Ain't No Body Gonna Turn Me Around, Keep on Marching, Keep on Talking, Someone Tell Arne We Are Coming To Occupy His DOE

The word from the Selma Jubilee Education Committee is they are not buying RTTT. Equity is not something schools should have to be competing for. Over and over again speakers at the Education summit has said NCLB/RTTT has left schools more segregated than ever.

Spread the word far and wide the people in Selma Alabama where Martin Crossed that Sunday Bloody Sunday bridge do not buying Secretary Arne Duncan's Hype. The call here is to support ALL schools.

I'll be marching across that bridge Sunday at 11:AM with Ceresta Smith from SOS, Morna Mcdermott McNulty of United Opt, marching with all those beautiful Civil Rights Activists.

Tell it in DC, in Florida,

In New Orleans,

In Chicago, in Tucson,

In California, in Boston,

In New York, in Wisconsin,

In Colorado, Oregon,

In Texas, in Michigan,
Tell it in Connecticut, in Indiana,
Tell it in Maryland, in New Jersey.

Shout it on every mountain top in America that School equity cannot be achieved through testing.

We are marching in the light of God here in Selma, and ain't no body gonna turn us around, keep on walking, keep on talking,

Tell Secretary Status Quo Aren Duncan we are coming to Occupy the DOE in DC,
Still walking, Still marching,
Jesse The Walking Man Turner

I have seen the enemy, the enemy is not a homeless mother

Let's keep truth simple, a homeless mother should not go to jail for trying to get her child a better education in a public school system rooted in inequality.  

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are." 
Is this the America we want? An America where schools are places where the quality of a child's education depends on their zip code? Tanya McDowell is not a criminal she is a mother trying to beat a system that is rooted in inequality. The people are tired of education reforms based on competitions, lotteries, and zip codes. I have seen the enemy, and the enemy is not the homeless, but a system that goes after a homeless mother. 

I have seen the enemy,

Tanya McDowell is not the enemy,

Parents are not the enemy,

Children are not the enemy,

Teachers are not the enemy,

The enemy is education reform that reduces children to data,

The enemy is education reform that shames teachers,

The enemy is education reform that claims equity is a lottery,

The enemy is education reform that closes schools rather than supports them,

The enemy steals from the poor to give to the rich,

The enemy promises hope by making schools compete,

I walked against the enemy,

I marched against the enemy,

I will conduct Teach-Ins in Selma Alabama this coming Saturday at the Selma Jubilee, 

I am holding a Save Our Schools Town Hall meeting in Connecticut this March 31,

I will occupy the DOE in DC that house of the enemy on April 1 & 2,

The enemy is not homeless American mothers,

The enemy is the 1% who believe public education is a competition, not a system rooted in equality.

Still marching,

Jesse 

You can read Savy Sister's blog telling it through her tears in the link below:

http://www.the-savvy-sista.com/2012/02/tanya-mcdowell-sentenced-to-12-years.html

If you are wondering what the walking man is listening to on his walk this morning it's I hear them all by Old Crow Medicine Show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD3jsS-sL1Q 

Where is the Love, Y"all

Today I reject the distrust, 

Today I reject the haters of teachers, 

I reject the fear mongers of our schools are failing. 

Today I took a stand, today I did something, and so can you. 

I reject the notion that teachers are best measured by unreliable value added measures. 

I reject New York's release of teacher ranking based solely on student test scores!

Valerie Strauss's "Answer Sheet" gives the academic response here: she outlines the fallacy of  well. She embeds reference links to the studies challenging Valued Added Measures.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/nyc-releases-teachers-value-added-scores--unfortunately/2012/02/24/gIQAtbVXYR_blog.html#pagebreak

My thinking is accountability yes, but this is ethically and morally wrong. This is the new Scarlett Letter for teachers. First they reduced our children to data, to capital, and turned our children from God's gifts into test scores. Now they are doing the same exact thing to teachers. Shame is not education reform, and in the end does more harm than good. It will turn teachers away from working in poor urban and rural school districts. It will demoralize teachers, and hurt children, parents, and local schools. Maybe that has been the plan of NCLB/RTTT all along. A plan to destroy our public school system.

Shame on New York City's DOE.

Mrs. Stanfield my high school English teacher shared Pastor Niemoller's words with us when we were reading Elie Wiesel’s “Night”.

 Pasto Niemoller said:

"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."

Mrs Stanfield my only African American teacher in high school taught her students about Pastor Niemoller and Elie Wiesel not because it might be on some bubble sheet test, but because it mattered. It helped to shape the men and women we would become.  Thank you, thank you, thank you Mrs Stanfield for making a difference in my life.

So today I live her lesson, I resist, today I fight back, and I reject shame reform. 

Join me on Facebook by liking:

https://www.facebook.com/TeachersAreMoreThanTestScores?notif_t=page_new_likes

In the meantime let's all sing:

“Where is the love (The love)
Where is the love (The love)
Where is the love
The love, the love

It just ain't the same, always unchanged
New days are strange, is the world insane
If love and peace is so strong
Why are there pieces of love that don't belong
Nations droppin' bombs
Chemical gasses fillin' lungs of little ones
With ongoin' sufferin' as the youth die young
So ask yourself is the lovin' really gone
So I could ask myself really what is goin' wrong
In this world that we livin' in people keep on givin'
in
Makin' wrong decisions, only visions of them dividends
Not respectin' each other, deny thy brother
A war is goin' on but the reason's undercover
The truth is kept secret, it's swept under the rug
If you never know truth then you never know love
Where's the love, y'all, come on (I don't know)
Where's the truth, y'all, come on (I don't know)
Where's the love, y'all” (Black Eye Peas Where Is The Love)

Walking tall today listening to "Where Is The Love" 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZVxjH04aIY

Respectfully,
Jesse The Walkingman Turner