Petition by PFT President Jerry Jordan

– Philadelphia wants great neighborhood public schools that are safe and welcoming, are fully funded and have teachers who are well-prepared, are well-supported, and have manageable class sizes and time to collaborate. We want our schools to be centers of our communities and ensure that children and families have access to schools that provide services to meet a child’s educational, social, emotional, nutritional and other needs. We want curriculum that focuses on teaching and learning, not testing, and that includes art, music and the sciences. We want to put the public back in public education.

The top-down policies of the last decade have not worked. It’s clear that austerity, competition, division and hyper-testing have not and will not help our students. Top-down edicts, sanctions, mass school closures and denigrating teachers will not move the needle in the right direction. Our children and our schools deserve better.

We want a new direction for our schools. Teachers, students, parents, community organizations, civil rights advocates and faith leaders recently met in Los Angeles and together endorsed “The Principles That Unite Us.”

I urge you to sign on to these principles. We need our leaders to stand with us, united around a common vision for our schools.

To Sign The Petition, Go To: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/reclaim-the-promise-of-13/?source=search