#2.

TOP 10 BAT BLOG SUBMISSIONS!



#1.  
My Wife Is A Teacher
By:  Vic DeSantis
16,707 HITs

http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2014/06/my-wife-is-teacher-by-vic-desantis-i-am.html

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#2.  

The Death of Michael Brown, Teachers, and Racism: 10 Things Every Badass Teacher Needs To Understand

BY:  Dr. Denisha Jones

8,814 HITs

http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-death-of-michael-brown-teachers-and.html

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#3.  

Today my kindergarten took a test called the Common Core MAP.

BY:  BAT Teacher 3/20/14 post 

7447 HITs

http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2014/03/today-my-kindergarten-took-test-called.html

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#4  

AN OPEN LETTER TO "THE VIEW" FROM BATs!

6821 HITs

http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2014/08/an-open-letter-to-view-from-badass.html

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#5  

NY Principal and NY BAT Tim Farley Throws Hat in the Ring for NYS Ed. Commish!

5542 HITs

http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2014/12/ny-principal-and-ny-bat-tim-farley.html

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#6  

A Teacher’s Common Core

By:  Dr. Yohuru Williams

4063 HITs

http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-teachers-commoncore-by-dr.html

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 #7  

You might be a badass if...  by  G.A. Poirer 

2969 HITs

http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2013/06/you-might-be-badass-if.html

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#8

BAT Press Release  -  Resolution #2 (AFT Common Core) that passed on the floor of the AFT Convention 

2648 HITs

http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2014/07/press-release-for-immediate-release.html

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#9

The Best Evidence Against Common Core

By:  Steven Singer

2403 HITs

http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-best-evidence-against-common-by.html

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#10

BATs July 28, 2014 Speech

By:  Dr. Yohuru Williams

2301 HITs

http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2014/07/bats-july-28-2014-speech-by-yohuru.html

Top 10 Education Blog Posts (By Me) You Should Be Reading Right Now!

BY:  Steven Singer

 Originally posted on his blog https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/top-10-education-blog-posts-by-me-you-should-be-reading-right-now/

Chill the champagne, call the babysitter and get out those funky illuminated 2015 party glasses! It’s New Year’s!

What a year it’s been!

Good ol’ 2014 was a rough one in many ways. National news was bloodier and more violent than usual.

But in response, social activism was on the rise. People were taking to the streets to protest in numbers not seen since the Civil Rights movement. Corporate Education Reform was on the wane. National teachers unions were calling for the resignation of Arne Duncan, our U.S. Secretary of Education. Pennsylvania lost its worst governor in my lifetime – Tom Corbett. And they’re making a new Star Wars movie!

But perhaps most important of all, Gadflyonthewallblog was born!

I never thought I’d be a teacher-blogger. But here I am.

I used to just read the amazing work of people like Jessie Ramey, Peter Green, Jersey Jazzman, Anthony Cody, Diane Ravich and so many more.

They gave me ideas, made me want to speak out. I’d start posting things on Facebook. A status update here, a meme there. Until one day I starting writing something that was so long, I couldn’t fool myself anymore.

I had written a blog post. There was nothing for it, then, but to start a blog.

I promised myself if I took that step I would publish at least once a week as long as people were reading what I wrote.

At first, I’d get 50-100 page views. That quickly turned to 1,000 – 2,000 and then sometimes much more.

Now, more than 40,000 hits later, with 5,785 followers, I’m flattered beyond words that people seem to like what I’ve been writing. I hope I’m helping add to the conversation about education, social justice and anything else I write about.

To celebrate my half year as a blogger – I started all this in July – I’ve compiled a Top 10 List of my posts.

I hate to use data to rank my students, but I found it very helpful here in selecting which articles to include.

Like all data, it has its limitations. For instance, many of these articles were reblogged or published in many different venues – the Washington Post, LA Progressive, Diane Ravich’s blog, Public School Shakedown, the Badass Teachers Association blog, etc. Since I don’t have access to their statistics, I couldn’t include them in my calculations. As a result, a post may be lower on my list but it actually received more views overall if you include everywhere it was published. I suspect this is true in some cases but can’t prove it.

What I ended up with – in ascending order – are the most viewed posts on my blog site.

I hope you’ll find something interesting you haven’t read before or perhaps an old favorite to read again. Or maybe you can just share this list with a friend to let them know how totally super awesome my blog is!

Anyway, here we go – the Top 10 Posts of 2014 from Gadflyonthewallblog:

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10) LIFE OR DEATH PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Published: Aug. 23
Views: 1,022

Description: Before the first day with students, my school had an active shooter drill. This is how it went down.

Fun Fact: This piece was chosen for aFreshly Pressed award by WordPress.com. It has the most likes (145) and the most comments (31) of any article I have published so far.

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9) FIGHT CORPORATE EDUCATION REFORM AND MEME IT

Published: Oct. 19 
Views: 1,053

Description: Just a bunch of education memes I made – most of them before I started the blog.

Fun Fact: This was meant to be a toss off – somewhere for me to keep track of my memes. It was unexpectedly popular and many of these memes keep popping up in unexpected places to this day.

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8) TOXIC TESTING MY KINDERGARTEN TOT – OR DADDY DON’T PLAY THAT

Published: Dec. 15  
Views: 1,071

Description: It’s a surreal experience for a teacher to attend a parent-teacher night for the first time as a parent. From a daddy’s eyes, there’s no choice but to question the value of standardized testing in Kindergarten.

Fun Fact: This was so personal it was very hard to write. I didn’t think anyone would care. I was wrong. It’s been published widely beyond my blog.

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7) TRACKING, TESTING AND THE MYTH OF MERITOCRACY

Published: Sept. 7  
Views: 1,316

Description: When one of my students earned outstanding grades in my class last year but was denied a place in this year’s advanced class because of low standardized test scores, I took action.

Fun Fact: This piece really angered people on Facebook for the injustice this student faced. I received a plethora of comments and messages from others who had gone through similar situations.

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6) A MOMENT OF SILENCE FOR MICHAEL BROWN

Published: Nov. 26  
Views: 2,052

Description: My students were so depressed by the Grand Jury decision not to hold a trial for the police officer who killed Michael Brown, I had to address it in class.

Fun Fact: I received more hate mail for this article than any other. It was widely published – even in the Washington Post. I had to stop reading the comments after a while. Many thanks to those who don’t want my head for doing this.

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5) THE REAL AMERICAN EDUCATION CRISIS

Published: Aug. 3  
Views: 2,131

Description: I got so sick of hearing corporate education reformers go on TV and talk about our failing schools. Yes, they’re failing because of education policies that don’t work that we refuse to replace.

Fun Fact: This was something of a slow burn. At first, it didn’t receive much attention, but I was surprised to see that views continue to trickle in daily.

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4) MERRY CHRISTMAS. WE’RE STEALING YOUR SCHOOLS

Published: Dec. 27  
Views: 2,949

Description: My continuing coverage and outrage at the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s overreach to steal York City Schools away from taxpayers and give it to a failed charter school operator.

Fun Fact: My most recent post, widely published. I have been one of very few writers sounding the alarm for months. Finally, the nation seems to be paying attention.

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3) THE BEST EVIDENCE AGAINST COMMON CORE

Published: Oct.4  
Views: 3,121

Description: Common Core is nonsense. To see that all you have to do is step in a classroom. Unfortunately that’s one thing the authors of CCSS have never done.

Fun Fact: I knew I had a winner from the second I posted this. It took off like a rocket. It has also been widely published and debated – one of the most popular pieces on the Badass Teachers Association blog. This is the only article I know of to inspire another blogger to write a complete piece attempting to debunk it.

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2) CHECK YOUR WALLET – YOU TOO CAN BE AN EXPERT ON TEACHER TENURE

Published: Oct. 24  
Views: 6,070

Description: When Time Magazine promoted tech millionaires’ plan to improve education by attacking teachers, I exploded in fury. The result is this angry diatribe taking them to task point-by-point.

Fun Fact: Hugely, popular, widely published and almost universally praised by teachers and teachers groups. This lead to my involvement helping craft a response to the Time article published in the magazine along with my fellows at the Badass Teachers Association.

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1) THE FINAL STRAW: CANCEL OUR LABOR CONTRACTS, WE CANCEL YOUR TESTS

Published: Oct. 11  
Views: 10,910

Description: When Pennsylvania cancelled its contract with Philadelphia teachers, I saw the writing on the wall. If they can do that, teachers need to stop giving them the ammunition. They need to refuse to proctor the standardized tests being used to unjustly label our schools failures and justify the elimination of our collective bargaining rights.

Fun Fact: This is easily my most popular article yet. For a few weeks I was something of a folk hero. I saw my words memed by others and this piece appeared almost everywhere. Originally, I had debated publishing it at all thinking, “Who am I to tell teachers what they should do?” But my advice turned out to really hit a nerve. Teachers are dying to opt out of standardized testing. All it will take is one spark. One tiny spark.

Merry Christmas. We’re Stealing Your Schools

By:  Steven Singer

Posted originally on his blog:  https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/merry-christmas-were-stealing-your-schools/

Merry Christmas. We’re stealing your schools.

That’s the message from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to York City School residents Friday.

Gimme’ that local control!

A judge ruled the district is now under direction of its Chief Recovery Officer David Meckley instead of its duly elected school board.

Why?

Meckley wanted the board to approve a plan to convert all district schools into charters run by Florida-based operator Charter Schools USA. This would make York the only all charter district in the entire state.

The agreement was made in secret by Meckley and details weren’t forthcoming before the board was asked to make a decision.

The board just couldn’t make up its mind fast enough. Members tabled it – they might even have refused it if given enough time to think!

So now Meckley will just make the conversion, himself. Dictatorship is so much easier than Democracy!

What else?

The school board reached an agreement with the teachers union that was simply too fair. How dare school directors agree to pay educators a fair wage when the recovery plan clearly indicated slave wages! Sure, district finances had improved, but… UNIONS!

The district could spend some of its $3 million surplus on teachers or engage in a possible $120 million contract with Charter Schools USA. Fiscal responsibility, people!

The district went back and rescinded its controversial teachers contract when the state initiated a petition to take over the district, but it was too late. School directors were acting like they were actually in control. We can’t have that. It might give people the idea that they are in charge! Hilarious!

How’d we get here?

Simple.

Back in 2012, Gov. Tom Corbett decided to slash public school budgets by $1 billion. Most of this came from the poorest schools since they relied more on state funding to keep operations going.

For York Schools that was an $8.4 million cut – over 15% of the district’s budget. To cope, the district cut the arts, student services, increased class sizes, etc. So it was labeled a “failure” simply because it couldn’t survive the funding cuts deemed necessary by the state.

Enter Meckley.

The state declared York City School District in “moderate financial recovery” in 2012 and appointed Meckley to create a financial recovery plan. That plan, adopted in summer 2013, laid out a path for internal reform but called for city schools to be turned into charters, run by an outside operator, if internal reform didn’t work out.

What’s that have to do with Friday’s ruling?

Plenty.

York County Judge Stephen Linebaugh tried to preserve the veneer of Democracy by defining the issue as narrowly as possible. He said it didn’t matter what the state would do once it had control of the district. He could only rule against a state takeover if it could be proven to be “arbitrary, capricious and wholly irrelevant to restoring the district to financial stability.”

In other words, if the district was in financial recovery and it agreed to a recovery plan (as it did), the only issue was whether it was following that plan – not whether the plan was any good or not, and not if the district had a right to refine that plan.

So apparently it is perfectly legal in Pennsylvania to beat someone up and demand a week’s worth of their lunch money – and if they don’t pay, you can sue them in court for welching on a contract!

Judge Linebaugh’s decision is expected to be appealed. This would cause an automatic stay to be put in place. But the state department of education would almost definitely try to have that stay lifted. So that issue will ultimately be up to the courts again.

Is the recovery plan any good?

Of course not!

If you’re problem is you don’t have enough funding, how do you improve that by giving over control of your district to someone whose goal is to make it turn a profit!?

They’ll reduce spending on services for children and increase administrative costs while earmarking a large portion of taxpayer money to boost the bottom line. That’s what for-profit charter operators do! It’s no secret!

Charter Schools USA – the operator waiting to take over York – is no exception.

A Florida League of Women Voters report found that a charter school operated by the company in the Sunshine State spent almost as much on fees and leases to itself and an affiliated company as it did on classroom instruction in 2011.

Another Charter Schools USA school in Indiana came under fire for keeping more than $6 million of “misappropriated” Indiana state funds for 1,800 students who never enrolled in its schools, according to an Indiana Public Media report.

CEO of Charter Schools USA Jonathan Hage has made himself filthy rich by doing the same thing to district-after-district throughout the country.

He even brags about it!

Take for instance his yacht. Yes, I said yacht. He brazenly named it “‘Fishin’ 4 Schools” after where he gets his cash.

To pay for it, he found a new revenue stream that’s just this side of legal. Charter Schools USA is the largest seller of charter school debt in the country. “It will sell $100 million worth of bonds this year, Hage says. … The bonds come with tax-exempt status because they are technically held by the nonprofit founding boards that oversee the schools.” Over a three-year period, the company made closer to $200 million.

So if you believe Meckley – the guy tasked with writing a recovery plan for York City Schools – bettering the district’s financial predicament means giving it to a company engaging in the same kinds of risky monetary practices that crashed our economy not even a decade ago. Run up debt, then sell it to others tax free! That’s not exactly a prescription for sound fiscal management.

Wait a minute. This takeover is being orchestrated by the Corbett administration. Isn’t he a lame duck? Won’t he be out of office in a few weeks? What about incoming Gov. Tom Wolf? Is there anything he can do about it?

Good questions.

Wolf has come out against turning York into an all-charter district. He even asked the Corbett administration to hold off until the governor elect takes office on Jan. 20.

While no comment was made to the press from Corbett, actions speak louder than words. Once again, he could give a crap about what’s best for schools.

Wolf has yet to comment on the takeover, himself, but his spokesman Jeff Sheridanhad this to say:

“Gov.-elect Wolf knows that schools across Pennsylvania have been starved for resources over the last four years and our children are being put at a disadvantage. As a result, districts like York have been forced to the brink of financial collapse. Gov.-elect Wolf will make education his top priority by working to restore funding cuts and providing adequate resources so school districts can deliver on the promise of a high-quality public education for all Pennsylvanians.”

It’s unclear at this time exactly what Wolf will be able to do once he takes office if the takeover is complete.

Hopefully, the matter can stay tied up in the courts for a few weeks. Then Wolf may be able to direct the state to drop the matter and take a more logical course.

Cynics often say there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to educational matters. And history has done a lot to justify that position.

Gov. Wolf may have a chance to demonstrate exactly what that ideological difference is – if it exists at all – in coming weeks.

Right now, it’s all up to the speed and fairness of our courts.

In the meantime, Christmas cards in York, Pennsylvania, should contain the following resolution:

Goodnight and good luck.

BAT Admins Statement On Violence

The Badass Teachers Administration team would like to share our philosophy and mission towards combating racism and inequality in our country as well as in public education.  We are a team that believes this cannot be done with violence. We believe violence is counterproductive to social justice. We don't subscribe to that method nor will we ever. As educators, we strive daily to teach children to reach solutions without resorting to violence. We all live by these ideals in our personal lives and in our work. BATs do not subscribe to the use of violence as a strategy to combat racism and inequality, and we emphatically disavow any statements or actions that endorse that strategy.  We would like to add that police racial profiling and the many incidents of unchecked police brutality are violent forms of injustice. Non-violent protests of every kind must continue until justice is done. We want our students of color, and their families, to have justice and equality!  We will advocate for this until that happens. 

PA BAT and Leadership Team member Steven Singer, “Social justice is inimical to violence. You cannot seek justice for some while denying it to others.” Furthermore, AZ BAT and Leadership Team member Kathie Wing Larsyn states, “I have been an activist involved with non-violent protests since the 70s. I have spent hours training with organizations how to be a peace keeper, how to act when confronted with authority figures, and I want to state, as an admin in BATs, I do not condone violence. I support protesting against issues and firmly believe that the power of the people is still ours to use.” North Carolina BAT and Leadership Team member Maria Glass holds to the words of Ghandi, "Non co-operators will make a serious mistake if they seek to convert people to their creed by violence". NY BAT and Leadership Team member Terry Kalb, “BATs admins believe that non-violent civil disobedience has an honored place in the history of social justice movements.” Finally, CT BAT and Leadership Team member Dr. Yohuru Williams, "Those who advocate violence for whatever purpose miss the essential call to respect the dignity and worth of human life that is the foundation of social justice movements. The antidote to a disease can not be more of the disease. It must come in the form of a reimagined vision of justice that privileges life, along with liberty, and equality, before anything else."

In closing, we would like to repeat, BATs do not subscribe to the use of violence as a strategy to combat racism and inequality, and we emphatically disavow any statements or actions that endorse the use of violence. No justice, no peace. 

Dissent – The Most “Un-American” American Value

BY:  STEVEN SINGER

PUBLISHED ORIGINALLY ON HIS BLOG HERE:  https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/dissent-the-most-un-american-american-value/

Shut up!

Don’t you know that what you’ve just said has caused this horrible tragedy!?

It’s ironic that in a country born from dissent, the most popular message the powerful have for the powerless is “shut up.”

When two NYPD officers were ambushed and murdered by a madman on Saturday, the media was quick to point out his motive. Allegedly, the “execution style” shootings of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenijan Lui were in retaliation for the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown – unarmed black men killed by police.

When Mayor Bill de Blasio entered a press conference to speak about the murders, police turned their back on him. The reason? The mayor had been outspoken against a grand jury decision that Garner’s death didn’t need to be investigated with a full criminal trial of the officer who killed him.

Criticism was even worse in an internal department memo which accuses de Blasio of having his hands “literally dripping with our [NYPD’s] blood because of his actions and policies” and that the NYPD is now “a ‘wartime’ police department”  that will “act accordingly”.

It’s beyond ludicrous.

What does that even mean? Who exactly is the NYPD at war with – the people its officers swore to protect and serve?

But perhaps more troubling is the insinuation of guilt – that the mayor caused this tragedy because of his criticisms of police brutality.

Across the country, on social media, between friends and family the same pattern emerges. People complain the death of these police officers is because of the nationwide protests against a wave of police killings of unarmed black men.

If only people hadn’t spoken up, Ramos and Lui would still be alive!?

America has a history of crazy people doing all kinds of crazy things for just as many crazy reasons.

When Ted Kaczynski, the “Unabomber,” killed 3 people and injured 23 with home-made bombs because of his hatred of modern technology, no one blamed Apple computers.

When John Hinckley shot President Reagan to get the attention of Jodie Foster, no one blamed the Academy Award winning actress.

When Brenda Spencer fatally shot a principal and custodian and injured eight children and a police officer from her home across the street from a school because she “didn’t like Mondays”… Well, we still have Mondays.

But suddenly when a lunatic’s motives are politically expedient, they’re justified.

Millions of people all across the country have taken to the streets to protest a racist system of justice that doesn’t hold police accountable for killing unarmed black men. We could confront that system and change it, or we could try to shush those calling for reform.

What’s worse, protestors are shamed into silence. Before they can continue to air their grievances, they’re told they must stop and recognize the tragedy of Ramos and Lui’s death. Of course these murders were despicable! But what does that have to do with us?

Once again the powerless have to repeatedly condemn violence while the powerful have no such mandate put on them. Ex-Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson hasn’t offered any regret over his fatal shooting of Michael Brown. He went on national television and said he’d do the same thing again.

If people are worried about the negative image of police instilled by these protests, perhaps the cause isn’t the protests. Perhaps the cause is the negative actions of some police.

Before this story broke, the nation was reeling from the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture. The report details actions by CIA officials including torturing prisoners, lying to government officials and the media, harsher treatment than was previously disclosed, and the failure of the program to obtain accurate information.

Senator Dianne Feinstein made the rounds explaining the report to congress and the media. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer echoed many pundits when he asked her if the release of the report made America less safe.

What a stupid question!? The report didn’t make America less safe. The fact that America tortured people made us less safe!

But again we have attempts to squash dissent with appeals to shame and fear.

Why did you speak up, Sen. Feinstein? If you had remained silent about the heinous actions done in our name, we would remain safe and secure.

We used to hold freedom of speech as one of our most cherished values. It was a point of pride. Now it’s a dusty trophy on the mantle that we rarely practice in public. It’s just not worth the effort.

That’s a lesson North Korea learned this week. After hacking Sony Pictures and making threats against movie theaters that showed the Seth Rogan comedy “The Interview,” the film company pulled the picture from distribution. After all, the movie made fun of Kim Jong-un in a plot where the American government fictitiously planned to assassinate him with late night talk show hosts.

There was a time when the United States would not abide by such terrorism and threats.

That time has passed.

We not only bow down to foreign powers, we attempt the same kind of coercion for our own people.

How dare you say THAT! You are causing harm by speaking THIS WAY.

Imagine if we thought that way in 1776.

How dare you speak out against Great Britain! Sure, we have no say in our own government, but speaking out will only bring on more tragedy.

Dissent has truly become the most “Un-American” American value.

Identifying Fact from Fiction:  Who are the REAL Progressives in Education Reform?

By Marla Kilfoyle  @marla_kilfoyle

and Melissa Tomlinson  @jmtrht0625

To be a Progressive means to believe and advocate for Progress.  What defines Progress?   Progress is defined as moving forward and onward.   As we discuss people of the Progressive movement, we should be asking one important question; "Who are they advocating for?"  Let's review how some self-proclaimed Progressives are moving public education forward. Rahm Emmanuel, Mayor of Chicago, supports the closure of over 50 schools in predominantly communities of color.  He allows the opening of close to 30 charters and a contract for over 300 Teach for America recruits to go into schools, replacing veteran teachers and teachers of color.  Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, is an ardent supporter of the privatization movement.   His continuous support of charter schools continue to hyper-segregate communities.  He continues to be an ally to Wall Street hedge funders who finance and support the privatization of public education.  Governor Cuomo has even stated emphatically that he would "break" New York state's public school system.

Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education USDOE, continues to push out policies that harm children in our public schools.  He continues to push his agenda of high stakes testing that has led to the false identification of our children, schools, and teachers as "failures."   He has insulted mothers and grandmothers who work hard to support their children and public schools.  Arne Duncan falsely uses IDEA (Individuals with Disability Act) to support an agenda that seeks to put curriculum and graduation out of reach for our children with disabilities.   He continues to ignore the undeniable fact that the Common Core Standards and the testing that will accompany it will not address the issues of poverty and inequality that continue to exist in our public school system.

President Obama's Race to the Top program has done little except support the privatization of our public education system.  Race to the Top requirements attempted to establish statewide longitudinal student data tracking systems.  Race to the Top would not allow a state to receive money if they put a cap on charters, did not support Common Core and the testing consortia that went hand in hand with it.  Race to the Top money would also not be available to the state if they did not evaluate their teachers based on student test scores.  This “progressive” agenda quickly led to the closing of schools, the push-out of teachers of color, and the push out of veteran teachers.  This “progressive” agenda led to charters taking the place of closed public schools and Teach For America recruits with 5 weeks of training taking the place of fired veteran teachers and many teachers of color.  

Another self-proclaimed progressive group is Democrats for Education Reform, a front for Republicans and corporate interests.  In 2014, DFER financed candidates in elections that sought to close public schools.  DFER supports the agenda of punishing children with High Stakes Testing, blaming teachers for "failing" schools, attacks teachers right to due process, and doesn’t seem to support providing equitable educational funding to help children. They are secretly funded by billionaire Eli Broad and many other hedge funders.   It is clear that the education agenda of the self-proclaimed Progressives has been, as Diane Ravitch writes, "to transfer  public funds to private management and the creation of thousands of deregulated, unsupervised, and unaccountable schools that have opened the public coffers to profiteering, fraud, and exploitation by large and small entrepreneurs."  This doesn't seem to be forward movement for children or education.   It sure seems like forward movement for the self-proclaimed progressives to make more money off the backs of our children and their public education.  

What do real Progressives look like and what are they saying?   Diane Ravitch continues to write and tour the country exposing the false narrative of the self-proclaimed progressives.  Her latest quote, "I want schools for the poor that the wealthy are giving their children." Her most powerful quote is, “closing schools is not reform."  She challenges the undemocratic nature of corporate education reform, “There is something fundamentally antidemocratic about relinquishing control of the public education policy agenda to private foundations run by society's wealthiest people; when the wealthiest of these foundations are joined in common purpose, they represent an unusually powerful force that is beyond the reach of democratic institutions." (Ravitch - The Death and Life of the Great American Public School System, 2011). 

Mayor of Newark Ras Baraka, another strong and true Progressive, says of public schools, "We need our schools to be reformed, but we should be involved in that reform.  We are smart enough to reform our schools.  We don't need to give them away."   Bernie Sanders, Senator from Vermont, states "Forty years ago, some of our great public universities, as well as many state colleges, were virtually tuition free. Today, the cost of college is unaffordable for many. In 1990, the U.S. led the world in the percentage of 25-34-year-olds with college degrees. Today we are in 12th place. Things need to change. Higher education must become affordable for all."  Finally, Pedro Noguera, a professor of sociology at New York University, and the author of City Schools and the American Dream and co-editor of Unfinished Business: Closing the Racial Achievement Gap in Our Schools, points out in The Nation, "Canadian policy analyst Michael Fullan has argued that the United States will not make progress in improving its schools because it relies on what he calls the "wrong drivers"—‘using test results and teacher appraisals to reward or punish teachers and schools,' and ‘promoting individual versus group solutions'—instead of focusing on developing the capacity of schools and educators to meet the educational and social needs of students and improving the culture of under performing schools."  Do you see the difference in the narrative?

Look at the distinct difference in the actions and words of our true Progressives versus our self-proclaimed Progressives.   The self-proclaimed Progressives talk about "failing" schools, punishing children and teachers with testing, Common Core, school closures, the financing of the privatization agenda, and increased charters.   What are our real Progressives saying?   Stop inequality, address the achievement and wealth gap, and address the needs of our children who are in under performing schools, support teachers, and fund  public education equitably.   We would like to end this piece with a request.  We would like any group that seeks to ignore how poverty and inequality influence children and their education to stop calling themselves Progressive.  You are not Progressive; you are regressive; we know it and the nation knows it.  

About Marla Kilfoyle and Melissa Tomlinson

Marla Kilfoyle and Melissa Tomlinson 

Marla Kilfoyle is the General Manager of the Badass Teachers Association and Melissa Tomlinson is the Assistant General Manager of the Badass Teachers Association.

Marla Kilfoyle began her adventure into the Badass Teacher Association by way of being a parent advocate on Long Island in such groups as Parents and Teachers Against Common Core and LI Opt-Out. Marla has been a teacher in the Social Studies Department at Oceanside High School (NY) for 27 years. She is also an NBCT.  In addition, Marla coached the Oceanside Girl’s Track and Field team for 15 years and runs her district’s social science research program. Marla is the mother of a 12-year-old son and wife of Allan, a retired NYPD Detective. She also works as an education advocate in LI Opt-Out and NYSAPE .

Melissa Tomlinson: A teacher of students with special needs at the middle school level, realized that she was not alone in questioning the role of standardized testing in schools when she found the Badass Teachers Association. She was first pushed into the spotlight of fighting the methods of corporate educational reform when she faced Governor Chris Christie to ask about his public degradation of NJ Schools when they were rated one of the top three in the nation. Along with teaching and advocacy, Melissa runs the after school program in her school building, providing a place for students to receive extra educational assistance, exposure to career possibilities, and a safe place to be after school hours.

Melissa is the mother of two teenage sons and she fights for equitable education for all students, now and in the future.

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