Frequently Asked Questions
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What’s your purpose?
UOO serves as a focused, point of unyielding resistance to corporate ed reform, test-centric, out-come based educational practices, and the privatization and destruction of public education. Do you have a mission? UOO’s mission is to strengthen public education, fight corporate based reforms that are threatening the concept and existence of an educational system that is publicly funded, quality in nature and available to all; and, in particular, to end the practice of punitive, high-stakes testing, indoctrinating digital instruction, and related activities that are fraudulently being used as “proof” of the incompetence of public education/ teachers. |
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How is your organization unique?
UOO is unique in that its core philosophy of action is based on the following concept: there are some principles that are so essential to learning, teaching, and maintaining a quality public system of education that they cannot and must not be negotiated away. This philosophy is represented in UOO’s motto: We don’t negotiate with children’s lives. What do you hope to accomplish? UOO hopes to create a more informed and involved parental, student, educator, and community base; increase community resistance to corporate ed reform activities that threaten public education, and to create an environment that leads to the demise of high-stakes testing, indoctrinating digital instruction, and related activities. |
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What are you doing to achieve your mission?
To create a more informed and active parental and community base, UOO: • Uses their webpage and social media sites to share information and promote UOO activities • Uses traditional media sources to share information and promote UOO activities • Creates educational “packets” that inform the public of the issues and the options • Establishes ongoing communications with community members, leaders, and elected officials • Promotes various blogs, radio programs, video/film, and newscast as media outlets for current news and op-eds To increase community resistance to corporate ed reform activities that threaten public education, UOO: • Conducts the outreach/information activities outlined above • Conducts high-profile public actions designed to increase publicity of the organization and the cause • Identifies and engages celebrity and/or highly influential community/political leaders • Creates a schedule of direct actions • Utilizes liberators to support local activities • Creates actions that publicize worst-case scenarios involving privatization/corporatization of education To create an environment that leads to the demise of high-stakes testing, indoctrinating digital instruction, and related activities, UOO: • Promotes the practice of having students “opt out” of participating in high-stakes testing and indoctrinating digital instruction • Provides guidance and support to parents who wish to have their children “opt out” of such testing • Shares information about others who have “opted out” • Informs educational institutions of the rights of parents/students to “opt out” of high-stakes testing and indoctrinating digital instruction • Informs the media of the reason for and the occurrence of students “opting out” of high-stakes testing and indoctrinating digital instruction • Informs community leaders, civil rights leaders, and politicians of the reason for and the occurrence of students “opting out” of high-stakes testing and indoctrinating digital instruction • Informs elected officials of the impact that “supporting” high-stakes testing and indoctrinating digital instruction will have on their future political careers. |
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Who conducts these actions, and with whom do you interact?
• The administrators will oversee online actions and provide core planning. To accomplish this, they will interact with media, community members, politicians, liberators, federal/state/local school leadership, parents, and students • The liberators will coordinate local actions • Parents, students, and educators will conduct personal resistance actions What specific changes do you foresee in the organization in 6 months, 1 year, or 2 years? • In 6 months, UOO plans to increase local and national awareness of the issue, the number of parents/students engaged in opt out activities, and community wide questioning of test-related activities in schools • In 12 months, UOO plans to increase the number of political leaders and leaders of civil rights organizations publicly speaking against privatization/corporatization of public ed and high-stakes testing • In 12 months, UOO plans to restrict high-stakes testing data and indoctrinating digital instruction to levels that make it unusable • In 24 months, UOO plans to increase the number of schools which publicly refute the use of high-stakes tests and indoctrinating digital learning • In 24 months, UOO plans to increase the use of varied assessment for students and comprehensive evaluations of teachers that are based on criteria other than summative high-stakes testing and formative digital instruction assessments What impact will these changes have on the larger conversation about public schools? By eliminating high-stakes testing, indoctrinating digital learning, and the data which is fraudulently used to claim the incompetence of public education/teachers; privatization/corporatization forces will lose the foundation on which their hostile takeover of public schools is based. |