Greetings!
I just returned from the SOS Rally and conference in Washington DC. It was uplifting to join with other progressive education advocates from across the country. The principles of SOS are totally in sync with the CPS agenda:
Guiding Principles
For the future of our children, we demand:
- Equitable funding for all public school communities
- Equitable funding across all public schools and school systems
- Full public funding of family and community support services
- Full funding for 21st century school and neighborhood libraries
- An end to economically and racially re-segregated schools
- An end to high stakes testing used for the purpose of student, teacher, and school evaluation
- The use of multiple and varied assessments to evaluate students, teachers, and schools
- An end to pay per test performance for teachers and administrators
- An end to public school closures based upon test performance
- Teacher, family and community leadership in forming public education policies
- Educator and civic community leadership in drafting new ESEA legislation
- Federal support for local school programs free of punitive and competitive funding
- An end to political and corporate control of curriculum, instruction and assessment decisions for teachers and administrators
- Curriculum developed for and by local school communities
- Support for teacher and student access to a wide-range of instructional programs and technologies
- Well-rounded education that develops every student’s intellectual, creative, and physical potential
- Opportunities for multicultural/multilingual curriculum for all students
- Small class sizes that foster caring, democratic learning communities
Read the Washington Post story on the event here. And among the many exciting videos from the event, here’s an interview with Matt Damon and our own Larry Aaronson, Matt’s high school history teacher. And here are excerpts from some of the many fine speakers. –Marilyn Segal, CPS Executive Director
