NEWS/EVENTS
SCROLL DOWN FOR PRESS COVERAGE,
STATEMENTS, PHOTOS,
LINKS, AND INTERVIEWS
2/9/15 My Huffington Post Blogpost: When Teachers Are Pushed to the Wall: A Ray of Sunlight. Why teachers, parents, students and just plain patriots, as well as union leaders, should be on the offensive: playing defense has gotten us nowhere in the last thirteen years. Into the streets!
LINK: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurel-sturt/when-teachers-are-pushed-to-the-wall_b_6633956.html
10/30/14 ACTION: Protest against Time Magazine’s outrageously unfair cover story attacking teachers, Time-Life Building, Manhattan. Teacher union presidents Randi Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew, parents, and teachers spoke, and petitions with over 100,000 signatures were delivered to Time directors.
With Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers
Delivering boxes of signed petitions from over 100,000 teachers protesting Time magazine.
10/26/14 EVENT: Launch party for the book Badass Teachers Unite by Dr. Mark Naison, Brooklyn.
Just love fellow education activists Mark Naison and Ebony Murphy-Root!
Badass Teacher Power
Here’s to the book getting some badass sales!
10/11/14 EVENT: Network For Public Education sponsors the First Annual Public Education Nation, Brooklyn. Education warriors of all stripes participated in riveting panels and speeches, enlightening and enraging a packed auditorium at a Henry Street elementary school.
Lovely to be in the company of the brilliant and inspiring doyenne of the movement to save public education, Diane Ravitch!
Fellow Badass Teachers mods Aixa Rodriguez and Denisha Jones
9/21/14 EVENT: The Brooklyn Book Festival. I enjoyed signing books, meeting fans and fanning the flames of outrage at this annual gathering of authors and readers at Borough Hall.
8/25/14 Book review by Norm Scott of EDNOTES ONLINE: Laurel Sturt’s Davonte’s Inferno Blows the Lid Off of Ed Deform.
Link: http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2014/05/tonight-laurel-sturts-davontes-inferno.html.
7/28/14 EVENT: The long weekend Badass Teachers Association March on the Federal Department of Education, Washington, DC, was a celebration, lovefest, outragefest and inspirationfest of likeminded education activists fed up with the theft of public education. We found out we don’t just love to agitate, we LOVE to DANCE (especially to funk music)! So many highlights were capped off when BAT leaders met with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and other feds to deliver a much-needed does of reality–and indignation. 
BAT mods fighting the power!
Lovely to meet Southern Belle BATs Lucianna and Lee-Ann.
7/2/14 Book Review by Katie Lapham of Critical Classrooms: DAVONTE’S INFERNO: A Must-Read For Summer Reading
6/5/14 EVENT: America Has A Koch Problem – Rally Against the Koch Brothers, 740 Park Avenue, Manhattan.
5/24/14 Guest post on Mark Naison’s blog “With a Brooklyn Accent:”
Link: Laurel M. Sturt: Why It’s Time To Go Green
5/22/14 Review by Beth Ellor from The Examiner.com
5/17/14 EVENT: Rally to Take Back Public Education, City Hall, Manhattan.
With Katie Lapham of the MORE Caucus of the UFT
5/14/14 EVENT: Book reading, discussion and signing at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 236 East Third Street, Manhattan, 6:30 – 8:30 PM. Proceeds benefit the MORE Caucus of the UFT.
5/14/14 Book Review, “Former Fellow Documents Hardships of Bloomberg’s D.O.E.” in United Federation of Teachers New York Teacher:
Link: http://www.uft.org/news-stories/former-fellow-documents-hardships-bloomberg-s-doe
5/7/14 RADIO INTERVIEW: Education Now! With Athena Melville
Link: http://educationnowhermes.com/Education%20Now!%20DAVONTE’S%20INFERNO%20-%20Laurel%20M.%20Sturt%2005-06-14.mp3
4/24/14 Book Review by Ken Previti of Reclaim Reform:
Link: “…there is no comparison to this brilliantly descriptive memoir…”
4/19/14 EVENT: Guest speaker at Hartford: The Fight for Public Education, sponsored by Hartford Socialist Action, Hartford Public Library, 500 Main Street, Hartford, CT. 1:30 – 3:30 PM.
DAVONTE’S INFERNO’S NEW HOME AT BLUESTOCKINGS, AMONG BOOKS SEEKING TO CHANGE THE WORLD, ONE READER AT A TIME.
3/7/14 EVENT: BLUESTOCKINGS BOOK STORE ON MANHATTAN’S LOWER EAST SIDE FOR A READING, DISCUSSION AND BOOK SIGNING. 172 ALLEN STREET, MANHATTAN.
2/15/14 My Guest post for Anthony Cody’s blog Living In Dialogue in Education Week TEACHER:
link: Laurel M. Sturt: Time For Teachers To Stand Up To Professional Bullies
1/30/14 Anthony Cody from Living in Dialogue in Education Week TEACHER, excerpts my book, a scene that will live in infamy for, at least, the rest of MY life.
link: When Someone Poops In The Closet
1/10/14 My article in Huffington Post excoriates Gov. Cuomo, Ed. Commissioner King and Chancellor Tisch, along with the pretentious destruction they’re serving up as education to the children of New York state.
link: Wake Up Call For New York’s Gov. Cuomo
1/9/14 My article on how teachers in high-needs schools need specific training prior to and during their tenure, training as a NYC Teaching Fellow I definitely required. TeachThought.com “The Extraordinary Demands of High-Needs Teaching.”
link: http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/extraordinary-demands-high-needs-teaching/
1/6/14 ACTION: Protested Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s perpetuation of the Common Core with Diana Zavala of Change the Stakes and Mark Naison Of Badass Teachers Association. I repped BATs and the MORE Caucus of the UFT!
1/4/14 Received the thrilling news that a major
university added Davonte’s Inferno to the syllabi of
two courses this semester.
12/11/13 MY BLAST AT REGENTS CHANCELLOR
MERRYL TISCH & EDUCATION COMMISSIONER
JOHN KING, THE NYS FORUM ON THE
COMMON CORE, MANHATTAN:
“My name is Laurel M. Sturt. I am a retired New York City teacher, a proud member of the MORE Caucus for social justice of the UFT, and a Badass Teacher from the Badass Teacher Association, one of 35,000 of us. We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!
The Common Core’s focus on testing is just one part of the systematized destruction which stands in for education. The tests, moreover, have become, overnight, absurdly harder, guaranteeing the kids failure and that of their teachers, whose job ratings are tied to them. But worse, when they’re not prepping for tests or taking them, our kids are being subjected to curriculum several years in advance of what they are developmentally capable. So the entire school day has become a grueling obstacle course, capped off with mountains of homework so difficult their parents are not even able to help with it. So kids are feeling like failures everywhere, screaming, crying, throwing tantrums. Literally banging their heads on the desk. Pooping and peeing in their pants from fear. Vast numbers of kids who used to love school are now refusing to go to school. After a morning of testing, entire classes are spending the afternoon in tears. Meanwhile, the symptoms of PTSD continue as kids are wracked with anxiety, depression, insomnia, while self-harm and even suicidal ideation has increased. School administrators have had to ask the state, “What do we do when there’s vomit on a student’s test answer sheet?”
You, Chancellor Tisch and Commissioner King, along with the rest of the shills for corporate education, should be arrested. I charge you with the crime of educational neglect. I charge you with the crime of child abuse. I charge you with the crime of assault with a deadly weapon, your power, forcing a fake education on our kids. I charge you with the crime of armed robbery, the theft of an authentic, quality education from our kids. I charge you with the crime of murder in the first degree, the killing of our kids’ spirit and their innate love of learning. I charge you with invasion of privacy, selling off private data on our kids to expIoit them for profit. I charge you, moreover, with the crime of treason. You are a traitor to our children and the nation’s future, and your destructive actions endanger our global status, and pose a threat to our national security.”
12/4/13 I’M GRATEFUL TO DIANE RAVITCH, WHO DISCUSSED MY BOOK AND INTERVIEW WITH THE ATLANTIC IN HER BLOG:
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/12/04/education-malpractice-in-new-york-city/
11/26/13 THANKS TO HOPE REESE FOR THIS INTERVIEW IN THE ATLANTIC, WHICH CAPTURES MY SPIRIT AND THAT OF MY NEW BOOK:
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/it-feels-like-education-malpractice/281837/
INTERVIEW WITH LEONARD LOPATE ON NPR, WNYC
October 16, 2013
INTERVIEW, LANIGAN AND MALONE SHOW, WJIM CLEVELAND,
October 16, 2013
Start at 18:30. Pardon my change of “thirteen” million for the correct “thirty,” and “Hechinger” for “Heckman:” it was only my second interview ever and man, was I nervous!
INTERVIEW ON THE JOAN HAMBURG SHOW, WOR, NEW YORK CITY
October 17th, 2013
(Starts at 20:00)
10/9/13 ACTION: “WIN BACK WEDNESDAY” PROTEST AGAINST ILLEGAL TEACHER EVALUATIONS IN NEW YORK STATE. BROADWAY (WALL STREET, 4 TRAIN) UFT HEADQUARTERS, SPONSORED BY MORE CAUCUS (MOVEMENT OF RANK AND FILE EDUCATORS). WEAR RED. 4:00 – 6:00 PM.
Looks like the “reform” movement is leaving a bad taste in my mouth!
10/6/13 ACTION: OUR PROTEST OF NBC’S “EDUCATION NATION,” “MISEDUCATION NATION.” OUTSIDE THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, 42nd STREET AND FIFTH AVENUE, MANHATTAN.