Welcome new chapter in Madison WI!

We have had so many new chapter and affiliate requests that we are having trouble keeping up with them (but keep those requests coming! - we'll get there!).  

Families United for Public Education is our new affiliate from Madison WI, and we are so happy to welcome them and leaders Laurie Zimmerman and Laura Paella! They are actively up and running as you can see from their Facebook page (go join them!!!) and their web site, which includes this inspiring description:

Families United for Public Education is a group of parents in Madison, Wisconsin who are organizing to make public education equitable, well-funded, and accountable to the communities it serves.

We unite and empower parents and community allies to be strong advocates for academically rich, nurturing school environments for all students in our public schools. Public education cannot thrive without engagement from supportive families and communities, who provide an essential voice in decisions which will determine the course of public education for decades to come.

We focus on four main areas:

Making Sure Wisconsin's Schools Stay Public:

We fight for adequate funding for our schools so that they can provide the necessary resources to support student learning, and we oppose the destructive forces of privatization at the federal, state, and local levels. We reject Wisconsin's increasing use of corporate-driven "school choice" (e.g., vouchers) to divert funds away from public schools that are accountable to parents and communities and focused on all students.

Working Towards Racial Equity:

We believe that schools and communities can only flourish when our children have true equality of opportunity. We support allocating significant resources to our schools and communities in order to close Dane County's racial disparity gap-the worst of any county in the nation. We support practices that engage, rather than exclude, students and families of color from access to educational resources.

Promoting Meaningful Assessment:

We oppose the misuse, abuse, and overuse of testing. We support educationally meaningful assessment that helps teachers effectively engage their students. We oppose testing that seeks to make schools and teachers "accountable" without understanding the variety of challenges facing students and teachers, and that focuses classroom time on test-taking and test-preparation rather than best practices for learning. We support parents' efforts to opt out of these tests and to challenge this system of testing.  

Supporting the Teaching Profession:

We are greatly dismayed by the attacks on teachers and their unions and demand strong, experienced teachers in our children's classrooms. Teachers' hard work benefits us all, and their voices are important to any conversation about our schools. We oppose the de-professionalization of teachers, which will lead to a less-skilled, lower-paid teacher corps that is less able to shape effective curricula and classrooms.

Welcome, FUPE!!!