Reflections Part 1

As the new year approaches I have been reflecting upon how far we actually have come and how much work we still have ahead of us to push for legislation to get us out of this mess. 

When I first became involved in this movement two years ago I was 1 out of maybe 100 people in New York and maybe 1 out of a 1000 nationally.  We collaborated and combined our efforts to raise awareness and encourage people to speak up and take a stand against corporate ed reform. We are no longer just a 100 or a 1,000 people fighting this fight we are now about 100,000 in NY state and over  500,000 nationally. I calculated the numbers above by adding up all the group members on facebook and we don't know how many are fighting this who are not on facebook.

I was reflecting on how I became involved in this movement. I became involved on accident, common core was not rolled out I wasn't alarmed by the content of my daughter's homework . I became involved by questioning how two first grade reading   benchmarks could determine my daughter needed extra support in reading when I knew because my Mom is certified in reading that my daughter was actually a really strong  reader.

While searching for answers I stumbled onto the United Opt Out website and everything I was reading made sense. I was enlightened and learned about high stakes testing.

High stakes testing was around before the Race to the Top initiative. High Stakes testing was initiated by No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

As we fight these new initiatives of corporate education reforms, I think we need to keep in hindsight that the original initiative is still lurking in the background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqaSCFMJKdE&feature=youtube_gdata_player