United Opt Out: Origins, Escapades, and Future Directions

• In Event: Inside the Opt Out Movement: The Role of Parent Protest in Educational Change

Abstract

Objectives: Using United Opt Out, we will present an autobiographical/historical narrative of how a progressive education-activist oriented group formed. Also, we will illustrate how we created a national movement focused on destroying corporate education reform by using a simple form of civil disobedience—opt out. We will present in detail “framing events” that define the group and then project a direction for the future of United Opt Out as an activist organization.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
The perspective we bring to this session is the lived experience of actually creating, growing, and sustaining an organization that has substantial civic action at its core. Unlike regular professional
organizations, United Opt Out is not a traditional member serving, information producing entity. Our focus has always been on promoting action—action that never apologizes for its fervent defense of public education and advocacy of a progressive and democratic education that is equitably accessible to all students.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry and data sources:
Our main mode of inquiry will be historical. Through the use of first person narratives with all the founding members of United Opt Out and an analysis of the artifacts—meeting agendas, Facebook threads, television and radio interviews, action descriptions, media accounts, etc.—We will “tell our story.” The need to “tell our story” comes from a desire to keep United Opt Out as an organic, and evolving group and an act of direct disruption to corporate education reform.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions:
Given that the “opt out movement” has now taken hold nationally it is important to first document the movement’s beginning stages as an idea and put forth publicly an evidenced based narrative. This is essential to allow for future empirical and theoretical investigations and possibly even to prescribe future actions that can support public education and dismantle education reform.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
Historical, autobiographical and ethnographic studies are essential in helping frame a future direction for scholarship and inquiry. Opt out is ready for academic modes of inquiry. With the rising interest and participation in the opt out movement there is a need for scholarship that will help provide a foundation for these efforts.

Authors

• Morna M. Mcdermott, Towson University

• Timothy Slekar, Edgewood College