Reclaiming Public Schools: The Opt-Out Movement and Teacher Strikes

• In Event: 34.096 - MTCC Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: 34.096-10 - Futures of Power and Resistance in Public Education

Abstract

Public schools in the US have been implementing neoliberal policies emphasizing standardized testing, funding cuts, and school privatization. However, teachers, parents, students and the public have organized to resist and repel them.Teachers have led strikes in West Virginia, Arizona, and Oklahoma demanding increased school funding. Similarly, in New York parents and teachers have created organizations, such as Long Island Opt Out and New York State Allies for Public Education, to use boycotting the tests to end standardized testing, resulting in 20 percent of the students opting out. We show how both strikes and the opt out movement are characterized by a largely female leadership, often new to political organizing, and who use social media to educate and recruit supporters.

Authors

• David W. Hursh, University of Rochester

• Zhe Chen, University of Rochester

• Sarah Kathleen Mcginnis, University of Rochester