October 24, 2013
By Randi Weingarten, AFT President
Join us in Reclaiming the Promise. Proponents of one vision, disguised as reform, hold closed-door meetings to design a plan to shut the public out of public schools by fixating on testing, cutting investments in education, promoting austerity, and using the remaining funds to turn a profit—not to help kids.
Believers in the other vision want parents, educators, school staff, students and community partners to unite to ensure great neighborhood public schools that help each and every child succeed, no matter his or her ZIP code.
Reclaiming the promise of public education is about:
Fighting for neighborhood public schools that are safe, welcoming places for teaching and learning; Ensuring teachers and school staff are well-prepared, are supported, have manageable class sizes and have time to collaborate so they can meet the individual needs of every child; Making sure our children have an engaging curriculum that focuses on teaching, not testing, and includes art, music and the sciences; and ensuring children, their families and the community have access to wraparound services to meet their social, emotional and health needs.
This is a vision that works. It’s a vision of what parents want for their kids and what communities want for their future. It’s a movement that can stop the privatizers, profiteers and austerity hawks in their tracks. It will help our public schools become centers of communities, give voice to those closest to the classroom, and fulfill public education’s purpose as an anchor of democracy; a gateway to racial, social and economic justice; and a propeller of our economy.
