Peggy Robertson of United Opt Out Responds to the New York Times’ Article
This comment was posted on the blog by Peggy Robertson, founder of United Opt Out, in response to the New York Times’ article implying that the Opt Out movement is led by the teachers’ unions.
Peggy Robertson writes:
Opt out is led by parents, teachers, students and citizens. When United Opt Out National began over four years ago we were simply a facebook page with a file for each state. Within hours our FB group page was flooded with opt out requests and now we have opt out leaders all over the country and grassroots opt out groups popping up everywhere. I think Florida has 25 at this point – probably more since I last checked – and mind you they did this all on their own. UOO has simply been a catalyst and a support. What is even more fascinating, and sad, is that UOO has reached out to the unions many times, and never received a response. You will notice that United Opt Out National is rarely mentioned in recent articles. I think that’s because we represent the people. The power of the people. UOO has no funding (heck I paid for our website for the first two years pretty much on my own). When our website was destroyed last year guess who helped UOO fund/rebuild it? The people. No corporations. No unions. The people – the citizens of this country – for free – and with truth and heart – have helped us to create fifty state opt out guides. The citizens have helped us to continually update and alert folks to opt out situations across the country. The people have helped us create essential guides, opt out letters, and social media campaigns. The fact that this is happening by the people, for the people, with no funding, is true democracy and is a dangerous thing. Folks would much prefer that we are sheeple and that we are incapable of strategically planning a nationwide opt out movement. Guess what? We did it. All of us. That makes us dangerous. That makes the media/corporations want to co-opt and shut down our work. A mass movement of civil disobedience that is running through our country like a tidal wave in an attempt to save our democracy is indeed a powerful force that no corporation can shut down. Let’s keep pushing forward. Solidarity to all of you.Peggy Robertson of United Opt Out Responds to the New York Times’ Article | Diane Ravitch's blog:
Summary of United Opt Out
Just for the record (a lot more people read your record than mine).
United Opt Out formed after the 2011 SOS rally when Peggy Robertson, Ceresta Smith, Laurie Murphy, Morna, McDermott, Shaun Johnson and I met each other during the conference part at American Univ. Although Laurie Murphy and Shaun Johnson are no longer active in the group (new administrators are Rosemarie Jensen, Denisha Jones, Ruth Rodriguez and Michael Pena) we still remain simply a rag tag group of misfits with nothing more than a Facebook page and a website.
We meet every Monday on the free Go To Meeting service and all costs have always come directly from our own pockets. We have never taken money from either union at the national, state and local levels.
With teleconferencing, social media, and a webpage we have organized and pulled off two Occupy the DOEs, two United Opt Out action planning conferences and grown our membership to over 19,000 members (That's not counting all the state affiliates).
I'm not sure how much more grassroots an organization can be.