Dispatch from the SOS Rally

by KEVIN CAREY on JULY 30, 2011

in UNCATEGORIZED

I went to the Ellipse this afternoon to attend the SOS Rallyand while I’m going to write something longer and more coherent about it over the next couple of days, here are some semi-random thoughts (and one video) in the meantime:

• I should have worn sunscreen.
• If you’re Linda Darling-Hammond and you’re going to stand on a stage denouncing programs that are “staffed by revolving-door beginners and other untrained teachers, many of whom see it as charity work on their way to a real job,” why not just say “Teach for America”? Everybody knows who you’re talking about.
• Taylor Mali recited his poem “What Teachers Make,” and it was really good, a highlight of the event.
• Bob Schaeffer from FairTest argued that it’s not really true that NCLB was a bipartisan piece of legislation (it passed the Senate 91-8 and the House 384-45) because it was written by “inside-the-beltway politicians.” Um, I’m pretty sure that all federal legislation is written by inside-the-beltway politicians in that the beltway surrounds the District of Columbia, where laws are made.
• Pedro Noguera came on next and said, no, it was bipartisan. Also that Obama’s education policy is like his Afghanistan policy in that we were promised something different but really got more of the same.
• During the musical entertainment break, a teacher with a guitar said “I wrote this a couple of days ago” and then sang Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” with altered parody lyrics. You didn’t really write that, dude.
• Jonathan Kozol was next. He drives my more conservative education policy friends absolutely crazy, but I’ve always liked Jonathan Kozol. He’s very smart, a helluva writer, and I admire his steadfast insistence that low-income income students need and deserve the same educational resources that wealthy students receive. They absolutely do. I got to spend an hour debating education policy with him over lunch a few years ago and considered it a privilege. That said, when you start talking about “the mania–the pestilence–of testing, like mad cow disease, spreading across the land” and “putting teachers under the sword of ignorant, narrow accountability,” you’re edging into deranged preacher territory. And saying, as Kozol did, that Secretary of Education Duncan is not only rejecting Brown v. Board but trying to restore Plessy v. Ferguson is really beyond the pale.
• Jon Stewart’s taped address was funny and humane and there was nothing per se objectionable about it. But I wish he would dig deeper into the conversation and understand that this debate is about more than just bogus claims that teachers are overpaid.
• One of the important things when organizing an event with a strong point of view is avoiding inadvertent self-parody and so I think the SOS people would have been better off keeping this guy (a self-described ’60s SDS veteran) and his rapping off the stage:
  

For the record, I believe the achievement gap is neither a hustle nor one big crime spree.

Matt Damon's headliner speech at the Save Our Schools March in DC, 7/30/2011

Uploaded by getinthefracas on Jul 30, 2011

Twitter: @danbrownteacher
Matt Damon's headliner speech at the Save Our Schools March in DC, 7/30/2011 --- introduction from his educator mom.

Here is the speech that actor Matt Damon gave today to thousands of teachers, parents and others who attended the Save Our Schools march on the Ellipse near the White House to protest the Obama administration’s education policies that are centered on standardized tests.

Damon’s common-sense, straight-to-the-point speech.

I flew overnight from Vancouver to be with you today. I landed in New York a few hours ago and caught a flight down here because I needed to tell you all in person that I think you’re awesome.

I was raised by a teacher. My mother is a professor of early childhood education. And from the time I went to kindergarten through my senior year in high school, I went to public schools. I wouldn’t trade that education and experience for anything.

I had incredible teachers. As I look at my life today, the things I value most about myself — my imagination, my love of acting, my passion for writing, my love of learning, my curiosity — all come from how I was parented and taught.

And none of these qualities that I’ve just mentioned — none of these qualities that I prize so deeply, that have brought me so much joy, that have brought me so much professional success — none of these qualities that make me who I am ... can be tested.

I said before that I had incredible teachers. And that’s true. But it’s more than that. My teachers were EMPOWERED to teach me. Their time wasn’t taken up with a bunch of test prep — this silly drill and kill nonsense that any serious person knows doesn’t promote real learning. No, my teachers were free to approach me and every other kid in that classroom like an individual puzzle. They took so much care in figuring out who we were and how to best make the lessons resonate with each of us. They were empowered to unlock our potential. They were allowed to be teachers.

Now don’t get me wrong. I did have a brush with standardized tests at one point. I remember because my mom went to the principal’s office and said, ‘My kid ain’t taking that. It’s stupid, it won’t tell you anything and it’ll just make him nervous.’ That was in the ’70s when you could talk like that.

I shudder to think that these tests are being used today to control where funding goes.

I don’t know where I would be today if my teachers’ job security was based on how I performed on some standardized test. If their very survival as teachers was based on whether I actually fell in love with the process of learning but rather if I could fill in the right bubble on a test. If they had to spend most of their time desperately drilling us and less time encouraging creativity and original ideas; less time knowing who we were, seeing our strengths and helping us realize our talents.

I honestly don’t know where I’d be today if that was the type of education I had. I sure as hell wouldn’t be here. I do know that.

This has been a horrible decade for teachers. I can’t imagine how demoralized you must feel. But I came here today to deliver an important message to you: As I get older, I appreciate more and more the teachers that I had growing up. And I’m not alone. There are millions of people just like me.

So the next time you’re feeling down, or exhausted, or unappreciated, or at the end of your rope; the next time you turn on the TV and see yourself called “overpaid;” the next time you encounter some simple-minded, punitive policy that’s been driven into your life by some corporate reformer who has literally never taught anyone anything. ... Please know that there are millions of us behind you. You have an army of regular people standing right behind you, and our appreciation for what you do is so deeply felt. We love you, we thank you and we will always have your back.

Matt Damon defends teachers against a [expletive] cameraman!

Uploaded by GLteachers on Jul 31, 2011

Footage from the 2011 SOS March. Matt Damon spoke. Matt Damon did interviews. Matt Damon defended teachers against a [expletive] cameraman!

Actor Matt Damon got into a tense exchange with a journalist from the libertarian Reason TV site after she asked him whether teachers with tenure would lack incentive to work hard at their jobs.
The journalist argued that Damon has an incentive to work hard as an actor because he lacks job security, while teachers do not.the Harvard-educated actor Matt Damon took a stand that has been making the rounds this morning. Sporting his bald style for Neill Blomkamp‘s upcoming sci-fi film Elysium where he plays a convict, he spoke to a reporter at the Save Our Schools Million Teacher March in Washington DC. Standing next to his mother, he lets out a worthy expletive after an impressive defense of teachers, in what could be a deleted Good Will Hunting scene.When Damon's mom, a Boston-area teacher, asked where the cameraman got his numbers, he responded, "I don't know. Ten percent of people in any profession maybe should think of something else.
To which Damon struck back: “Maybe you’re a shitty cameraman.”
Matt Damon!