BATs Legislative Briefing on Education and Equity
**This document was originally titled White House Conference on Education and Equity. It has since been changed. Betsy DeVos has also been added as someone we will not invite to our legislative briefing on education and equity. BATs involvement with the #WeChoose national coalition has also been added to this document. **
The Badass Teachers Association, representing a network of over 200,000 teachers and education activists throughout the United States, formally request a Legislative Briefing on Education and Equity.
Our organization stands firmly against the serious harm being perpetrated to public education by both corporate privatization and right wing fiscal starvation policies. The current political rhetoric strengthens our resolve to reclaim the rights of all children to a free public education.
We focus on the many reasons poverty is claiming the lives and health of our children, and we focus on keeping our K-12 schools from privatization and the target of under-funding.
Our organization proposes that a Legislative Briefing be initiated. Like much of the American landscape, Public K-12 Education requires infrastructure overhaul that have been installed to insert barriers that inhibit authentic learning. We do not accept the mendacity that racial and ethnic minorities must fail due to a manufactured system that sets them up to do so.
Our organization proposes that a Legislative Briefing be initiated. Like much of the American landscape, Public K-12 Education requires infrastructure overhaul that have been installed to insert barriers that inhibit authentic learning. We do not accept the mendacity that racial and ethnic minorities must fail due to a manufactured system that sets them up to do so.
We witness what happens when social justice safeguards are removed by forces that hide inside school choice and free market de-regulation. Public school teachers are this country’s first responders against the effects of poverty.
School privatization profits from systemic racism and use their profits to build higher barriers and deeper inequities. Testing monopolies and “business” style management practices now glean millions exploiting our children and disregard our students with special needs and English Language Learners. These efforts must not go unchecked.
Some of these barriers we’ve revealed as part of the Reform/privatization agenda include:
Some of these barriers we’ve revealed as part of the Reform/privatization agenda include:
Monopoly control over ill-suited testing; over-testing;denied access to special needs and ELL services;deterioration of facilities that threaten teacher and student health; targeting teachers for speaking out about inequity;placement of the unqualified and inexperienced TFA personnel into districts;school closings/turnovers/receiverships in districts with high minority enrollment for the purpose of gentrification; funds digressed from public education into charter programs with no accountability; ‘test and punish’ replacing humane classroom management practices we believe is child abuse and feeds the school to prison pipeline; monopoly control over our state licensing, certification and professional development; teacher bullying; micromanagement of teacher Badass Teachers Association:
