Newsletter
PAA Action News
Apr. 7, 2015


Welcome to PAA Action News, the information and action newsletter of Parents Across America.
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PAA Action Alert
 

 

National Day of Action Tomorrow April 8:

Overhaul ESEA/NCLB: Less Testing More Learning!

  

 

What: Call your U.S. Senators and join the Twitter storm/Thunderclap. If we raise our voices together, we can persuade the Senate Education Committee to reduce testing requirements as it debates renewal of Elementary and Secondary Education Act/No Child Left Behind.   

 

When: April 8, 2015, all day 

 

Who: Testing Resistance and Reform Spring alliance, convened by FairTest, and including PAA and many other national and state organizations.  

    

Call your Senators:  

Please take a few minutes on April 8 to phone your U.S. senators in Washington, DC. Ask to speak to the staffer who works on education policy. If no one is available, leave your message with the person who answered the phone. Find the phone numbers here. 

 

Tell your Senators:
Here is a model message. Feel free to use it, modify it, or say something entirely different.
 
Hello. I'm [your name], calling from [your town]. I'm calling to ask Senator [name] to support changes to No Child Left Behind that will promote a saner and less intrusive approach to public school testing. Specifically, I urge [him/her] to support a switch to testing once each in elementary, middle and high school, and to remove high-stakes consequences from federally required standardized tests. Both these measures will help address the current over-emphasis on testing at the expense of learning.
 
Twitterstorm:
On April 8, send a tweet, help build the storm. Here is an example. If you modify it, be sure to include #cutfederaltests and the link to getting your Senators' numbers:

"Join PAA, BATs, FT, SOS, TRRA 4/8 #CutFedTests. Call Senate

http://thndr.it/1P6DfEf. Cut back tests, end high stakes."

 

The link is to Senate phone numbers. The last 'sentence' is the basic message.  

 

To tweet your Senators, find their Twitter handles at:

https://twitter.com/gov/lists/us-senate/members

 

Help launch the Twitterstorm by supporting our Thunderclap; when you do, on Tues. eve a twitter, facebook or tumblr message is sent to your contacts asking them to call their Senators on Weds April 8.  

 

See https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/24577-cutfedtests-4-8-call-in. Use the red bar to choose your medium (you can return to select an additional medium, e.g. both Facebook and Twitter).

 

Email:

Join the email campaign as well. To send a letter to your Senator, go to:


Finally, if you haven't already used this handy FairTest form
on grade-span testing, do it now! 
 
Mark your calendars!

Save the date! New PAA webinar on charter school accountability

PAA is co-hosting another webinar on Tuesday, May 5, at 8 pm ET, with the Center for Popular Democracy. We'll be talking about CPD's recent survey on charter school accountability. The study, done with In the Public Interest, found that voters want greater oversight for charter schools and more assurance that charters won't hurt other public schools by drawing students away.

We'll also talk about another new CPD report, this one on charter school fraud in  California which amounted to more than $81 million.

We'll have the registration information for you in our next full newsletter.

Join fellow PAAers at the NPE conference!

Several PAAers will be in Chicago for the April 24-26 Network for Public Education (NPE) conference and we're planning to get together for a little socializing and some PAA talk before the start of the conference, on Friday the 24th at about 4 pm, somewhere convenient to the conference venue.

Even if you aren't an official PAA chapter or affiliate leader, or if you're thinking about starting a PAA chapter and have some questions, we'd love to see you!

Please contact Julie for details and to RSVP: JulieW@parentsacrossamerica.org

 You can still register for the NPE conference
 
We're looking forward to seeing lots of friends at the NPE conference. PAA will offer a workshop on the Impact of Race, Cultural Bias, and Poverty on Educational Opportunity. Register here for the conference if you have not already done so. 

Looking way ahead....
PAA annual conference in DC

We have set tentative dates for our annual conference in DC - July 20-24, 2015. Pencil us in! 


Join us!

If you share our overall goals of progressive, positive education reform and more parent input in education policy making, we invite you to affiliate with us if you are an existing group, or to form a new PAA chapter. The more of us there are, the stronger our voice will be at every level. Here's how!
PAA blog highlights

Keep up with our blog for more news and commentary on public education from the parents' point of view.

To learn more...
If you have questions, comments, suggestions or stories to share, please e-mail us at info@parentsacrossamerica.org or visitwww.parentsacrossamerica.org.

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