Network for Public Education Makes History Saturday

This coming Saturday, the Network for Public Education will present an event this coming Saturday that represents a new sort of end run around money, power and media. PUBLIC Education Nation (October 11), is an answer to events such as NBC's Education Nation, the biggest, slickest, most nausea-inducing infomercial for reformsters one could ever hope to see.

It's one of the great challenges we face. How do people who don't have the ear of the media, who don't have twelve million dollars to set up an agitprop website, who make their living doing something other than pushing a political agenda-- how do those people get their message heard?

The answer is-- on the internet.

On Saturday, starting at noon, there will be a live event in the auditorium of the Brooklyn New School, featuring four panels:

Testing and the Common Core: New York Principal of the Year Carol Burris will lead a discussion  with educators Takeima Bunche-Smith, Rosa Rivera-McCutchen and Alan Aja.

Support Our Schools, Don’t Close Them: Chicago teacher Xian Barrett will moderate a panel featuring education professor Yohuru Williams, Hiram Rivera of the Philadelphia Student Union, and a representative of the Newark Student Union.

Charter Schools: North Carolina writer and activist Jeff Bryant will host a discussion that will include New Orleans parent activist Karran Harper Royal, New York teacher and blogger Gary Rubinstein, and Connecticut writer and activist Wendy Lecker.

Authentic Reform Success Stories: The fourth panel will be led by Network for Public Education executive director Robin Hiller and will include New York teacher and activist Brian Jones, and author of Beyond the Education Wars: Evidence That Collaboration Builds Effective Schools, Greg Anrig.

Diane Ravitch and Jitu Brown, In Conversation: The event will finish off with a conversation between leading community activist Jitu Brown and Diane Ravitch, who will talk about where we are in building a movement for real improvement in our schools.

There are some great names here, and subjects well worth discussing. There is clearly an agenda for solutions, not just complaining about reformster baloney.

Anybody connected to the internet can watch a live stream of the event. And if you would like to help with the costs, you can follow this link to the NPE website and contribute by way of paypal. So make your contribution, mark your calendar, check your internet hookup, and plan to be part of a historic and informative event. It is possible to be heard, to connect, and to get the word out, even if NBC isn't interested in doing it.