Dear Friends,

I was reading my email this morning and saw an early a.m. post sent by Diane Ravitch that included a video of a leader in a movement called United Opt Out National. Apparently, there is a growing group of teachers, parents, and others who are organizing an "Occupy-type" event on the front steps of the United States Department of Education that will highlight their message that parents can [and should] opt their kids out of state and national testing programs. This is being done in order to register the group's growing concerns that testing has been trumping teaching and learning for too long. I am sharing the video here because I wasn't aware of this group or its mission until today, so I thought perhaps you didn't know about it either...but you might like to.

The event is scheduled for April 4-7, 2013. The video is a personal invitation to Diane Ravitch to attend the event, and according to her blog of this morning, she is going.

If you attended the Save Our Schools rally in July of 2011, this might be something you would want to consider attending. At the very least, it offers an opportunity to do something that gives voice to what we all know which is that the over-empahsis on testing is ultimately not helping our kids and it has absolutely no business being used to evaluate teacher effectiveness from year to year.

While I was watching the video that invites Dr. Ravitch to the event, I saw that YouTube has other videos highlighting Dr. Ravitch. One of them is entitled "Diane Ravitch defending teachers" and although it is almost 15 minutes long, I suggest you take the time to watch it if you would like to feel validated for a change. Diane really understands how teachers feel and how painful the last few years have been for us as we have been the subject of so much disrespect, disdain, and disregard on behalf of the "education reform" crowd. Watch that video as well. It may just make your day.


Until next time.

Kitty