The Antidote to Astroturf: A Real Grassroots Movement

From Education Week

The Antidote to Astroturf: A Real Grassroots Movement

images by Anthony Cody.

If you are wondering what to do about the corporatization of public education, this article has some suggestions. Mostly it calls for organizing and building coalitions between parents, teachers, students and lovers of democracy.

"So how do we mount an effective response? The best response to a phony grassroots campaign is to create a genuine one. Parents, teachers and students, and others who care about children, are doing just that. The Save Our Schools March is uniting parents and teachers in a true grassroots effort to bring attention to the need for sanity in education policy. We are connecting with others, like the educators that publish Rethinking Schools, and the advocates for sane testing at FairTest. There are teachers organizing to make sure their unions represent them well, and preserve their rights to collective bargaining and due process. There are groups like Parents Across America, and the work surrounding the documentary movie Race to Nowhere, which are engaging parents in thinking about how our schools are affecting their children."

In Chicago we also have the "Raise Your Hand Coalition" which formed when our former mayor wreaked havoc on CPS by attempting to raise class size to 37 students per class.