Reform: The Problem With "Parents Across America"
There's a small but very active group called Parents Across America that's been around the last year and change, usually criticizing reform measures like turnarounds, value-added, and the parent trigger.
Their criticisms are all fine and good -- I have my own issues with many reform priorities. But I do have at least one big issues with them. (Or really two, but they're closely related.)
No, it's not the issue of whether they've received any money from the teachers unions. [They have, apparently, but I don't care.] No, it's not that PAA is a private subsidiary of Leonie Haimsen's Class Size Matters. [Nonprofit doesn't mean corporate or capitalist in my book.] No, it's not even increasingly ridiculous claims that PAA makes about reformers and those like me who raise questions about their allegations. [Though I have to admit the paranoia and name-calling are really annoying.]
It's actually a problem that PAA shares with its sworn opponents, the school reform community. Like many reform group leaders, PAA is mostly not from the low-income minority communities or the dysfunctional schools that are the the focus of so much reform attention, and it's not at all clear that
Their criticisms are all fine and good -- I have my own issues with many reform priorities. But I do have at least one big issues with them. (Or really two, but they're closely related.)
No, it's not the issue of whether they've received any money from the teachers unions. [They have, apparently, but I don't care.] No, it's not that PAA is a private subsidiary of Leonie Haimsen's Class Size Matters. [Nonprofit doesn't mean corporate or capitalist in my book.] No, it's not even increasingly ridiculous claims that PAA makes about reformers and those like me who raise questions about their allegations. [Though I have to admit the paranoia and name-calling are really annoying.]
It's actually a problem that PAA shares with its sworn opponents, the school reform community. Like many reform group leaders, PAA is mostly not from the low-income minority communities or the dysfunctional schools that are the the focus of so much reform attention, and it's not at all clear that