The BAT Anomoly Part Two- What We Stand for , What We Believe

By: Dr. Mark Naison

-->BATS fight for Community Schools where parents teachers and students voices are welcome. We emphatically reject the use of Teacher Temps to replace lifetime educators, especially those who live in the communities where schools are located. We also think parents and students should have a voice in shaping curricula in which their own traditions and cultural values are reflected as well as those of the larger society.

--->  BATS support teachers unions in principle, because unions are the best defenders of the middle class, and of work place rights, including freedom of expression, but we emphatically disagree with teacher union leaders who take grants from powerful corporations, and who refuse to challenge public officials who impose policies which undermine public education and teacher professionalism

--->BATS support a wide variety of educational options for parents, ranging from schools which are exempt from tests, to vocational and technical schools, to magnet schools which strive for racial and cultural diversity, but we emphatically reject the dominant trend to have all such experimentation take place in charter schools, and the starving of public schools while charters remain favored and unregulated.