IN CONGRESS
July 9, 2015.
A Declaration in
the United States of America,
When in the
Course of educational events, it becomes necessary for Educators to dissolve the
constrictive bands which have connected them with Deformers, and to assume
among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws
of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of
educators requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the
separation.
We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all students are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these
are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Learning.--That to secure these rights, public
schools are instituted among the populace, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the people, --That whenever any deform becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the Right of the educators to alter it, and to institute new Governance,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such
form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect student Liberty and Learning.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that public schools long established should not
be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath
shewn, that public schools are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such stifling
regulation and oversight, and to provide for their proven methods and designs.--Such
has been the patient sufferance of these public schools; and such is now the
necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of regulation and
oversight. The history of the present Secretary of Education is a history of
repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these public schools. To prove this,
let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
When Barak Obama was elected, many educators and parents thought
that Obama would bring a new vision of the federal role in education, one that
freed schools from the test-and-punish mindset of George W. Bush's No Child
Left Behind. But Arne Duncan and Barack Obama had a vision no different from
George W. Bush and doubled down on the importance of testing, while encouraging
privatization and undermining the teaching profession with a $50 million grant
to Teach for America to place more novice teachers in high-needs schools.
During Secretary Duncan's tenure in
office:
- He used his control of billions of
dollars to promote a dual school system of privately managed charter schools
operating alongside public schools;
- He has done nothing to call attention
to the fraud and corruption in the charter sector or to curb charters run by
non-educators for profit or to insist on charter school accountability or to
require charters to enroll the neediest children;
- He pushed to require states to evaluate
teachers by the test scores of their students, which has caused massive
demoralization among teachers, raised the stakes attached to testing, and
produced no positive results;
- He used federal funds and waivers from
NCLB to push the adoption of Common Core standards and to create two testing
consortia, which many states have abandoned;
- The Common Core tests are so absurdly
"rigorous" that most students have failed them, even in schools that
send high percentages of students to four-year colleges, the failure rates have
been highest among students who are English language learners, students with
disabilities, and students of color;
- He has bemoaned rising resegregation of
the schools but done nothing to reduce it;
- He has been silent as state after state
has attacked collective bargaining and due process for teachers;
- He has done nothing in response to the
explosion of voucher programs that transfer public funds to religious schools;
- Because of his policies, enrollments in
teacher education programs, even in Teach for America, have plummeted, and many
experienced teachers are taking early retirement;
- He has unleashed a mad frenzy of
testing in classrooms across the country, treating standardized test scores as
the goal of all education, rather than as a measure;
- His tenure has been marked by the rise
of an aggressive privatization movement, which seeks to eliminate public
education in urban districts, where residents have the least political power;
- He loosened the regulations on the
federal student privacy act, permitting massive data mining of the data banks
that federal funds created;
- He looked the other way as predatory
for-profit colleges preyed on veterans and minorities, plunging students deep
into debt;
- He has regularly accused parents and
teachers of "lying" to students. For reasons that are unclear, he
wants everyone to believe that our public schools are terrible, our students
are lazy, not too bright, and lacking ambition. If he were a basketball coach,
he would have been encouraging the team to try harder and to reach for greater
accomplishment, but instead he took every opportunity to run down the team and
repeat how dreadful they are. He spoke of "respect" but he never
showed it.
This era has not been good for students;
nearly a quarter live in poverty, and fully 51% live in low-income families.
This era has not been good for teachers, who feel disrespected and demeaned by
governors, legislatures, and the U.S. Department of Education. This era has not
been good for parents, who see their local public schools lose resources to
charter schools and see their children subjected to endless, intensive testing.
It will take years to recover from the
damage that Secretary Duncan's policies have inflicted on public education. He
exceeded the authority of his office to promote a failed agenda, one that had
no evidence behind it. [Ravitch]
In every stage of these
Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our
repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose
character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be
the Secretary of Education.
Nor have We
been wanting in attentions to our legislators. We have warned them from time to
time of attempts by their Department of Education to extend an unwarrantable
jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our meaningless
mandates and chronic under-funding. We have appealed to their native justice
and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common interest,
children, to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our
connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice
and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which
denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind,
Enemies in Practice, in Peace Friends.
We,
therefore, the Keepers of the education public trust, in General Congress,
Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our
intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these United
States, solemnly publish and declare, That these educators are, and of Right
ought to be Free to practice their craft; that they are Absolved from all
Allegiance to spurious mandates, and that all professional connection between educators
and the deformers, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as liberated
professionals, they have full Power to create and modify curriculum, conclude instruction,
contract Alliances, establish assessments, and to do all other Acts and Things
which professional educators may of right do. And for the support of this
Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we
mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
