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About USOS

Save Our Schools March, the organization that galvanized the national education activist movement, has recently reconstituted itself as Uniting to Save Our Schools (USOS).

 

The right of every individual to a high quality, free, and equitable public education has yet to be realized. This is because our public education system is a direct reflection of the broader social, political, and economic ills that plague our society, and an economic system based upon profit rather than human needs and human rights. In order to transform public education, we must work to eliminate all forms of human exploitation, including systemic racism, as well as existing inequities in healthcare, housing, jobs, food security, and the environment. The corporate agenda controls the two- party system and drives critical decisions that determine the nature of public education. Corporate profit and greed also drive enormous military budgets and war spending resulting in diminished resources being allocated to public education. Creating a public education system that is equitable, democratic, humane, and nurturing will require fundamental changes to the institutions of power and wealth that benefit the few at the expense of the many.

 

All public schools should be environments where everyone can begin to realize their full human potential and work together to envision and create a more just and equitable, democratic society. Schools must be responsive to student creativity, foster a sense of care and responsibility for oneself and others, and cultivate a desire to critique and act upon inequities. This requires a fully funded public education system in which professional educators receive the respect and support they deserve. While many educators currently engage their students in active, meaningful learning, our struggle to transform the education system cannot be divorced from the larger struggle to dismantle the structural, systemic forces that undermine a just and equitable democracy.

One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding.

Paulo Freire

Our Mission

Uniting to Save Our Schools is committed to joining diverse organizers, groups, and activists at the international, national, and local levels to build a movement and strategize actions that challenge and transform our political, economic, and educational systems in an effort to build a more equitable future for all our children. USOS seeks to sustain and build upon the long held conversation that educational equity only becomes possible when we simultaneously act to dismantle racialized capitalism and work towards a new economic order sutured to deep principles of justice. 

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Our Mission
unity

Our Vision

A public education system that is equitable, democratic, humane, and nurturing.

Unite to Defend and Build Quality Public Education!

USOS Organizing Committee

Bess Altwerger, Co-founder Save Our Schools; Professor Emeritus, College of Education, Towson University

 

Rosalie Friend, Ph.D., Retired Educational Psychologist

 

Denisha Jones, Ph.D., J.D. Director of Art of Teaching, Sarah Lawrence College 

 

Cris Mann, MS Special Education (Mild-Moderate, K-12), Fontbonne University St. Louis, MO., B.A. Sociology, Slippery Rock State University, Slippery Rock PA; Certificate Conflict Resolution and Mediation, Center for Conflict Resolution, Kansas City, MO.

 

Rick Meyer, Ph.D., Co-founder Save our Schools; Regents Professor Emeritus, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

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Becky L. Noël Smith, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, California State University, Fresno


Rose Reyes,  MS Bilingual Instruction & Curriculum, Bilingual Educator Windham, CT

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Jesse P. Turner, Ph.D., Director of the Literacy Center Connecticut State University Center, and Professor of Literacy, Elementary, and Early Childhood Education 

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