Thursday, May 6, 2010

The Perimeter Primate: Put the parent voice back in public education now!

The Perimeter Primate: Put the parent voice back in public education now!

Put the parent voice back in public education now!

Parents Across America: Join us in sending a message to President Obama and the Congress by signing on here; also please join our Facebook page and leave a comment.
Today, eighteen parent activists from across the nation sent a letter to Obama and the Congress, opposing his administration's wrong-headed, pro-privatization version of education reform, and calling for new priorities for our public schools, including more parent involvement and smaller classes.
As we wrote, "So far, the parent voice has been missing from the debate over education and is entirely absent from the top-down and often draconian proposals being put forward by the administration. We strongly believe that the Blueprint’s proposals would undermine rather than strengthen our public school system, particularly in the urban districts whose parents we represent. "
Read the full letter here, and the press release here. We also point out that Blueprint’s proposals represent large-scale experiments on our kids, and yet lack informed parental consent -- which would never be allowed in the field of medicine.
Incredibly, the only mention of the word "parents" in Duncan's entire "Blueprint" for the reauthorization of ESEA