Watch Public Education Nation Today

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.

I cannot watch today-- it's Homecoming weekend and I'm the student council adviser, so I'm about to spend most of the next 36 hours in the gym. I am counting on all of you to watch, to blog and tweet about what you see and hear, to spread the word that there are non-corporate voices out there, smart, well-informed voices that support public education and see ways to move forward that aren't primarily focused on making somebody rich(er).