American Federation of Teachers launches massive attack against education reform movement

Finally, teachers are standing up against the so-called "reform" movement in education.

American Federation of Teachers, one of the two biggest teacher unions in the United States, has announced a massive attack against the reform movement:

The unions are calling the movement a groundswell of organic support against the usurping of public schools by "corporate interests" that want to make a "market-based system of schooling" involving high-stakes testing and attacks on collective bargaining. An AFT one-pager obtained by HuffPost lists the day's purpose as "to begin to create a national echo chamber for our vision and narrative." The memo calls on groups to "mobilize large numbers of parents, students, community residents and union members" to "tell stories of the impact of the corporate agenda on students," and, in some cases, "target an agent of the corporate agenda."

Weingarten said the idea behind the campaign came from a human rights conference in Los Angeles and through town halls AFT held in different cities. "We want to fight austerity, but we also want to come up with a proactive way of trying to change public education," she said. "You see a grassroots movement that says no -- not just no we have enough, no we're critical -- but these are the kind of reforms we need to help kids succeed in life, college and career. We thought it was important to have one day to mark that."