Opportunity Action

18/05/2018

More than 60 years after the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v.

16/04/2018

“I’ve seen up close the commitment [Nixon] has to public education and giving voice to everyday people,” says Billy Easton, director of the education advocacy organization Alliance for Quality Education.

The candidate for New York governor and former S*x and the City actor is a longtime public education advocate, and isn’t afraid to point out Cuomo’s pattern of underfunding schools.

29/03/2018

via OPEN NOLA (Orleans Public Education Network):

SB 303 is a bill that pretends to protect students by making bullying criminally prosecutable, but it gives teachers the power to be physically abusive with students and get them arrested without intervention or due process.
Criminalizing students isn't going to end bullying. It's going to make them more likely to get involved with the police in the future. How is that justice?

School communities must have trust and respect between students and teachers. Giving adults the right to criminalize and abuse children without consequence will destroy those bonds. Sign the petition now to stand up for children's rights:

Criminalizing students isn't going to end bullying. It's going to make them more likely to get involved with the police in the future. How is that justice?

10/01/2018

Paul Sagan, chair of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, has got to go.

The Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance announced on September 11, 2017, that it had levied its largest fine ever. The ruling requires a group backing the 2016 Yes on 2 ballot question, Families for Excellent Schools — Advocacy, to pay $426,466 for “receiving contributions from individuals and then contributing those funds to the Great Schools Massachusetts Ballot Question Committee in a manner intended to disguise the source of the money.”

Paul Sagan, Governor Charlie Baker’s appointed chair of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, was among the donors whose contributions were hidden. Reports that Sagan had contributed $100,000 to the Yes on 2 effort were dismissed by Governor Baker as a “nothingburger.” Yet the new OCPF disclosures reveal that days before this so-called nothingburger donation was made, Sagan had already contributed $500,000 to FESA, which kept the donations secret. At the time the $100,000 donation was being dismissed as trivial, an opportunity was missed to come clean about Sagan’s additional half-million-dollar donation.

Paul Sagan, chair of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, has got to go.

20/11/2017

"Betsy DeVos has removed the veil that has hidden the agenda of many in the school choice movement — a war against traditional public school districts — and the public is catching on."

Along with President Trump, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos saw a rebuke of her policies in some races.

27/10/2017

We need a vision and agenda big and bold enough to meet the problems that we face:

"Programs that give families cash, UC Irvine economist Greg Duncan has found, result in better learning outcomes and higher earnings for their kids. One study found a $3,000 annual income increase for poor parents is associated with 19 percent higher earnings for their child once he or she grows up. That implies that a child allowance of that size could dramatically improve the lives of children decades later."

The US is one of the only developed countries in the world without a child allowance — a government program giving every family a set amount of money per child, no strings attached. A new proposal...

05/10/2017

Critics wrote DeVos off as a nitwit. But she's playing a long game, and winning. If Betsy DeVos enjoys the occasional quaff of champagne on her private jet, the recent news that the Supreme Court is poised to deliver a knock-out blow to public sector unions presented a reason to celebrate.

07/09/2017

Even as battles occur in all of our states, the U. S. House of Representatives’s budget strips funding for smaller class sizes, teacher training and after-school programs while increasing funding for charter schools. The budget guts Title II. That represents a whopping 2 billion dollar cut to public education. That budget goes to the Senate this week.

We at the Network for P***c Education hope that you had an opportunity to relax and re-energize this summer. It is now Back to School time. For those of us who love and cherish public schools, that means back to the fight for public education. Right now our friends in Arizona are fighting for the …

23/06/2017

A new federal education law known as the "Every Student Succeeds Act" requires states to come up their own accountability systems. A key part of Georgia’s

20/06/2017

In many of the major education debates underway in Georgia and nationwide, rural areas sit on the sidelines. The innovations under review — charter schools, vouchers or tax credits for private school scholarships — seem as unlikely to appear in their communities as a Starbuck’s or Pottery Barn. Most...

25/05/2017

The budget would slash teacher preparation programs, support for homeless youth, and college aid for low-income students, state officials said.

25/05/2017

Earlier this week, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos referred to opponents of vouchers as “flat Earthers” who have “chilled creativity” in the education system. While jarring, her comments will not come as a surprise to those who followed her confirmation. It was clear then, and remains so now, that S...