More information here: National Teacher Sickout, NTS Facebook Page, NTS on Twitter, a pdf of the below letter
To: Parents of U.S. school children
From: Anonymous
Re: National Teacher Sickout 9-21-2011
Greetings, we are Anonymous.
We are calling on all teachers to participate in a nation-wide sickout on September 21st, 2011 to protest the centralization of educational policy making power in the United States. We demand a return to local control for public education.
We are strongly pro-parent. Parents should be the primary drivers of educational policy in their own communities. Accountability should be maintained at the local level. School boards and administrators should answer to parents and community members, not to politicians and bureaucrats.
This is increasingly not the case. For more than twenty-five years, powerful corporate and political interests have created ever more nation-wide rules and requirements for schools to follow, silencing the voice of parents. Every year, the wishes of parents count for less, and the wishes of powerful corporations and foundations, and ambitious politicians and bureaucrats count for more. This must end.
For years academics and concerned citizens have made arguments, engaged in debates, and submitted pleas to stop the destruction of public education and dis-empowerment of parents. All have failed. The time for talking is over, the time for action is now. A nationwide sickout will be highly disruptive and send a clear message to the corporations and politicians who think they are in control.
We call on the support of all parents who wish to be the primary drivers of their own children's education. We ask that you spread the word by tweeting, facebooking, and talking with your children's teachers to encourage them to participate. Post links and encouragement on blogs and news sites. We ask that you to go out into the real world to post fliers, to hold community meetings, to protest at board meetings and political gatherings.
We ask that you join us in our demand. We ask that you make yourselves heard.
We are Anonymous.
You are the leaders.
