When Lily Eskelsen Garcia (NEA) and Randi Weingarten (AFT) both turn their backs on parents who oppose the corporate education scam of mandated high stakes testing, it is time to question why they are doing this....Carefully listen to their very carefully worded comments.
This is precisely the corporate ploy being used by legislative cronies in state after state. By promising to beat children and teachers less often, somehow or other the beatings become acceptable.
.Reclaim Reform blog.
Ooooh, I know, I know why they support corporate deform - but I'm not going to tell you - now. Actually I have sort of told you in past blog posts - there will be a test.Weingarten at Pearson Stockholders' Meeting: In a scene right out of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, AFT President Randi Weingarten goes to London, hat-in-hand, to plead (more sir) for Pearson's Board of Directors to stop spying on students who may have been chatting on social media about the PARCC exam....But there was something in RW's pathetic appeal to these global education profiteers -- recognizing their sovereign right to profit, while at the same time, asking them politely to temper their spying activities and to "mediate the contract language" that allows such practices -- that shamed me as an educator and a public school parent..... Mike Klonsky (see the video)
Opt out leader attended the NPE event in Chicago this past weekend and raised the issue of: Why can't they all be like Karen Lewis?
Opt-Out Movement and Teachers: Opportunity Lost?
The National Opt-Out Movement is the single greatest grassroots opposition to corporate education ever. Hundreds of thousands of parents and their children have refused this attempt at a corporate attempt, in collusion with politicians they own by legally (?) financially supporting them. Many of these parents staunchly support their children’s teachers.
At the 2015 Network for Public Education National Conference both Lily and Randi mentioned the importance of the parental support of teachers. To push away from supporting parents in their efforts to stop and do away with corporate commanded high stakes testing is self destructive for both NEA and AFT as well as all of the teachers they are supposed to represent.
Randi said, “Every parent should have the right to opt out or not to opt out.” Huh?
Lily said, “The opt out movement will not end toxic testing.” Huh?
Listen and view both of their comments HERE.
A short time later during the same NPE Conference, Karen Lewis, Chicago Teachers Union President, proudly and thankfully told Diane Ravitch how parents with their supportive presence during the Chicago Teachers Union rallies played a vital role.
Listen and view HERE.
Since the vast majority of teachers are parents themselves, and since all teachers realize that all children are their children, this wonderful support should be no surprise.
The superb founders of United Opt Out National are parents and teachers. What this small band of good people began is astonishing. Separate local opt-out and refuse movements have flourished and multiplied.
Why won’t the two leaders of NEA and AFT return the favor?
Lily wants the mandated high stakes tests to continue in lessened numbers at state levels and on grade span testing. She made no mention of what private corporations will get these juicy contracts with money taken from public education tax funds.
Randi also wanted less testing and was even vaguer in her euphemisms.
Carefully listen to their very carefully worded comments.
This is precisely the corporate ploy being used by legislative cronies in state after state. By promising to beat children and teachers less often, somehow or other the beatings become acceptable.
As noted Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes so clearly stated in the early 1900s, “If it’s a bad rule, there is no reason for making a bad exception to it.”High stakes testing and all of its accompanying abuses must end.
Teachers who legally act in loco parentis (in place of the parent) and parents are partners. Lily Eskelsen Garcia and Randi Weingarten know that. Lily Eskelsen Garcia and Randi Weingarten are in favor of CCSS which is used to fire teachers based on CCSS compliant tests which have no proof of being either valid or reliable. This is unconscionable. (Mercedes Schneider explains this in detail.)
Randi also went to the UK to grovel before Pearson as she recognized their right to power over American children, parents and teachers. OMG! (Mike Klonsky gives details and video footage of this.)
Lily claims that teachers should not ally with parents but must “change the world.” OMG! (Fred Klonsky gives his inquisitive opinion.)
As leaders of their separate teachers unions, there is no valid reason for this.
As individuals with separate power structures that form the basis for their social positions and incomes, there are indeed reasons for their behavior.
The cause of public education is larger than their personal positions. NEA and AFT need leaders, not egos with smiles and carefully selected words that preserve their personal careers.
Support the National Opt-Out Movement. Unite with parents. Serve the needs of all children.
It is not too late. The opportunity need not be lost. The teachers Lily and Randi serve know and want this. Unite with parents and serve the needs of our children.
Karen Lewis did.
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