Jeffco Public School Board has just proposed a change of curriculum stating that, "Materials should not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law. Instructional materials should present positive aspects of the United States and its heritage." This means that important parts of our history such as the Civil Rights Movement, Native American genocide, and slavery will not be taught in public schools. If we don't learn about genocide and slavery, how will we help stop them from happening again? If we don't understand the tremendous legacy of the Civil Rights Era, how can we work every day to honor and build on the gains made by so many courageous Americans? This is a severe form of censorship intended to keep the youth ignorant and easy to manipulate. I'm hoping to get enough signatures to prove that this is a public issue, so, please, if this is important to you, please sign. Do not let our youth grow up in ignorance; we all deserve the truth!

We do not believe in frequent high-stakes testing for children. We refuse to subject our children to yet another standardized assessment that negatively impacts their curricular and instructional choices. The data that will be stored on our children without a parent's permission is a violation and should be stopped immediately. We, the undersigned, believe that using test scores to evaluate teaching and learning is unjust and inequitable. Rather than pouring time, energy, and money into a new testing program, we demand that the district and the state reevaluate the ways in which they measure school and student achievement. New Jersey students deserve better. No creemos en exámenes estandarizados de riesgos altos. Rechazamos presentar a nuestros hijos con exámenes estandarizados que afectan negativamente sus opciones de enseñanza e instrucción. La información que se collecta de nuestro hijos sin autorización parental es una violación y debe ser parada inmediatamente. Nosotros, los firmadores de esta petición, creemos que el uso de esta examinación para evaluar la enseñanza y el aprender es injusta y inequitable. En vez de invertir tiempo, dinero, energía, y dinero en examinaciones nuevas, exigimos que el distrito y el estado re-evalúen las maneras usadas para evaluar el progreso de las escuelas y los estudiantes. Los estudiantes de New Jersey merecen mejor.

At the Boston School Committee meeting on September 17th, Interim Superintendent McDonough recommended that all students in grades 3-8 and in grade 11 take the PARCC this year in order to better prepare for the potential transition from MCAS to PARCC. Tenth graders will still be required to take and pass the MCAS as a graduation requirement. As teachers, students, family members, and administrators within Boston Public Schools, we do not support this recommendation. We refuse to subject ourselves to yet another high-stakes standardized assessment that negatively impacts our curricular and instructional choices. We have serious concerns about the increase of testing in all of our schools. To be clear, we do not necessarily believe that the MCAS is a better assessment than PARCC. As Lisa Guisbond, the executive director of Citizens for Public Schools, has stated, “With PARCC versus MCAS, districts have been given a false choice. They have to pick which of two flawed punitive systems will do the least harm to their efforts to engage and educate their students.” We, the undersigned, believe that using test scores to evaluate teaching and learning is unjust and inequitable. Rather than pouring time, energy, and money into a new testing program, we demand that the district and the state reevaluate the ways in which it measures school and student achievement. Boston students deserve better. For more information, check out the resources compiled here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vjg5BPfUWjBnttfbv-vqfbaNnT307BJaoDQoIaDjglA/edit?usp=sharing

The American Federation of Teachers New Mexico and the Albuquerque Teachers Federation are taking back New Mexico on the first day of early voting, 10.18.14. We are taking back New Mexico from Governor Susana Martinez because she is: -Working to eliminate payroll deductions for public employees. Susana stated “The state collects them (dues) for the unions, and then we cut a check to the unions who then use that money against reform.” This is a union busting technique used by politicians such as Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. - Underfunding our public schools and increasing class sizes. - Diverting money to special schemes and projects. - Demoralizing students and teachers with high stakes testing and blame and shame reforms.

Update 9/24/14: I am talking with Dean Groves tomorrow regarding this petition. Thank you all for your support and please continue to bring suggestions as to how we can improve UVa Grounds' safety for everyone. For years, UVa has tried to pretend violent and sexual crimes do not occur on a regular basis on or nearby university property, but with each sexual assault and abduction, the evidence is mounting that the university not only has a problem, but is not effectively fighting the problem. Simple changes in how the UVa and Charlottesville PD patrol areas like Wertland, 14th, 15th, Virginia, Gordon, Grady and JPA, which have been hot spots for violent and sexual crimes since 2006, when I first started attending UVa, could prevent future tragedies like the ones that occurred this past weekend. Michael Gibson, Chief of UVa PD, said in an email last year, "While you can never completely protect yourself from sexual assault, there are some things that you can do to help reduce your risk of being assaulted." He is absolutely right--one thing we can do is hold him and his police department accountable for failing to prioritize patrolling areas that, year after year, continue to feature sexual assaults, abductions, assaults, muggings, etc. Additionally, his department's alerts are also inadequate and misleading. They often wait days before deciding there has been enough or severe enough criminal activity in an area to issue warnings, by which point, other students have needlessly fallen victim to the same criminals because they do not know there is a problem. While previous email alerts used to detail the exact addresses that criminal activity had taken place, the emails from this past weekend have omitted location details in some pathetic attempt to pretend there isn't crime on UVa property. The withholding of this information serves UVa's image at the expense of student safety. These alerts also fail to identify important details like how the criminals were thought to be targeting students, while also placing undue blame on the students for the crimes committed against them by implying or omitting details that make every scenario seem like the student is wandering lost and drunk out of their mind, like they have unfairly done with Ms. Graham. Furthermore, Dean Laushway, one of the associate deans of students at UVa, upon hearing my suggestion at a lunch meeting three years ago to start a crime awareness website specifically for the UVa area, implied that maintaining the pristine image of UVa and Charlottesville was more important than taking steps to make the community a safer place for students. Now that a sexual assault has occurred on the front door of UVa's hospital on Lee Street this past weekend (per the CrimeView map on Charlottesville PD's website), in addition to Ms. Graham's abduction, the crime problem is now affecting hospital employees, patients and their visitors. This is simply unacceptable and we, the UVa community, deserve a safer place to learn, work and play than what the UVa administration and police department is currently providing. They owe it to everyone, and especially the women of the UVa community, that UVa Grounds and the surroundings areas should not be hunting grounds for sexual deviants and heinous murderers. Addendum 9/18: 1) For future signers, please state in the "comments" section if you are a student, alumnus/a or concerned community member (which could mean in Charlottesville/Albemarle County or otherwise). If you are a student or alum, please state your school ie CLAS, etc and your graduating year. If you are a concerned community member, you are welcome to state if you are part of a university community elsewhere or have another background that you feel is relevant to this issue. We would like to know this information as best we can so that when we present this petition to UVa, they have an idea of where the backing for this petition comes from. This is not to discount any of those three populations and frankly, the fact that citizens from over half the US states and at least 5 foreign countries have signed the petition is amazing and speaks to the fact that students, faculty, citizens, patients and visitors having the right to a safe university community is a universally desirable goal that is recognized from people from all kinds of backgrounds and locations. Thank you all for voicing your concerns. 2) If you have suggestions or anecdotes of how other university campuses do security and alerts well, please mention them in the comments section. Crowd-sourcing is a great way to get ideas and no one person can have all the answers.

By building the educational opportunities of tomorrow in automobile dependent Amherst, NY, Erie Community College is attempting to keep the job and educational opportunities of tomorrow from the transit dependent youth of our community. They are misusing our tax dollars and need to be held accountable to their vision and mission by "providing affordable & accessible educational programs" to all students of Western New York, and not only those that can afford to drive out to get it.

To improve the opportunities of the young athletes of Everett High School. To bring honor, respect, and a winning tradition back to the Everett High School football program.

The Nursing Program is not military friendly.....soldiers are belittled, disrespected, and made to feel unwanted. The D.O.N is unprofessional, and at every chance abuses her postion, she uses intimidation and fear to bully students, she is rude, and disrespectful towards all students. The environment is not conducive for learning.

Besides taking inordinate amount of time to administer, computer testing of young children in K-2nd grades is inappropriate. These children do not have the developmental skills or physical abilities to type and use a mouse, which are needed to take a computer test. Nor do they have the attention span to take a 30 to 40 minute test on a computer. Children are exposed to stress and anxiety unnecessarily. Furthermore, children without computers at home are at a strong disadvantage, thus increasing the educational gap. Results from computer tests do not assess a teacher’s ability to teach or improve our children’s education. Testing is necessary, but it should complement teaching and not hinder it. Computer-based tests only show which items were missed or correct, but they do not show why the student answered the way they did. When a paper/pencil test is given in a small group setting, the teacher can observe the students' thinking process, which is instrumental in guiding instruction for the students. In this setting, teachers can improve their performance or enhance specific teaching skills.

As a potential leader in the green movement and containing a large student base looking for entertainment and exercise, MSU should pursue sustainable recreation in the form of a rock wall made of recyclable materials. It could set a standard of environmental awareness in recreational facilities and provide a piece of infrastructure that the East Lansing area is lacking.

Montague is a top rated school and the town and children will benefit forever by this addition. We send our tax dollars to New York state and have no representation there. We can do a better job for LESS money than we pay in tuition.

When Ohio charter schools are closed, taxpayers often have to cover costs. The attorney general’s office recouped only $422,000 of $30 million from failed charter schools. As a spokesperson for the state’s attorney general has said, “The charter school book of business is a very difficult book of business to collect on.” The petition asks state officials to take two steps permitted under Ohio law. First, Section 3314.015 Oversight of sponsors allows the State Board of Education to determine that the Concept sponsors are not complying with the requirement to oversee the schools. The board can then revoke the sponsors’ authority and transfer sponsorship to the Ohio Department of Education’s Office of School Sponsorship. Second, once the Office of School Sponsorship has become the schools’ sponsor, Section 3314.029 Ohio school sponsorship program empowers the Department of Education to require each of the 19 Ohio Concept schools to post a “bond payable to the state or to file with the state superintendent a guarantee, which shall be used to pay the state any moneys owed by the community school in the event the school closes.” Further background information can be found at: http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/education/2014/07/30/fbi-raid-horizon-charter-school-cincinnati/13364593/?from=global&sessionKey=&autologin http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/07/charges_of_cheating_and_sexual.html http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/21/1217868/-Ohio-School-Bans-African-American-Hairstyles-For-Girls http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/07/15/19-charter-schools-to-be-investigated.html http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3314.015 http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3314.029 http://www.nbc4i.com/story/24778722/nbc4-investigates-taxpayers-left-holding-bill-for-charter-schools