Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education
The idea that teachers have the summer off is something of a myth. I recently spent a few days with several thousand teachers — not at the beach, but at TEACH, the AFT’s largest gathering of educators focused on their professional practice and growth. Teachers spent long days learning from fellow educators and other experts about concrete ways to improve teaching and learning. Many teachers told me how they were spending the rest of their summer: writing curriculum aligned to the new, challenging Common Core State Standards; taking classes, because teachers are lifelong learners; and working with students — in enrichment camps and in programs to stem summer learning loss. So much for the dog days of August.
But our conferees did much more. We also committed to reclaim the promise — the promise of public education. Not as it is today or as it was in the past, but as what public