PAA Action News

May 28, 2015

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

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PAA Action Alert

It's official: Everything
you were afraid was true

about the Common Core...

...is true.

Every parent, teacher and public school advocate ought to read "Perfectly Incorrect," by teacher Terry Marselle.

This new compendium of facts about the Common Core State Standards is just out in Kindle format; $4.95 is a small price to pay for the truth about today's most controversial topic in education.

From the amazon blurb:

If one is looking for a go-to, desk-check reference for literally every topic beneath the Common Core umbrella, this book comes close. Written in a reader-friendly kitchen table conversational style, Marselle's narrative delivers gobs of scientific evidence without the drudgery of jargon and coma-inducing explanations. On the contrary, an eBook with over 600 images and 700 hyperlinks? This has to be a first. There are even two executive summaries, 54 and 33 pages, respectively. What's not to like?

Buy. Read. Share.

Congress still in the neighborhood

Your Senators and Congressmen are still on break for the Memorial Day holiday - you might have some luck catching them in their home offices today, tomorrow, or over the weekend.

We believe that there may be some movement on ESEA in the Senate beginning next week. If the Senate is able to pass their bill, the House may then vote on something similar, since we understand that the House version of ESEA, HR 5, is DOA in the Senate.

Please call and ask your Senators to co-sponsor S. 1025, which changes the annual testing mandate to a grade-span requirement. You can read our letter to all 100 Senators on the subject here - feel free to use any part of it!

Mark your calendars!

Helen Gym to receive 2015
PAA Parent Voice Award

We are so excited to announce that PAA founding member Helen Gym will be the recipient of this year's Parent Voice Award.

We presented the first PVA last year to PAA co-founder Leonie Haimson at an awards dinner during our conference in Washington DC. This year's awards dinner will take place during the conference (see below), but we are still finalizing the exact time and place.

More about Helen in the section below.

PAA annual conference
details coming soon!

We are finalizing a venue and a schedule for our 3rd annual leadership conference in Washington DC, which is set for July 20-22, 2015.

The conference is open to PAA chapter and affiliate leaders and to anyone interested in becoming a chapter or affiliate leader.

We will spend some time preparing for and meeting with our Congressional reps, sharing our work, learning some new skills, and setting goals for the coming year.

Conference venue planning is nearly finished and we will give you all the registration information next week.

PAA and PAAers in the news

Share the joy of Helen's primary win

Take a look at this Smilebox presentation showing the wonderful support for PAA founding member Helen Gym leading to her win last week in the Philadelphia city council at-large primary.

PAA chapter and affilate news

Welcome new affiliate!

We are so happy to welcome a new chapter, PAA-West Tennessee, whose leader is Terri Harris. This is our first chapter in Tennessee!

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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