Thursday evening June 26 approximately three hundred teachers and public school support personnel gathered in Seattle’s Westlake Center to hold a rally against the new Common Core Standards (CCS) before marching one mile to the Gates Building and holding a rally and protest there for over an hour.
Common Core Standards was created by corporatists in order to take tax dollars meant for public education and put the dollars instead into private, for profit corporations. They’ve done this under the guise of helping students succeed and have convinced the majority of our lawmakers into thinking this is a good thing. Teachers were not consulted in creating these standards. Said standards were all devised by corporatists who want our schools run like corporations. These standards are out of touch with the reality of public education. They’re having students learn curriculum at a much younger age than ever before and forcing more and more tests on them. CCS also demands that teachers be evaluated according to test scores.
Those of us who do know how a public school should be run are vehemently opposed to Common Core, which has been bankrolled largely by Bill Gates.
The rally, which was held during rush hour right across the street from the Seattle Center and right next to the busiest intersection in Seattle (dubbed the “Mercer Mess” by locals). People held signs that said things like End Corporate Rule, Testing Is Not Teaching, and True Philanthropy Has No Strings Attached, to name a few.
Speeches were given that gave mention of Gates’ having financial stakes in Monsanto and that he was treating our children like genetically engineered food. Also mentioned was the fact that hundreds of teachers have written letters to Bill Gates explaining how CCS was damaging children and how none of those letters has been answered (later in the rally a representative from the Gates Foundation came out and accepted the letters while protesters chanted, “two, four. six, eight, send the Core back to Gates).
One speaker stated that Gates thought CCS was a good idea because he’s all about market and profits. The problem is that our schools don’t have that “bottom line” and can’t declare bankruptcy. So now corporatists like Gates are setting our schools up for failure by gutting them financially and then convincing local lawmakers to close schools they deem a “failure.” Gates is reported to have said that teachers don’t know the science of good teaching. Gates has also gone as far as denying anyone a grant unless they praise the Common Core in writing when they request grant money. This includes scientific studies at universities and anyone else requesting a grant from the Gates Foundation. The Gates money has brought profits to the testing companies, the text book companies, but have starved the part of the school budgets that actually help students: smaller class sizes, enough staff to help struggling students, and higher teacher pay (in WA teachers haven’t had a cost of living raise in nearly two decades).
When (US secretary of ed) Arne Duncan’s name came up, several boos emanated throughout the crowd. Duncan has supported corporate take over of our education system and has supported charter schools as well.
Another speaker raised the fact that teachers are blamed for all of society’s woes. Teachers don’t cause poverty. “Don’t look inside schools for inequality. Look inside society. When a college education throws students deep into debt with no jobs when they graduate, when those who don’t go to college, instead end up in prison (the school to prison pipeline), teachers are not to blame.”
The rally lasted around two hours and was organized by the (Washington section) group Bad Ass Teachers (BATS). This is a Facebook (they are now also on Twitter) group of teachers, education support personnel and parents that began one year ago in protest against Common Core and the constant testing of students. BATS has nearly 50,000 members across the nation. Nearly 600 of those are members of the Washington chapter.
