This Parents Across America webinar features educator/activist Jesse Hagopian who reframes education issues to clarify how bad education policies and practices such as high-stakes standardized testing, school privatization, and discriminatory discipline harm students of color. Jesse shares success stories from Seattle and elsewhere as a call to action for everyone who cares about high-quality public schools for all children.

PAA Founding Members speak about charter Video by Hancock Productions (www.hancockproductions.com)

"We're lying to our kids," says professor and former charter school advocate and supporter of No Child Left Behind Diane Ravitch. High-stakes testing and punishing teachers for low-scoring kids is failing, according to her research; moreover, charter schools are only successful, when they are, because they can select the best students from the failing districts in which they are located. In a new piece at The Nation, and in her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, Ravitch lays out the case against the policies she once supported. She joins Laura in studio to discuss the problems with education--and how Obama and Arne Duncan might be making things worse, not better.

Does high-stakes testing really work? A mom punctures the myth. (Search youtube for "CSAP Baby" to watch a great teacher-made motivational video. Google "Obama bashes his own education policies" to see what the President said about standardized testing at his own daughters' school.)

PAA Founding members discuss their take on high-stakes exams Video by Hancock Productions (www.hancockproductions.com)

PAA, a new nationwide organization of parents opposing education deform, held its inaugural event in New York City on February 7, 2011 with Diane Ravitch as the keynote speaker. For more information, visit www.parentsacrossamerica.org

PAA, a new nationwide organization of parents opposing education deform, held its inaugural event in New York City on February 7, 2011 with Diane Ravitch as the keynote speaker. For more information, visit www.parentsacrossamerica.org