PAA Position Paper Parents Stand Up against Test Stress Updated January 2016 Across our nation, children of all ages are showing a jump in test anxiety. As high-stakes standardized tests have multiplied, growing percentages of students have begun to report test-related stress. More are seeking test-stress counseling. Media reports of psychological and physiological symptoms tied to testing have increased. Some students are able to manage the pressures of high-stakes testing. Others are overwhelmed. Parents, teachers, administrators, and mental health professionals … →

Contacts: Julie Woestehoff, Interim Executive Director, Parents Across America, 773-715-3989 Laura Bowman, leader of PAA-Roanoke Valley (VA), 540-819-6385 Danielle Arnold-Schwartz, leader of PAA- Suburban Philadelphia (PA), 215-498-2549 March 8, 2016: Today, Parents Across America announces the endorsement of its position paper, “Parents Stand up Against Test Stress,” by such prominent educators as Alfie Kohn, Jonathan Kozol, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige (list here). PAA has also contacted the National Institutes of Health and the American Academy of Pediatrics asking that they investigate … →

Now that ESEA has become the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, new rules must be drafted to implement the law. The US Department of Education recently requested nominations for people representing various constituencies to help negotiate these rules. Thirty-one groups came together to nominate PAA’s Julie Woestehoff to represent parents and students. You can read a copy of the nomination letter here. This kind of position often goes almost automatically to the National PTA. PAA and other groups have … →

PAA Book Club For some time, PAA has been having our own discussions about poverty, race and educational opportunity. We’ve gathered a lot of very important facts and research, created some useful materials, and shared them in webinars and workshops. We’d like more people to join us in this important conversation, and we thought that an online book club would be a good way to do that. Much of the information we’ve been collecting has come from Dr. P. L. … →

The following was shared with us by our newest chapter, PAA-Marin (CA): 18 months into a highly contentious local battle over the conversion of a “district-wide program of choice” into a charter school, which included two unanimous denials by the local school board, and a unanimous denial by our county office of education, the Ross Valley Charter was approved by the CA State Board of Education. During its twenty year history, the district program had received many critiques, perhaps the … →

PAA cannot and does not endorse any candidate, but we are committed to educating parents and the general public about where the candidates and parties stand on education issues. The information in the following table was retrieved on Feb. 10, 2016 from www.ontheissues.org/education and www.ballotpedia.org, on Feb. 15, 2016 from the candidates’ web sites, and from media reports. We have focused on the two remaining Democratic candidates and the top 6 Republican nominees based on today’s national polling. Download a … →

We so used to hearing about the education-related report cards the corporate reform world is always giving out. Achieve just released its state-by-state “honesty gap” report comparing state test scores with NAEP national test scores. ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, gives the best report card grades to states that privatize schools, test students often, and fire a lot of teachers. These reports are simply not helpful, serving only to promote the anti-public education political agenda. Fortunately, the Network for … →

PAA Policy Brief: End Test-based Teacher Evaluation Parents call for states to take back control of teacher evaluation, end misuse of test scores The Every Student Succeeds Act, which became law in December, has given states new control over education policy. Parents across the nation call on state policy-makers to use their restored authority to rein in the high-stakes standardized testing that plagues American education. Washington still requires annual reading and math tests in grades 3-8, science tests in grades … →

PAA has collected a set of fact sheets that vividly demonstrate the impact of poverty, race and cultural bias on educational opportunity. What these facts show is that: There is no “level playing field.” Corporate reformers and many elected officials have us fighting the wrong war – a war against public education — rather than addressing the real problems of poverty and racism. ESEA/ESSA has taken us down the wrong road There are programs and approaches supported by parents that … →

The wrong war The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (aka No Child Left Behind or NCLB) was designed as an integral part of the War on Poverty. The law has warped into a tool to undermine and privatize public education and do away with teachers unions. This “war on public schools,” meanwhile, has failed to significantly raise student achievement or narrow achievement gaps. In fact, students made greater gains prior to NCLB. It remains to be seen if the newly- … →