Videos from PAA Week | Parents Across America #FightForDyett

Videos from PAA Week | Parents Across America:

Videos from PAA Week 

PAA Week Day 6: Test Stress and our Children (7-24-15)

• PAA’s Laura Bowman and Julie Woestehoff talk about PAA’s extensive research into the negative effects of the misuse and overuse of standardized tests on our children, and how PAA thinks we should do instead. .

PAA Week Day 5: Local Heroes, Walking the Walk (7-23-15)

• Campaign and public service stories from PAA founding members Natalie Beyer, Sue Peters, and Helen Gym.

PAA Week Day 4: Lobbying Congress (7-22-15)

• PAA’s Pamela Grundy and Julie Woestehoff walk you through the halls of Congress and how to be an effective advocate for public schools and our children.

PAA Week Day 3: The Impact of Race, Poverty and Cultural Bias on Educational Opportunity: Next steps (7-21-15)

• PAA’s Nate Harris, Khem Irby, Deb Mayer, and Julie Woestehoff expand on our program focus with ideas for addressing the opportunity and resource gap.

PAA Week Day 2: Messaging with FairTest’s Bob Schaeffer  (7-20-15)

• Join in this informative discussion with Bob Schaeffer, FairTest’s Communications Director, who shares his tips and wisdom for better ways to get our message across.

- See more at: http://parentsacrossamerica.org/videos-paa-week/#sthash.HZlVEsJo.dpuf



PAA supports Dyett hunger strikers

Parents Across America stands in solidarity with Chicago’s Dyett High School hunger strikers, parents fighting for high quality community schools for their children. Today is the 11th day of this courageous protest against the district’s plan to close their high school.

For years, Dyett parents and community have been calling on the district and the city to pay better attention to their high school and its students, but instead Dyett suffered increasing disinvestment and marginalization, with faculty and programs cut to the bone. Students had to take classes like art and gym online, despite the fact that the school recently won a gorgeous new gymnasium in a contest sponsored by ESPN.

Dyett parents and community members haven’t simply protested. They have spent months developing a strong, community-supported proposal to transition the school into a open-enrollment global leadership and green technology neighborhood high school. Meanwhile the district has been soliciting proposals from private companies to take over the school.

PAA supports the vision and the choice of the Dyett hunger strikers for a school governed by the community, with a strong parent voice. PAA believes that quality schools are community-centered, provide services and activities that benefit students and their families, and grow in response to the expertise, experiences and relationships of members of the school community.

It’s time for school and political leaders to listen to parents.

- See more at: http://parentsacrossamerica.org/paa-supports-dyett-hunger-strikers/#sthash.64x18QIH.dpuf