The BATS are a defining moment for America. The Badass Teachers Association stands for everything I believe in with education. Public education is much better than corporate reform. Our government wants us to believe parents should have the freedom to choose what schools our children go to, while silently manipulating us to choose charter schools. Public educators are the ones who reach our children, who push them and want the best. Not through rigorous high-stakes testing, but through filling their minds with knowledge to be creative and curious. They believe in something and they are willing to fight for it, through their voices and their courage. They don’t hide behind a white-washed media, filling our children’s brains with lies and innuendo.
Our education system has been hijacked, by those who have nothing to do with education. They think they know best, but they are basing that on greed and profit. This is not the America I grew up in. It hasn’t been for the past ten years or so. We have allowed this to happen, to give up our freedoms and our future. We can take it back, but we have to speak up, like the BATS are doing. We have to speak loud, we have to speak from our heart, and we have to do it now. We can not allow those who have the brightest light to fade away. If we do, we are all lost. This generation of students holds the key to the future.
The next time you see a public school teacher, thank them. Tell them they are heroes, and what they are doing matters. Like in Finland, teachers should be held in the highest regard. They need to be respected and treated like the professionals they are. They should not be held accountable for the results of standardized, pressured tests that students take one day a year. Their jobs are on the line, and they are the unsung heroes in our country. Do not let them be replaced by temporary non-educators who think they are better. Do not let the Bill Gates of the world tell us what we are and what we can do. We are not the 1%, we are not the elite, we are not the wealthy. We are America, and we will not stand for corporate takeover of the very institutions that define us.
Become a member of BAPS, the Badass Parents, whose sole function is to support the BATS!
The Season Of Myths 