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- … →

Several PAA leaders have been stepping up to the plate of public service lately, and we are SO proud! PAA founding member Helen Gym has already taken office as councilwoman-at-large in Philadelphia. Helen ran on a platform of support for well-funded, democratically-run public schools. Can’t wait to see what she does! Former PAA Board of Directors member Dawn Collins is running for school board in East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with this platform: I support the expansion of sensible, research-based reforms … →

Laura Bowman, leader of PAA-Roanoke Valley in Virginia, recently published an excellent essay in the Roanoke Times which was picked up by other news organizations, and resulted in an invitation from the Fairfax Education Association to testify with them at the General Assembly and participate in a press conference. Laura wrote, There is a reason for the proliferation of charter schools in this country, and it has little to do with the education and well-being of children, and much to … →

From John Harris Loflin, a leader of PAA Indianapolis affiliate Parent Power: Like PAA members and supporters, the B&LPI and Parent Power in Indianapolis know the importance of viable and authentic parent-teacher relationships to school success. This is why we are working with the IUPUI School of Education to bring in Dr. Edward Olivos. He has a unique way of looking at teacher-parent relationships and participation the community must consider. The Black & Latino Policy Institute (www.bl-pi.org) will present a … →

The news was so bad last week for privatizers and the testing industry that we had to make sure our representatives in Congress didn’t miss any of it as they move to finalize ESEA. Thanks to Jeff Bryant of the Educational Opportunity Network for pulling these news items all together in one place for us. We sent the following fax out to the full Congress. You can cut and paste it from here or download a pdf here to share … →