Pittsburgh is a major city in that we have a baseball team, a football team, and a hockey team. It appears on those green highway signs when people are headed in our direction.
We are not nearly the size of Chicago.
Today I made a phone call to the Chicago Board of Education, along with many other members of the Badass Teachers Association, to leave a message saying that Chicago teachers should not be punished for refusing to give unfair tests, nor should students who opt out suffer any repercussions. I asked the gentleman on the phone if there had been many calls, and he said that yes, there were quite a few. "Good! Have a good day!"
Chicago is getting attention because its "Democratic" mayor is destroying public schools in favor of privately-run charters. I'll go into that later.
But people against overtesting have made news in Pittsburgh.
Check this front-pager out:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 3/10
Also look out for some national coverage.
As for the title of this post...it's an obscure barbershop singing reference. Go look up The Gas House Gang.
For far too long, policymakers have held the megaphone, yelling about "failing schools." I'm grabbing the megaphone to change the message.
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