Join Your CEA & NEA Colleagues to Protest Failed Vision for Public Education

Tired of listening to so-called experts pontificate on “fixing” education?  Want to help reject the test, label, and punish ideas of so-called education reformers? Want all students to have a real opportunity to learn?

Join us in Londonderry, New Hampshire on Wednesday, August 19, to support education reform done right.

Teachers need to send a message to anti-public education reformer Campbell Brown and the Republican presidential candidates speaking at the Ed Summit 2015, that we are tired of their failing vision. Help us lead and define a new vision for public education by joining our CEA and NEA colleagues from across New England in protesting the views of the candidates listed below who are scheduled to “perform.”

Join us and together we can fight for our students’ futures.

When:  Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Where: Meet at your choice of two commuter parking lots for a bus ride with other CEA members to Londonderry, New Hampshire to show you are empowered, energized, and committed to making a difference for our students and our profession.

Take a bus from one of two locations:

1. Connecticut Commuter Parking lot in Southington. I-84 @ Route 10 (Exit 29) by 8:00 a.m.
2. Connecticut Commuter Parking lot in Windsor. I-91 @ Route 75 (Exit 38) by 9:00 a.m.

The bus is free, but you must sign up to ride the bus by emailing CEA Vice President Jeff Leake and indicating your bus location choice.

Here’s what the candidates scheduled to appear at the summit have said about education.

Jeb Bush:  “Low standards are a tactic that takes pressure off teachers’ unions by accepting mediocrity and failure for kids.” Pushed for vouchers in Florida’s schools, co-founded a charter school, and believes NCLB helped push states that “refused” to reform education.

Carly Fiorina:  “There’s no connection between spending more money in our nation’s capital and a better school system.” Advocate for open enrollment and charter schools. Believes NCLB helped set high standards for students.

Bobby Jindal: Pro-charter schools. Stated, vouchers “let the dollars follow the child” to alternative schools. Restricted teacher tenure in Louisiana and proposed the largest higher education budget cut in U.S. history.

Scott Walker: Called school choice a moral imperative and worked to expand charters, virtual schools, and vouchers. Wants to eliminate seniority-based tenure, evaluate teachers by standardized test scores, and weaken college tenure.

Chris Christie:  Worked to expand charter schools. Called preschools “glorified babysitting.” Signed a law making teacher tenure more difficult to obtain.  Quoted as saying: Teachers’ unions deserve “a punch in the face. They’re not for education for our children. They’re for greater membership, greater benefits, greater pay for their members. And they are the single most destructive force in public education in America.”

John Kasich: “More choice, more accountability, more dollars in the classroom instead of bureaucracy will improve our schools.”  He believes charters improve school quality and he supports merit-based pay for teachers.