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Being There with Jerry Mintz: Parents Choice Expo Report
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 Gateway School
One of the members of our school starters' class, Dave Rodriguez, organized an EXPO to give California parents information about the educational options that they have. He flew me out to San Jose to keynote the gathering.
I arrived a few days earlier. First I spent a day in San Francisco with our webmaster, Isaac Graves. Of course Isaac does far more than that. He started and ran the first eight AERO conferences and continues to help us organize them. He organizes a large part of the weekly newsletters, among many other things. It was great to get to spend a lot of time with him after not getting together since the IDEC in Boulder, Colorado, which he also helped to organize. He actually got me to walk with him for four miles across San Francisco!
Along Route 1 on the California Coast
From there I drove along incredible Route 1 which hugs the California coast, to visit my friends John and Jean. John helped me start my first school long ago. Jean is a librarian at a public elementary school. While I was there I visited Tara Redwood, an AERO member school and the elementary school that Jean works at.
I had known of a school in Santa Cruz called Gateway for over 25 years, but I had never seen it. After visiting Tara Redwood, I decided to relax a bit on the wharf in Santa Cruz. But on the way back to route 1 from the wharf, out of the corner of my eye I saw a small sign that said Gateway School. I quickly turned the corner to double check. Sure enough, as serendipity would have it, I got to visit the school. It was already after school but I stumbled on a science teacher in an after school program showing children how to shoot off rockets fueled by air pressure from a device he had fabricated. He then took me though the school and he was very interested in AERO. His nine year old daughter was with him. She said she had previously gone to the school where Jean teaches and knew her, but preferred Gateway.
On my way down the path back to my rental car I ran into the principal. I told him about AERO and the event in San Jose. He said he would try to get someone to attend, and would join AERO!
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Jerry with friend at the Santa Cruz pier
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I then drove over the mountain to the hotel in San Jose. early the next morning I arrived at the EXPO site to set up a small bookstore and get ready for my talk.
The EXPO was a great success. There were a fourteen exhibitors covering a wide range of choices for parents, from Diablo Vally Sudbury, to iLEAD Charter School, independent homeschool resources centers, public homeschool programs, a Montessori School, independent alternative schools, unschooling groups, and other shades between.
EXPO Attendees
Sponsors had taken care of some of the costs. The meeting space, the Center for Spiritual Living, donated the use of the venue.
The speakers were Shauna Reisewitz of Pacific Sands Academy, Kimberly Etter of ILEAD Charter School, Vincente Lopez of Diablo Valley, Steven Horwich of Connect The Thoughts. I did the keynote at the end. The talks were followed by a long question and answer period. The crowd filled nearly all the seats and more than half were still there when the question session to the panel ended, long after the original closing time.
We sold most of the books we had selected to bring from the AERO bookstore. I met many AERO members who came after they heard about it. But most of the attendees were, indeed, parents who were looking for answers and resources.
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Dave Rodriguez at EXPO
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One parent told me her 11 year old son ran away from school and refused to go back. I told her to tell him I thought he did the right thing. She is now planning to homeschool and possibly start a homeschool group.
The EXPO was professionally recorded and video will be posted soon. This event was a great prototype for others in the AERO community, particularly the AERO representatives. Dave has already received requests to organize parent EXPOs in several places. I'll be speaking at a similar event in Massachusetts in mid-�April.
Dave plans to organize another one here in San Jose on October 4th. If you have questions about the EXPO, Dave can be contacted here.
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| FREE AERO Membership with Registration THIS Week Only |
This week we are making a special offer to people who are ready to register for the AERO conference. If you register this week you will get a free six month AERO membership, worth $40 for an individual and $75 for a school or organization. We'll send you all the membership information which gives you the code for a 10% discount for the conference and the AERO bookstore, and all other membership perks, like free job ads, etc. The way to do it is register with a $50 deposit for an individual or a $100 deposit for a group. Then, when you receive the code, pay off your balance using the code. If you have already registered, just e mail us and we'll extend your membership.
We are just about to confirm another amazing and well-known keynoter. This will probably be announced next week. And if you look at the list of 60 workshops, you'll see many people there who might otherwise be keynoters, such as Peter Gray who keynoted last year, and Don "Four Arrows" Jacobs who has previously keynoted AERO conferences and will come from Mexico.
Don't forget to register this week!
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These Seattle Teachers Boycotted Standardized Testing-and Sparked a Nationwide Movement
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 Parents, students, and teachers all over the country have joined the revolt to liberate our kids from a test-obsessed education system.
by Diane Brooks
Life felt eerie for teachers at Seattle's Garfield High in the days following their unanimous declaration of rebellion last winter against standardized testing. Their historic press conference, held on a Thursday, had captured the attention of national TV and print media. But by midday Monday, they still hadn't heard a word from their own school district's leadership.
Then an email from Superintendent Jos� Banda hit their in-boxes. Compared with a starker threat issued a week later, with warnings of 10-day unpaid suspensions, this note was softly worded. But its message was clear: a teacher boycott of the district's most-hated test-the MAP, short for Measures of Academic Progress-was intolerable.
Jittery teachers had little time to digest the implications before the lunch bell sounded, accompanied by an announcement over the intercom: a Florida teacher had ordered them a stack of hot pizzas, as a gesture of solidarity.
"It was a powerful moment," said history teacher Jesse Hagopian, a boycott leader. "That's when we realized this wasn't just a fight at Garfield; this was something going on across the nation. If we back down, we're not just backing away from a fight for us. It's something that educators all over see as their struggle too. I think a lot of teachers steeled their resolve, that we had to continue."
Read the whole article here.
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Learn more about the 22nd annual International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC) by reading their first English-language newsletter here (PDF).
The conference will take place July 28th - August 3rd in Gwangmyeong, Korea. Registration opens March 17th.
You can find out more at www.idec2014.kr or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/theIDEC.
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Do you have a news or resource item you think Education Revolution newsletter readers would find useful? Send it to [email protected].
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Thank you for your ongoing support. With your help, we will make learner-centered alternatives available to everyone!
Sincerely,
Jerry Mintz
Executive Director
Alternative Education Resource Organization
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The Ten Signs You Need to Find a Different Kind of Education for Your Child
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Many parents don't realize that the education world has changed drastically since they were in school. Schools and class sizes used to be smaller, dropout rates lower, in-school violence almost unheard of, and teachers weren't terrified of showing affection to their students, or of discussing moral values. Of course, even then, school was far from perfect, but at least the teachers-and usually the principal-knew every student by name, something that is increasingly rare today.
Because our public school system has deteriorated considerably, many parents, teachers, and individuals have taken it upon themselves to create public and private alternatives to that system; and it is important for parents to know that they now have choices.
So how do you know that it's time to look for another educational approach for your child? Here are some of the signs:
1. Does your child say he or she hates school?
If so, something is probably wrong with the school. Children are natural learners, and when they're young, you can hardly stop them from learning. If your child says they hate school, listen to them.
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