretary of Education, has failed to fulfill the responsibility of this position to provide and maintain the basic human right to education as set out in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations.  His failure to fulfill the obligation, and responsibility to provide the necessary financial support to public schools, is neglectful of the required compliance to the '4 A's Framework' that dictate all schools be available, accessible, acceptable, and adaptable.  With this in mind,we have an obligation to replace him with a person that is better qualified to do so.”

 

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