2023 Annual Meeting

Join us Thursday, December 14, at 7pm by Zoom to help us honor and celebrate three groups of Unsung Heroes of Public Education: the New Bedford Coalition to Save Our Schools, the Concerned Educators of Color, and three extraordinary bloggers and podcasters - Jack Schneider, Jennifer Berkshire and Maurice Cunningham.

The New Bedford Coalition to Save Our Schools (NBCSOS) is a grassroots community-based organization primarily made up of New Bedford parents and caregivers, students, educators, community leaders, and elected officials in New Bedford and the Greater New Bedford area. NBCSOS is committed to safeguarding public education as a public good and strengthening schools and the community by building a leader-full movement and effective educational justice campaigns.

The Concerned Educators of Color is a group of 15 retired high-ranking Boston Public School leaders of color who have demanded that Boston Superintendent Mary Skipper put an end to what they see as a pattern of targeting Black and brown central office leaders. For several years, this group of accomplished school leaders and central office administrators have steadfastly highlighted and protested the fact that top BPS educators of color are pushed out if they protest racist practices and try to promote equity.

Jack Schneider is a historian and policy analyst who studies the influence of politics, rhetoric, culture, and information in shaping attitudes and behaviors. His work explores why particular ideas gain policy traction, how public perceptions of schools take shape, why education reform so often fails, and how organizations can use data to empower stakeholders. The author of six books, he also writes frequently for the public in outlets like the Atlantic, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. Along with journalist Jennifer Berkshire, he co-hosts the education policy podcast “Have You Heard.”

Jennifer Berkshire writes about education and politics for the Nation, the New Republic, the Baffler, the New York Times, and other publications. The creator and co-host of the education policy podcast “Have You Heard,” she teaches in the Education Studies program at Yale University and the Prison Education Program at Boston College. She is the author of several books, including A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School (with Jack Schneider). Jennifer formerly edited a statewide newspaper for members of AFT Massachusetts, and she blames the teachers union for her obsession with all things education. She lives in Gloucester, MA though she will forever be a Heartlander at heart.

Maurice T. Cunningham, Ph.D., J.D., is author of Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization. He retired in 2021 as associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, but he continues his research and writing about dark money in politics. His work has been distributed through the Independent Media Institute and has appeared in The Bucks County Beacon (PA), Shepherd Express (WI), Alternet, Tampa Bay Times, The Daily Progress (VA), Idaho Education News, New Hampshire Bulletin, The Detroit Free Press, The Portland Press-Herald (ME), at Diane Ravitch’s Blog dianeravitch.net, and at the Network for Public Education. He is a co-founder and contributor at the MassPoliticsProfs.org blog. He has been awarded the Distinguished Public Service Award by the Massachusetts Association of School Committees and the President’s Award by the Massachusetts Teachers Association.

CPS members and non-members are welcome!

Our annual meeting is a time to celebrate our recent accomplishments, discuss priorities for the year ahead and elect members of our board of directors. Together with our allies, we continue to win victories in the fight for more public education funding and for local, democratic control of public schools. With growing public support for ending the MCAS graduation requirement, we look forward to another victorious campaign. With your support and participation, we can turn our vision for public education justice into a reality.

To see whether you need to update your membership, email Lisa Guisbond, here.

We are grateful to our individual and organizational sponsors for helping us to continue CPS’s work. (Make a sponsoring donation to CPS and we will list your name in the program.)