BATs Congratulate Hillary Clinton

The Badass Teachers Association would like to congratulate you on your recent announcement to run for president.  The Badass Teachers Association is an education activist organization that is nationwide. Currently, we are 55,000 strong with chapters in every state.  We are organizing on the ground to change the conversation back to what public education should be, about children and their future.  We have far reaching capability on Twitter, via our website, our blog, and Pinterest.

 Our organization was founded in June of 2013.  We fight for strong public education for all children and for teacher autonomy in the classroom. We are a group that refuses to take the blame for our government’s inability to address child poverty and its impact on how children perform in school. We fight, on a daily basis, the efforts of big money to privatize our schools and use our children as market capital.

We have been reviewing the history of your educational platform with interest in anticipation of your announcement.

In 2000 you said

“I've been involved with schools now for 17 years, working on behalf of education reform. And I think we know what works. We know that getting classroom size down works. That's why I'm for adding 100,000 teachers to the classroom. We know that modernizing and better equipping our schools works. And we know that high standards works. But what's important is to stay committed to the public school system.” 

As an organization we could NOT agree more.  We believe that when you add REAL educators to the table when discussing education policy, you do so because educators know what works. 

In 2007 at the NYSUT Convention in NY you said,

“Public education must be defended, yes it has to be modernized but never doubt for a minute if we turned our back on public education we would be turning our back on America. I will not let that happen.”

We are pleased to hear those amazing words of support for public education. In your long history of public service, you have proven you can be a friend to education. You pushed for universal pre-kindergarten, arts education, after-school tutoring, smaller class sizes and the rights of families. As a college student in the 1960s, you even volunteered to teach reading to children in poor Boston neighborhoods. You fought to ensure voting access for African Americans and even worked at an alternative newspaper in the black community.

In 2007, you said of testing

NCLB stifles originality and forces teachers to focus on preparing students for tests.  You criticized the program as underfunded and overly restrictive. 

You asked delegates at the NEA of New Hampshire, “While the children are getting good at filling in all those little bubbles, what exactly are they really learning?”

You continued, “How much creativity are we losing? How much of our children's passion is being killed?”    

We are hoping that statements like this follow you into the White House!

In 2007 you said of public education

“The majority of children are educated in the public education system. So we have to support the public education system whether or not our children are in it or whether or not we have children. The public education system is a critical investment for the well-being of all of us.” 

We could not agree with you more.  We feel , like you, that an investment in strong public education is the best investment this country can make!

We were most happy to hear this statement that you made in 2007, “I do not support vouchers. And the reason I don't is because I don't think we can afford to siphon dollars away from our underfunded public schools.” 

Secretary Clinton, over the past decade parents, teachers and people of conscience have seen the slow dismantling of the American public education system, the professional teacher, and our unions. Over the past 2 years, we have fought vouchers, charters, Teach for America, and nonprofits (aka for profits) that seek to privatize public education off the backs of our children. We have fought the big money machines such as the Koch Brothers and Broad Foundation who seek to dismantle teacher unions and the teaching profession.

 We will be closely watching your education discussions on the following:

1. Charter school expansion

2. Teach for America

3. Annual testing

4. Common Core

5. Support for public education

6. Resource/Support funding low income areas

7. Plans for reducing child poverty

8. Plans for addressing racial inequality and systemic racism that continue to hyper-segregate our school system

In short, we welcome you to the presidential race and hope you will be the champion public education needs right now and not someone who will continue the same Neo-Liberal policies that have been destroying the future for our children and our nation.

In this tweet you said that you want to be our champion, we want YOU to be our champion for public school children and public education!