Declaration of Independence

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.