Six Years In The Fight To Save Public Education by Ruth Rodriguez

Its been 6 years since I joined the Save Our Schools movement, I thank the great Liza Womack, for inspiring me to take a serious look at what was happening in the country, leading to what I have come to see as an educational malpractice masquerading as school reforms by Bankers, Billionaires and Legislators who positioned themselves to hijack public schools, for reasons that benefited them more than our children. 

It saddens me greatly that after these many years fighting this battle, our children, teachers, families and our communities, find ourselves still engaged in this fight to find equity and justice for all the children. I fear I may not see justice and equity for our children in my lifetime, but when this chapter in history is written, I feel that I can rest easy that I was on the side of justice! The following post I am sharing was 5 years ago:


I believe that our children deserve the best teachers to be able to learn and become critical thinkers. I understand the need for schools to be a safe haven for our children to grow and to expand their precious mind. I have worked my entire career fighting for this to happen in our communities, especially in those communities where our most vulnerable children are facing the most challenges. I am well aware of the school to prison pipeline that our children have been led to.


Here is where I am conflicted, I believe that the school privatization campaign being led by corporate America is behind this teacher bashing. I say this because these non-educators, mostly greedy Wall Street moguls have seen a way of profiteering from public funds, and have decided that the best way to implement their so-called ed reform is by convincing the masses that teachers and their unions are getting in the way of education reform. 

They have designed a clever plot, "first we start with mandating accountability through high stake testing (Testing industries like Pearson have become big$$$ business). Students who fail the test (MCAS in MA) are not promoted, won't receive a HS diploma, and schools that fail to meet AYP will be shut down, then they are in the driver seat, because the next thing is converting these failing schools into for-profit Charters. The only indicator for failure is determined by a single test. 

Both parties are in bed with those who are privatizing schools. Just look in Boston, Menino and Bloomberg in NY, and we have witnessed the shambles with the closing of schools and the conversation of for-profit charter.