VIPs: Who is (and isn’t) at the SOS March

The Save Our Schools (SOS) Conference and March on Washington DC began this morning with a keynote address from Jonathan Kozol, PhD, and a news briefing at American University. You may remember Kozol as the author of Savage Inequalities (1991), which exposed disparities in education spending between schools of different classes and races. He’s an outspoken critic of No Child Left Behind and school vouchers.

Tomorrow, we’re hearing from Diane Ravitch, PhD, former-defender-of-NCLB-turned-critic, and author of the recent best-seller The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Undermine Education (2010). She opposes high-stakes testing and charter schools.

Among 400 registered attendees, the conference lists the endorsement of 73 “Noted Educators, Education Authors, Writers, Bloggers & Policy Experts” like Kozol and Ravitch, 55 unions, and 68 “Education Organizations, Organization Leaders, Unions, and Civic and Political Organizations” which—with a few notable exceptions—are primarily representative of politically sophisticated public policy experts or other educator unions. Undoubtedly, these are all important voices in education policy.

At the same time, when education “insiders” easily comprise half of the registrants at a conference billed to represent the interests of “teachers, parents, and students,” I wonder who we think we’re talking to. Where are the students, and where are the parents?
Kozol and Ravitch have built public careers pushing back against ideas like charter schools and vouchers. They’re right that in practice charter schools and vouchers have been implemented or proposed in a manner that only deepens disparities in our public schools. The research is indisputable. So why are both ideas growing in popularity among parents, even if their own children may wind up in worse-off public schools because of charters or vouchers?

It could be as simple as the notion of choice—both charter schools and vouchers offer a prominent role for parents in developing an educational path for their students, and most parents want to be involved. This is good news, given that supportive parents are critical in student success, and it’s up to all of us here at the SOS Conference to envision models that do a better job of including parents.

At the Alameda County Office of Education’s Art IS Education, we’ve made it a top priority to work in relationship with parents and our community. A great example of this work is our Freedom Bus Project, which makes our work visible throughout the community. We’ve also worked with our allies Justice Matters and the Los Cenzontles Cultural Center to create opportunities for parents to participate in arts-learning projects with their students. We’re not stopping there.

Following the SOS Conference and March, participants will take part in a Congress on Sunday to develop alternatives to NCLB that provide new solutions for our public schools. At the Congress, we’ll be calling on our fellow educators to imagine solutions that provide a prominent role for parents in choosing and supporting successful public schools for their children.