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This is a critical moment in our history and we have to protect public education or we’re going to lose it. There’s an incredible sea change that’s coming from the rank and file in teachers unions, not just in Massachusetts but across the country.

New York public school teacher Kate Abell responds to earlier Portside post, on Common Core, adding the perspective of a math educator. "The Common Core Math Standards are far and away the best tool for supporting teachers in the teaching of mathematics that I have ever encountered. The standards themselves are written in a way to help teachers deepen their own understanding of mathematics, make connections between math topics.. and pass this on to their students."

The Brown decision annihilated the “separate but equal” rule, previously sanctioned by the Supreme Court in 1896, that permitted states and school districts to designate some schools “whites-only” and others “Negroes-only.” But Brown was unsuccessful in its purported mission—to undo the school segregation that persists as a central feature of American public education today.

If we think privatization through to its logical conclusion, it becomes clear that the school closings and massive spread of private charter schools is more than an attack on public education. It is an attack on the whole idea of education for all. And sadly, it goes beyond education to the destruction of whole communities.

The placement of private schools in public school space is overcrowding public schools and blocking efforts to reduce class size. A lawsuit spearheaded by NYC public school parents opposes such 'co-location.'

Two months in office and the media sours on New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Why? de Blasio did not anticipate that a Democratic Party Governor of a solid blue state would put cutting taxes for the rich ahead of funding universal pre-K in New York City.

Education reform must be in the public interest—on behalf of public schools and the children who attend them—rather than private interests. This coalition has set itself the task of nothing less than reclaiming “the promise of public education as our nation’s gateway to democracy and racial and economic justice.”