Hear from PAA President Dora Taylor, a key advocate for the effort, along with winning plaintiffs, education professor Dr. Wayne Au and League of Women Voters education chair Catherine Ahl. 

There is a 50 participant cap on this meeting: the first 50 people to log on as the meeting begins will be able to join us, so please mark your calendars and sign on promptly at 5 pm ET, 2 pm PT. The webinar will last approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes. A recording of the webinar will be available on our web site.

ESEA still in play

Despite the risk of sounding like a broken record, we want to point out that the growing disarray in Congress is giving us some extra time to work on ESEA.

We have shared our basic positions several times in this space, but here are the main points. Please urge your Senators and Congressional reps to work for a new ESEA that would :

• replace annual testing mandates with grade-span testing along with meaningful support for more effective assessment and accountability methods,

• allow parents to opt their children out of any standardized test,
• support and strengthen local public schools rather than set them up for closure and privatization,
• promote educationally-sound, healthy, child-centered programs including increased social services,
• support the recruitment and retention of experienced, professionally-trained teachers,
• promote thoughtful use of technology that protects children and family privacy and values teacher/student relationships, and
• provide meaningful opportunities for a strong parent role in school, district, and statewide education policy-making.

David Spring from our chapter PAA-Puget Sound wrote this excellent piece in response to a speech by Bill Gates.

David says, 

"Bill Gates gave a speech today in Bellevue about education. In this article, we review seven shocking mis-statements of facts given in his speech. We then

provide research on what would really benefit our kids and our public schools. Bill Gates may have a lot of money. But he knows next to nothing about either child development or public schools. Please share this important article with parents and teachers who care about the future of our public schools. Bill Gates should not be running our public schools!"