Volume 1, Issue: #8 
May 16, 2013
Inside this Edition
Note from Phyllis
Chicago's Three Day March
Fighting Ed Reform for Dummies
T-Shirts Now For Sale
Chicago Prepares for Three Day Long March!
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Greetings!
Welcome to the eighth edition of our newsletter. We bring you news from Chicago, where teachers, parents and students are preparing for a historic march to protest the devastation of neighborhood schools. NPE Board member Phyllis Bush reminds us why our children need us to change the narrative guiding school reform. And the Crazy Crawfish, in his wry style, shares some advice on fighting corporate reform.

Thanks for all you are doing out there! The Network for Public Education is your support network, your learning network, and your organizing network.If you haven't joined yet, you can do so here.

Note from Phyllis
Teacher Appreciation Week Brings Mixed Messages

 

Our note of the week today comes from Phyllis Bush, who serves on the NPE's Board of Directors, and is one of the founders of the North East Indiane Friends of Public Education.. 

These past few months have been a head spinning cluster of mixed messages about the state of public education.  If we were to listen to all of the Teacher Appreciation Week rhetoric, we would naturally assume that we honor and value teachers, despite undercutting them at every turn.

Added into this hot mess of mixed messages is the slap in the face to public school teachers by President Obama, who chose to celebrate National Charter Schools Week during Teacher Appreciation Week.  In yet another smack down for public education, Indiana Governor Mike Pence chose to sign voucher expansion into law at Calvary Christian School.  If we were to listen to our Indiana state legislators, we would see that schools and teachers are failing and that the only thing that will save our children is to defund public schools and to have those tax dollars follow the child to a parochial school.

Despite all of these mixed messages and despite the fact the our state legislature  cannot get beyond their own talking to points to listen to facts and passed the largest voucher expansion in these United States. Those of us in Indiana may have lost the battle in this legislative session, but we are more determined than ever to fight back in whatever way we can.  Since Plan A didn't work, we are now working on Plan B.So far, Plan B consists of trying to inform business people who have not been involved. We plan to take our information to  Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis, and any service group we can find.  We are planning to create graphics to illustrate the abuse and misuse of our tax dollars.  We are planning to search for both local and state candidates who support public education.  We are planning to write op-ed pieces for our newspapers.   We are going to channel Norma Rae, to tell our stories, and to let people know that public education is a public value.

 Even though we are fighting mad and ready to take prisoners, art teacher, Jenny Sanders, put why what we are doing is so important when she wrote this:

 

"Our Kindergarten kids have LITTLE time for 'spontaneous' play although of course, we do have some 'prescriptive' play - which simply means we sort of PLAN their play. Still, now and then we REALLY get to have opportunities to watch, listen, and value the kids' thoughts and words. Yesterday one little guy used lots of odds and ends of scrap wood (few definitive squares or rectangles) to construct just a wonderful 'surround' for some jungle animals. It had complex bridge structures, small and large 'rooms' and was simply breathtaking in the way he had used the pieces for his purpose. Another little guy came up with a giraffe, gently placed him in the center of one of the rooms and said to him, 'You have made a place of joy for this giraffe!' You simply cannot quantify that experience - for the boys, or for the adults that witnessed that life and goodness-affirming moment."

 

After reading this anecdote, it seems important that we change the narrative to stress that education should be about learning, creativity, discovery, and joy.  Teachers need to tell their stories from their classrooms and from their hearts.   We all need to come together  to change the narrative from those things that are being measured to those more important things which cannot be measured.

While only one week per year is designated as Teacher Appreciation week where teachers are honored and given an extra donut,  here is our message that is neither mixed nor misinformed:  we value and honor teachers every day.

Chicago Prepares for a Three Day Long March
by Michelle Strater Gunderson


We are preparing ourselves mentally and physically for a long march in Chicago this weekend. It is a time to center ourselves, steel our resolve, and ask why we march.

Our long march takes place May 18 through the 20th walking from the west and south sides passing Chicago Public Schools that are slated to close. The Board of Education is considering closing 54 schools and "turning around" 6 others - an unprecedented action in size and scope in our nation. These actions would affect more than 38,000 students - their families, their neighborhoods, and the fabric of our city.

The three day march is in the tradition of long marches from the civil rights movement. Just like the walk from Birmingham to Selma, Chicagoans refuse to accept injustice. We refuse to believe closing our neighborhood schools serves any good. We will walk, hand in hand, singing, praying, deliberating and building our strength.

We also refuse to accept the reasons our mayor gives us for closing schools. We've been told that it is to save money. Yet, our local radio station revealed research that the savings are far lower than CPS projected. We've been told it's to allocate resources. Yet, some of the schools that are closing have libraries, computer labs, and playgrounds - things many of our schools lack. We've been told that the closings are not about test scores. Yet, school performance is continuously part of the conversation. And finally, we've been told school closings are not about class and race. Looking at the map of Chicago and which schools are being closed proves this statement a lie.

Barbara Byrd-Bennett, our schools' chief, says our schools are underutilized, and we agree with her. We have not utilized them to fulfill their promise. We have not utilized them as cornerstones for our devastated communities. And we have not utilized our schools in service of children.

Why do we march? Because we hold a different vision for our schools than our mayor and Board of Education. We refuse to accept the extreme poverty and violence that our city's children endure every day. We have a vision of our schools as places of healing and peace for our children.

In the early evening of May 20th both west and south side marches will convene at Chicago's city hall for a rally. We will have marched because we cannot sit still.


Fighting a Corporate Ed Reform Takeover for Dummies 
By Jason France -- AKA "the Crazy Crawfish" Breaks it Down

Has your community been invaded by corporate education reformers, or "deformers" as they are more accurately called?  Deformers are an invasive and highly destructive species, but with the proper treatment methods they can be controlled and largely eliminated.  It will take no small amount of commitment on your part. 
Deformers can't stand light, so you will want to shine as much light on their doings, and keep that light focused on them.  The mainstream media adores deformers so you will need to create your own media and light source for this effort.  They will also try to control the local media when they set up shop, providing pithy press releases and misleading reports on a regular basis backing up their agenda.  "Deforminators" like you will need to be on-call, ready to challenge these reports as often as the other side produces them. 
Read more about how parents, teachers and activists in Louisiana have been fighting the corporate reform takeover-and how you can too.
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