On July 7, the Senate will begin to consider and move to a vote on a new Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to replace the No Child Left Behind Act. Over the past few months, PAA has been reviewing both the House and Senate proposals as they evolve. Our analysis of the House version, HR 5, the “Student Success Act,” is here; HR 5 passed out of the House education committee last February and is waiting for House action. … →

Journey for Justice and the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools has written a letter on civil rights, testing and school reform, which Parents Across America has endorsed. The letter addresses the position of a few traditional civil rights groups to maintain the federal annual testing mandate, claiming that such tests are needed to assure equity. The J4J letter responds to that claim by citing the ever-growing number of standardized tests being given to children: We are not opposed to state … →

Today, PAA sent the following letter to the office of Representative Tom Reed (R-NY), endorsing his opt-out bill, which is also sponsored by Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Chris Gibson (R-NY): June 16, 2015 Dear Representative Reed: Parents Across America is pleased to endorse H. 2382, the Enable More Parents to Opt-Out Without Endangering Resources Act. PAA is a non-partisan, non-profit grassroots organization that connects parents of all backgrounds across the United States to share ideas and work together to … →

PAA just faxed this letter to all 100 U.S. Senators: Parent Voices Education Fax May 7, 2015 Please co-sponsor S.1025 to return to sensible, limited use of standardized tests   Why are parents opting out of testing in record numbers? There is a growing movement of parents and students across the U.S. opting out of standardized tests. This phenomenon is taking place because parents, students, teachers, and other educators believe that the misuse and overuse of tests has reached a … →

Many thanks to Kyle Serrette and the Center for Popular Democracy for joining with PAA in last night’s webinar, Holding Charter Schools Accountable, which presented so much important information about charter school waste and mismanagement of millions of dollars every year. Lawmakers ignore this growing scandal as they continue to push for rapid charter school expansion. Parents need to learn the facts about charter school waste, confront our representatives, and push for common-sense reforms. If you missed the event last … →

May 4, 2015    For Immediate Release Contacts: Dora Taylor, President, Parents Across America, and founder, PAA-Seattle: 206-290-3400 Julie Woestehoff, PAA Interim Executive Director: 307-789-0485  Parents Across America opposes Common Core, PARCC and SBAC Parents call for an immediate moratorium on CCSS/PARCC/SBAC After extensive research and discussion with our membership, Parents Across America (PAA) has taken a position against the Common Core State Standards and the related tests, called the PARCC and SBAC. PAA calls for an immediate moratorium on implementation … →

Join PAA’s Dora Taylor and Steve Norton with Kyle Serrette of the Center for Popular Democracy in our May 5 webinar on charter school accountability Did you know that President Obama has asked for an extra $120 million for charter schools in his FY16 budget? The increase would bring the total amount of federal funds for charter schools to $375 million, a 48 percent increase over last year. Overall, Congress has spent $3,352,841,281 to create and expand charter schools. Yet … →

On Sunday, April 26, 2015, PAA presented a comprehensive workshop on “The Impact of Poverty, Race and Cultural Bias on Educational Opportunity” at the Network for Public Education conference. In addition to our power point presentation, we shared printed materials with many of the key points, charts and data from the presentation. These materials may be used freely – we just ask that you leave PAA’s name on them. We want to thank Dr. Paul Thomas for bringing most of … →

The Testing Resistance and Reform Spring Alliance, of which PAA is a member, is calling for a day of action for ESEA and testing next Wednesday, April 8. On that day we are asking you to call your Senators and, if you tweet, send out and retweet others’ Twitter messages using the hashtag #CutFedTests. Why should you speak up about ESEA? Reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA- formerly No Child Left Behind or NCLB) is moving … →