PAA Week schedule August 14-17, 2017 PAA is offering a virtual leadership conference during the week of August 14, 2017. All are invited to participate on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, with Thursday’s session reserved for PAA member leaders only. Our goals for the week are: to promote a stronger parent voice in education decision making by presenting some of the results of our 2017 parent survey to encourage and support confident parent outreach to state and congressional legislators during PAA … →

“We’ve built a movement that will not only hold accountable people like U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos but will also lift up a vision of vibrant public schools and restore them to the center of our civic life.”  Helen Gym PAA founding member Helen Gym has had a remarkable year and a half since taking office as a city councilperson in Philadelphia. We receive regular emails with updates on Helen’s activities and accomplishments. This particular email from August 3 stood … →

Parents Across America-Roanoke Valley leader, Laura Bowman, spoke at a Virginia Board of Education Hearing in earlier this month. She shared parent concerns about student data privacy and standardizing and assessing children’s emotional quotients. She used some of the facts Rachael Stickland, co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, shared in her recent testimony before the US House Committee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education, found here https://www.studentprivacymatters.org/rachael-stickland-testifies-before-the-u-s-house-subcommittee-on-early-childhood-elementary-and-secondary-education/. Laura gave the Virginia Board of Education a copy of … →

Deb Mayer, a member of the PAA Board of Directors and leader of PAA-Oregon, was mentioned in Diane Ravitch’s blog a couple of weeks ago. Diane shared a link to Deb’s article about the vicious attack on a Portland school board member by Stand for Children, which had backed a losing candidate in a recent school board election. Looking for enough votes to push their corporate education agenda, SFC is using some slimy techniques and a bushel of Gates money … →

Parents, we care about what you think! Parents Across America National Parent Survey 2017 Real Parent Choice – Real Parent Voice   Some of our nation’s leaders claim to know what parents care about. They use the term “parental choice” to promote privatization of our public school system through charter schools and vouchers. Their agenda depends on the idea that parents want to shop around for a school the way we do for a cell phone provider. We do not … →

We mentioned many different issues on our Summer 2017 national parent survey. Here are links to PAA resources that address some of these issues.   EdTech: Documentation paper on the risks of misuse and overuse of digital technology “Our Children @ Risk: PAA Challenges EdTech” PAA opposes federal and state initiatives that undermine student data privacy Please also see “Parents Toolkit for Student Privacy”   Test Stress: Parents Stand up Against Test Stress (July 2015 rev. Feb 2016) Fact Sheet: … →

Thank you for participating in our parent survey! We invite you to join our newsletter mailing list and sign up for our contest drawing! To sign up for the newsletter, please fill out the information here. Enter the contest drawing by completing the survey. At the end of the survey is a space to include your name and mailing address, which is optional but will enter you into the contest. Prizes include the following books signed personally by the authors: … →

US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was recently in Salt Lake City speaking at a $3000 per person event. Here’s a highlight of her speech, which clearly indicates DeVos’s limited understanding of the value and role of public education: “The simple fact is that if a school is not meeting a child’s unique needs, then that school is failing that child. Think of it like your cell phone. AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile may all have great networks, but if you can’t … →

For some time now, PAA has been raising red flags about the rapidly expanding use of education technology (EdTech) in our schools. Last summer we published a series of fact sheets and a 35-page documentation paper detailing some of the many concerns we have about EdTech. Since then, we have urged parents to ask questions at your local schools and supported legislative and other efforts to require more transparency and accountability from EdTech programs and businesses. PAA’s concerns are multi-faceted. … →

We are so pleased that a committee of the Maryland state legislature is considering a bill to establish health and safety guidelines for the use of digital devices in schools. This is a great model for other states. We suggest that you contact your state legislators (and you could also try local city officials) asking them to introduce a similar bill. Here’s a sample email: Dear (legislator) We would like to request that you consider sponsoring a bill in this … →