Read Online More Than a Score by Jesse Hagopian - Free Book Online Page B

2013.”
    Let me be honest. When education activist Priscilla Sanstead and I decided to create the Badass Teachers Association Facebook page on June 14, 2013, at 4:30 p.m., we had no idea that it would trigger a groundswell of teacher rage and activism the likes of which neither of us had seen. We knew teachers were angry but we had underestimated both the depth of that anger and the wellspring of creativity ready to be tapped if someone provided the right outlet. We also didn’t realize that an approach to organizing we had both been exposed to during the great New York parents’ test revolt of April 2013—one that allowed parents of vastly different political perspectives to work together—would prove to be so valuable in building a national movement. A defiant, in-your-face name; a unique multipartisan style of organizing; a pair of founders that included one who liked speaking in public (me) and one who liked creating organizational structures behind the scenes (Priscilla); and, as it turns out, perfect timing proved to be the kindling for a fiery protest movement that is still burning brightly.
    Let’s first consider two of the key elements in this mix, the timing and the name. In March 2012 more than a year before Priscilla and I started the Badass Teachers Association Facebook page, just before I was scheduled to speak at a United Opt Out protest in Washington, I helped the Bronx-based Rebel Diaz Arts Collective create a design for a Badass Teachers Association T-shirt and even produced a video to promote it. Neither the concept nor the shirt set the world on fire—Rebel Diaz sold sixty of the shirts, mostly to well-known education activists and to teachers involved with the remnants of the Occupy movement. And after Occupy DOE 2.0 in April 2012, the idea seemed to die.
    So why did it take off in June 2014? What had changed? Here’s my view. In March 2012, teachers throughout the nation still had hopes that the newly reelected Barack Obama would back off on testing and give teachers more respect and more input into shaping education policies. By June 2013, those hopes had been shattered. Not only did the president double down on Race to the Top policies promoting school closings and test-based teacher evaluations, he ignored National Teacher Appreciation week to celebrate National Charter School week and continued to give his full support to much-hated Secretary of Education Duncan. When you couple this with the actions of former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel during and after the Chicago teachers strike, you can see why many public school teachers felt completely alone—deserted by the Democrats and put under direct assault by Republicans, who in most states pursued a privatization agenda coupled with vicious attacks on teachers unions.
    But it was not just teacher rage and disillusionment that allowed the newly formed Badass Teachers Association to take off, it was also the approach to organizing that it employed. In April 2014, provoked by a toxic package of “reforms” forced through the New York State legislature by governor Andrew Cuomo, which included Common Core–aligned tests that were so long and difficult they resembled a form of child abuse to many—ten thousand families throughout New York decided to opt out their children from state tests and start a movement to push back against the testing. What made this movement so unique was that many of its leaders were Republicans and conservatives, some of them aligned with the Tea Party, who welcomed working with liberals, leftists, and leaders of local teachers unions. Never before in the state, or perhaps anywhere else in the nation, had a movement this diverse arisen to defend local control of public schools and fight back against uncontrolled testing. Keeping such a politically diverse group together was difficult, but two groups were created in the midst of the test revolt that were committed to that