Latest News and Comment from Education

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

A One-Sided Dialogue: Teacher Frustration Leads to Protest - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

A One-Sided Dialogue: Teacher Frustration Leads to Protest - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

A One-Sided Dialogue: Teacher Frustration Leads to Protest

We are just over a month from the Save Our Schools March on Washington, DC, and I have been asked how we got to this place, where we are motivated to protest. So here, with links to relevant posts from this blog, is the story, from my perspective as one frustrated teacher.

In September of 2008, I posted blogs about the education platforms of candidates McCain and Obama.

I did not endorse Obama publicly on my blog, but I organized a fundraiser of educators, and knocked on doors in my neighborhood with campaign literature.

A year after the election, in November of 2009, I had grown very dissatisfied with the direction the Department of Education had taken. Race to the Top doubled down on many of the worst aspects of No Child Left Behind, demanding that states increase stakes attached to standardized tests in order to qualify for funding. I posted anOpen Letter to President Obama, and created a Facebook group called Teachers' Letters to Obama, to collect