Last Thursday I flew to New York City to take on Peter Cunningham, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education (under Secretary Arne Duncan, during President Obama's first term), in a debate hosted by Al Jazeera America’s program The Third Rail. We debated the question, "Is public education in the U.S. broken beyond repair?" I …
During the last days of the school year I wrote an essay for my website, I Am An Educator.com, about my kindergarten son opting out of the MAP test. I received an overwhelming number of positive responses to that piece, but none more powerful than from a mother from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Kelly Pylkas-Bock expressed her …
Last week the Seattle School District told my kindergarten son to take the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test. Given my intense relationship with this specific standardized test--an exam that has forever altered the course of my life--this was a particularly unsettling moment for me. As an authentic assessment activist, I had helped organize a …
Continue reading Scrap the MAP Test: My Kindergartener Joins the Opt Out Movement!
The economic justice periodical In These Times recently ran this important article on the mass rolling strike wave of teachers and educators across Washington State--including now some 65 different union locals--who are standing up to a lawless state legislature that refuses to obey a court order to fully fund education. As I point out in …
Today was an incredible step forward in the struggle to fully fund education in Washington state: our union, the Seattle Education Association (SEA), went on a one day strike, joining over 50 local educators' unions in a rolling strike wave to demand that the State Legislature spend billions of more dollars on the schools. I have been part of a …
Continue reading Seattle Educators On Strike!: Photos & stories of the struggle
I AM AN EDUCATOR 
You must be logged in to post a comment.