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Can you believe that McDonald's enlists teachers to sell junk food to their students? On "McTeacher's Nights" across the country, teachers "work" behind the counter selling burgers, fries, and soda to their students and their students' families. It's a marketing ploy disguised as a school fundraiser. Join PAA in calling for an end to this insulting and misguided program. Details below!
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Not Lovin' McTeachers' Nights! It's shameful that McDonald's is using the tragic underfunding of our public schools as a marketing opportunity. Teachers should never have to sacrifice their students' health in order to earn a few extra resources for their classrooms.
Recently, PAA joined with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and many other groups and individuals across the U.S. to call for an end to this insulting and misguided program. You can add your name and/or the name of your organization to the letter below, telling McDonald's CEO Easterbrook: No More McTeacher's Nights! Please also share the event on Facebook and join this week's Twitter campaign:
I urge you to end the exploitative practice of McTeacher's Nights.
As you know, on McTeacher's Nights, teachers "work" at a local McDonald's in hopes of raising much-needed funds for their schools. Parents and children are encouraged to eat at McDonald's so they can see "their very own educators serve up hamburgers, fries and shakes."
It is wrong to exploit teachers' authority and popularity to lure kids to McDonald's, where the core products are burgers, fries, and soda. McTeacher's Nights negate the good work of educators to create healthy food habits and environments in schools. Parents and students trust teachers to make decisions based on what's best for children. Using teachers to market anything to a captive audience of schoolchildren undermines that trust. But given the dire health consequences, promoting a fast food brand is especially unconscionable. Educators should not have to choose between school resources today and the health of their students tomorrow.
This is the moment for action. In your first year as CEO, it is finally time to end the abusive practice of using teachers and educational institutions to promote McDonald's to schoolchildren.
The health of current and future generations of children will benefit from your leadership on this issue.
Sincerely,
Parents Across America and others
Don't forget October 25th's
PAA Webinar....
....on the WA state Supreme Court ruling declaring charter school funding unconstitutional.
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.
Topic: How Washington State activists nixed charter schools Time: Sunday, Oct 25, 2015 5 pm ET, 2 pm PT
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
Details and instructions for joining the meeting here. |
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PAA President Dora Taylor to present at
Northwest Conference on Teaching for Social Justice this Saturday
There may still be time to register for this exciting and informative event!
There will be over 60 workshops on everything from teaching poetry for social justice to "Black Students' Lives Matter" to teaching for social justice in communities of privilege. There are also panels planned on the lessons of the Seattle educators' strike and building the opt out movement against standardized testing.
The keynote speaker, David Stovall, is a professor, teacher, and community activist living and working in Chicago, who will share stories from the important education justice struggles going on there.
Wayne Au, Jesse Hagopian and PAA President Dora Taylor will host a workshop titled: Testing, Charters, and Strikes, Oh My! : Resisting Corporate Education Reform in Seattle and Beyond.
A study in contrasts: Slavery, Hedge Funders, and "Education Reform Now"
Contrast Dora's NW Teaching for Social Justice event with another event this weekend sponsored by a group of hedge funders who call themselves "Education Reform Now."
Danielle Arnold-Schwartz, leader of PAA-Suburban Philadelphia, wrote a blog post about this corporate reform group's retreat, which features Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Danielle was especially inspired/incited by the group's calling teachers "human capital," a term that was used to describe the value of slaves.
She writes:
is a "think tank" that is trying to sell the public (and the legislators we elect) on ending public education in this country. They want to "open the market" in education and get as much of our tax dollars as possible into the hands of corporate CEO's. And to this end, they use the civil rights movement and the achievement gap in their own interests.
Danielle points out that none of the group's Board members has anything to do with education; in fact, all are hedge funders and other money manipulators.
PAA founding member Helen Gym stands for Nov. 3 Philly city council election
While PAA does not endorse or support any specific political candidates, we are watching with great interest the progress of our founding member, Helen Gym, in her race for a city council seat in Philadelphia.
Helen is the leader of PAA affiliate Parents United for Public Education, and has been running on a platform of support for the city's public schools. Helen's large grassroots support has taken the political powers-that-be by surprise. In the primary, voters showed they respect Helen's education and community activism over the past years and want her to bring these issues to City Council.
PAA encourages parents and others active in supporting our public schools to consider running for a school board position or other elected office. Helen is walking the walk, and we wish her good luck on November 3!
Class Size Matters co-sponsoring
NYC Parent Action Conference Nov. 7 On Saturday, November 7th, PAA affiliate Class Size Matters is co-sponsoring a Parent Action Conference at PS 133 in Brooklyn.
The event will feature workshops on developing action plans to address school overcrowding, rising class sizes, mayoral control, empowering parents and school leadership teams, opting out of testing, protecting student privacy, and many other critical issues.
Free lunch and child care are included.
CSM asks you to register at Eventbrite today to reserve your ticket or click here: http://bit.ly/1KIC487.
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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!
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If you have questions, comments, suggestions or stories to share, please e-mail us at info@parentsacrossamerica.org or visit www.parentsacrossamerica.org.
Looking for regular updates on key education stories? Join the PAA News List by e-mailing PAAnews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
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