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Those more observant members of the Neighborhood may have noticed a large new yellow button to the right. Its funny-looking, I know, but its there for an important reason.
The Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action will be coming up at the end of July. The conference covers July 28-29 and 31 and feature many well-known speakers on education like Diane Ravitch, Jonathan Kozol, Valerie Strauss from the Washington Post, our good friend Sabrina Stevens Shupe and many others. The workshops offer activism techniques, curriculum strategies and other useful tools in advocacy in education.
The march will take place July 30, where we will meet at the Ellipse on the Mall at noon, followed by a march to the Department of Education at 2 pm. It should be a raucous time, especially in that roasting DC heat of late July–of which I am painfully familiar.
Of course, besides the obvious reasons involving educational fairness, true accountability and general saving of the public school system, you should be heading to DC that weekend to meet me! I’ll be at a bloggers’ event the evening of the 29th, where we’ll watch The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman (hopefully in Rocky Horror mode). Also, I’ll be at the march myself, and hopefully gathering a cadre of the Neighborhood to march along.
I’ll be easy to spot in my Hawaiian shirt and straw hat 
The conference costs $80 to register for Thursday’s and Friday’s events. But make sure to register before June 15th, otherwise the price jumps to $100 a head. Click here for registration info.
The march is free…bring as many people as you want! However, it’s nice if we have a head count of how many people are coming. Its no obligation to go, but even if you plan on coming please RSVP here.
Remember, the other guys like to fudge numbers–we want to be honest.
Lastly, if you plan on going and would like to join me as a contingent of the Neighborhood, especially for social studies advocacy, please e-mail me so we can coordinate a meeting spot. The Ellipse is big, so plan on being there around 10 am so we can meet, greet and get our chanting voices ready.
Hope to see you all there.
Calling out all Teachers “converted” by Public Education!
We enter the world full of lofty goals, high-minded principles and some complex vocabulary. Sometimes, we even attempt to make those goals real, entering the “real world” to “inspire young minds” and “do some good in the world.”
Yet when the cold backhand of reality comes crashing across our faces, the sting often exposes a greater truth—a truth often masked behind the rhetoric.
I am not immune to this. When I began as a teacher, visions of gleaming charter schools and smiling faces with vouchers to private academies danced in my head. I couldn’t sing the praises of privatization and Teach for America loud enough—as well as shout my disdain for veteran teachers “not doing their job.”
It didn’t take long into my first year for reality to sink in. The magic bullets, the fab theories and the rhetoric of the NCLB crowd were smoke-and-mirrors in the everyday grind of an inner city classroom. The handbooks—TFA, NYC Teaching Fellows, or otherwise—had no answer for the problems I faced each day in that place. The best help I got was from (Surprise, surprise!) veteran teachers who long ago discarded the guidebooks to best educate their students.
My mind changed when I encountered the realities of public education. And I am sure I’m not alone.
At the recent Save Our Schools Conference, I had spoken with fellow blogger James Boutin about our experiences, and we got to thinking about people like us—people who “crossed the floor” as it were on public education. One workshop we attended involved two Teach for America alums. They quit the organization over their tactics and approach in regards to teacher training.
Surely, we thought, there are many others like them—and us—who also had an epiphany about education and the real problems in our public schools.
There’s a very public example of this “epiphany” in Diane Ravitch, the former assistant Secretary of Education and co-author of No Child Left Behind who saw the dangers of the monster she helped bring to life.
However, what could be even more powerful are the stories of everyday teachers—be it from TFA, Teaching Fellows, or anywhere else—who had once bought into the rhetoric of education “reform” and have been transformed by their experiences in today’s classrooms.
James and I are collecting stories of similar individuals, those with similar transformative experiences as us. If you have a story to share, please contact James or myself. Include your contact info, as we’re not sure how to best use your information, and we want to keep in touch with you.
Finally, please send this to anyone whose life was changed by teaching in a public school classroom. Your stories are important and incredibly valuable. We look forward to hearing from you.
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Tagged as Barack Obama, Child psychology, Commentary, Communications, current events, Damascus, Diane Ravitch, Education, education reform, Educational leadership, Leadership, NCLB, No Child Left Behind Act, Opinion, SOS March, State school, Teach For America, Teacher, Teachers, Teaching, Teaching Fellows, United State, United States