On Monday, President Obama published an open letter to parents and teachers about testing. The letter introduced his administration’s new Testing Action Plan which is supposed to fix the problems of excessive testing. The plan defines a set of testing principles for states and school districts to follow to make for “fewer and smarter” tests. The President invited us to respond to this plan. We shared our response today (see below or download our letter here). We agree with Diane … →

Hi Folks- If you missed our Oct. 25 webinar on the Washington State Supreme Court ruling that charter school funding in the state is unconstitutional, you can watch the 45-minute video here and review the full slide show presentation here. Many thanks to panelists Dr. Wayne Au and the League of Women Voters – WA State’s Catherine Ahl for sharing their expertise with our audience. PAA President Dora Taylor moderated the meeting and shared lots of good information as well. … →

Join us on Sunday, October 25, to talk about the Washington State Supreme Court ruling declaring charter schools  unconstitutional! Parents Across America invites you to a webinar about the Washington state court case that declared state funding of charter schools unconstitutional in the state. 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 … →

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. McDonald’s is exploiting the hard-earned trust, respect, and popularity of teachers to sell junk food to kids and create brand loyalty. It’s shameful that McDonald’s is using the tragic underfunding of our public schools as … →

PAA-Roanoke Valley leader Laura Bowman shared this excellent model letter prepared by her PAA chapter for parents to bring to school at the beginning of the school year:   Dear_____________, Parents are concerned with the number of standardized tests their children take each year. In addition, parents believe the time spent preparing for the tests is excessive and they see the emotional fallout from the pressure from standardized testing on their children and on their children’s teachers. The expense of … →

Kimberly Brooks, leader of PAA chapter PAA-Atlanta Public Schools, wrote the following article challenging the district’s school uniform policy. Atlanta Public Schools Uniform Policies: What Can We Infer From Them? A few weeks ago I spent over a hundred dollars in attire for my two children to attend school – a public school. The school has a mandatory uniform policy for all students. This is a good policy, correct? As a parent uniformity looks more eloquent and prestigious, right? Well, … →

BOSTON PARENT GROUP QUESTIONS RENEWING BOSTON COMPACT AND PURSUING A UNIFIED LOTTERY FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 17th, 2015   Contacts: Mary Battenfeld, mbattenfeld@wheelock.edu, (857)719-3670 Megan Wolf, mwolf47@hotmail.com, (617)435-5011   Quality Education for Every Student (QUEST), a grassroots organization of Boston Public School parents with children who have attended over 30 Boston Public Schools, voiced concern about the Mayor’s plan to expand the Boston Compact agreement between charter, parochial, and Boston Public schools. QUEST has particular concerns with a proposal to … →

Thanks to conversations with Dr. Gary Thompson, a noted Utah child psychologist who has spoken out against the Common Core, we have learned that new federal regulations go into effect on September 21, 2015, barring states from using alternative assessments for special education students, with the exception of a very restricted number of students they label “severely cognitively impaired.” Dr. Thompson has shared his concerns about this change, which he says is based on “fraudulent and unethical use of psychology … →

(You can download a pdf version of this fax here.) PAA just sent the following via fax to every member of Congress: Parents call for an ESEA with less focus on testing and charter schools – more focus on poverty and parents’ priorities for our children Thank you, Congress, for moving on needed ESEA reforms!  PAA is pleased that Congress has recognized and moved to address some of the damage done by the No Child Left Behind Act. We thank … →

Parents Across America stands in solidarity with Chicago’s Dyett High School hunger strikers, parents fighting for high quality community schools for their children. Today is the 11th day of this courageous protest against the district’s plan to close their high school. For years, Dyett parents and community have been calling on the district and the city to pay better attention to their high school and its students, but instead Dyett suffered increasing disinvestment and marginalization, with faculty and programs cut … →