This power point presentation was shared at the 2017 Network for Public Education conference in Oakland CA. The panel was put together by FairTest, with Monty Neill moderating and presenting. Also on the panel were Julie Woestehoff, PAA interim executive director, Dr. Jaime Colly, University of San Francisco School of Education and Grand Canyon University, and Andrea Gabor, author of After the Education Wars: How Smart Schools Upend the Business of Reform. You can also view Julie’s presentation here: Chicago … →

The following slide presentation was made on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2017, at the Network for Public Education conference in Oakland, CA: Real parent choice – real parent voice: How Parents Across America connects the dots – and parents — to fight corporate reform While public school parents/families bear the brunt of corporate education reform, our voices are too often drowned out by well-funded astroturf groups and politicians’ pandering to their donors’ pet causes. This session will demonstrate how Parents Across … →

It’s another amazing teachable moment, and this time the teachers are some of our children’s biggest heroes. Scores of NFL players and team owners have been protesting police brutality and racial inequality during the playing of the national anthem at the start of recent football games. Controversy has flared. But no amount of heated rhetoric about patriotism or respect can cover up the truth about racism and inequity in America. PAA has been working on this issue for the past … →

The Network for Public Education is the nation’s foremost public school advocacy group. NPE connects all those who are passionate about our schools – students, parents, teachers and citizens – to preserve, promote, improve and strengthen public schools for both current and future generations of students. The annual NPE conference is a time when advocates get together to share ideas, challenges and successes. It’s a great time to meet face to face with people you know so well online (Diane … →

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made a short stealth tour of a handful of states this week with a demand that we all “rethink schools.” She gave Wyoming school officials less than a day to prepare for her visit, but 30 activists were motivated enough to turn out to protest her bad ideas. PAA’s interim executive director Julie Woestehoff, who lives in Wyoming (though on the other side of the state where DeVos visited), sent this letter to the main state-wide … →

Please read and share this message from PAA Board member Steven Norton, executive director of Michigan Parents for Schools, who wrote… t I wanted to make sure parent activists from all over saw this article: “Michigan Gambled on Charter Schools. Its Children Lost.” New York Times Magazine https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/magazine/michigan-gambled-on-charter-schools-its-children-lost.html To understand what Betsy DeVos brings with her to Washington, you need to understand the fight we’ve been having in Michigan over school “choice” developed explicitly to cause local public schools to … →

It’s been three or four years since a huge wave of mass school closings swept across the urban areas of the United States, and the results are pretty conclusive: the school closings did not improve academic outcomes for students, did not save significant amounts of money, probably caused mental and emotional harm to many children, disrupted neighborhoods, and may be a major factor in the rise in violence in Chicago and elsewhere. And yet school districts like Indianapolis are still … →

PAA sent the following fax to all US Senators and Representatives today:   Parent Voices Education Fax September 6, 2017 “Real Parent Voice – Real Parent Choice” Results of Parents Across America’s National Parent Survey 2017 Dear Senator/Representative, Welcome back! As your fall session begins and the new school year is underway across the U.S., Parents Across America wanted to share with you a summary of the results of our first national parent survey, “Real Parent Voice – Real Parent … →

We had a great teleconference earlier today with the amazing Helen Gym, a founding member of PAA who is now serving as a Philadelphia City Councilperson. You can listen to the full audio recording here. We also heard inspiring, challenging stories from new PAA Board members Zerlina Smith and Laura Bowman, and a some pretty chilling background on Betsy DeVos from Steve Norton, another PAA Board member whose role as an advocate in Michigan has given him a front-row seat … →