Colorado Democrats overwhelmingly reject Democrats for Education Reform at state assembly
This is how Democrats can earn back the enthusiastic support that previously gave them decades of control in Congress: stop supporting efforts to privatize schools and "prove" they are failing through redundant standardized testing that is then used to punish teachers and close schools. No one has ever proved how the latter helps any student by making them travel farther to an even more crowded classroom.
If Democrats could say no to Wall Street on this one issue, we could see a huge difference.
My wife is a public school teacher, but we put our kid in a private school that we can't afford because of all the destructive dictates that come down from the state because some hedge fund manager spread some cash around and had their astroturf foundations claim it would somehow help.
And they never seem to demand public school educate everyone else's kids the way theirs are in private schools.
This is low hanging fruit if Democrats are willing to grab it.
Colorado has shown you the way.
After booing down the head of the education reform organization, who described herself as a lifelong Democrat, delegates voted overwhelmingly Saturday to call for the organization to no longer use “Democrats” in its name. While it’s unclear how that would be enforced, the vote means a rejection of DFER is now part of the Colorado Democratic Party platform.
The one-sided platform fight revealed a growing divide among party activists and establishment politicians on education policy that could have implications for the governor’s race. Cary Kennedy, a former state treasurer who has the backing of the teachers unions, got 62 percent of the vote at the assembly, easily securing a place on the ballot alongside U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who got 33 percent of the vote.
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The platform amendment reads: “We oppose making Colorado’s public schools private or run by private corporations or becoming segregated again through lobbying and campaigning efforts of the organization called Democrats for Education Reform and demand that they immediately stop using the party’s name Democrat in their name.”
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2018/04/14/colorado-democrats-overwhelming-reject-democrats-for-education-reform-at-state-assembly/
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Teachers are great at teaching when given an open book of their own knowledge & experiences to teach from along with reasonable sets of guidlines.
Problem is, we have great teachers who can no longer work their own critical thinking ideas into a days's curriculum because they have been bound to teachung to those Star Test rules & pre-planned lessons.
Schools are rated by the Star Test results.
That's the problem.
Pisses me off that Public schools must follow the Star Test lessons to compete for school ratings, yet private charters do not.
They are free to teach the way public ed USED to be taught.
If Star Testing detetmines the rating of Public schools then EVERY school should have to also.
Star Testing is yet another way of dumbing down Public Ed
Grrrrrr 
Response to yurbud (Original post)
