Corporate education reformers take aim at Massachusetts

Corporate education reform group Stand for Children has Massachusetts in its crosshairs, threatening a ballot measure that would make it easier to fire teachers based on an untested, unproven evaluation system. This is despite the fact that Massachusetts has, by many measures, the best schools in the nation.

Though there are real grassroots activists in Stand for Children's background, by now it is controlled by more of the same'Wall Street money, Walmart Walton money, and other billionaire supporters of bringing private profit into public education. Stand leaves behind it a trail of disillusioned former members. In Massachusetts, a group of 29 former Stand for Children activists write that:

Stand was one group of many at the table when the new Massachusetts educator evaluation system was hammered out over several months last spring. Unions, principals, state officials, parents'all contributed. But when the new regulations were finally announced, one group walked away'Stand for Children.

Immediately, Stand filed for a ballot initiative and used some of their new corporate money to hire people to collect the signatures. It cost them $3 a signature, but they have plenty more. They are following the master plan revealed in Colorado by their national CEO, Jonah Edelman, a month before it was announced Massachusetts.

The proposed ballot measure attempts to blow up the collaborative work that created the new regulations last spring. It does nothing to improve teaching in our schools.

Instead, the Stand for Children plan eliminates job protections for teachers, pushes them to teach to the standardized test, and makes it dangerous for them to stand up for their students to administrators and bureaucrats.

Sign our petition calling on Stand for Children to withdraw this harmful, divisive measure from the Massachusetts ballot.