Monday, April 8, 2013

Ed Notes Online: Leonie Haimson Offers Parents Real Choice: Low class size, rich non-test driven curriculum

Ed Notes Online: Leonie Haimson Offers Parents Real Choice: Low class size, rich non-test driven curriculum:


Leonie Haimson Offers Parents Real Choice: Low class size, rich non-test driven curriculum

There is no little irony in the Daily News assault on Leonie Haimson for sending her son to a private school while supposedly denying choice to other parents without that option open to them.

Leonie has been such a thorn in the side of the deformers, they must disparage her work. How interesting that they chose one of their funding darlings, Gotham Schools and writer Geoff Decker, to do the initial dirty work. And of course their rise and shine linked to the DN piece today. Ka-ching.

Leonie advocates for all parents to have the choice of low class size, a rich curriculum not driven by standardized tests for kids (in the womb), parent and teacher involvement and other real reforms. You know, the kinds of schools leading ed deformers like Gates, Bloomberg, Arne Duncan and others send their kids to but deny that option to the 99%.

A Daily News opinion piece, Don't let the classroom door hit you on the way out, brands Leonie as an advocate "for the bogus cure-all of hiring thousands of additional teachers to reduce class sizes."

The Daily News supports not giving parents choice but removing their choices. Their choices of whether to have 

Saturday, 4/13: MORE GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING, Sunday, Julie and Jesse at Earth School

An exciting MORE weekend with a monthly meeting on Saturday and a forum on testing resistance on Sunday with Julie Cavanagh and Seattle test boycott leader Jesse Hagopian. MORE doesn't just "call" for things, it makes things happen.

Find out what all the excitement is about. You won't see any other caucus make a public announcement and open invitations to their meetings. MORE might even tackle an initial discussion about mayoral candidates but in an open and democratic manner. Organizationally, things are still somewhat fuzzy in MORE and people showing up for the first time, even non-members feel welcome to join in the discussions. 

Phone banking for the election will also take place.

With the elections coming to a close, it is also time for MORE to get down to the work of organizing internally and externally. In the past elections the post-election energy drop was noticeable. In fact people sort of just stopped for the rest of the year and then the next Sept it was back to where we were if not behind based on