NYC Public School Parents: Video: NYC parent activists get a moment to challenge the corporate reform movement on Education Nation

NYC Public School Parents: Video: NYC parent activists get a moment to challenge the corporate reform movement on Education Nation:

Video: NYC parent activists get a moment to challenge the corporate reform movement on Education Nation

by Leonie Haimson

Last week, NBC ran three days of programming called Education Nation, filmed at Rockefeller Plaza, which was primarily dominated by representatives from the corporate reform movement, who define accountability as more high-stakes testing and promote privatization through charter school expansion, both trends that in the view of many public school parents undermine our public schools and offer simplistic solutions to complex problems.

Many of the panelists and speakers were from organizations funded by the program's sponsors, which included the Gates and Broad Foundations, and echoed their pro-testing and pro-privatization views. There was much talk about how we need "great principals" and "great teachers" and "great schools" with little realistic discussion of how we get there. One panelist, Ralph Smith of the Annie Casey Foundation, offered a contrary thought: that