Friday, April 25, 2014


BATs WEEKLY ROUNDUP
By: Marla Kilfoyle, General Manager of BATs and Melissa Tomlinson, Asst. General Manager

Ohio BAT Dawn Neely Randall
and Ohio Democratic Chairperson Chris Redfern

BATs had an amazing week.  On Sunday we learned that Civil Rights Hero James Meredith agreed to do a phone-in message to kick off our DC Rally.  On Tuesday, BATs swarmed Highline School District in Burien, Washington for contracting with TFA.  Highline has a very high number of NBCTs.  As a result of that action, many BATs received return emails from the BOE of Highline acknowledging our concerns about hiring TFA to teach children.  Tennessee BATs were among those teachers that have fought very hard to get their teacher evaluation system reversed. They were successful this week!  Tennessee BATs and FCEA also hosted gubernatorial candidate John McKamey.  Ohio BAT Dawn Neely Randall had a nice chat this week with State Representative AND Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, Chris Redfern. She was vocal about her local district's testing schedule and other educational issues.  Also, we learned from Ohio, that Janet Garrett, a major supporter of BATs and a teacher, announced she was running for U.S. Congress, 4th Congressional District.   Allen J. Cannon, a N.J. BAT, is also running for Congress for the 12th District.  BATs were active on twitter this past week.  A Thunderclap was set up for Wednesday, 4/30/14, to stop Rowan University from honoring N.J. Governor Chris Christie.  The hashtag, #nodegree4Christie, will be used.  BATs are angry that a University, known for its teachers college, is hosting an anti-public school governor.  On Friday, we were contacted by the AFT to help with the Pearson: Stop Gagging our Teachers campaign and supported their petition which saw over 7000 signatures in just one day ~ And that’s the BAT Weekly Roundup ~ week ending  4/25/14!

2 comments:

  1. In Oklahoma, BATS joined forces with our state PLACs (Parent Legislation Action Committees) and EFFORT SOS (Educators for Funding, Openness, Responsibility, and Trust - Save our Schools) and spent the entire week writing, emailing and calling our state legislators. Today's announcement:

    Legislative Update Monday April 21- Friday, April 25

    Thursday, April 24 marked another deadline in the legislature. Yesterday was the last day for a bill to be heard in the opposite house. Those bills that did not get heard are now "dead." It was a very successful day yesterday for common education in Oklahoma- many bills were defeated that would have been detrimental to common education, and many more bills like that did not even get heard on the floor! We would like to thank everyone who responded to the numerous alerts over the last 2 weeks- your involvement in the process helped defeat many bills and helped promote good bills! Thank you! Below is a summary of the bills we have repeatedly discussed that passed or died with this deadline.

    Elections/ Bond Issues
    SB 1816 THIS BILL FAILED TO GET A HEARING ON THE HOUSE FLOOR! THIS BILL IS NOW CONSIDERED DEAD.

    Funding
    HB 2642 This bill passed the Senate on April 16, 2014 with a vote of 43 Yeas to 1 Nay and will go back to the House to accept changes.

    SB 1971 This bill failed to pass the House on April 24, 2014 with a vote of 55 Nays to 23 Yeas.

    Charters
    SB 573 The bill was heard yesterday on the House floor and failed to pass by a vote of 64 Nays, 26 Yeas and 11 not voting.

    Testing
    SB 1654 The bill passed with a vote of 70 Yeas, 7 Nays and 24 not voting.

    Vouchers
    HB 2414 This bill passed the Senate on April 15, 2014 with a vote of 31 Yeas to 16 Nays and will go back to the House to accept amendments. (Not happy!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great service! Thanks for consolidating all this information.

    ReplyDelete

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