The Five Million Dollar Demonstration

[proud2BlibKansan]

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The Save Our Schools Conference, March & Rally were different. People were there for strongly held personal, not organizational, beliefs--and on their own dime. That includes speakers who normally charge thousands of dollars for a speech, but instead donated thousands and spoke for free. Facilities were bare-bones, and the conference cost participants just $40/day (including a box lunch). Parents, school leaders, students, teachers, journalists and icons of education reform mingled, chatted and tweeted (another huge difference: flattening the hierarchies). Nearly all the work--including months of planning, website development and buzz-building--was done for free.

Critics of the Save Our Schools March focused on attendance numbers, making fun of 60s-style protesters and their signs, recycling the erroneous assertion that naturally, the unions had to be behind this--and of course, taking potshots at Matt Damon. There wasn't a lot of pushback on real issues--it's hard to defend spending tax dollars on competitive awards to public schools with the best grant-writers, or federal intrusion into decisions that should be made in schools and classrooms. Several critiques were a mix of malevolence and inanity--little spite-fests hosted by people whose worldview was evidently threatened by a peaceful demonstration.

But--for those who insist on hard data about inputs and outcomes re: the March, let me throw this out:

It cost me nearly $1000 to attend the March--and I went cheap, making the long drive down from Michigan with teacher-buddies, sleeping on an air mattress while sharing a hotel room, eating the box lunch and buying wine at the party store nearby rather than running a tab at the hotel bar. The entire March was run on a shoestring; donations came in $10-$20 increments, and it's difficult to calculate just how much it would have cost to pay expenses for the stable of speakers and entertainers who generously gave their time, expertise and notoriety to the cause.

more . . . http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_in_a_strange_land/2011/08/the_five_million_dollar_demonstration.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[Reader Rabbit]

1. Kinda the epitome of what teachers do: make a little go a long way

Most of us have had years of experience with little or no funding, so we've become experts in how to get the most out of every little thing in order to give the best to our students.