Teachers march on Washington

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Washington Post

Teachers march on Washington
By Michael Alison Chandler and Sarah Khan, Saturday, July 30, 6:06 PM

There are many reasons thousands of teachers traveled across the country to protest in front of the White House on Saturday — including to oppose charter schools, to fight for equal funding for poor schools, and to have more say in public education policies.

~snip~
The assembled teachers, education advocates and parents vented a frustration they said has been building since the passage of the No Child Left Behind law in 2002, which made standardized testing the centerpiece of a school reform agenda championed by George W. Bush.

With the election of Barack Obama in 2008, many thought their long-standing complaints, about how the policy has imposed unfair penalties on the poorest schools and how it has narrowed curriculum to make time for test preparation, would finally be heard.

But three years later, the law is still intact, more schools are being labeled as failing, and standardized tests are starting to be used to make teacher tenure and termination decisions.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/teachers-march-on-washington/2011/07/30/gIQAz48zjI_story.html

[badhair77]

1. thanks for the link

wish I could have been there

I saw no coverage of the march on TV. Too many tea party representatives being interviewed. Grrr . . .

[MichiganVote]

2. K&R

[Michigan-Arizona]

3. K&R n/t

[femmocrat]

4. K&R

Thanks for the link.

[Snoutport]

10. +1

[Jefferson23]

5. Good luck and I mean that sincerely. K&R n/t

[YvonneCa]

6. Thank you for posting this. I've been wondering if any...

...media were there reporting on the SOS March. (Thought they were all busy covering debt ceiling. They seem to have trouble walking and gum chewing these days. ) :)

[Riley18]

7. Thanks for the link. Wish I could have been there.

[alp227]

8. CNN reported that MATT DAMON was there

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/30/us.teachers.sos.march/index.html

Damon, whose mother is an educator, said he achieved his successes in large part because teachers at the public schools he attended were not forced to focus on "silly test prep" and instead could work to educate.

"As I look at my life today, the things that I value about myself, my imagination, my love of acting, my passion for writing, my love of learning, my curiosity, came from the way that I was parented and taught," Damon told the teachers.

I just watched The Adjustment Bureau last week, it stars Damon and was a great scifi/thriller film.

[sabrina 1]

9. Good for him.

Wish I could have been there also.

:kick:

[No Elephants]

11. Ya gotta love Matt Damon.

Obama looked so un-Presidential, taking that potshot at him and The Adjustment Bureau at the White House Press Corps dinner because Damon had had the termerity to say Obama was a disappointment.

If you can't take the heat of a criticism that mild, Mr. President, without feeling compelled to use your mighty bully pulpit for petty retaliation against an actor and an entire film, perhaps you should have stayed out of the kitchen.

Says a lot though that Matt Damon was there and media still didn't cover it. Makes you feel as though the fix is in.

[JAnthony]

12. Hardly any coverage in the press, why?

Not enough tea bags, I guess. Only regular working people.

"And so about 5,000 people, according to the organizers’ estimates, stood on the Ellipse between the White House and the Washington Monument and waved posters that read “Boycott NCLB” and “Teach Me, Don’t Just Test Me.”

[No Elephants]

13. Why do we find out about these things only five minutes before or after they happen?

I wish it had gotten more coverage. Matt Damon wasn't born yesterday. I would bet he had his people do a press release.

[midnight]

14. K&R

[erodriguez]

15. K&R

[Luciferous]

16. K&R