A few notes:
- The Los Angeles United School District and its teachers union came to an agreement on teacher evaluation that makes some sense. [LA Daily News]
- John Holland outlines with no equivocation the difference between responsibility and accountability. [Future of Teaching]
- Sherman Dorn gives us five oft-overlooked facts about President Barack Obama that might give context to some of our arguments. [Sherman Dorn]
- Gregory Michie’s latest post describes what happens when a teacher comes back to a worse educational system than when he left it. [Huffington Post]
- In the National Journal, Renee Moore responds to that now notorious Gates Foundation MET study better than I can. [National Journal]
- Good news: a public school teacher gives a lesson to his students on white privilege. Bad news: I found out through FOX. [FOX News Blog]
Quotable:
It all comes down to how you teach people to fight with the tools they have. We have been fighting with the bosses’ tools. We can spend a lot of time doing legislation. I think that’s fine—have a legislative approach. But understand that you don’t control that process. We can talk about electing the right people, but ultimately, unless we have a state house full of teachers and paraprofessionals and clinicians, I don’t think we’ll get what we want coming out of state legislatures. You need to have good relationships with legislators; you need to have members get in touch and let them know what’s important to you. That’s one tool. But it’s not the only tool.
Our best tool is our ability to put 20,000 people in the street. I don’t care if one rich guy buys up all the ad space. The tool that we have is a mass movement. We have the pressure of mass mobilization and organizing.
– Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union
As we consider Martin Luther King’s legacy today and the re-inauguration of Barack Obama, Lewis’ words ought to ring true to anyone fighting for equity in this country.