Momma Bears, BATs, and TREE are still on cloud 9 after Wednesday night's event with Diane Ravitch.  It was powerful to see so many "just Moms," Dads, grandparents, teachers, administrators, elected school board members, and legislators there to support the PUBLIC education of children.  It was uplifting, it was inspiring, it was definitely something we will do again!

Words of widsom from Diane Ravitch's speech:

• Race to the Top... What is the top?  As long as we have 25% of children in poverty, we cannot reach the top.
  
• They say that charter schools are for black and Hispanic children so the Democrats will fall for it, but the money goes to the Republicans.
  
• Public education is a civic responsibility, not a consumer good.
  
• We should reduce poverty and segregation as a matter of public policy.
  
• Billionaires love the free market because it worked for them.
  
• Reformers want us to think as consumers, and not as citizens. 
  
• Education is a basic human right.
  
• Charter schools will never take over an entire district. There must always be public schools to dump the struggling students.
  
• The biggest hoax of all is that school choice is the civil rights issue of our time.   
  
• We are the most over-tested nation on earth.  We are the only nation testing every child every year.
  
• Japan has the highest test scores in the world, but a stagnant economy.
  
• If we want to raise test scores, we need to reduce the number of 'have-nots'.  
  
• There's this crazy idea that if kids can't pass the test, just make the test harder.
  
• The Opt-out movement is the biggest way to say 'no' to the testing.  It is growing day by day.
  
• Test results don't show student learning, they show who is in the class.
  
• The strongest educational systems in the world don't allow amateurs to become state superintendent.
  
• Reformers love data more than they love children.
  
• Poor kids get computers to teach them, rich kids get teachers. That's not right!
  
• Charters today look like the schools of the 19th century (with regards to segregation and rigidity)
  
• We are many. They are few.
  
• Merit pay  for teachers is like a zombie... It never works and it never dies.
  
• Teach For America makes a lot of money renting young people to school districts.  It is destroying the teaching profession.
  
• There is no 'Teach for Finland'.  You cannot fire your way to Finland.
  
• I think it is very important to interact with children before becoming a teacher. (referring to TFA-like programs)
  
• Don't hire amateur teachers, amateur principals, amateur superintendents... or amateur commissioners of education!
  
• Poverty is not an excuse.  It is a reality. 
  
• There are too many billionaires in America for so many children to be in poverty!

There were so many great things she said.  Even the Q & A at the end was terrific!  Watch the entire event below or click HERE to open it in a new browser:

Shocking news:  this was NOT a grassroots event.  
No, it was something much more terrifying to reformers... Click HERE to see what we mean.

Every fashionable Momma Bear, BAT, and TREE should have a shirt!  Click HERE to get your very own festive green shirt just in time for the holidays!  You can order and pay online via Paypal.  To get a shirt:
   1. Log into Paypal. 
   2. Click "Pay for goods and services"
   3. Enter April's email:  wawinton@gmail.com
   4. include $15 per shirt + $2.50 shipping for a total of $17.50 per shirt 
   5. In the notes, include your shipping address, shirt size, and contact info (your email or phone).
The proceeds from these shirts will help to make other such events possible in TN.  Thank you!!! 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NOVEMBER 11, 2014

For more information, contact:
Anne Marie Farmer, 615-295-8733, annemarie.farmer@treetn.org

Education Advocacy Organizations to Welcome Education Historian and Best-Selling Author Diane Ravitch to Nashville

November 19 event in Nashville to discuss the hoax of privatization and the future of education in Tennessee

NASHVILLE, Tenn., (Nov. 10, 2014) – Tennesseans Reclaiming Educational Excellence (TREE), Tennessee BATs, and Momma Bears today announced a special event featuring acclaimed historian, best-selling author, and former Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch.  Ravitch served in the administrations of President George H.W. Bush, where she worked alongside then-U.S. Secretary of Education and current U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, and President Bill Clinton.

The event, “Educating Nashville,” will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 19, in Nashville. The venue will be announced via TREE’s Facebook page, http://facebook.com/TNExcellence, on Monday, Nov. 17. Dr. Ravitch will be introduced by local officials and will hold a question-and-answer session after her remarks regarding the hoax of education privatization. Following the program, attendees are encouraged to stay and meet with public education advocates from across the state.

“We are honored to welcome Dr. Ravitch to Nashville,” said Lyn Hoyt, president of TREE.  “She has seen and studied the effects of education privatization across the country and is the nation’s foremost expert on what works and doesn’t work when it comes to reforming our public schools.”

Ravitch frequently writes about topics including Common Core, charter schools, vouchers, and standardized testing and is well respected across partisan lines.  Tennessee’s own Senator Alexander urges readers of his “Little Plaid Book” to “[r]ead anything Diane Ravitch writes about education.”

The event is free.  Parents, teachers, elected officials, policymakers, and members of the media are encouraged to attend.  To RSVP, visit http://ravitchnashville.eventbrite.com.


About Diane Ravitch
Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education.  She blogs at dianeravitch.net, a site which has had nearly 8.3 million page views in less than a year.  From 1991 to 1993, she was Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the administration of George H.W. Bush.  From 1997 to 2004, she was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal testing program. She was appointed by the Clinton administration’s Secretary of Education Richard Riley in 1997 and reappointed by him in 2001. From 1995 until 2005, she held the Brown Chair in Education Studies at the Brookings Institution and edited “Brookings Papers on Education Policy.” Before entering government service, she was Adjunct Professor of History and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She has authored 11 books and edited 14 others.

About TREE
Tennesseans Reclaiming Educational Excellence (TREE) is a statewide volunteer advocacy organization rooted in fighting for strong, equitable public education, and committed to growing child-centered education policy. www.treetn.org

About Tennessee BATs
Tennessee BATs (Badass Teachers) is an affiliate of the national BATs organization and is a rich and diverse group of education professionals and concerned citizens/families who strive to engage in discourse that improves their profession.

About Momma Bears
Momma Bears is a Tennessee-based grassroots organization of public schools advocates who defend and support children and public schools and recognize quality public education as a right for every child.  www.mommabears.org

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NOTE:  Momma Bears will also announce the event location on our blog and Facebook page.  If you RSVP for a ticket, you'll get an email about it.

School board members are not listening to the citizens that elected them.  The only time to speak to those board members, other than emailing them (and they don't respond), is during the public comments section of their meetings.  Two whole minutes to get your point across.  One Momma Bear had an idea.  She told another Momma Bear.  The idea grew and took off.  Here is her story:

I'm a frugal Mom who is frustrated with all of the changes going on in my children's school district.  It is overwhelming seeing the glowing articles in the local newspaper about school reform, but knowing it is just more twisted data, with cute pictures of children, published to make politicians look good.  The truth is: Our schools are starved of funding while profiteers are getting rich.  I follow many education blogs and news across the country, so I read what is really happening across the nation to public school districts.  I see what is heading our way to Memphis, TN.  Will we end up bankrupt like Philadelphia?  Will we close 50 neighborhood schools like Chicago?  Will 70% of our students fail the PARCC like in New York?  Will charter vultures take over our district like New Orleans, Los Angeles, & in Florida?  Memphis is high poverty and ripe for the picking. Infuse it with money from out-of-touch-with-reality billionaires, and our school district is prime for profiting everyone but the children. 

I've talked to my elected school board member for my area.  He listens and understands.  He is a great guy, but he is just 1 of 7 on the school board, and he has other issues to deal with.  Ugh, I hate politics.  These are children, and they shouldn't be used as negotiation!  How can get my point across to the 6 other members on the School Board?  I'm just a Mom.

Diane Ravitch has a powerful voice.  If only she were here... If only I could talk like her...  She just published her brand new book, Reign of Error.  She says everything I want to say.  There's no way I can read it aloud in the 2 minutes I'm allowed to speak at their meeting.  I get a crazy idea... What if I got Diane Ravitch's book for each of the school board members?  

I had a birthday a few weeks ago, and I got a little birthday money to spend however I want.  I was going to buy myself a new purse since my old one is getting worn out, but instead, I go to a local bookstore.  They have Diane Ravitch's new book in stock, but they are nearly $30 each. Gulp. My birthday wasn't that profitable.  I can afford to buy 3 books if I also take a little out of our grocery envelope (We're loyal Dave Ramsey followers in our household.  I can make our groceries stretch a little farther this month.)  

I mentioned my idea to a few friends, and before I know it, they've each gone to bookstores in their area of town and purchased books, too.  One friend used a gift certificate that her fellow PTA board members gave her as a gift of appreciation; she said she couldn't imagine a better use for it!  Another friend's husband spent his lunch break going to 2 different bookstores to get more copies; bless him, he's a Daddy Bear!!!  Together, we Momma & Daddy Bears had 8 books: enough for the 7 school board members + the Superintendent, too.

I worried all afternoon about what to say during my 2 minutes at the School Board Meeting that night.  Here is what I said:

Surveys show that parents and citizens want excellent NEIGHBORHOOD PUBLIC schools.  We want our elected school board to represent our students… not business interests.  We have elected YOU to govern our schools, not charter operators who seek to profit, not charter operators who seek to recruit the brightest and best students, and exclude those with disabilities or low test scores.  Our public schools should always be public. 

We teach our children not to bully and not to tolerate bullying.  Do not let those who were appointed to their position in Nashville bully you into approving charter schools.  We did not elect them, we elected you.  The appointed TN BOE, the appointed Commissioner of Education, Kevin Huffman, and Governor Haslam who appointed them all, clearly do not have our students’ best interest at heart.  Do not let them, or the businesses that fund and profit from them, make decisions that are not in the best interest of our children.

I'm not too proud to admit that I then played the guilt card.  I told them how I sacrificed my birthday money on these books, and how other parents pitched in to get copies for them, too.  I tell them that his book expresses what we, as parents, want them, as our elected school board, to know.  I beg them to please read the books, and I stress how important it is to us.  

My 2 minutes are up.  I take a seat in the audience and stay for the next few hours.  The meeting drags on, and they take a crucial vote regarding a charter school moratorium.  I want to cry because it fails.  Did they hear what I said one bit?!?!?  I shouldn't be surprised, the majority of the board members are funded by Stand for Children (Note: Stand For Children is a non-profit lobbying group funded by corporations & Bill Gates.  They stand ON children, not for them.  Anywhere money can be made in education, you'll find greedy Stand for Children there in the midst of it, along with an equally greedy group called "Students First" that just came into our town last year).  Money speaks louder than parents and students.  Parents are going to have to scream at the top of our lungs to be heard, and even then, I'm not sure that it will outweigh the dollar signs stuck in their ears.  

I am a wishful optimist.  I have hope that the board members will read the books we gave them...  Maybe Diane will get it past their pocketbooks and through their thick skulls?  That is my birthday wish.  Every child, rich or poor, black or white, should be able to attend their their neighborhood school that is well-funded and well-staffed. They should have excellent music, art, sports, & extra-curricular programs.  Librarians and guidance counselors are a must.  Students, especially those who are academically behind, should have small class sizes taught by certified, experienced teachers.  Testing should be a minimum, and not full of stress and anxiety as it is now for students.  Our children's test scores shouldn't be used to hurt teachers and close schools in poor, starving areas.  Those with profit motives should be banned from our schools.  I could go on and on, but Diane Ravitch says it better than I do.  Read her book and you'll know exactly what I mean.